S15 EP143: Hour 3 - Drone Wars

Erick digs into a troubling defense story: in the Combined Resolve war games in Germany, Ukrainian drone operators wiped out a US armored brigade every single time, exposing how far behind America has fallen even as Reaper drones run low and Iran picks off the rest. He ties it to a missile production problem (the Pentagon never sent Lockheed Martin and Raytheon the demand signal, dating back to the 1993 "last supper" consolidation dinner) and to a Trump-class battleship the Navy insists it does not need, calling it a jobs program instead of a warfighting force. Then he pivots to Luigi Mangione's expected federal guilty plea in the Brian Thompson murder, Abdul El-Sayed and Sharia's view of dogs behind Detroit's 74 percent shelter kill rate, and a full-throated case for tort reform built around the dismissed Hershey Reese's peanut butter pumpkin lawsuit.

Topics:

• US drone vulnerability: the Combined Resolve exercise in Germany, Ukraine's 412th unmanned systems regiment routing the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, dwindling Reaper drones, and Iran's F-5s slipping into Kuwait
• Missile and shipbuilding dysfunction: the missing Pentagon demand signal, the 1993 "last supper," Lockheed Martin's thin 8 to 9 percent margins, continuing resolutions since Obama, and the Trump class battleship the Navy says it does not want
• Luigi Mangione expected to plead guilty to federal charges in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and Tyler Robinson's lawyers fighting the death penalty in the Charlie Kirk assassination case
• Abdul El-Sayed, Sharia law and dogs, and Detroit's 74 percent animal shelter kill rate, plus Erick's own dog Max and the South Georgia dog whisperer
• Tort and lawsuit reform: the trial lawyer billboard economy (Morgan and Morgan, Morris Bart, Ken Nugent), the dismissed Hershey Reese's pumpkin lawsuit, and Scott Bessent scrapping the Biden small business registration rule