Somebody get The Hague on the line

Ohio is heavily invested in a defense contractor that can't outproduce Ukrainian garage tinkerers.

The Wednesday dispatch will be the December (and November) mailbag.

Apologies for missing last month’s installment… the end of the month snuck up on me, if you can believe that.

You can submit questions anonymously through Jotform.

Political questions are always welcome, but part of what makes the mailbag fun to write (and read) is an eclectic mix of non-political questions.

As a lawyer once remarked, I am “not someone who is easily embarrassed,” so fire away.

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Turns out a repellent nerd who won the lottery won’t be disrupting the military-industrial complex any time soon

Back in July, The Rooster reported on Ohio’s corporate welfare package for Anduril, an “AI-driven defense contractor” that had yet to put any viable product on the battlefield.

In my opinion, the odds of Anduril becoming an Intel-like scam are high.

“Artificial intelligence,” as it’s commonly known, is little more than an elaborate pattern-matching machine that ruins the environment.

Not that has done anything to stop America from hooking its economic wagon to the razzle-dazzle pitched by every repellent nerd in Silicon Valley.

But even if “AI” were capable of delivering anywhere close to what Big Tech gremlins have promised, there would still be two massive red flags about this deal.

The first is that Anduril, an alleged defense contractor, chose Ohio over Virginia, California, Texas, or even Florida.

It’s because we’re selling out our tax base for pennies on the dollar: $452 million in a 30-year “job creators” tax break, and a $310 million “grant” from JobsOhio, the do-nothing sinecure racket for political flunkies.

We’re desperate for the attention! And we gave Anduril $762 million in exchange for 4,008 “pledged” jobs—at least 80% of which will go to current (read: non-Ohioan) employees, according to the company’s founder.

That founder, Palmer Luckey is the other red flag.

And I get that it’s ironic, considering that I also dress like I live under a bridge, but I’m also not a billionaire strutting around like I’m a new-age prophet within America’s fabled military-industrial complex.

Six months after that initial dispatch, the thesis that “Anduril is a scam, from the top down” is still gaining steam.

From Connie Loizos of techcrunch.com:

Defense tech startup Anduril Industries has faced numerous setbacks during testing of its autonomous weapons systems, according to new reporting by the WSJ. The problems cited include more than a dozen drone boats that failed during a Navy exercise off California in May, with sailors warning of safety violations and potential loss of life; a mechanical issue that damaged the engine of Anduril’s unmanned jet fighter Fury during a summer ground test; and an August test of its Anvil counterdrone system that caused a 22-acre fire in Oregon.

Three weeks ago, Luckey told the last vestigates of 60 Minutes that China “has big advantages that we don’t have” in the race to produce an unmanned jet fighter.

Left unsaid was probably the biggest advantage: that China would never let Luckey even pretend to be a captain of its military-industrial complex because he invented a profitable virtual reality headset.

So if the race for an unmanned jet fighter is between the full weight of the Chinese state and a doughy 33-year-old nerd with disgusting facial hair in Luckey, why would anyone not currently paid by Luckey expect him to win that fight?

Especially since Luckey has a nasty habit of lying about his company’s prowess?

From David Jeans, Cassell Bryan-Low and Supantha Mukherjee of Reuters:

Anduril’s 33-year-old founder Palmer Luckey said in March that Altius drones have “taken out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Russian targets.” In August, he traveled to Taiwan to deliver the company’s first batch of the drones there. Taiwan’s army told Reuters it had received 131 Anduril drones this year and declined to comment on the performance of the equipment.

But the previously undisclosed failure of the two Altius drones during the Air Force tests this month, as well as setbacks for Anduril’s Ghost drone program - including in Ukraine - highlight a gap between the U.S. company’s claims of battlefield readiness and the performance of some of its drones in testing and combat, according to interviews with more than a dozen people, including former Anduril staff, military officials, and people working with drones on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Western drone makers, including Anduril, have had limited impact so far on the battlefield in Ukraine. Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, said on Telegram in November 2024 that of one million drones deployed to the front lines that year, 96% were Ukrainian-made.

There might not be any better summation of JobsOhio than it giving a $310 million grant to an “AI-driven defense contractor” that can’t produce a more viable drone than Ukrainian tinkerers operating in garages under daily Russian bombardment for the past three years.

It’s not like we’re talking about alien technology here, folks. We’re talking about drones.

If they can’t even beat the tinkerers at drones, then why should we expect them to deliver anything close to what they promised with the “Arsenal-1 Hypermanufacturing Facility” in January?

And what are you going to do about it, Congressman Turner?