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biden is a moderate democrat who hasn't rocked the boat for 40+ years I'm not worried about him. He's going to get bullied by his party's radical left.

I was thinking this morning Trump's like the Herc of politicians. Loud, lots of weird noises, not the most handsome on the ramp, requires lots of maintenance, probably smells bad... many people would say it's just generally offensive to most of the senses. But the capabilities! Anyone who bothers to look beyond the surface knows it does damn near anything you need it to do to protect the country. Prang it into the ground and it bounces back and keeps flying. Can take a bullet. Performs as well as anything else in the midst of chaos. It's why we keep it around. 😆

It's a sad state of affairs that I can't tell who you are voting for based on this statement. Could be either candidate.

Kamala needs to sit down and have some serious mentoring under the direction of Dr. Thomas Sowell. It is ridiculous for any grownup to think this is rational thought.

Sadly there aren’t many humans worse than Biden / Harris. Sadly a lot of the country is voting for emotion and their dislike of trump. Not based on his record vs Biden’s. Very scary. Would I rather trump be a gentlemen like Ronnie? Yeah. But what he has done for our country in four years has been amazing in a very positive way.

Amnesty for illegal immigrants would be my pick if I were running the party. Trade border security for a path to legalization for anyone already here. Carve out restrictions for people with convictions for violent crime. Pair it with an immigration system that makes it faster, cheaper, and easier to enter the US legally, instead of the years-long bureaucratic nightmare we have now. I'd probably also concede the abortion thing. Roe V Wade was, what, 50 years ago? That law is settled. Stop alienating new people by continuing to attack it. Attack the funding, sure...but stop trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. It's not going to happen.

That’s the elephant in the room isn’t it? If Biden wins he will be 25th amendment’d out in place of Kamala. She’s probably laughing like a Hyena right now. Not over yet though.

If Biden does win this election, as it is looking like he will, this should be a wake up call for legislators of all stripes. Yes, Trump managed to effectively mobilize his base, but the majority of the country does not want a bombastic pathological liar in the White House. Great. However, as you mentioned, if Biden wins it will be by a very slim margin. Hardly a mandate as you say. It looks like Dems will at best eke out a tie in the senate and not much will change in the house. I’ll be honest; I was hoping for voters to punish the Republican Party for their unabashed support of Trump and force the party into introspection and change over the next four years. That didn’t happen. The American people have indicated they are not willing to give the Democrats a free hand to pursue what many fear will be radical policies. Fair enough. The message is, then, we’re done with Donald Trump but that doesn’t mean we’re ready for Bernie style “Democratic Socialism”. What the American people need now is for the parties to take a step back and understand that the “mandate” from the voters this time around is that we need them to find a way to cooperate and compromise. We are such an equally divided country it’s time to realize that a razor thin political advantage does not equal a mandate. The only way forward is to recognize the legitimacy and desires of the other side and try to find common ground wherever it exists. Am I hopeful that will happen? Not really. If Trump loses he will litigate as long as he can and will continue to whine about it until the day he dies. Many, many of his supporters will eat it up and the US Government will be forever illegitimate in their eyes. Not good. The only truly positive change I think will take place will be the fact that we won’t have a president who constantly attempts to inflame the American population. It’s a start I guess.

The Harris/Biden campaign waited until many people had early voted before she posted this cute Twitter clip. “Equality of outcome, so we all end up at the same place”, is contrary to what has made America an environment which people across the globe seek out. I absolutely accept that many people, don’t start off on the small place. But if we start to expect the “Government” to ensure we’re all ending the same, that’s the opposite of freedom.

Crenshaw!

i'm not even worried about her. its the radical element of the party that will have influence (warren, sanders, AOC(super hot, great rack))

Yup, it aged horrible. To the courts we go.

I can't watch the video because I'm on NIPR but being given a TOT and nailing it is different than trying to guess when a performer is going to take the stage, how long she'll protract portions of the song, etc... There are variables that the pilots have no control over.

Was that the Helo gal that called her sister Pedro ship a coward for not picking her up? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Do tell us more about this "landslide" you were so confident about

"Shoot like a girl" lost in Texas

The election results aren’t going to be official for weeks. At least with a landslide victory there would have been quick resolution. Now it’s going to be non-stop “mystery ballot boxes appearing” and “count every vote, even if it arrived a week late” rhetoric until it gets resolved by the SCOTUS....basically right on brand for 2020

All I know is that I couldn’t vote for a lying, racist, homophobic person that couldn’t handle the Corona virus let alone his own family. Hence I did not vote for Biden.

