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I can’t even believe we’re having a discussion to justify the first amendment. If you favor censorship or think there’s anything reasonable about homeland security developing a misinformation department led by a woman deeply steeped in partisan misinformation—- GFY

Watch the testimony and questions that follow. Why put it under DHS except to harness broad legal powers? Look at the lady they are installing as the director, look at her words about the Hunter Biden laptop and her book How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict "What's changed about [fighting disinformation] today is the tools and tactics and speed at which the info spreads. Part of this is not only building resilience but we have to get the regulatory framework in place so that we can respond more effectively." “...In the digital sphere, there’s artificial amplification of particular ideas, and so it’s cheating in the marketplace of ideas. If digital platforms can’t find an effective way to remove those fake voices, the trolls, the bots, then you’re not actually approximating the true public square.” Are you remotely serious? Russia - Pravda Nazi's - Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment Iran - The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance - Additionally the "Supreme Leader has the power to appoint and dismiss the leaders of the judiciary, the state radio and television networks. North Korea - Korean Central Television - It is so bad in North Korea that wrote a book called The Ministry of Truth ! The 1st amendment is crystal clear - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. In a free country the government does not get to decide what is true and what isn't or what the press can report. Based on how well our own government did with Vietnam, tests on American soldiers, Watergate...the list goes on. The 4th estate is vital and although right now they are extremely dysfunctional, we NEED them.

Then teach them critical thought, but do not for one second create a gov organization to arbitrate truth and therefore regulate free speech. Flat earthers are retarded, but they have every right to have websites, create documentaries, stand on a street corner with a sign, etc. Free speech is not perfect and fabricated bullshit will always exist, but that is substantially better than a restricted/controlled-speech society.

Propagation is improving our worldwide coverage. Recent patches include Iraq, England, North Africa and South Korea. We recently created a video describing the basics of doing an Official and Morale phone patch including setting up the radio. Hope you find it useful. https://youtu.be/s_67j_VP8NA

Shameful, those around him and in the cabinet have a DUTY to step forward and say something. Dude is cognitively impaired, we all see it. I don't want Harris as a President but this is getting scary.

In what is perhaps the most dystopian thing Biden and his extremists have ever proposed it appears we will now have a Disinformation Czar that falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that his agency is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board.” Is anyone paying attention? Does anyone care? If you swore an oath to the Constitution you should be appalled and shocked. The proposal gives this board the ability to regulate free speech, to take down websites, to control what the press reports. For the record, previous organizations like this only existed in Russia, Nazi Germany, Iran and North Korea. The board will be led by Nina Jankowicz – a disinformation expert who has been criticized for repeatedly casting doubt on The Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop.In October 2020, after The New York Post exposed damning emails and other information in Hunter Biden's laptop, Jankowicz scoffed and said “We should view it as a Trump campaign product.” If she held this position two years ago not only would the laptop story have been crushed on Twitter and Facebook, she would have shut down the NY Post and Foxnews. If this succeeds the Constitution is dead. Please enjoy the Tik Tok this lunatic made! Czar.mp4

Wouldn't than mean we should censor Jen Psaki who from the White House Podium has shared these truth bombs: "Hunter Biden Story is Russian Disinfo" "Putin Price Hike on gas" "Inflation is transitory" "It is irresponsible to say Americans are stranded in Afghanistan, they are not" "Psaki denies transporting illegal immigrants at 0230 AM is the middle of the night, calls it early flight"

We call that the Danger41 move.

Completely understand the stress of living under “what ifs.” I know a few guys who went through 1-2 airlines in a relatively short amount of time prior to landing at their #1. Sounds painful for all the training and restarts, but long term their decision probably makes sense given their personal life desires. So, even “worst case” you take the current CJO and get called 4 months into that job - fuck it, jump ship and start over at #1 if that’s best for your long term life.

The further we get from 1984, the closer we get. With the recent history of government agencies involved in sketchy behavior with a noticable political bent, what could possibly go wrong?

He has never had an original thought in his political life and parrots what he is told to say. Combine this with the obvious signs of senility and I'm guessing his awareness of the economic condition of the country is close to zero.

