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Is spilling classified information to Iran still a federal crime? Asking for another friend of this friend... Is falsely attesting to drug use and flavor of military discharge on a Form 4473 when buying a gun still a felony? Asking for the son of that first friend... Is being orange now a felony?

Life comes at you fast.

Reduce the power of the government. Less ability for overreach and less ability/incentive to buy favor.

It would be nice if this could be true, but Leviathan/Deep State/entrenched bureaucracy/good taxpayer-funded deals demonstrated pretty vividly from 2017-2021 that this isn't the case. The IRS, among others, used its power to punish wrong-thinking Americans who held contrarian political views. They hid/destroyed evidence, lied under oath about it. Not one person was punished, charged, or lost a sweet government pension. The FBI and at least parts of the Intelligence Community intentionally spied on a presidential candidate, a President, and willfully lied about it multiple times. Those are now facts. And the FISA courts said, "Tsk, tsk." And recently appointed one of the key DOJ participants as one of the watchdogs. Comey/Brennan/McCabe/Powers, et al did really heinous things against a President they didn't like. One elected by the American people. And not one person saw the inside of a jail. One low-level lawyer pled down to a single charge and received a suspended sentence. Didn't even lose his law license. Cities are literally burning and it's called "mostly peaceful" and miscreants are either not charged or provided bail via elected officials. Protesters at the Capital are relentlessly pursued and charged with fairly minor crimes. An Air Force veteran was shot and killed by a cop because of....? All fun and political games until those powers are turned against us little guys because we believe/think/speak a different tune. So Leviathan proved its power pretty clearly.

Is Biden’s travel ban on India due to bigotry/racism? Asking for a friend... https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-biden-set-ban-most-travel-us-india-limit-covid-19-spread-2021-04-30/

Nylander was my flight SRO in OTS. Soft spoken and a real good dude, and a true believer in the Air Force and our foreign policy writ large (something I'm categorically not, in part due to the circumstances behind his untimely death in that FUBAR so-called nation building effort). Died a hero. Complete waste of human capital, that entire clusterf*ck of a perennial war we got going on over there, while private interests all get rich off the carnage. Indefensible mess that should have been nuked from orbit and left to glaze 5 decades ago. I'm also still disgusted at the potshots of cowardice levied towards these casualties by US senior investigating leadership. RIP Nathan.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2021/04/27/decade-later-families-of-9-advisers-killed-afghanistan-are-still-waiting-truth.html/amp 10 years ago today. a nickel for Klepto, Bruiser, and the others. watch your backs!

The challenge I see is that someone or some group will step in to fill that power gap, and they might not be accountable to the citizens. Look at speech on the internet (facebook, twitter, get al). Government doesn't really have much in the way of laws or regulations here (there is some, but largely seems to be extensions of rules for older media rather than addressing unique qualities of social media). So largely it was left up to the tech companies to self regulate behavior. Their incentive to self regulate was to prevent actual laws being put on the books, which could hurt their business model. That was great, right up to the point where the tech companies started acting in their own interests based on their views of society. This created a dilemma. On one hand, social media/tech companies are private organizations and should be free to censor whatever they want, since the first amendment only prevents government from restricting speech. On the other hand, since social media companies can have broad influence in controlling narratives and what gets promoted or seen, they can sway how people think and potentially vote, giving social media companies undue influence on our laws and social norms. I doubt less regulation (reduction in scope of government power) would fix this particular problem. The challenge is, if laws or regulations are soght, the same large companies who are the cause for needing those new laws are also the same ones with money to lobby for their interests. Basically, it all just comes down to "don't be a dick to other people." The difficult part is that statement encompasses a wide range of definitions for what constitutes acceptable behavior, which is amplified by how diverse our country is (and not just race/ethnicity, but also regional norms/beliefs, religions, and the wide range of upbringings). And there's only a few ways to deal with people/groups being dicks: laws and a system to enforce those laws (which consolidates authority/power in those who enforce the laws), social norms and unwritten standards enforced by shame and ridicule, or just straight up violence (power through strength).

To him. True hero. I also knew him from OTS and had nothing but utmost respect.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/14/bryan-jones-air-force-matt-gaetz-challenger Perhaps we will have another USAF pilot in Congress soon

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