@DefPriorities public policy advisor. Work on foreign policy, limited government and vets issues. USMC OIF vet and former U.S. House staffer. Views are my own.
Sep 16 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
🧵Wouldn't surprise me if Routh met with the Helsinki Commission.
It is the biggest collection of unhinged pro-Ukraine fanatics in DC and that is saying something. One of their staffers - Kyle Parker - filmed himself urinating on a Russian hat early in the war. It gets worse..
Kyle Parker was also investigated for smuggling sniper gear into Ukraine and posted pictures of himself wearing Ukrainian military uniforms on Twitter while implying he was helping to plan Ukrainian military operations.
David supports red-flag laws and banning open-carry, which would make it harder to defend your family and property. His issue is increasingly with gun rights, not “gun idolatry”.
However conservative gun culture needs to change, just not in the ways David wants. More in 🧵👇
Conservative gun owners should not just simply be armed citizens, but should strive to be EFFECTIVE armed citizens who can defend themselves and their families without support from an increasingly hostile and incompetent security state.
The current moment requires nothing less.
Mar 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is how insane our presence in Iraq/Syria is:
The Iranian-backed militias that killed an American and which the U.S. are bombing in Syria are allied with and supported by the Iraqi Army, which is trained by U.S. troops and funded by U.S. taxpayers.
The previous Iraqi Prime Minister - the supposedly pro-American Mustafa al-Kadhimi whose government received billions in US aid - went to a parade honoring these groups in 2021: aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/26…
Mar 22, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
We should ink longer-term contracts and scale up production capacity. But for most systems that is going to take 2-5 years at least to get more capacity online.
So the more important question is what do we do in the interim with the existing capacity? What do we prioritize?
For example according to the Army Secretary it is going to take 2 years for the United States to be able to produce 70k-90k rounds a month of 155mm ammo- we are currently at 20k/month. Ukraine fires at least 90k a month and says they need to up to 500k/month for counteroffensive.
Mar 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
The United States faces real and significant constraints on its power. Conservatives can no longer ignore that reality and must adjust accordingly by pursuing a foreign policy that prioritizes what is required to keep the U.S. safe and prosperous. From me in Foreign Affairs:
Thanks to @ForeignAffairs for running this piece. In particular I want to thank @K8brannen and @TyMcCormick for both being open to this topic and for helping shepherd the piece through the editing process.
Mar 19, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
🧵20 years on, this is the only way I can describe the Iraq War:
A monstrous crime perpetrated first and foremost against the Iraqi people and then Americans who volunteered to fight in the war as a result of their patriotic desire to serve after 9/11 being cynically exploited.
Iraq is a wreck of a country. Its government is an Iranian-controlled kleptocracy that routinely murders its own citizens and imprisons, tortures, or disappears political activists. Most of its people don't have regular access to electricity and live in immense poverty.
Mar 16, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What an absolute joke.
Let’s be clear what is happening here: the VA is jettisoning a motto based on the words of President Lincoln primarily to appease a small yet vocal group of woke DC and NYC-based VSO staffers.
This effort was spearheaded by the absolutely awful and worthless @iava whose CEO is now Allison Jaslow, a former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
THREAD: This week is the 5 yr anniversary of the Phoenix VA scandal. Accordingly, I thought it would be appropriate to walk through what happened in 2014. There has been a disgusting campaign to mislead and downplay what actually happened that needs to be rebutted. /1
In April 2014, Dennis Wagner w/@azcentral published a story based on info from a VA doc name Sam Foote that revealed that the Phoenix VA was using secret wait lists to hide long wait times and up to 40 veterans may have died on these secret wait lists /2 azcentral.com/story/news/pol…
Oct 2, 2018 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Today @CVA_Action announced the launch of a campaign supporting @RonDeSantisFL for governor of Florida. This is the first time the CVA family of groups has endorsed a state-level candidate and Ron DeSantis has earned it. Here is why (thread):
sunshinestatenews.com/story/concerne…
We aren't just endorsing @RonDeSantisFL because he is a fellow veteran who served in Iraq and GITMO. Military service is a positive but our endorsements are based on policy records. On that front, Ron has been a consistent champion of policies that will help his fellow veterans.