That’s cool - I was in the room when it was talked through bruh, and that was going on two years ago… But go on and “old guy knows better” the shit outta this one for us. Chuck

That sounds like a LOT of disinformation.

iPad mini I think is the ideal form factor for an aviation tablet. Using them as EFBs on active duty was great and mine did double-duty when I would fly -172s and similar. The standard iPad size I always found too big like you said. It also blows my mind that armed with nothing more than steam gauges + an iPad mini with a sentry ADS-B box and foreflight, I can have orders of magnitude more SA in a little Cessna than in my multi-million dollar military aircraft that unfortunately is saddled with BS software & poor systems integration 🙄 That civilian setup literally costs like $1,200 plus a $240 per year subscription…for that price I could probably get one (1) military grade 2” stainless steel screw to go screw myself with haha

"We find this belief to be disinformation. We shall be monitoring your communications, both incoming and outgoing, to ensure that you do not attempt to spread such disinformation." a note from your friendly Ministry of Truth... And given the support for such, even on this thread, it's likely to happen. And I can assure you, it's a GREAT gig to get if you can be the one that decides what is and isn't disinformation. Just ask any of the 50 former IC officials who signed the letter assuring us that the Hunter laptop was classic Russian disinformation. What could possibly go wrong?

Just remember to say “over” when you’re done having phone patch sex. It’s the polite thing to do.

You guys are all going to be shocked, but I have another rave review for Jon and the folks at Trident. My wife found the perfect place for her to live her dream of rehabbing a historic home in the historic district of our medium-sized military town (the other ATX), and when we put an offer in we found out why it had been on the market (in this market) for 6 months: the sellers had rejected three previous offers by buyers who were planning on using VA loans. Either they or their listing agent were sure that dealing with VA buyers was a nightmare and that the appraisal would come in 30% below comps and kill any deal. Jon spent a half hour on the phone sweet talking the listing agent—busting myths, explaining the process for getting a second opinion from VA staff appraisers, etc etc. Jon did more to make the deal happen than my buyer's agent did. They accepted our second offer and we closed yesterday... Interest rate 1.6% below current market rates (and about 0.5% below the market rate at the time we locked). Zero bureaucratic hassle with Jon's staff. Could not have gone smoother. (Unrelated: Appraised just fine.) With both the contract price and our interest rate, in this market, it feels like we made it onto the last chopper out of 'Nam. We can't thank Jon enough.

I'm assuming they have. But irrespective... in this climate, I would find it rather amazing that these pilots, with their extensive turbine aviation backgrounds and letters of rec would be overlooked due to a missed error on their application. Certainiy, it's up to these pilots to produce an error-feee product... but c'mon.

Should be good, it was Fundy that was hacked then taken down at the request of the Russians.

Unfortunately little of this is surprising. When you can’t run on your accomplishments, then you vilify the other side as racists, anti-(whatever letters are now being used), extremists, spreaders of “disinformation”, on and on. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Things need to still get much worse in this country for enough people (60-70%) to see that the trajectory we’re on is going to destroy the country financially. But in the meantime, let’s discuss “free” healthcare, “student loan forgiveness”, refusing to enforce immigration laws/border security, massive federal spending bills (yes, to include “defense” spending), reparations for slavery, banning fracking because we need “green energy”, on and on.

I’m not, you’re right. Maybe SOCOM is better, I hope so. I would guess that’s because SOCOM literally by law doesn’t have to go through the same acquisition processes as traditional Air Force. I’m not saying AGILE can’t work - it has been demonstrated in multiple industries so I agree with you there. My issues with AGILE or Open Architecture are all related to big Cat 1 programs like F-35/F-22/EPAWSS/B-21/KC-46/etc. Personally, my perspective is that it hasn’t done much for America or these programs except in name. Almost all test PMs and pilots I know on these programs have said we are agile in name only. I would be curious to hear where it worked well, if you can say. I agree with you here. I guess my perspective is different because all of the programs I mentioned earlier are run by some combination of the big 5. There are tons of smaller companies that could do it if big defense contracts weren’t effectively controlled by a monopoly. Can you give an example? I’ve flown on the E-7 and in the link with them which is why I feel like it would be good, but I don’t have a good idea for high TRL alternatives. Would love to be better informed about options.

Anyone doing Austin this year? I went last year and had some complaints, but the race was awesome. Going again this year.

Hey gents, thanks for keeping this one alive. I retired, got a contract job, got blackballed, filed a FWA complaint and am now 100% doing they cybers on the outside. Somehow lost the password to here and didn't really have time to get it going again (writing a book, starting a business, beekeeping, etc.). Nice to be back and I do have some thoughts on what was posted. I'll write those out and give an update on the commercial side and what the bros are still saying in. PS - edibles are great.

Joe Biden has made a half-century career of carefully following the consensus in the Democratic party. There's good analysis in the article I've linked. For the highlights check the section titled "Biden positions himself in the center of the Democratic Party" https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-pandemic-has-pushed-biden-to-the-left-how-far-will-he-go/

This and this! I think we managed to salvage this exchange by arriving at almost the same point from two years apart… In the end, the directed COA… I give it a 8/10, would argue with CH again. Chuck

ClearedHot, you are obviously ignorant! You forgot Hunter Biden s business partners, the Chinese! Come on, man! Nothing like trying to get through the Great Internet Firewall of China while visiting that country to drive that point home.

