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I know that this is intentional bait, but I’ll respond. Almost everyone on this forum didn’t vote for Biden, per say. They voted against Trump. I bet many would do it again. I think that’s the crux of the issue. In almost no ways do I think we’d be in a better spot as a nation with Trump at the reigns. I agree with your assessment of many of this admin’s errors. It sucks. But do I think it’d be better with Trump? Fuck no. The Trump admin did more to dismantle the credibility of our democracy and give credence to blatant conspiracy theorists and bigots than anyone in recent history. I can think of very few Trump policies domestically, internationally, economically, or militarily that I really wish Biden would implement. Is the economy worse now? No, but it’s not better. We’re fucked and have been ever since Obama era Fed reserves pumped $4T into the stock market. Trumps economic policies pumped $3T in in 12 months. Turns out blue and red are both idiots here who will play fiscal conservative when it’s convenient but still do the same thing. Is the military worse now? It’s good we actually left Afghanistan. How we did it was stupid, but it took some balls to just pull the cord and leave. Withdrawals are messy. But we are going to benefit from that, I think. I have no idea if Trump would have followed through. Are we going to modernize to be relevant on the world stage? No, doubt it. Probably would do better with Trump here, but we could have an argument on whether or not it’s even possible. Tell me if you think a war in the Taiwan straits is actually winnable from not just a military perspective, but a geopolitical one. Are we doing better with COVID? Maybe. Current admin definitely has a more coherent messaging schema and plan. I do believe that vaccines were created and pushed more under Biden than they would have been under Trump, which contributed to higher rates. Delta would have hit regardless, and I’m sure Trump would have been peddling pseudo science, still. Sucks the vaccine doesn’t work nearly as well as we hoped, not really a clear path forward here. From an economic inequality perspective, I have an admin that isn’t literally run by a sociopathic billionaire. The fact that they are talking about finding ways to close loopholes that allow the mega rich to have a lower effective tax rate than a teacher is the right answer. If that involves taxing unrealized gains above a certain threshold, then do it. I wholly believe that Reagan era economic principles of just giving rich people all the money, which is what Trump selfishly pushed, are part of the moral decline of our country that basically started right after the Reagan admin. Are we socially better off? This is the big win. But it’s all only temporary. Putting hateful folks in their place by showing them more than half the country disagree has been nice. I know you guys largely don’t fall into that group, but the idiots that were empowered during the Trump admin to say racist, authoritarian bullshit really helped the unraveling of America. Our our allegiances across the world in a better spot? Yeah, I think so. Public perception of America has shifted an order of magnitude in our favor. And I believe we will not be a superpower by our own choosing, as we were between 1990-2020, anymore. We live and die based on our alliances and diplomacy as China expands. Is the future brighter? I mean, maybe more so than the Trump admin, but the future is pretty god damn dim. Global warming, climate refugees, and water wars are actually going to be catastrophic events in the next century. The Trump admin chose to actively dismantle any efforts to think about that, so that we could compete with China. Not an effective strategy. I appreciate having a 10-20 year plan on how to tackle a problem, as opposed to the Trump admins easy button of “well deal with that later, we have to use coal to beat China,” when we’ll never actually “beat” China. Moral of the story is from a I-voted-against-Trump standpoint I’m happy he’s not there in basically all areas other than military modernization. I would not say I’m happy I got Biden. But it’s the lesser of two evils in this dumbass iteration of a democratic republic that is really just a nicely wrapped 2 party system. Implement ranked choice voting and expand past the biggest issue with our country: 2 party politics. I don’t want Biden. I don’t want Trump. I don’t think anyone is “happy.”

I think it’s largely a conspiracy theory with little proof. The citations, especially towards the end, are not legit. With that being said, it seems ever more plausible to me that this could absolutely be a lab leak. Let’s look into it, I’m down. I don’t buy the claims that Americans specifically collaborated to do this. Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity. On an unrelated note, my opinions on vaccine mandates for the current releases, at least, have shifted relatively strongly recently. What’s the point? Even if we literally vaccinate 90% of Americans, we’ll still have tons of breakthrough infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. And it won’t stop mutations. The rest of the world will pop out the omicron variant from the Nile river or something. The vaccine only limits spread by maybe 50-75%, which isn’t enough at all. R0 will still be higher than many seasonal flus with full vaccines. Herd immunity is a dead dream. What is the end state of a mostly vaccinated society? I am not prepared to go full retard and become Australia.

I think you’ll be waiting awhile for an answer to this.

