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"Assault on the Constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty?" Since when did forcing conservative Christian values on the populace as a whole in a nation with freedom of religion count as "the American ideas of freedom of liberty?" If anything, forcing religious ethical and moral opinions on the entire nation is an assault on the Constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty. Christians then take the Bible and basically any passage and warp it with twisted logic to support their claims that the Bible sees life as starting in the womb. You can basically interpret anything in the Bible exactly the way you want to support whatever argument you are making. This leads to a lifestyle where Christian women go get an abortion, then turn around and scream about others who do the same. You see it all the time, and it's quite pathetic. I always laugh when I see somebody say "we murdered X amount of babies." I truly think nobody really believes that having an abortion is equivalent to killing a 1-month old baby. Show a video of a woman having an abortion, and then show a video of somebody murdering a 1-month old baby. Which is going to garner a stronger reaction across the vast majority of people? You don't truly believe that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murdering a baby who is out of the womb. If you really believe that a person is made at conception, then put your money where your mouth is. Start supporting research that helps stop miscarraige, because there are nearly 1 million of those every year where "people" end up dying. If you regard abortion as murder, then you would support first degree murder sentences for 1 in 4 American women who end up getting abortions by the age of 45. I hope that's not your wife, your daughter, your grand daughter, or anybody you hold close. I hope I can start taking out life insurance policies on my newly conceived "person." If you kill a pregnant woman, it better be a double homicide. If you skip out on a woman while she is pregnant? Better start to pay child support while their "person" is in their first trimester. The list goes on and on with the implications of calling a fetus a "person" at conception. If you want all that, then more power to you I guess. That's not the type of society I want to live in.

I refer you to the FBI's deliberate misuse of the FISA legal system. Not just against people in Trump's orbit, but just American citizens. I refer you to several NSA programs that look at US citizens communications that deliberately circumvented the "legal review" system in place. I refer you to the IRS' targeting of Tea Party entities in the early 2000s. I refer you to the CIA's spying on Americans in the 1950s/60s/70s. I refer you to the DoD's program to monitor the social media of service members today. I can go from today back to the John Adams Administration and the Sedition Act of 1800 with such examples of the government not being trustworthy and stifling wrong think. But sure, you rail against the enemy of "white, Christian, conservative men" and trust the government. A) Let me know how that works for ya and B) that is a great gig if you can be the one deciding.

Am I under arrest officer or am I free to go? Dissecting words here like I’m on trial, good grief. Yes, I, nsplayr of BO.net do hereby once and for all condemn violent protests/riots/insurrections that damage government (or private!) buildings, hurt cops (or innocent bystanders!) and especially which attempt to change government policy via violence, regardless of who participates. In case it was for some reason unclear based on me previously saying I feel “strongly negative” toward these events and “don’t support” them 🙄 Do you feel the same about Jan 6th, 2021? How about the Bundy Standoff? I’m mainly talking there about the 2016 incident in Oregon. How about bombing abortion clinics, the Oklahoma City federal building, or the Nashville Christmas Day bombing? My take: they’re all bad! Violence in the name of domestic political aims or insane political conspiracy theories is bad and people who do it are bad and should be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted if guilty.

That unborn baby also infringes in the rights of the mother, and physically drains the mother for resources in order to grow, and can cause adverse health impacts on the mother. If you were faced with the decision to save either her or the unborn baby, which would you choose? It's a choice with no good or right answer.

Pile on: and I know the court's job isn't to take political fallout or public opinion into account when writing/timing their decisions, but Jesus Christ can we just get out of our own way for once? All you have to do is be less crazy than the people who think 5 year olds need hormone blockers, but fuck that let's alienate 70% of women in an election year. That'll work out great I'm sure

There's an unavoidable and fatal flaw to your approach, i.e. when "operatives" (trolls) promulgate true things. What then? Are you going to ban the actual truth because it's promoted by someone who has been classified as a troll? As soon as you adapt your approach, they'll adapt theirs. They'll sock-puppet the truth and now you're going to be on record suppressing it! Have fun with that. If something is true, it's true - it makes no difference who or what says it. No, the futile thing is to attempt to control something that is so slippery as speech. If there is misinformation out there, there is information out there that can and will refute it. Sorry, this is a bad idea all the way down.

I disagree and think an objective mind would look at the emails, the pictures, the money and the testimony from folks who were there and at the very lease arrive at the conclusion that this needs to be investigated, not suppressed. I think a non-partisan investigation MUST happen. I 100% agree but we have seen the press become completely bifurcated along partisan lines. The press (on both sides of the aisle), rather than act as the 4th estate has turned into a cheerleader for each political candidate. Honestly I expect political parties to act stupid, but I never thought the press would be such a failure, we REALLY need them acting as a check on power to keep our system viable. I agree here as well, I voted for Trump both times, VERY reluctantly the second time. He is a narcissistic ass clown but many (not all), of his policies were working and I was very concerned about the uber-liberal wing of the DNC controlled power and driving decisions like they are able to do with Biden. I hope Trump doesn't run again, I fear he will and he is doing great damage to the GOP and ruining a chance for them to be a moderate party more in the middle. This Roe V Wade fiasco isn't going to help matters either. Of course, that is the foundation of our country, we can discuss dissenting view, sometime very passionately. We may yell at each other and vehemently disagree but I am not going to commission a hit man to kill you and your family to eliminate your opinion. Can you imagine some of these discussions in Russia or China? An interesting generalization. Numerous studies have shown a decline in adherence to religion in our country and I think that translates to the military as well, likely because we hold a range of beliefs that don't nest exclusively in party. I consider myself a Republican, but many in the party would disown me because I believe in abortion (51% vote in favor in my pear brain mainly because of women's rights, it is abhorrent but I have ZERO right telling a woman what to do with her body), I am in favor of gay rights and gay marriage (I could care less what you do in your own home and I truly want EVERYONE to be happy). I agree. It is probably obvious the laptop absolutely enrages me. There is so much circumstantial evidence but NO ONE on the left (including you and other more liberal folks on this forum), can take a minute to honestly say yeah that doesn't smell right, we need the truth.

We are saying the same thing. As most know USAF bet the enterprise on 5th gen (for good reason), in the middle of a war with dudes running around Afghanistan with AK-47s and IEDs. The real damage occurred during the fight between Gates v Moseley/Wynne. At that point ATF had been a program of record for 20 years and they wanted to see it through because they saw the long-term threat and the absolute need for 5th gen if we were going to fight/deter China and Russia. Gates was focused on the now (again for good reason), young men and women were being blown up everyday and Gates wanted drastic action and response to stop the damage. Forcing USAF to field 100+ orbits of RPA manned at 9:1 gutted the Air Force in both personnel and treasure. We never got credit (or resourcing), for using up 20+ years of a modern Air Force flying two No-Fly zones over Iraq. In the environment the Air Force made some tough (often Sofie's Choice), type resourcing decisions that ultimately cost CSAF and SECAF their jobs. As such we kicked the AWACS can down the road, we kicked the JSTARS can down the road, we kicked the CSAR can down the road, we kicked the nuclear enterprise can down the road and we kicked the tanker can down the road. Now all the cans are rusted and need to be replaced in what would have been a decreasing fiscal environment (if not for Ukraine), and at a time when were are trying to field large numbers of the most expensive procurement program in the history of DoD. All of that being said, just because we have to make tough decisions doesn't give permission to make hasty faulty decisions. Does Wedgetail takeoff and land more often that the E-3, yup but not as often as it should and more importantly not as often as other options. I say again, the Aussies are having a TERRIBLE time with Wedgetail, as are the South Koreans...to the point South Korea is going to buy something else! Is anyone paying attention? Air Force seniors reference commercial fleet reliability rates when they talk about Wedgetail "90+% reliability rate" when the Aussies and Koreans are seeing 60% on their Wedgetails, some issues so severe they only fly at night. There are options that fly faster, higher, further with a MUCH better radar that could be on the ramp in about the same time as Wedgetail but we are so myopic we can't take an honest look. The Air Force is acting like an 18 year old who spent years struggling to catch a glimpse of side boob through the neighbors window. Miraculously he got laid by the fat chick down the street and now he is in love, he can't see anything else and wants to get married because it never felt so good. Forget the fact that he got into the University of Alabama with some of the dumbest yet hottest nymphomaniac blondes in the nation. I hope something changes, I hope they use the decision space to make a choice that solves the immediate problem while providing for the future. And yes, the maintainers are magicians, unsung heroes who have made us all look good for many many years.

Open source suggests that the strike was however successful in taking out MG Simonov, their Chief of EW, and who—based on the fact that he couldn’t prevent collection assets from locating and passing along the coordinates for himself and the Chief of the General Staff to Kyiv—was not doing a particularly stellar job.

Reports of a Ukrainian strike a few days ago that hit a command post and killed approximately 200 Russians including a few more General Officers. Also reported that same strike missed Russian General Aleksandr Dvornikov by less than 30 minutes. He is the new commander of the Ukrainian invasion and in Putin's close circle. Russian loses are severe and have been mounting, to the point the Russians are reportedly doing a second mobilization. Ukrainian intelligence uncovers covert mobilisation of the unemployed and "Cossacks" underway in Russia. Total numbers are still unknown but estimated at over 10,000 soldiers killed. With fairly high confidence it has been reported Russia has lost at least 700 main battle tanks, a significant number.

You can’t bring an insider in, they’ll see the big board!

Justice Alito's draft opinion on abortion is a courageous gift to American children Ashley McGuire Tue, May 3, 2022, 3:38 PM Are we really shocked that the draft opinion in the most significant Supreme Court case in 50 years was leaked? We certainly should be, as the leak is, to quote legal scholar Carter Snead, a “shocking act of betrayal and a breathtaking breach of ethics.” To those who don’t follow Supreme Court politicking closely, the leak matters because it is an act of corruption of the highest order, one that appears to have been done to exert political pressure on the justices to change their opinions. The justices represent the one branch of government that was designed to be independent of political pressure. The leaker strikes at the heart of the American system of government and its design. Yet, the leak feels more like the death rattle of a movement that has fought to keep decisions about how to regulate abortion out of the American people's hands for generations. Alito demonstrates legal courage The leak also is a misfire. If anything, the leak has given the American people a preview of the kind of constitutionalism that voters crave and a glimpse of the legal courage we have yearned for. The draft opinion’s greatest gift is its clarity. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” writes Justice Samuel Alito. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” The fight over abortion has raged precisely because the court, both in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, hijacked the issue from the American voters and left the lower courts and legislatures with an illegible road map for implementation. Perhaps the greatest thing to be feared from a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was another muddled opinion full of lofty language and lacking legal clarity that would have dragged out the years of legalized abortion for many decades more. Supreme Court opinion drafts do not leak: Abortion may be at risk but so is court's sanctity. The fight over abortion has raged precisely because the court, both in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, hijacked the issue from the American voters and left the lower courts and legislatures with an illegible road map for implementation. That legacy has gnawed away at the fabric of our culture and has wormed its way into nearly every issue in politics. We need a clean break from Roe, and the leaked opinion gives us the way to make that break. Draft opinion dismantles legal arguments for abortion The opinion dismantles with great precision the many sagging lies that have upheld Roe for nearly half a century. It obliterates the viability standard, for example, as an arcane one founded on rusty science and on weak moral reasoning. It soundly rejects the notion that stare decisis protects bad law forever and quotes from countless scholars on the left to make the case. And it rebukes the assertion that societal reliance on a bad law is grounds for permanence, pointing out that the same reasoning is what the court first used when it "blessed racial segregation." But perhaps most notable is the courage that undergirds the writing. Justice Alito writes: “We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.” If the leakers think that a man who writes like this and the justices who stand boldly behind his words will be kowtowed by the wails of the elite, by the theatrics of red capes and by angry hashtags, then they betray their own blind desperation. Nonetheless, the leak has given Americans the gift of seeing the truth come tearing out of the halls of justice. It’s truth we are ready for. And it's truth we desperately need if we are to begin the work of building up a culture where women can truly flourish without curtailing the civil rights of an entire class of people.