The Pulitzer prize was established from an endowment set aside by Joseph Pulitzer, whose paper war with William Randolph Hearst established the concept of yellow journalism. Those same yellow journalists bragged about their ability to start a war (Spanish-American War, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war" - Hearst). Walter Duranty flat out lied about the Holodomor in Ukraine, and defended Stalin's show trials. Disinformation isn't new. Historically it comes from "authoritative sources." The solution has never been to ignore the first amendment.

I really think the Dem’s plan in ‘20 was to run Biden as a front until he either suffered a medical emergency or was declared unfit to serve, and then Kamala would come sweeping in to finish his term, then run for two of her own, effectively keeping her in power for a decade. Now that she’s proven unpopular and incapable, the puppet masters in the DNC are left wondering what to do.

You’d think that since Brick started his service during WWII, he’d remember what happens when a megalomaniac in Europe invades another European nation, but maybe it’s the dementia.

The solution to bad speech is good speech. It always has been and always will be. Not regulation, but more and better speech. A paper from an obscure associate law professor is hardly a convincing proof. There are exceptions to the First Amendment (for example, can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater (Justice Holmes - far more authoritative than one of 10,000+ associate professors)), but the Supreme Court has consistently held that any restrictions to the First Amendment is reviewed under Strict Scrutiny. Justice Souter said, Strict Scrutiny "leaves few survivors", as in it is exceptionally difficult to pass a law restricting content of speech. We as country have moved far away from what made us a country to begin with and then made us great (not a reference to Trump. Clearly we are/were an exceptional country and are rapidly moving away from our roots as a republic). How many Americans today would agree with the sentiment that "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? As others have pointed out, how can a government agency be the arbitrators of truth? 500 years ago this agency would have worked to shut down talk that the earth was round. 200 years ago the abolitionist movement would have been shut down for claiming that people should not be slaves. To claim that you have the corner on what is truth is the pinnacle of arrogance and the end of a republic. I am not exaggerating and not giving an emotional argument. If this board stands, our great experiment in a republic is done because you cannot have a republic where the government determines what can and cannot be said.

With the E-7 the infrastructure should be seamless. The only new Aerospace Ground Equipment should be new smaller tripod jacks, towbars. The 552nd has everything else, you can probably get two 737's in a hangar compared to one 707. Won't need the stands that you need to take rotodomes off anymore. The CFM-56-7s are super reliable and crew chiefs will have to learn to deal with Skydrol. The APU's are much better than the one they borrowed from the C-5. I hope they have a separate class on just on the airstairs that come with the jets, they are great until someone efs one up. I got my hands dirty with the U.S. Marshalls 737's which are -400's and Alaska NG's. Love the 737. I wonder what ground cooling these jets will need compared to a E-3. I hope at first, they by some -700NG trainers for the pilots and not beat up the mission birds, we used to have some old 707's for that but the schoolhouse tore them up really quick, plus the airlines had a reason they got rid of them. The Navy has bought a E-3 from the RAF to train E-6 pilots, it's at Lake Charles now for maintenance.

Or.... Summer of 2001.

A bud if mine sent this pic of his aviation display! 🤣🤣🤣

Democrats learned the wrong lesson from 2020; they think their agenda won, when really Trump lost. Rather than assessing their weaknesses, they've been emphasizing them. Not that Republicans have done a ton to present a more coherent and logical message, but at least they have a couple potential candidates on the right side of 70.

If anyone has any questions about getting passed over, writing a letter to the board to get passed over again, and getting passed over again -- I'm your guy. No one has signed and turned in the continuation denial paperwork faster than I just did. One simple trick just gave me a year of freedom and seniority. Life is good.

I saw the most recent list of selectees for the AFRC board. There are ALOT of ETPs (they mark each person with an age limit waiver with asterisk) and I even saw one for a fighter squadron. They are rare but do happen if you have good rapport with the squadron.

