Two U.S. Air Force A-10A Warthogs, from the 52nd Fighter Wing, 81st Fighter Squadron, Spangdhalem Air Base, Germany, in flight during a NATO Operation Allied Force combat mission. The "Tank Killer" A-10As, deployed to Aviano Air Base, Italy, are specially designed for close air support of ground forces./File Photo
Reuters: The Warthog and the senator: The politics of retiring a warplane
WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is desperate to get rid of some of its fleet of expensive, slow and outdated A-10 Warthog airplanes, but politicians have blocked the move, aiming to keep the local dollars flowing.
President Joe Biden wants to retire dozens of the 40-year-old warplanes to free up funding to modernize the military. But within weeks of the release of his proposed defense budget, Democrats drafted a law to keep the planes, many of which are based in Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly is up for re-election in 2022.
The negotiations over the A-10, which the Air Force has wanted to retire for more than two decades, show the extensive measures Democrats will take to protect their slim majority in the Senate.
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WNU Editor: Politics and the Pentagon have always walked hand-in-hand.
5 comments:
By all means keep the A-10. Especially since the F-35 appears to be a glass albatross.
I second what Russin said but it also has to make sense
The A10 is old but still very effective against low tier militaries and insurrection type targeting.
BUT.. the West is under serious attack on all fronts by the Chinese(and Russians, Iranians, north koreans).. these adversaries laugh at the A10. Maybe north North Korea and north korea might struggle if all and every single one of their air defences is down and stays down.. but other than that, the A10 is the wrong tool for the next few decades where we enter the real likelihood of a military conflict with China and perhaps Russia too.
The F35 is of course better, but has too many issues still and by the time they fix it this plane is almost outdated already when you have to go up against China
And further, the F35 has oxygen uptake issues in their pilots and combined eight the totally coincidental lab leak of a respiratory virus from China, any western pilots will struggle breathing. And the vaccines are almost worse, have you seen the level of fatigue they cause? (Not even talking about the real medical issues like death and loss of limbs).. doctors tell their patients to not do any exercise for at least a well after each shot and now they require you to take multiple shots..
Each time you take the shot you play Russian roulette with a drug that has no longterm safety record and if something goes wrong(as it has thousands of times already making this vaccination drive the most deadly vaccination effort in all vaccination of human history, but I differs) and if something goes wrong toy can't sue the vaccine makers AND your own health care won't cover the perhaps decades long medical condition you might have from the vaccine because you sign away your rights for cover when you take an experimental shot with no longterm safety record
Just wake up to what this is
A totalitarian takeover
We should use the Nuremberg codes to end this if these monsters push for another lockdown or come after our rights.. it's almost worse than in China now and they did it all within a year
White House press secretary Jen Psaki forcefully defended the Biden administration’s growing offensive on vaccine-related misinformation spreading on Facebook and other social media platforms.
“Our biggest concern, and frankly I think it should be your biggest concern, is the number of people who are dying around the country because they are getting misinformation that is leading them to not take a vaccine,” Psaki said during Friday's daily press briefing. “Young people, old people, kids, children … a lot of them are being impacted by misinformation.”
Psaki’s defense was in response to a question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who framed the Biden administration’s concern about bad actors online as “spying” on Americans’ social media usage.
“For how long has the administration been spying on people’s Facebook profiles looking for vaccine misinformation?” Doocy asked, referencing Psaki’s comments a day prior that roughly a dozen people on Facebook were responsible for the bulk of vaccine misinformation on the social network.
Psaki called the characterization “a loaded and inaccurate question.” She said the White House flagging concerning posts to platforms like Facebook is similar to outreach to news outlets when they take issue with particular coverage.
“This is publicly open information, people sharing information online, just as you are all reporting information on your news stations,” she said during a testy exchange in which the pair talked over one another at times.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Thursday declared falsehoods and conspiracy theories proliferating online as an “urgent threat to public health” because of their effect on people’s willingness to get a Covid vaccine.
Murthy’s advisory set off a firestorm in some conservative-leaning circles where such misinformation has circulated and contributed to stubbornly low vaccination rates in certain regions. Top Republican lawmakers accused the Biden administration of being in cahoots with social media companies to censor speech.
Public health officials have sounded the alarm in recent weeks because the overwhelming number of people hospitalized and dying from Covid-19 now are unvaccinated. The White House decided to more aggressively respond to those who are discouraging vaccinations and create more pro-vaccine content, including spots featuring Gen Z pop star Olivia Rodrigo.
President Joe Biden took a shot at platforms including Facebook while leaving the White House on Friday afternoon.
"They’re killing people," he told reporters in response to a question about Facebook. "The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.”
Facebook this week said it has taken down more than 18 million pieces of Covid-related misinformation, removed numerous accounts and promoted trustworthy information about vaccinations.
But social media companies have struggled with how much to crack down as information evolves. For instance, Facebook in May walked back a ban on posts claiming that Covid-19 originated in a lab after there was renewed debate about the theory.
Yes , retire ir, nth Korean, Chinese, and Russian tankers will give you their eternal gratitude.
Close Air Support is a mission the Air Force is required to fulfill but one in which they rarely focus. The A10 is effective but a single role platform. The AF would rather buy more over priced fighters and bombers and leave the ground forces with less protection.
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