As of 0631L this morning... https://www.wusa9.com/elections-2020-map

I think it's at least close. Policy, not philosophy. Regan spent a lot, like Trump, so that's a wash. Peace in the middle East and tough on China (compared to anyone else) is certainly a huge win. Tax reform. Massive deregulation, expansion of energy independence, reigning in title IX, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, three supreme court justices, all fairly strong conservatives, like 100 federal judges, enforcement of NATO contributions, the first real punches thrown at critical race theory, and at least the attempt at slowing illegal immigration. I think when you judge them as conservatives compared to their respective eras, Trump is up there. I credit his advisors, his son in law, Mitch Mcconnell, Stephen Miller, and many others, but it's still his administration, and he chose to empower those people.

Correct. I think Lord Ratner called me numbnuts earlier, so eff him. But what he posted here is spot on.

Have them both run together.

The average young fighter dude in a Marine Hornet squadron from '13-'16 got about 100hrs a year. Some fewer. We had multiple fatalities in that period due to poor maintenance and resulting lack of training in the community. Yes, sequestration cost the lives of aviators. Nice personal attack that has come to be the standard from someone who apparently espouses beliefs like yourself.

Yang vs Crenshaw. How nice would it be to vote for the greater of two goods for once.

Huh? I happen to be a minority and will give you multiple female minorities I would love to have for POTUS (Rice, Haley, etc); I just don’t find someone appealing who whores herself out to married men while attacking her opponents about decency, brags about smoking MJ while putting thousands of blacks in prison while screeching about racism. Try again. Yes..sequestration led to a rise in incidents that cost lives why is that so triggering to some people?

Absolutely. The first pirate president, and someone who actually can explain their position. And a hero. Landslide victory.

Fortunately, I wasn't involved in this but....In the late 80s, some of my fellow T-38 IPs were going to do a flyover for the Mississippi State - Arkansas State Football game in Starkville MS. I didn't think too much about it when I was walking in the BX and saw the 4 ship come up initial after the flyby and pitch out other than, "Damn, that looks like some really low clouds for the overhead to be open. Must be an optical illusion." Well, Tuesday, the local paper comes out and there is this huge picture on the front page. There is a band geek in the foreground of the picture with his big fuzzy hat and a trumpet with the T-38 4 ship in the background. The 4 ship was in a 20-30 degree left bank and look really, really close because you can make out panels and markings detail but I'm thinking it's a photo trick using f-stop settings. A week or two goes by and then this cast of characters from Randolph show up conducting an investigation about the flyby. The investigation got started when some fan of flybys in the stands sent a "that was awesome" letter to Randolph with the newspaper picture enclosed. So, here's what happened. The weather was marginal at best but probably below mins. Our intrepid heroes, SQ CC in the backseat of #1, not wanting to disappoint the fans decided to press. It's a south to north run planned to cross at the end of the anthem. They depart the IP on time and the nose gunner picks up stadium lights slightly left of the nose so they check a little left and continue. As they get closer to the lights, they realize it's tennis court lights and not the stadium then find the stadium well right of the nose. They commence an aggressive right hand turn to solve the offset but immediately have to do a left hand turn to make it over the stadium. In this alignment maneuver, they don't notice they are descending. The end result was they barely cleared the top of the stadium. I don't recall actual height other than they were low. Some folks in the top row claim they were eye level but I find that difficult to believe. All the pilots came clean and admitted it was a mistake so nobody was summarily executed and all went on to successful careers. As icing on the cake, the Mississippi State Bulldogs Football team, put together a commercial to promote interest and fire up the fan base and wouldn't you know it, there was video of the very low flyby and it appears at the end of the commercial. So we got to see that a couple times a week. So, flybys require some serious decision making on the fly, create pressure to get the job done, promote service awareness, and offer the opportunity to excel...or not. Excellent training in my opinion.

That’s fair, although I’m not sure if he’ll be ready for a presidential run next cycle.

What if we write off that we probably can't realistically push back a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and not try to meet them force on force there because we'd be at a significant disadvantage? Threaten retaliatory strikes on military/industrial/economic capability using TLAMs, conventional TBMs/ICMBs, cyber. Have a large coalition willing to boycott Chinese trade in the event they invade Taiwan. The name of the game is deterrence, caging China so it believes an invasion wouldn't be with the pain we'd inflict. All this assumes Taiwan truly is vital to our interests, and not just posturing. But my gut feeling is that if the only deterrence option on the table is direct force on force to defend Taiwan and just push Chinese forces back into China, that the equation heavily favors China with the home field advantage. Worst case is if it's to get our aircraft carriers involved in conflict, labeled as legitimate military targets, and directly attack strategic US capability, reducing our influence in the region/world

