https://xcancel.com/CarolinaLion2/status/2049963063973994586
The U.S. Coast Guard cannot pay its bills. The military branch – now 75 days into the longest shutdown in U.S. history – owes over $300 million in unpaid obligations. And with thousands of utility bills overdue, totaling $5.2 million, duty stations and military housing worldwide are facing service shutdowns. "It seems like a horror movie, but it's actually happening. It's almost unbelievable," Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday told CBS News in an exclusive interview. https://archive.ph/0RPkA
Coast Guard bases are getting their electricity and internet services cut because they couldn't pay their utility bills sounds like something from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
the United States is a fucking clown country
united clowns of america




https://xcancel.com/RetiredAFRN/status/2049649038488727592 https://xcancel.com/JacksomMahoff/status/2049671776687272367
did these mfers genuinely blow through their entire standoff weapons inventory? Tomahawk and JASSM (in its Extended Range variant) both also have greater ranges than PrSM - although still not as great as Dark Eagle, but as big as Iran is, it's still not "requires a 3500km-range missile" big, it's no Russia or China. With JASSM-ER, you only need to go 100-200ish km into Iran for a little bit in order to open up targeting of the furthest away Northeastern parts - surely the USAF can pull off at least a slight penetration? Even I, a US-air-superiority-skeptic, was generally assuming that they are managing to fly over the coastal regions and potentially the Tehran area via a Caspian/nap-of-the-earth-sneaking-through-the-mountains route, and occasionally deeper into Iran, not that they were completely incapable of going in (and we do have footage specifically from the coastal regions of planes flying over).
I guess one argument for the Dark Eagle would be speed - while those other munitions might technically have the range, if you're specifically targeting missile launchers that are going to shoot-and-scoot, you're going to want to hit them fast before they get to the scooting part (although JASSM is supposed to be able to hit "relocatable targets" too
), at which a hypersonic missile would excel. But using one of the most advanced weapons in the US arsenal, one whose inventory is in the fucking single digits, to blow up trucks? 