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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/21/2018 in all areas

  1. Jim-Mattis-resignation-letter.pdf Not great. Mattis was by far the best appointment President Trump made.
    8 points
  2. Unilaterally withdrawing from Syria may not be the best short term move but it may be the best long term move, not for the fight against ISIS, Al Nusra, Iran / Russia action in the ME, etc... but in the fight against the Swamp, Deep State, Globablists, etc... that the worm has turned and a sizable portion of America thru their elected representation be it in the Legislative or Executive branch is not going resource with blood and treasure endless conflicts that have no readily achievable goals or relevant goals for America, no matter if there are laudable side effects to a Pax America enforced order. Like it or not we have hit the end of our ability to protect X number of others, to deter for X number of others, to fight for X number of others, not really for a lack of material resources but spiritual resources to be willing to do so. Explain in a clear way to the forgotten people of the Rust Belt, Bible Belt, Urban Jungles... that denying victory / deterring Russia, Iran and their proxy Alawite pawn in Syria which has no natural resources we purchase, no strategic role in trade, defense or significant cultural position to America is a reason we should spend 15+ billion a year bombing random jihadis half-way around the world when we have 8,000+ fighting age males massing on our border and demanding entrance or else... explain how this time, this operation will resolve something, will lead to a situation that is marginally better for them or for us, explain how just another 15 billion over there versus spent over here on anything is better... Indeterminate involvement may have some positive effects for others, some are probably worth defending but America's resources are finite. Even though the material cost for this particular operation is / was not onerous per year in the grand scheme of things, the fact that it would be never-ending has caused the American Nationalist movement thru its somewhat brash and inarticulate standard bearer to say no more. No matter if you believe we should be militarily engaged in many places around the world, the fact that 67+ million Americans said no more, should give you pause.
    7 points
  3. Some may argue that the move is unilateral, but bear in mind that this President’s courage to put American interests first, even ahead of those of our “allies,” is why he got elected and is doing so well. It is utterly entertaining to see the “peace loving” left sit here and try to criticize the President’s decision on Syria. What do you guys want, to go melt in another s$:7 hole for another 18 years with no exit strategy? The blind hatred for Trump cannot be more obvious over the events of the last few days. I will always respect Mattis, but I think it was finally time for the two to part ways. Some people, especially those in the military, are being way too dramatic about this. The average tenure of a SECDEF is 2-3 years, Mattis’s was no different. The sky isn’t falling.
    6 points
  4. I like Mattis. Good American. But anyone who wants us to stay in Syria has to go. Full stop. Best case scenario, Assad reasserts control over the entirety of Syria and it goes back to a country that stays quiet and causes few problems. It boils down to a fundamental difference in philosophy. Mattis is on the W Bush, Max Boot, Neocon view that America needs to intervene in however many countries it takes to convert the world to globalist democracy. The only problem with this philosophy is that it hasn't worked since WWII. Trump does not have the intellectual nuance to elucidate this point, but he seems to understand it somewhat instinctually. Mattis is ten times the man Trump wishes he could be, but he's wrong, and if he can't change his views on our foreign strategy, he needed to go. We need to get out of Syria before it loses the one centralized figure capable of maintaining control (Assad). That is, unless you think Iraq and Libya are models to be recreated elsewhere...
