Congressional Research Service

According to the...

Reclamation published its draft environmental impact statement for post-twenty twenty-six operations in January, and a Congressional Research Service analysis notes that all four alternatives under review would reduce water supplies below current levels with no compensation attached.

Three of the four would require Congress to act before they could take effect.

Basin states have negotiated for years without reaching a shared long-term agreement, which leaves operators planning multi-decade facilities against a regulatory backdrop that will not be settled before their next capital cycle.

there's a fact that's in the background that probably will not be spoken about or addressed, but influences everything about what's happening in the Air Force today.

And a hat tip to Jim Damasio at Congressional Research Service, our former colleague who came out with a report last week that confirmed that Troy Mank has reported to Congress that not only does the Air Force report non-compliant with a congressional statute for a minimum amount of tactical aircraft, that they have no plan to actually meet that congressional threshold, the legal threshold for the size of the crewed fighter fleet.

You know, and that, you know, that's a big moment, right, in the Air Force that has been really for the last 35 years sort of defined by that TAC Air Force structure in many ways.

And But I think a fair question to ask at this point is how much does that actually matter, right? We know that the thing you get with tactical fighters is agility, maneuverability, speed, survivability in many cases.

The Jordan base incident adds to a broader tally of American aircraft losses over the course of this war.

A Congressional Research Service report from earlier this year found that more than 40 American military aircraft had already been lost or damaged since the conflict began in February, a figure that predates this week's strike and that does not include Wednesday's A-10 and F-15E damage.

The Air Force closed its A-10 Depot-level structural repair line at Hill Air Force Base in Utah earlier this year, meaning that if the wing damage to the A-10 Thunderbolt is confirmed as severe as initial reporting suggests, repair options for that specific airframe may be limited.

Iranian state media reported a separate and still unexplained set of incidents overnight into Thursday, describing explosions heard across the Hormuzgan coast at the towns of Sirik and Minab and on Keshim Island, inside the Strait of Hormuz itself.

This is where I hope Congress learns from this experience, 'cause I imagine there might be some social norms that were, um, uh, having the Pentagon release these numbers.

But you have to, I have to wonder, like, can we legislate this to make sure that you actually are saying exactly what happened? Because even military analysts who are in favor of further US strikes in Iran can't even say what's, with confidence, what's going on in Iran because of how little disclosure there has been, not just on- Casualties, but actually on munitions spent, right? It just like, we're waiting for basically the, um, Congressional Research Service to, to do some s- publications, and that's when we find munition stockpile numbers.

Yeah.

It's, it's really like, uh, to be honest, unacceptable in a democracy.

Now, I'm saying, Ike, that's a little over a year older than what this thing is.

But Does the government really move that fast? I really kind of wonder when this individual, this Border Patrol agency gives the reporters this comment, I'm wondering what federal law they're talking about because this document I happen to have is called Congressional Research Service, Law Enforcement and Technology, Use of Automatic License Plate Readers.

It's dated August 19th of 2024.

And right in here, it specifically states that Law enforcement agencies may use automatic license plate readers for a variety of proactive...

Potential suspects? Folks, I think that these are just gone a little bit too far.

I really do.

Automatic license, this is again from, this is a congressional research service.

Automatic license plate reader systems catalog and store information, particular license plate number, GPS data, and date and time.

Perfect.

So there's a September 4th, which, as of today, when this is filmed on 9-7-2026, that was three days ago, Congressional Research Service Report, Air Force Fighter Force Structure Background and Issues for Change.

It talks about how many fighters we need and how many fighter pilots that we have.

And I just wanted to go through The code requires the Air Force to maintain a total primary mission aircraft inventory of not less than 1,100 fighters, 1,145.