Very different situations. We are now looking at a developed country that is democratizing and courting the free world that has been straight up invaded and is asking for help. This is worlds away from an I’ll advised war against an already shaky dictatorship or popping into someone else’s civil war hoping you can prevent more bloodshed. I agree that in all honesty, we probably don’t care all that much about Ukraine per-se. But we do care about the idea of sovereignty. Very much in fact. We also care about Eastern Europe and Europe as a whole. If you don’t think this is Putin’s litmus test for Poland, Lithuania, Romania, etc, you’re being naive. And while we’re being honest, yes, this is a chance to affect Russia’s abilities to threaten its neighbors and hold Europe hostage over energy, which have been major concerns of ours for years now. To recap, our interests in the region are: the survival of a democratic nation and its people, protecting the very idea of sovereignty, hardening the NATO alliance (and finally getting Europe to pay its fair share & take defense seriously), weaning Europe off Russian energy, and sending the Russians something with a little more kick than the strongly worded letters they’ve been receiving from the UN the last several years. And the icing on the cake is that our strategy does not involve any direct military confrontation with Russia. Sure there are pundits out there who argue we should act more aggressively, but I have not heard one voice from the current administration make that argument. The Russians say we risk nuclear escalation by supplying weapons and support to Ukraine because of course they do. What other cards do they hold? None. Their conventional forces were apparently worse off than we thought and have been severely degraded from there. They’re quickly losing their biggest bargaining chip in Europe, energy, and it’ll likely be gone permanently. They thought they were good at information warfare, and maybe they were but they’re losing this one (at least abroad). So the one card they have left is waiving around their nukes. But Putin likes living. He likes his mansions and his boats and his girls. While he’s no 4D chess player, he’s smart enough to know that all turns to glass if he actually pulls the trigger.

This decision is a confluence... 1. There's a need. 2. There's a need for something relatively/comparatively quick/cheap. 3. There's a CSAF that had plenty of time/experience in RAAF Wedgetails when he was the PACAF/CC. 4. There's a COMACC who sees it the same as the CSAF. This is the directed COA, because anything else will take too long to PPBE/AOA/Acquire/Build/Test. It's not cosmic. It's not nefarious. It's the only choice we really have when considering the other Clydesdales in the stable sucking up all the funding at the same time... B-21, NGAD, GBSD, KC-46/F-35... to say nothing of the fact that we have zero C-5M/C-17 replacement airlifters in the development process, so it'll be another 30 years before the Galaxy/Globemaster replacements hit the ramp... Considering the whole picture, getting the Wedgetail is a win. Chuck

IMG_1069.mov The most accurate depiction of AF decision making

Oh how short our memories are. A few months ago there was near universal lamenting on this very forum about how we entered Afghanistan without a clear justification, plan, or end state. And surprise! It ended in complete disaster. But don't worry we'll pin that squarely on Biden as if trump or literally anyone else had a more coherent exit strategy. A few short months later and people are chomping at the bit to insert themselves into a near peer potential nuclear confrontation over a country they just found on a map and just realized the blue and yellow flankers weren't also Russian ones. But I bet you understand decades of russian bitterness and resentment and have a perfect grasp of exactly how citizens of a totalitarian dictatorship are being brainwashed by their government. So let's go ahead and get super involved in the only place on earth that's a more reliable quagmire shitshow than the Middle East..

1.) We aren't proponents of sovereignty because we also violate it routinely without justification. Panama.... Iraq 2..... Syria...... So your point is simply an opinion. 2.) Believe it or not there's a vast population of people in the US that don't care about other wars people get involved in. It may be an interest to you but there are a lot of Americans that would question why their sons or daughters should have to bleed for another country. And if they bleed for another country, who is left to bleed for us when our security is threatened. If American citizens lives or freedoms are jeapordized (civilians) defending a foreign power, the US did not practice good stewardship of defending those lives or freedoms.

^ Man you really buy into that Russo-centric Manifest Destiny horseshit, don't you?

I've got to take issue with this one. I live on one of the bluer states and we've been pretty much open for the majority of Biden's term. Same is true down south in Cali. Yeah, we had mask & some vaccination mandates (ex. large events) which might've deterred a few people from participating in the economy, but by and large, the sports stadiums and concerts have been filled for a while now. And the reality is, despite rhetoric from both the current and last admins, individual states have far more control over this than the Presidential admin. I agree with much of the rest of your post, but I just don't understand why many continue to argue that we kept the economy shut down for so long when the reality is we were one of the first developed countries to start opening up.