    5 points
  5. Oh, are we still pretending Wright Pat is a Air Force Base, and not a civilian run self-licking ice cream cone?
    4 points
  6. Agreed, not really close and it was just too obvious to present a coherent front to the world, Allies and Enemies alike. The Globalist Establishment (leftist and neocon alike) just doesn't want to admit it but the effort to force Western forms of government, values and economic systems into areas where there are established and VERY different cultures, customs, norms and attitudes is a failure. These people will work it out based on a multitude of factors and unless we have a direct compelling interest like keeping the flow of commerce in the global commons, defending a strategic ally, directly forestalling / reacting to a humanitarian disaster that will impact us, etc... the bar for long-term engagement with restrictive ROE should be very high. On Syria, end direct action, shift to assist/advise/supply while negotiating the best end state for the Kurds possible with Assad and the Turks. Just being realistic, we are not going to keep X thousands of troops and equipment in "Kurdistan" indefinitely, too much money, political and spiritual cost to the American body politic. On Yemen, stop providing direct support slowly and expand humanitarian aid. Turn a blind eye to the KSA led war as it stymies an ally of Iran. Don't like seeing the people of Yemen caught in the middle but that is the least bad option that we have. On Afghanistan, slowly privatize the war and withdraw uniformed forces then slowly pull the contractors out. Three year process but there is nothing to be gained, won or realized and that should be obvious. Whatever 4 star is in charge over there at the time will tell you the same thing and have been for 15+ years: we're making progress, be patient, just a few more years and we will turn the corner... Arm the hell out of the traditionally non-Taliban tribes in the North, expand airpower to a ridiculous extent over the Afghan AOR to whack a mole even more to forestall a precipitous collapse as we withdraw uniformed forces and leave concentrations of private armies to keep portions of Afghanistan "free" and then declare our military operations complete, fund the remaining factions we like as required to re-establish the pre-911 / pre-invasion Northern Alliance / Taliban split in the country. Best possible outcome. Draw down the Died, build up the 5th fleet and use that as our deterrence presence. Establish new bases in the Southern Med / Eastern Europe (Greece, Romania, Bulgaria) to react quickly to an aggression. Also, deters Russia but could antagonize, difficult needle to thread there. We have things to get ready for on this side of the world, Europe and in the Pacific (Venezuelan collapse, Chinese challenges to FON in the sea lanes, Russian hybrid warfare, etc..) - it is time to disengage greatly from the ME.
    3 points
  7. Mattis' letter is the most polite way to say "go fuck yourself sideways, Mr. President." FIFY.
    3 points
  8. Vertigo, go outside and look around. The sky isn’t Soviet red, the government hasn’t bugged your house and nuclear war isn’t breaking out. Occam’s razor is a real thing, and the easiest conclusion isn’t that a Trump is an agent of Russia. It seriously must be hard thinking up these global conspiracies all the time.
    3 points
  9. Haha--you are the delusional one! Progressives now upset with Trump pulling troops out of Syria are the same people 1-2 years ago who said Trump will get us in a war with Syria. Saying Trump is pulling troops out of Syria to appease Russia is the equivalent of saying Obama pulled troops out of Iraq to appease Iran.
    2 points
  10. Academically I understand that Mattis is probably right re: ISIS, and withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan. But I believe the only way we get out of constant war in the Middle East is to simply withdraw. I'm sure Trump will somehow manage to completely mangle this, but I think in the long run it's the right thing to do. It may ultimately fail and we'll find ourselves back in that hole again eventually. But we need a reset with what we think we can use our standing armies to accomplish overseas.
    2 points
  11. Mattis' letter is the most polite way to say "go fuck yourself sideways".
    2 points
  12. Damn. His resignation letter speaks volumes. Concerning.
    2 points
  13. Hi All, Figured I'd share my TBAS simulator (airplane and horizontal tracking) with all of you because it's been pretty helpful for me. Hopefully you all find it just as useful as I've found the flash cards, etc. The main game window looks like this: Download Link: Here Included is everything you need to simply play it as well as edit it to your liking. Use 7-zip to decompress the zip file. I'm currently using a simple thrustmaster joystick and thrustmaster rudder pedals. These both work as needed and were relatively cheap. Full disclosure, I haven't taken the TBAS yet. This is based on readily available info from big blue so this may or may not be an exact match to the actual test but it should hopefully be close enough. Just spend 6-9 minutes a night for a few nights before your test and it should help you all out. Thanks.