I’m not quite sure what happened on April 3rd, but ok 😅 *If* hypothetical protestors do storm federal buildings, beat up cops and attempt to overturn the working of our government via violence, I’ll be first in line to condemn them! I would not say what Newsome said, next time @ him rather than me. But none of that has happened; Jan 6th, 2021 did happen, and rightly some of those who took part are now being held accountable. As far as the future goes, who knows, but it never fails that…

Not true. Science says that at conception it is a unique life form. Life doesn’t begin by passing through the female reproductive organ.

Not a dodge at all and brother and thanks, you just proved my point. When life begins has NOT been settled, certainly not in the court, but you automatically default to it is life and it is aborted out of convenience because that is YOUR moral belief. The only court settled opinion (Stare Decisis), on Abortion was Roe V Wade.

Honest question to Demonrat. Since the SCOTUS decision was illicitly leaked does that story comprise disinformation now that should be suppressed? Why isn't the media suppressing this like the Hunter Biden laptop or the Hilary Clinton emails? Shouldn't this be wiped from record until the election like those stories were?

Hugely disagree. The self implosion was well in progress until our genius justices handed the left the ultimate weapon to salvage their midterm and 2024 chances. This is a watershed moment wrt the Supreme Court and will be viewed by a statistical majority of people as a regressive move. It's not like this is a new issue or the right's scotus majority was going away any time soon, so why now? The timing is absolutely suicidal.

The left literally now says that men can also have abortions…

As a man, sometimes I don't feel like I have a dog in this fight but just maybe all of those people saying that abortion should be legal should avail themselves of the many safe, effective birth control methods out there. I mean if you are too damned lazy to use a condom or the Pill or whatever but going and getting an abortion is less of a hassle, WTF? Or maybe be just a tad bit more selective about when and with whom you have sex? I thought they wanted abortion to be safe, legal, and rare... If it were so, not so much pushback, eh?

Let them cry about it and self implode. We have heard the tired old “republicans are waging a war against women” for over a decade now. Doubt it will sway midterm elections which have little to do with Supreme Court rulings.

The initial ruling by the court in Roe V. Wade was totally ridiculous. The court used the excuse that science hadn't demonstrated that the fetus was a human person (the word fetus actually means "child" or "offspring") and stated that if science/medicine ever established that, their ruling would and should be reversed as the baby would be protected by the 14th amendment. This was definitely not "activist" and is valid and should have been ruled correctly in 1973. We've murdered 61 million babies in the U.S. since that ruling. The most shameful thing we as a nation have ever done (and we've done plenty of other stuff). No doubt the left will use this ruling as an excuse to continue their assault on the constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty.

this is...uhhhh...rich.

I saw the physical whiteboard with hundreds of pucks at the CAOC complete with every color of the rainbow and then different styled lines because the poor tanker patch would run out of colors and have to make more creative solutions when they had >40 lines a day. I remember them trying to make a computer program to schedule tankers and, at least by my last deployment in 2017, it was nowhere near working.

NGB A1 typically sends a courtesy copy of the approval to A3 as a heads up, but your unit and/or local training shop needs to submit the request to A3

Actually your statement is BS. Copy Gadget Bent, Screw it...Fox Three anyway!

What are your feelings on BLM riots & ANTIFA attacks on federal buildings in Portland?

Nah, don’t think this is a widely held opinion (72% of Dems don’t support third trimester abortion) https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/06/25/majority-of-americans-support-abortion-poll-finds---but-not-later-in-the-pregnancy/amp/ I think the majority of women don’t want to go through pregnancy for a baby they don’t want to care for.

Kind of hard if you’re 7 months pregnant and wanting an abortion (that’s what the left wants btw)…usually women show quite a bit by then. But…the point remains—I want to know who actually would think an abortion is better than having a baby and giving it up for adoption. I know there are those on the far left who love sharing their abortion stories, but personally I wouldn’t want to be even be acquaintances with someone whose moral compass told them that an abortion is better than adoption. Note—I am arguing this from a moral point of view. As I’ve said many times before, if you’re a Libertarian and you believe that an abortion should be available up until the moment of delivery then I’ll respect you for your consistency. If not, well then you’re not really for personal freedom, rather you just are pro-abortion.