I see the masked crowd now as virtue signaling rather than any health or welfare reasoning. Especially when I see people outdoors or driving with a mask on. For them, it's a magic talisman against evil spirits. And just as effective.

As someone who got screwed at 16 years of service, just to watch people do worse and retire cause they were over 20, I quickly realized the military doesn’t give a shit about anything but looking good via optics.

sad thing is the force isn’t really hurt by the Kung flu with a IFR of %0.01 and that assuming you get it…. Assuming 1.3million troops total, your chances of death over the past 18 months from covid are approximately %0.00038. next year: mandatory bubble wrap during PT. Yehaw!

My favorite part about the no mask crowd I see at the grocery store is that the majority are obese, walking, talking sacks of comorbidities filling their carts with Cheetos and hamburger helper. Likewise, many of the anti vax Air Force people I know think of themselves as elite physical specimens except for the part where they can't run a mile and a half in under 14 minutes without a borderline medical emergency. It seems like the elderly have the sense to mask up and get vaccinated, but a lot of young unhealthy people fail to realize how severely obesity affects their odds.

But the vaccines DO reduce transmission. It's the same fallacy as the mask. Vaccines reduce the transmission rate, but they don't reduce it to zero. And there are plenty of at-risk folks who can't get vaccinated due to other factors. Seems kinda callous to say "eh, I won't inconvenience myself by wearing a mask indoors, those people will just die off". I mean...I don't support the idea of wearing a mask full time, all the time, everywhere. But the idea of throwing one on before going into a grocery store doesn't really bother me.

I buy that masks work. They don’t work 100%, which is the critic’s easiest fallacious black and white argument against them. In fact, evidence suggests an efficacy rate between 20-50%. Sounds bad, but still does something. My issue at this point is how long do we do this? Forever? Forget it. If we had some hope of a vaccine that reduced transmission, I think there would be something to hold out for. But, from what I see, we are setting ourselves into indefinite purgatory. Give the at risk populations the chance to be vaccinated and resume life. Yeah, tons of idiots will die. But it’s their choice. You and I won’t die from the virus, at this point. I really struggle to see the cost benefit in favor of any more control/restrictions.

Don't want to derail the threat but I felt it's important to remind everyone it's been one month now since we've left and there are still American citizens stranded in Kabul while Taliban go door to door murdering people. I can't understand how that's not getting more press. There are also thousands of green card holders and tens of thousands of Terps and SIV qualified vulnerable Afghans.

The bad thing about this is the manner the DoD is choosing to respond to each of his plays only makes him look more right that the DoD is trying to evade embarrassment of it's senior staff.

So after 15 satisfactory years of service, 12 on active duty as a Marine Hornet pilot with 3 deployments, one to combat and having received an honorable discharge after those 12 years, I am being told as a Reservist, to get the vaccine or receive a dishonorable or other-than-honorable discharge. This despite me having to leave my flying billet as an IP 3.5 years ago after being diagnosed with epilepsy despite the fact that the covid vaccines are shown to cause an increase in seizure activity and intensity in a relatively high percentage of those who receive it. Oh, and I also received an email today that said my civilian employer will require it by early December as well or I will be unable to provide for my family. Pretty awesome.

The SCOTUS rarely likes to take a military case due to them knowing their holding may affect/change the UCMJ, part of the Executive Branch. It’s a delicate dance. There’s two appellate courts for military in between an appellate and the SCOTUS.

I get what you’re saying, and it’s all true. But the scientific reasoning i’m arguing that makes vaccine and mask mandates significantly less palatable to me, now, is that everything changed with delta. The virus won, unless we commit to another few years of this. Even if the vaccine stopped 50-75% of transmission and masking stopped 30-50% more and society was 75-90% vaccinated, the virus would still spread. That’s because it has an estimated R0 of 5-9. You can’t get it below 1. You can see it now, in actual data. We are at phenomenally high levels of infection even with high masking and vaccination rates. I’m starting to believe reports that herd immunity is a myth with Delta - literally impossible: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/08/12/herd-immunity-is-mythical-with-the-covid-delta-variant-experts-say.html https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2 Even with 99% of society vaccinated, we would see the virus spread and cause cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Will there be less than if only 60% is vaccinated? Sure. But at what cost? To make the remaining 20-30% of society get vaccines against their stubborn wills would require, likely, an overreach of government power. All to still have a virus that exists, mutates, spreads, and continues to cause sickness. Also, I want to understand your data on how many people can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons. I keep hearing it’s “plenty,” but I’ve never seen any numbers to back that up. Those numbers matter, because if it’s 500k people or 50M people changes the calculus. Masking, social distancing, and getting vaccines may seem like a minor inconvenience, but there is a limit to cost benefit societally. Every day that cost increases. At some point, yes, it stops being worthwhile for 300M people to have to change their lives and social interactions to protect a very small subset of society. Unfortunately, I think we’re pretty damn close, honestly. I did my part, societally, and got vaccinated and social distanced. I wear a mask. But I’m about over it. That’s where I’m at.