    1 point
  14. Ya, I don't compare myself to other industries because it's a massively different dynamic and set of nuances. I guess if I were going to look at another industry I would also look at the Maritime industry and see how that has worked out for the American worker. In their case, only the Jones act has saved what is left, and even that is under attack. But again, lots of different dynamics. I don't disagree about our inability to change between airlines, but I don't see that changing if unions were eliminated because you'd still have to contend with seniority issues wrt to basing and upgrade. F/As have no union, yet have the same issues and get treated infinitely worse than us. How do we decide on schedules, upgrades, etc....merit, the pilot willing to fly more overtime for single pay, the pilot who has the biggest kneepads? That seems to be working out well for the AF right now. I'm certain of one thing, DAL management would be salivating over the idea of no union on property. They've already stated that if they could, DAL pilots would be flying about half as much of our current international flying. If that were to happen, I'm guessing our hiring woes would be solved overnight for at least the next decade. Along with slashing our section 1, I can see them dismantling many of our QOL items yet still be able to make it bearable. IMHO (which isn't worth much), we'd lose big on QOL and pay and only potentially gain the ability to move between airlines. By chance, did you go to B school? Either way, interesting discussion. Openly is a relative term. Fighting to force us into shittier rest facilities. Building trips in the quest to cut credit, with zero regard to fatigue. Attempting to completely disregard the contract. Trying to readjust profit sharing rules so they can take management bonus money from the PS pool, also lets me know how they feel. Many have been squashed by then union, while some still need work. Imagine if we weren't governed by an archaic and extremely employer friendly law called the Railway Labor act and we could more freely exercise even the most basic form of self help. Many places do have protections over and above FAR 117, just because APA is faltering doesn't mean unions are useless. Protecting WB CA spots is huge with respect to jobs and will always be a fight worth fighting. That said, the work rules need to be good for the entire work group. Remember that WB CA spots at AAL make up < 10% of the pilot group...you can easily out vote that demographic. If your union isn't listening to the majority, it's time for a change. I don't disagree with you there, I briefly worked for AAL and saw that act when they wouldn't adjust our pay dates to align with the USAir hired guys that were in our very own indoc class. However, the union does so much more than just the bullshit politics you see. If you want change, start a grass roots effort. You're airline is about to go through a massive transformation in age demographics over the next decade with LOTS of young blood. Reach out to IPA for some lessons...while their contract isn't perfect, those dudes have a good idea of what it means to run a union. Again, we're cut off at the knees by the Railway Labor Act. It's a relic that needs some serious updating to allow some basic forms of self-help, short of a full blown strike. As it's written now, we're hamstrung by this employer friendly law. Our effort should be more focused on changing the law, not getting rid of the union. UPDATE: Just learned about another employer friendly section of the RLA. We must file a grievance within 120 days of the issue, but the company has no requirement on their response time...Awesome!
    1 point
  15. "There was an "incredible convergence of stimuli," Col. Thomas Sherman, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, told reporters Wednesday. "Sounds, yells, sights. All of those things that are really testing the senses." Hahaha, oh wait, you're serious? This is one, rare time where I think some leadership deserves to get fired. Unbelievable clown show.
    1 point
  16. I can't even begin to imagine what a military life would be like without the constant deployment cycle. Would be very strange.
    1 point
  17. Well, this sucks. Finally had a SecDef that actually cared about the individual grunts and would hammer leadership for their stupidity without breaking the service (RE: Gates). I generally haven't cared much about who the SecDef was for the last 2 decades, but I am legit saddened by this development and think it does not bode well for our future. Except for the obvious bullshit social experiment under the last SecDef.
    1 point
  18. SecDef Mattis is taking the easy way out. It sure sounds like he might have plagiarized SecDef Hagel's 2014 resignation letter:<)
    1 point
  19. If only the last guy had had multiple SECDEFs during his tenure... Seriously, Gates staying for as long as he did was disasterous... But then there was a string of guys coming from the bench. But that was perfectly fine, I guess.
    1 point
  20. I feel like 69-96% of us want out of Afghanistan. Apparently the draw down starts next month. Time to get out!
    1 point
  21. I think it's a matter of strength of union and work rules. You work for an airline with a contract that is decent and management / middle management / scheduling that doesn't openly hate you. APA is not a union. They're a widebody CA protection group. The work rules are protected only by FAR 117, beyond that, it's mostly a scheduling free for all or "not implemented yet" (after 6 years) or "IT issues" for stuff that would help the pilots. From this perspective, I absolutely agree with Ratner on this. Without unions artificially propping up the weak sisters whose only accomplishment is to be hired first, the strong would thrive and the weak would be gone. Some of the nonsensical language this group agreed to often makes me wonder if we'd be better off without any union at all. Because when you call the company on their BS, the union's response is typically "we asked and they said no" or "fly it and we'll grieve it later" or "sorry but there's no language for that." If we had a union that could actually stand up to the company (as opposed to being in bed with them as a flow-thru program to management positions), it might seem worth it.