CH. the my body my choice is a false argument. The baby isn’t a part of her body, just inside of her. So if your beliefs are that you can murder, rape, steal, do heavy drugs, drink and drive, etc then we should all bow down because they are your beliefs? Not how our constitution works. How it does work however is that every individual is important and has rights. This argument is about whether the unborn babies have rights. Not if a woman has a right to kill something inside her that is alive.

Regardless of how one feels on abortion itself, this will likely strategically backfire on Republicans/Conservatives. Roe v Wade to the left is like the second amendment to the right, and all the stops are going to come out to spin this against conservatives. Also many moderates in this country were fine with the status quo. Look at the polling, 60% of Americans did not want to see Roe v Wade overturned, despite what their personal views on abortion were. All the shit going wrong in this country right now and reversing Roe v Wade is what conservatives are going to hang their hat on as a midterm approaches. Absolutely moronic; thank you Bible Belt southern states (and I live in one), for bringing this to the forefront at such a crucial time.

The problem is the government continues to show a willingness to break the law and do what ever the F they want. Breaking today The CDC reportedly monitored the location data of millions of phones

Nice dodge, but as I said, it's a difficult position to stake out morally that someone should be allowed to abort a life because they find it convenient. I invite you to make that case as opposed to avoiding the subject. And to your point about it being "my" morals or "your" morals being used to regulate society, guess what, you were born into a society and culture that is riddled with rules and laws that came from someone else's moral code. So I find this argument disingenuous on its face. I know you don't agree with every law that is written - neither do I. That's not an argument either for or against abortion.

If there's one thing I learned from reading Ibrahim Kendi's book on antiracism, it's that anything that has a disparate impact on minorities regardless of intent or cause is inherently racist.

You don’t have to tell your parents, in-laws, or anyone else about an abortion. Adoption, not so much.

So in a country based on freedom we are going to regulate based on YOUR morals and beliefs, not mine, YOURS. It is just too convenient for a woman to control her own body, YOUR morals get to dictate her body and moral choices. Line up everyone and get your mandatory vaccine, I believe it is the morally right thing for YOU to do. Next it will be against your morals to kill animals and eat meat - everyone gets to be a vegan. I am going to tread very carefully here but I would invite you and others to read Freakanomics. The authors attempt a purely statistical analysis of the impact of political and social decisions. They present some rather compelling (and disturbing), data that shows a drop in crime rate aligned directly to abortion. They go fairly deep and show a drop in crime in each state based on the date abortion became legal in that state. The insinuation is the aborted were that bad part of the population...yes a horrific argument. I think what they are actually trying to say is those on the lower end of the economic spectrum have a fewer support mechanisms that lead to them being productive members of society. Again, a very clinical and sad observation. What we do know is that minorities resort to abortion at a FAR greater rate. As an example the abortion rate for African American women is FIVE times that of white women.

Pros/cons to everything. I’ll say it depends more on personal preference but isn’t universally bad. Personally I’ve never had a bad experience with passengers, and the interactions keep things less mundane. People watching can be fun, especially the Friday night flights to Vegas and Monday morning flights out of there. Cheesy too, but I actually appreciate when kids do things like wave from the terminal or want to check out the cockpit…reminds me of how I decided I wanted to fly in the first place. Only thing that undoubtedly sucks is having to pay attention to when the seatbelt sign is on or off and (at least in the Guppy) how the weather is in the back…

Justifiable homicide has a long precedent of legality. Reasonable belief of death or grievous bodily harm. I think an outright ban on all abortion would be an easy slam dunk legal victory to overturn. CH is correct though. This is going to get very ugly.

Incorrect, 25 states will likely immediately pass laws banning abortion in half the country...some of them on VERY slim majorities. When making the states rights argument I assume you are universal in that belief? Individual states can outlaw guns or stop minorities form voting, I mean who needs the Supremacy Clause? Lets base the whole thing on states rights, the strategy argued by the southern slave owning states. Yes we are a republic but some on brother...very shaking ground.