The same could be said in reverse. There are a lot of fat folks in the US. Also maybe you just “see” what you want to see in the world? Bottom line is fat people shouldn’t rely 100% on a leaky vaccine, nor a cloth mask to save them when the rona hits. Can we agree on that? Cloth masks may help, they might not. I have a difficult time believing the actually work since the holes are so large in a cloth mask including the gaping holes around your nose — Non-one way N95’s are a different story. Outcomes with all sickness including covid are not random- despite what the MSM would have you believe. Everyone can help themselves. Everyone can reduce their risks. CV19 and the last 2 years of media coverage (overblown imo, but if it bleeds it leads) should be wake up call to everyone of all ages to eat real food, mix in some weight lifting and/or aerobic exercise, supplement if needed and go outside. Then you happen to covid instead of the other way around. That I am against mandating that anyone to reduce their risk. Although it would help you be healthier, Would you be in favor of the government forcing you to eat real food? Forcing you to take particular supplements? (insert “Floride” argument- I got a well so go f yourself), Forced exercise? All of which could arguably reduce your risk of death from covid greater than a vaccine could. I wouldn’t want to live in that world. The arm of the federal government is going captain insano- and captain insano shows no mercy.

Final Timeline, I'm a worst case scenario due to Covid/AFRC Board backups. 2 years from hire till ots. Hired (Heavy Reserve): Oct 2019 MEPS: Dec 2019 FCI: June 2020 AFRC UPT Board: Jan 2021 OTS: Oct 2021 UPT: Feb 2022 @ Laughlin Good luck to anyone waiting and if anyone is going to Laughlin let me know!

I'll bite. How much of your portfolio do you have in silver? How's that been working out?

I can remember a time when I held a very firm belief that our government wouldn’t actually make a run on our right to own guns. This was largely due to the fact that I didn’t think there were enough members of our military or police force that would salute smartly and do the work necessary to remove guns from law abiding citizens. I’m clearly wrong. Hell, I’m convinced that there are folks on these very threads that would gladly get behind gun confiscation efforts.

Re the Spartacus letter: The dude sounds smart and educated on the medical stuff. This thing seems very well researched. Not like some rando Qanon dude hanging out at some flat earth conference and educated by facebook. I found the letter fascinating, but then the wild conspiracy stuff (mind control type stuff) kind of raised my BS flag for those parts of it (sure hope it’s BS, otherwise we are effed as a society). The first part though…hard for me to argue with and was very interesting and informative. I kind of wish it stuck to that and didn’t stray into mind control stuff. I trust internet fact-checkers as much as I trust biden, fauci, cnn, or the tollybon. But I found this to be interesting as well as a rebuttal in my quest for enlightenment. https://www.newswise.com/factcheck/anonymous-spartacus-covid-letter-riddled-with-misinformation-baseless-claims-about-global-conspiracy/?article_id=758009

This is the BEST open source Intel product on Afghanistan right now and I applaud the work this guy is doing: https://afghanwarnews.info/taliban-victory-2021/kabul-neo.htm I've seen a lot of info come across that there is some major infighting inside the Taliban and Haqqani Network right now. One of the things I specifically remember in studying regime change for my masters was the turbulence when a new regime is instilled. The people that led the revolution are rarely the people that actually take control of the country and new leadership is filtered by the party to the top. Generally they will use 1-2 charismatic leaders for their military leadership but have zero desire to instill them as political heads of state. I believe there actually is a moderate sect of the Taliban that seeks international recognition but they are actively being suppressed by the more radical elements. I predict 2 outcomes. 1.) The moderate elements attain control. The TB realize they are incapable of actually holding Afghanistan as a state and governing on their own. They appeal to their moderate side to broker international treaties with Arab states and Asia to help arm, secure and govern for them. 2.) The radicals win, they attain power and lock the country down temporarily. However they are completely incapable of militantly holding the country and governing. The country collapses into factional civil war and things get a whole lot worse before they get better.