While I don't lay all of the blame for our current situation at the feet of the Biden Administration, I think four big factors would have been very different had Trump won the election. Energy costs - Whatever you think about pipelines and the actual utility of the Keystone Pipeline, the Biden administration launched multiple executive orders at the energy industry which have most certainly impacted the price and availability of oil. The narratives are all over the place but when you attack pipelines, refineries and drilling, you are going to impact the price of oil. The administration is attempting to spin many of these issues like the 9,000 unused leases on federal land without admitting they are holding up many of those leases through lawsuits. Both sides are guilty and there are other factors like Putin going into Ukraine but ultimately Biden's policy has caused the price of oil to nearly doubled since he took office and most of that run up occurred well before Russia launched their attack. Continuing stimulus - Obviously we needed stimulus and support during a pandemic, but Biden continued to dump gasoline on what most knew was a raging fire. $1.9T in relief and payments kept people out of the workforce WAY longer than was needed. All that extra cash without workers available to produce goods caused a huge bubble of demand to surge through the economy. While the supply chain issues are not entirely Biden's fault, some of that blame does fall on the DNC and their unions, just look at the situation at the Long Beach Port. Crane operators making $250,000 a year refusing to work overtime in an emergency, refusing to allow non-union workers to help in an emergency and refusing to surge the port to 24 hour a day operations. I honestly think Trump would have federalized that operation, at least temporarily. I hope we learned our lesson on this one. COVID Lockdown Policy - Biden and his Uber left folks kept things closed WAY too long. The implications have had second and third order effects all across the economy. Fed Policy - While the Fed is meant to be an independent body they do seem to follow the lead of the President. They certainly did under Trump. The Fed COMPLETELY missed the boat on interest rates. They should have been slowly raising rates a year ago but they waited on perception of Biden and partially in response surging energy prices. Now that they are late to the game they are trying to fix everything all at once. When you signal four consecutive 50 basis point raises, the possibility of a 75 point basis raise, openly say interest rates should equal or exceed inflation and out right say the interest rate raises should be "front loaded", you again crush the economy. Most people don't realize the impact of increasing interest rates. Look at the report released today showing 1.4% GDP contraction, if you dig into the numbers you will see a decrease in home sales of over 1.5%. That will further crush the economy as fewer people buy appliances, building materials and other home upgrades. As my wealth advisor put it yesterday, they are going from creating inflation to completely putting out any fire related to the economy. As a frame of reference the U.S. Economy went from 6.9% in Q4 2021 to -1.4% in Q1 2022.

That’s a fair argument. But I will again posit that we have a far richer media environment than we ever have in the past. By richer, I mean more (LOTS more), not better. We have always been influenced, whether it be television networks, newspapers (Remember the Maine(?)), family, neighbors, political campaigns, etc. Conservatives really like to complain about the media environment lately and how it’s stacked against them. I just don’t buy it. There have never been more conservative media options than there are now. Fox News is as unabashedly biased in its editorial/infotainment coverage (think Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham) as anything from MSNBC or CNN and the Fox shows have the highest ratings by a large margin. If Democrats were just steamrolling Republicans in every election you might have a point, but it seems like Republicans are holding their own just fine. If they would spend some time vetting reasonable candidates who were actually capable of governance (vs just stoking outrage over Hillary’s emails, Hunter’s laptop, Pat’s preferred pronouns, etc) they might find a few more votes (including mine) because the Dems are a mess too & their only real advantage is that they haven’t stormed the Capitol yet & they’re not pushing insane conspiracy theories. In short, stop focusing so much on the supposed outrages of the other side & tell me what you’re actually for.

The fear of nuclear escalation will ALWAYS be there. However, at some point we'll have to face Russia and China and demonstrate where the line is. To me, Russia did us the favor by invading Ukraine. Now is the time to teach them a lesson. One that hopefully China pays attention to and learns at the same time. The West and the free world seem to be waking up to the fact that Russia and China are not our friends, and welcoming them into and allowing them to reap the benefits of the free world will do nothing to assuage them. Put simpler: F@&k Russia, and F@&k China.

Thanks to those at Vance and Columbus that came by to meet us. We even had one pilot that came in from another base a couple hours away to listen. Based on what I heard, there are still a lot of inaccurate beliefs about the U-2, so if someone tells you "you can't apply because of X", give us a call to verify that.

Exiting without a strategy, or any kind of intelligent plan apparently, is squarely on Biden. Turns out Trump didn't pull out without a strategy... Abandoning our most defensible position in the country, before everyone was out was a ridiculous idea.

Source? Patently and absurdly false. Sounds like something Charlie Kirk would say. Source? Sounds like a dumb idea, but we should avoid getting emotional.

Something has to be done to combat disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive information made by unreliable sources like Russian and Chinese troll farms. There are too many dumb people in this world who live in their disinformation echo chamber. There are limited exceptions to the First Amendment, and fraud is one of them. While all disinformation couldn't fall under the fraud exception to the First Amendment, there is a subset of disinformation that could. See https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3860211 for a better argument than I can give since I am not a lawyer. Your response is extremely emotional, especially with saying something like "the Constitution is Dead." Take a step back and put on an analytical lens. Not everything Biden does is an extremist "end of the Constitution action," and the same held true for Trump during his Presidency.