    1 point
  22. Leaves non-union gig for cushy, higher paying/less working union gig...is anti-union. 🤣 Mostly messing with you Ratner, but I'm quite surprised by the amount of anti-union guys I've ran into, almost all of which seem to be former mil. This was my heart burn with LOT. There would be a few good lines, a few more REALLY shitty lines, then the vast majority of the lines were just OK and often spread the crap evenly. I'm 91% in my seat and I finish a trip tomorrow and don't go back to work until after the new year (though a 42 hour 3-day will be tough to pass as long as I can still make the family shindig). This is all based on my regularly awarded lines for each month. I do like the idea of how quickly the schedules were released with LOT. If your union negotiates that, you can still have this with PBS. But ya, I wouldn't switch to PBS unless you kept trips touching or the sweet ass deal UPS has wrt 2 weeks vacation in one month. No matter what side you like better, these are some good discussions for all the dudes looking to make to jump to the airlines.
    1 point
  23. Couldn't agree more. 1. It's not government's place to do healthcare. 2. GOP has been just as big a deliberate impediment to the Trump election by the unwashed masses as have the Democrats and most of the press. GOP had Congress and the White House and did not, among others: 1. Repeal Obamacare 2. Start securing the southern border 3. Pass national reciprocity. The Leviathan does not like change and has reacted accordingly. I'll say it again; gotta hand it to the Democrats: when they get power, they use it. Republicans do not because someone's feelings will be hurt.
    1 point
  24. 1 point
  25. Not the attitude I want in my fighter squadron and its ignorant to all the other possibilities out there. If you think this place is totally anonymous you'd be wrong.
    1 point
  26. WE HAVE A FEW THAT WAY, BUT WE ALSO HAVE A FEW WHO WERE JUST LEGITIMATELY SCREWED OVER, LIKE THE GUY PASSED OVER ON HIS O-5 BOARD WITH A DP.
    1 point
  27. I've got my grievances with the HPO/Shiny Penny method of leadership selection we utilize. But there's got to be a difference between the APZ's you guys work with and the ones I do...because the ones I do are awful. Maj's that can't communicate, can't lead, can't even manage, extremely risk averse and should just dress up in a Blue Falcon costume. Never mind failing training requirements, and still demanding to be "first out the door." Perhaps I'm just institutionalized since I hit 20 early next year.
    1 point
  28. I ever walk into a bar and these fire fighters & flyers are on site.....I'm rigging the bell and slapping the credit card down. Quote me. Very nice work. ATIS
    1 point
  29. Who needs a competent SECDEF like Mattis when you have a POTUS who says “I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me!” and ““[The generals] don’t know much because they’re not winning”? Sad day for the armed forces indeed
    0 points
  30. Meanwhile Mattis is quitting and Putin is praising the action. But I'm the delusional one. Got it.
    0 points
  31. -1 points
  32. Everyone conveniently glossing over the fact 7 Republican governor offices were lost to the Dems when touting how well the Republican strategy is working.
    -1 points
  33. I have mixed feelings on this. I loved the idea. I thought the casting was great. The acting was decent. But the writing felt shallow. The movie needed more depth in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, I just thought it could have been a little better.
    -1 points
  34. I don't think the pulling out of Syria thing is the big issue Vertigo is referring to. Perhaps it's more the fact that Trump has a track record of disregarding opinions of people who are generally considered logical and highly skilled in their fields...
    -1 points
  35. Because he has his “intuition” to rely on...it’s a train wreck from here on out. The last credible General has left the building. Last person be sure to turn out the lights..
    -1 points
  36. -1 points
  37. Putin is happy, and that's all that matters with this administration.
    -4 points
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