The interesting point is you questioning people on this forum’s service because they don’t share the same political opinion as you. Or how military members/veterans are supposed to support Trump, you know, the guy who skirted service himself due to “bone spurs.” You also said “see you tomorrow” to someone else, assuming all the ballots will be counted immediately after tomorrow. Apparently you’ve never witnessed a Presidential Election where it takes some states days, and possibly weeks, after the close of the polls to count the voters depending on state law. For instance, Colorado state law says that ballots have to be in by 7pm (MST) tomorrow night once the polls close. However, if a voter was notified there was an issue with their ballot, they have up to eight days, nine days this year due to the eight day falling on Veteran’s Day, to correct their ballot to be counted. Many states don’t even allow counting of ballots until after the polls close. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/01/930140373/fact-check-trump-falsely-claims-that-votes-shouldnt-be-counted-after-election-da

There are a lot of levels to this, but it’s overall culture problem in the Air Force and in society in general. As the article said, military service isn’t as appealing as it once was, and a lot of American youth aren’t even eligible for service. A lot of the motivated type A, willing to learn inner city youth dedicate a lot of their time to sports, as culturally that is viewed as one of the only ways out. These kids are smart, motivated, athletic, we need to find a way to reach these populations. (Not just the athletes, but I think they provide a larger pool). You hit the nail on the head with the chess club bs. We need to change our recruiting and our officer training programs. Trying to convince any youth to spend 4 years at the academy or in ROTC marching in circles wearing blues and folding shirts into perfect squares to (maybe) get a opportunity to fly is a tough sell(and that’s assuming we give them scholarships). Ya, there is OTS, but in the context of low income youth they probably aren’t going to have a 4 year degree. I don’t have all answers, but trying to only get 4.0 GPA “smart” cadets isn’t the best strategy to me. I get we aren’t the Army, but their ROTC program seemed to be a lot better structured than ours. While they were out in the field doing land nav, building shelters, learning weapons/tactics, we were in Blues marching in the gym and doing retarded GLPs bouncing balloons around and formatting Memos. I don’t give a shit how your memo is formatted, I’m probably not going to read it anyway. 99% of our force isn’t going to be on the ground running and gunning, but I think there is a lot more to take away from that training than marching and memos. When I’m flying around bum fuck no where, and everyone on the ground wants to kill me, I want a diverse crew/team (not talking skin color, I don’t give shit how much pigment is in your skin or what set of genitals you have). Having the 4.0GPA person brings something to the table, but so does the country boy who can live off the land and fix anything, the inner city kid that fought tooth and nail and has “street smarts”, the athlete, the immigrant, etc. Filling the rated ranks with people that checked the “chess club” box is a major contributing factor to the cultural/bureaucratic nightmare of a organization we have become.

On the campaign trail - “In 2010 at Kunsan...” ”I’m going to stop you right there; I’m out, good luck to the other candidates”

I think the unwillingness to talk, even within “private” settings (phone call, face to face, etc.), is a negative byproduct of the safety empire. We immediately debrief every sortie and freely share lessons learned, but as soon as something bad happens, there is no debrief/lessons learned for anyone outside the immediate circle for months on end. Guys with direct knowledge of a mishap should be able to provide any initial info/lessons learned to bros around the community...maybe not on a public Internet forum, but certainly privately (including phone and email). Example: The Holloman strafe mishap that killed the contractor. I was a couple days from my guys flying CAS with hot guns, none of whom had flown CAS in the last year or so. I sought privately any debrief/LL info, as I wanted to pass those initial LL onto the guys; I was concerned about our low proficiency on the heels of a fatal mishap that occurred doing exactly what we were about to do. What I got was zero info, in the name of “safety process.” Cool, because of our safety overlords, we were denied any lessons learned, and pressed on. Turns out we got into a very similar situation a week later, except the pilot had enough experience to recognize it and avoid any problems. We literally almost repeated exactly the same mistake a week later, completely ignorant of what happened at Holloman and any initial lessons learned we could have applied to our own flying. That is a massive foul. Same exact thing happened recently with the two F-35 landing mishaps. Separated by a week, no initial info/thoughts passed to the F-35 CAF. Hill repeats similar conditions as Eglin. Only after that does an SII come out about landing. Could have easily killed a pilot a week later; all we had to do was pass initial thoughts debrief-style and Hill may not have happened. I flew probably 20 times after the mishaps before I knew what was going on...20 times I could have fucked up/ignorance is bliss. That’s bullshit.

Sequestration cost aviator lives? Go on. I’m sure having a minority woman as POTUS scares the shit out of you hilfuck Texas.