During my entire airline career I always bid Sept off and was easy to get no matter my seniority. I had no squids to consider. Best time to travel, no crowds, and cooler in Europe.

Standard ops for OSI/CID/NCIS is to put a gag/no contact order on the accused. Can't have anything hampering a conviction.

Is that your certified legal analysis?

So it seems Gen Milley didn’t deny much of anything today when questioned by the Senate.

Dang. Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote: "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Lt. Col. Scheller is doing nothing but speaking the truth. And it seems that military leadership is scared of him, because he's the most serious threat: An intelligent, motivated individual with nothing to lose. Also, at the risk of a tangent, I guess Mattis is gay. Not surprising, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than all the "Warrior Monk" nonsense.

Let’s not pretend that that’s not a desired end state for many powerful democrats sitting in congress right now. Marxism 101, take the guns first. Will it happen? No, thankfully thanks to checks and balances but it’s very concerning when you look at the strategy of some of these folks and the line between that and historical Marxism is very blurred.

Question for anyone who voted for the current administration - Are you happy with the current state of our nation? If so, what makes you feel that way?

After working the past 40 years on TF-33's or JT3D's anything will be a improvement. I had one stretch in Saudi where I changed 7 TF-33's in two weeks on the same tail number(E-3C). Always a oil pressure related problem. The last 7 years on KC-135's I've changed 4 engines on a fleet about 400 airplanes and some those jets still have the same engines on the wing when they were hung when upgraded from A to R model, that is what they are hoping for.

Neither men were diplomats. One was formally a diplomatic official of Canada, but both were employed by NGOs at the time of their detention. Regardless of what Trudeau wanted or not, this sent a clear message to China that their elites no longer have to comply with Western laws, to include sanctions against Iran and North Korea. The US has clearly communicated in this it doesn't have the capability anymore to enforce those sanctions.

These are nothing like the RR 757 engines. These RE BR700s (F130 mil designation) are the same motors as those found on G5s and globals (and 717s), among other applications. They seem to work pretty well in those applications from what I understand, and 1) are already in the USAF inventory and 2) have a ton of proven historical data. The GE options were the CF34-10 or the newer passports. The former is meh/older tech. The latter (passports) should be pretty solid (powering the new large globals), but don’t have a lot of history as they are fairly new. I think the passports are made with the same or similar cores (or at least tech) to the CFM LEAPs on the MAX/NEO. Should be a good motor, but not a lot of data on them. The pratt option was the motor that powers the gulfstream g500/g600, the PW800 series, which is the same core as the geared turbofan Pratts on the A220. Gulfstream made a big move switching from RR to pratt for the G500/600. They look like solid motors. But, like the passports, are relatively new. The new tech motors often have hotter temps and tighter tolerances, and that can mean a bit more finicky maintenance. As a datapoint, the on wing time of the CFM LEAPs on the NEOs has been underperforming targets and they have needed to get overhauled earlier. That was one of the big reasons frontier switched from CFM LEAP to pratt GTFs for their future NEO orders. And the pratt GTFs had tons of issues when they were launched as well. Trusting either of those cores to be integrated with the buff could be asking for trouble. The latest and greatest/most efficient motor isn’t always the goal of military (or cargo) planes. I think the USAF probably made a good (conservative at least) choice picking a tried and true, reliable and fairly easy to maintain, already-in-the-inventory, not entirely dated technology engine. The marginally better/newer bizjet motors that don’t have much historical in service data (and none in the military) probably didn’t offer enough of an advantage to be worth it. I think it was a decent choice. just my $0.02

“there is a splinter of the Democratic party (but not all of them) who just bow to China ” Not to mention a certain member of the JCS.

I'm not much of a Twitter user, and honestly thought the above Tweet must be some kind of photoshop or otherwise fake. After all, it's the US Food and Drug Administration, right? A federal agency with a $3.2 Billion (!!!) budget. You'd expect their official Twitter account to be more, I dunno, official? Went on Twitter and scrolled back to August, and sure enough, the above is legit. This guys Tweet below more or less sums up my thoughts. Honestly, how can anyone take anything from the .gov seriously these days?

Don’t drag the politics and COVID crap into this forum. You have plenty of other threads to do that. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Just a 2 min video. These comments were on September 1. How is he still the CJCS? All three of the points he made here have turned out to be false. Was he ignorant of the truth, trying to stretch the truth, or knowingly saying things that weren't true?

I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right. This case could be amazing for actually showing that the military gave a shit about mental health and helped a guy who served honorably for 17 years.