I think his point is..... Take cavalry vs tanks in WW1. Cavalry charged into tanks and died, and a lot of leaders recognized the era for cavalry was over. But the AF sat on their swivel chair and said "nah..... Out cavalry just aren't fast enough to reach the tanks before they get shot, we need faster cavalry!" And so they spend millions of dollars investing in breeding and stock selection and breed 10% faster cavalry. Send them to battle, and they still get slaughtered. So then the AF said "well clearly they still aren't fast enough! Let's make a new generation that's even faster!" And they invested more millions into equine genetic research and genome mapping and cloned some cavalry that were 5% faster. Then sent them into battle and they all got slaughtered. And rather than realize the age of cavalry was over, the AF said, "ok industry, we are serious, faster cavalry is a requirement, what do you have out there?" But at the end of the day.... It was never about the horses speed, it was about recognizing that tanks offset the playing field and we needed something new to replace the cavalry, not just better cavalry. That's sort of what I see happening with the E-7. The AF is convinced it just needs a better or newer AWACS. It may not recognize that with modern fighter sensors, the entire concept of the AWACS may not be needed, and may be a liability. There is potentially something else that provides C2 functions but in a different manner than airborne crews and surveillance.

The Air Force has a vested interest in making sure non HPOs (it’s still a thing, even without BPZ and school selects) keep thinking they have a chance so that they actually do work and help retention numbers. Can you imagine actually giving a junior FGO feedback to the likes of “you’re bottom 50% in terms of records, you probably won’t go to school, maybe you’ll make 0-5 but probably not command, but hey keep flying for me when you can make 3x or more at the airlines and not deal with my BS in the guard.” It would make the decision to punch that much easy. While I do believe in honest, 360* feedback, a fly only track (without a 20 year ADSC) with a +100k (per year) bonus may stop the bleeding but that’s a pipe dream. Pilot shortage isn’t politically popular to address and our congressmen own the purse. I stayed in because I love what I do and the AF has been good to me personally but I have zero question on why most of my bros decide to punch when the writing is on the wall.

The NGB emailed my recruiter, my recruiter then emailed me.

You don't say. Who would have thunk it.

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.

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.

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.

Let's be honest, you have no mandate or idea what the average Russian does or doesn't think.

The National interest is not having aggressor countries walking into another one just because they feel like their empire was aggrieved thirty years ago. You know, the whole national sovereignty thing we’ve mostly held down since 1945.

I got hammered at the Hope Hotel restaurant on Halloween night after I failed my FC1. The bartender gave me a free drink because all the locals were dressed up in Halloween costumes partying and I was sitting at the corner of the bar solo in a sweatshirt and sweatpants with my hood up. I ended up going back a month later and passed, the bar tender remembered me and we both took a shot together to celebrate.

I find it hard to believe that the units who are receiving 150-200 applications have had 150-200 visitors in preparation of the board. The unit that hired me didn't look at apps under PCSM of 80 and STRONGLY recommended a visit. So that has to eliminate a huge chunk right off the bat. Then remove all those apps over an 80 PCSM for folks who didn't visit unless they have some sort of crazy life experience and had a 4.0 GPA in mechanical engineering at MIT (or something) or are prior service. There was only 1 or 2 guys on my board who interviewed out of 20 that didn't visit prior to the board and one of them was a prior enlisted that worked at Edward's in flight test in some capacity. Pair all of that with the fact that probably 6% to 9% of the apps are folks who love the idea of becoming a military pilot and haven't even started the process or don't have a degree or have no life experience. Go visit. Make connections. Fix your short comings. It took me 3 years to get hired by the unit of my dreams. I visited 4 times over 2 years and they were located across the county for me. I spent thousands of dollars of dollars i DIDNT have so i could know the pilots at my unit. I changed my life to make this happen - if you want it bad enough you can too. The ones who don't get hired are the ones who quit - and if they quit applying for a slot they probably would have probably quit UPT too. Cheers guys and best of luck! I hope this helps.