10,000 artillery shells per day

And the No Robot Bosses Act

I’m on the Armed Services Committee and this week we met with the four-star General in charge of U.S. forces in Europe. 

Most of our conversation was about Ukraine. Here are the highlights from the unclassified portion.

He began by emphasizing that our allies in Europe are doing a lot to help, specifically mentioning that the vast majority of tanks and military fuel for Ukraine has come from European allies.

However, he told us there are two specific areas where America’s contributions are critical: artillery shells and air defense interceptors.

Ukraine has begun strictly rationing their use of artillery. Russia is now firing roughly 10,000 rounds of artillery per day, which is 5x more than Ukraine. According to the General, Russia will be firing 10x more than Ukraine within a few weeks unless there is further aid. 

That would be a potential game-changer that could break the stalemate and allow Russia to punch through Ukrainian defenses, but there’s an even bigger risk: running out of interceptors.

Our heavy supply of interceptors to Ukraine has prevented Russia from obtaining air superiority. In short, Russian fighter jets can’t get close to Ukraine or they’ll be shot down. That has kept the war on the ground, which has allowed Ukraine to take advantage of defensive fortifications and shorter supply lines. Once those interceptors are gone, it brings the Russian air force into the war in a way it simply hasn’t been until now, and the combined effect with a 10x artillery advantage could be decisive.

Those interceptors are also used to take down incoming Russian missiles, but Ukraine has so few interceptors left that it now has to allow many of those missile attacks to hit their targets. Russia knows this and has stepped up their attacks on the electric grid, landing some major hits last week.

Every few days, Russia launches a major attack. It appears that their attack rhythm matches their artillery shell production rhythm - as soon as they have enough shells for an attack, they let loose, then wait until they’ve made enough shells to attack again. But they are also clearly preparing for a major summer offensive.

There were some skeptical questions from some committee members about spending more money to help Ukraine defend itself. The General made the point that the vast majority of the funds allotted for Ukraine are being spent in the United States. The American inventory purchased by Ukraine is typically then replaced with newly-manufactured inventory. In that way, we have used our support of Ukraine to modernize some aspects of our own military.

There were also some skeptical questions about the accountability for the weapons we’re selling to Ukraine, so the General walked us through the supply chain: Ukraine makes a selection of military hardware and we approve their purchase. Then we ship the hardware to Poland, where it is received and accounted for by American soldiers who are stationed there. At that point, it is transferred to Ukrainians. Most of the hardware has barcodes and the Ukrainians have scanners that allow us to maintain some oversight into where those weapons are. The General admitted that we don’t have perfect oversight once the weapons get to the frontlines, but given that we’re talking about an active war zone, that’s to be expected.

Finally, there was a discussion about what “winning” looks like. That was a little tough. For the General’s part, he was pretty clear that he doesn’t see the total eviction of Russia from all Ukrainian territory as realistic at this point. He described a successful involvement by the U.S. and our allies as making sure that Ukraine remained “sovereign and independent” - which is another way of saying, “not conquered by Russia.”

Last week, I gave you a sense of the politics of this issue. In short, the Speaker supports further Ukrainian aid but is trying to find a way to call it for a vote without enraging his right-flank to the point of being fired. The big question is whether he'll call a vote on the Ukraine bill that already passed the Senate or try to cobble together his own version to appease his right-flank. We’ve essentially been waiting on that decision from him for the last several months.

“Well Jeff, are we going to see it next week?”

Not sure. Right now, here’s what we’re scheduled to vote on next week (and this is true):

• H.R. 6192 – Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act

• H.R. 7673 – Liberty in Laundry Act

• H.R. 7645 – Clothes Dryers Reliability Act

• H.R. 7637 – Refrigerator Freedom Act

• H.R. 7626 – Affordable Air Conditioning Act

• H.R. 7700 – Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act

You might look at that list and see a handful of message bills designed to inflame a narrative about the over-regulation of kitchen appliances. I see it differently. I see those bills as the Speaker trying to give his right-flank everything he can think of before calling a vote on Ukraine. He’s basically giving them a nickel’s worth of goodwill before asking them for a dollar, but I guess he figures it’s worth a shot. And if it gets us a vote on Ukraine, then sure, go for it. 

A.I. Jeff - part two

Naturally, the short anecdote I threw into my last email - almost as an after-thought - was the part everyone responded to, to the point where reporters called and wanted to talk about it.

For those who missed that one, I included a story about how I have to make a lot of phone calls as a candidate and - more and more - people don’t believe I’m a real person. They think I’m A.I. 

This culminated in a woman who recently refused to believe it was me, despite my assurance that I was a real person.

Many of you replied, reasonably, to the effect of, “Hey Jeff, that’s a problem we’re all worried about, and since you’re in Congress you should do something about it.”

Fair enough. Here’s the latest on that front.

Since ChatGPT hit the scene early last year, several dozen bills have been filed to address various aspects of A.I. 

Some take a broad view and try to regulate A.I. in general ways and some try to tackle very specific concerns like the threat of A.I. to musicians, or banning A.I. from being able to fire people (the “No Robot Bosses Act”), or even empowering A.I. to prescribe drugs.

And then there’s a whole separate category of bills trying to protect us from the threat of deepfakes and A.I. forgeries. 

By my count, at least eight of those bills have been filed just in the last six months. Some of them are specific to elections and some are specific to robocalls and telemarketers.

A few thoughts on all these A.I. bills:

1. The bills have gotten smarter over the last year. The ones being offered now are more sophisticated than the bills we saw in the initial reaction to ChatGPT. Legislators are climbing a learning curve.

2. This issue is still largely bipartisan. I’m looking at who is filing these bills and how they’re written and there don’t seem to be many big partisan divisions here - yet.

3. My sense is that none of these bills will pass anytime soon - but then again, they weren’t really meant to. There’s a bipartisan working group that says it’s going to debut a bunch of recommendations in about a month and most of these current bills exist to be ideas for leadership to consider when crafting the actual A.I. package that we hope is coming. 

Right now, my biggest hope is we can at least pass something to protect the upcoming election from deepfakes. It’s not unrealistic to think that - in a country full of 1% races - an election could be decided based on an A.I. forgery this year.

Campaign Update

This email is long enough already, so I’ll just say that you folks came through in a huge way last week.

I told you that a lot of my schedule comes down to how much support we receive from these emails, and that more support here means I can spend less time fundraising. The message resonated with a lot of you, and it completely opened up what I was able to focus on this week.

If you could help me keep my focus where it needs to be, I’d really appreciate it. You can contribute here (ActBlue) and here (non-ActBlue). Both fund our campaign directly, which I sincerely appreciate.

Best,

Jeff 

P.S. - Marisa and I brought Owen and Avery to D.C. for a quick trip over Spring Break. They loved it.

Some pictures: