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IMHO supporting Ukraine has been and continues to be a wise decision. As of the end of November the U.S. has given $50B to Ukraine, with half of that being military aid. Our annual defense budget is currently at $725B. For just under 7% of a single year of defense budget we have helped humble a superpower, all without losing American soldiers, that my friends is a bargain! For at least the next 10 years Russia has been removed from the world stage as a conventional military threat and I believe it has given China something to think about, all without losing American lives. In many respects I would argue this has been our most effective proxy war. Russia may or may not ultimately win this war but the implications of it will shape Russia for a generation. The Russian military has lost significant amounts of equipment (and I guarantee there is a flood of captured equipment flowing to the U.S. for exploitation that will pay dividends for years.) The Oryx website reports 8,000 pieces of equipment destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured, including some 1,500 tanks, 700 armored fighting vehicles, and 1,700 infantry fighting vehicles. Bottomline, it will take years and huge amounts of $ to rebuild their military. The bigger impact is in casualties, the numbers are staggering. I obviously don't believe the published numbers from either Ukraine or Russia as they are always misstated. DoD and several think tanks have done independent assessments that seem to settle on 100,000 Russian Casualties with between 40,000-50,000 deaths. The demographics of those losses is staggering and touches every part of Russian society. A few data points to put it into perspective: 1. In 20 years of combat in Afghanistan there were 2.456 United States military deaths. 1,932 of these deaths were the result of hostile action. 20,752 American service members were also wounded in action during the war. 2. In 20 years of combat in Vietnam there were 58,148 were United States military deaths. 300,000 American service members were also wounded in action during the war. 3. In 20 years of combat in Iraq there were 4,431 were United States military deaths. 31,994 American service members were also wounded in action during the war. In a single year the Russians have suffered almost as many deaths as the U.S. did in 20 years of war in Vietnam. Additionally, Russia's population is less than half (143 Million versus 332 Million), this war has touch a large majority of families in Russia. Putin's ability to survive demonstrates his grip on power, but without success I don't think he will survive. War is terrible and this is no exception. But when you step back and look at the situation from the perspective of the Great Power game, this has been a huge win for us.

I can and it will just confirm what we already know...

You're right. And I don't know why you think I'm butt-hurt by it. I simply pointed out that... based on my experiences in both worlds... he hadn't seen it from both sides and wasn't in a position to make a valid observation. No emotion here. I don't know Brabus but have enjoyed reading his posts for many years. If your questions, Hindsight, are aimed at me, I'm sorry but I'm not willing to discuss the specifics of this event or my opinions on it. p.s. "notch/autochaff"? Know your audience. I'm a U-2 guy. In a defensive scenario, we put our fingers in our ears so the explosion of the missile impact doesn't give us hearing loss... which could affect our future airline employment.

Out of all this Covid stuff, my favorite part was back when that F-35 crashed on landing on the carrier and the narrative was the pilot said something like “damn vaccine!” That was some funny shit. Anyhow, back to your regular scheduled programming.

Those are all certainly at play, but follow the money and power; there are absolutely “elite” class members who are purposely pushing things a certain way via multiple lines of effort to increase one or both of those metrics for themselves and their class peers. It’s not really a conspiracy theory, as it’s written all over world history books as long as recorded history has existed. The problem is Americans are incredibly naive because they believe things like, “no way the US could ever have czars like Russia did,” or “no way our gov would do mass firearm confiscation as a precursor to the complete destruction of individual freedom…like has happened hundreds of times, every time, in history…hmmm.” Those things and everything else written in history can and will happen here if we let it. Americans need to stop being naive and lazy, else they are completely complicit in the destruction of our great country.

This is what worries me. “We have little data but we will swing hard left, decimate the economy, and ruin careers in the name of public safety.” The government has shown what it is capable of when there is a “crisis.” The infringement of individual liberties has placed a dangerous precedent for this country. We cannot just sit back and accept that we will just go full lockdown, liberties and the economy be damned, anytime there is a crisis because “we didn’t have SA.” Now, to be fair, other countries have had even more stringent restrictions (Germany, Japan, etc) but I expect better of the U.S.

I often wonder who the wizard is behind the curtain.........cause we all know it isn't Biden pulling the strings

You and I have agreed and disagreed on a lot, and I commended your ability to change your mind. But this part gets to the crux of the issue, and why I think your assessment is so wrong. The ability to make decisions in an environment of incomplete information is quite literally definitive of intelligence and leadership. There's a whole lot of people right now throwing their hands up in the air and saying " well we just didn't know," but that's bullshit. Part of the job is not knowing, and being able to accurately assess and communicate that lack of knowledge, and recognize that without perfect information, your ability to compel others should be equally limited. This is foundational stuff to the way our government was designed and is supposed to work. The "experts" lied. Flat out. I'm including using intentionally misleading language. There are plenty of examples in this thread. But worse than lying about things they knew (to cover their asses), they lied about what they didn't know. They did so because they knew we-the-people wouldn't have done what they commanded if it was based on a hunch. But it was, and unfortunately (as any real scientist would admit) when you act on a hunch, you'll be wrong more often than not. So the point isn't "we would have done things differently if we had better information." The point is "will we do things differently the next time we have a crisis with little available information?" Based on the experts skittering like cockroaches into the shadows to avoid responsibility, and a whole bunch of well-meaning Americans seeking to look the other way because their "team" was the one that got it so incredibly wrong, I'm not sure we've learned much at all. Maybe when the 2018-2019 babies hit their teenage years, and we see the devastation wrought by depriving them of the irreplaceable socialization training needed between the ages of 2-4, we will have that conversation. But saying "hey, you didn't know anything either, we were all in the dark" doesn't cut it. How you act in the dark is what matters... (giggity). Again, not directed specifically at you, but I think you're missing the point. It's not that they were wrong, it's what they forced us to do while they were (knowingly) wrong.

So true!

The Dems screwed themselves on this one. If they find Trump at fault and not Biden, then it only further supports the argument from the right about the DOJ not being fair, etc. If they find both at fault, then this will hurt the Dems and their argument that Biden was the adult in the room/returning non-corruption back to the WH. And if none of them are found at fault, then the left will be upset that Trump once again is found not be the bad man the left/media has made him out to be. But, is anyone really that surprised?

But Jan 6th is different…or something.

There is definitely a political faction that would like to further their means by consolidating federal power to lessen the efficacy of local efforts, and some of the covid measures were in line with that. There are definitely political factions in the US bemoaning that we didn’t enforce China-like lockdowns/tracking, which would further enable the federal government more control over more dependent subjects and benefits a few political elites; if you’re blind to that “wizard,” reevaluate.

Nah... Do you not believe in drug cartels? You seriously dont think people in the military "join or work together"? Conspiracies happen all the time, they are fundamental to the concept of society itself. Often we call it politics. Sure, the wizard behind the curtain concept is unrealistic. Its often groups of likeminded individuals who have convinced themselves they are the good guys and fall back to ends-justify-the-means philosophy.

Dudes, again, there’s no grand conspiracy. Occam’s razor - it’s always fog of war, happenstance, bad SA, and incompetence. Very very rarely is there an actual conspiracy. Over and over again throughout history this has been true. Being a military member you know full well how unorganized and grabasstic even our best institutions can be. Except Epstein definitely didn’t kill himself 😅, that’s the only recently conspiracy theory I unironically believe is true.

Maybe it's the written format on the forums, that makes inflection/tone difficult to put together. Apologies if I misread the incorrect inflection. Yeah my question was merely posted in the interest of keeping the conversation going for everybody; though I was genuinely interested in your perspective, since I know you're closer to the CAF than most on here. No worries though, I copy loud and clear you're not willing to discuss further. Cheers 🍺

Funny, I assumed he was talking about the Doublewide in Altus. 😉

You have 120 days from the ruling to register an SBR without paying the tax. You can only register pistols that were in your possession at time of ruling. So reality is you’re limited by how many lowers you have currently; legally limited by how many of those lowers are currently set up as pistols. Here are the FAQs from the ATF: https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/docs/undefined/faqfinalrule2021r-08f-correctedpdf/download FAQ Final Rule 2021r-08f - Corrected.pdf

all of this statement is not true. if the government/fauci didn't know, then why the urgent memo from fauci to censor the barrington declaration scientists? fauci and his thugs are the ones who doubled down and illegally broke the first amendment by colluding with social media to censor/block any viewpoint they deemed untrue. early on we knew masks didn't stop the spread. we quickly knew it was airborne transmission, but to this day i still see people whiping down surfaces. there's a HUGE coverup going on by the left/fauci/CDC/media talking heads....why is that? why did fauci lie in his congressional testimony about gain of function research? this was a huge power grab, and a few key government deep state power brokers knew exactly what was happening and exactly what they were doing.

I’ve been to Thailand as well 😬

Too many things are passed off as coincidence; I don’t believe in coincidence much anymore. But I sure as fuck believe in widespread and constant incompetence!

I saw a one-legged stripper pole dancing once.

Can you just imagine what will happen if the different special counsels find fault with one and not the other?

Apples and oranges. How do you claim "far greater risks" when you have no experience doing the warbird thing so that you can compare the two? You can't, so don't. Generically, there IS a pre-briefed decon plan with contracts. Generically, the Boss acts as an air traffic controller when he needs to and let's the parade progress as briefed.

I don't think the person you're quoting is the "triggered" one here 🙂

But that is not what is happening. 1. Biden's lawyers have been doing the searches for the past two months and apparently the lawyers doing the first two rounds of searches did not have a clearance. 2. When the AG knew about Trump's issues it was immediately leaked and released, but the AG sat on the Biden story for two MONTHS! Even more ludicrous, he knew about Biden' situation the day he stepped to the microphone and appointed a Special Counsel to investigate Trump's classified. How do you just hand-waive this away? Nuance is the word, I don't know when Trump's folks moved the classified to Mar Lago, if he was still President then legally it is a different situation as he was the de-classification authority. Again, I think that is a shitty defense and ultimately wrong but as it relates to the law he has a push-back argument. Regardless the records act would kick in and he should return everything. Biden's situation is far worse "legally", he was not the declassification authority, he broke the same records act, he had TSI/SCI unguarded in his garage for years, exponentially worse in my opinion as we don't know who had access to his garage, or his office space that was paid for by the Chinese. I am a fairness kind of guy, whatever you do, do it equally to both sides and for a great many years through multiple incidents of mishandled classified that simply has not happened, to say otherwise is pure tripe.

Do you think it is fair that Biden's attorney's should be the one doing the search? Fair would be the FBI raiding Biden's home and offices period dot.

AGREED! But guess what brother....it ain't! I have yet to see a load of FBI agents search all of Biden's properties. In fact, he was allowed to return to his home (a potential crime scene), AND THEY found MORE while he was there. Why are his attorneys being allowed to conduct the search...yet ANOTHER double standard you don't want to admit. Let him cook, with Biden's attorneys doing the search....oh you mean cook the books, I get it. The way you spin things, you might want to give up the flying gig and ask Jean-Pierre to step aside. 😆

IMHO, not as bad as is being made out and not the dog balls root cause. To me, the comms were overly descriptive vice directive a few times and definitely seemed to deviate from the brief. However, as we all know, you don’t just sled on in with zero SA because someone says something. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve switched up left/right, east/west, etc. Very sad deal all the way around.

And that’s the excuse you tell yourself to feel better. Despite this entire reply I disagree with, I will give credit to you changing your viewpoints over time. I am not including you personally (I know we had several back and forth in the past) in my above comment. In fact, you are the opposite of the people I described. To you’re overarching statement that it was pure guessing optimism with no info (paraphrasing), completely disagree. It was critical thinking based on observation, data (yes there was data that was rapidly coming out by summer, but it was suppressed heavily), and unemotional/logical thought process. Throughout the first 2 years tens of millions of people called it 100% time and again, they were labeled all sorts of things. No, it is not logical for you to argue all of them had no SA and just got lucky that they were completely right, it is logical they executed as stated above and everyone else made errors in judgement (trusted garbage lies, illogical arguments, etc.), thought processes, and allowed emotion to rule over logic. Zero stones cast at those who came around and acknowledged what had transpired.

Cliffs notes?

“Hey we’re going to invade your country, but if you try to fight us in our country we’ll be BIG MAD.” Lol…that’s not the statement you put out when you’re winning. Slava Ukraini!

Well they were much more so before they voluntarily destroyed a large chunk of their armed forces and young male population attempting in vain to annex a neighboring country that decided instead, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” 🇺🇦 But if you don't actually think a leader like Putin with the energy and military power of a country like Russia was a threat to the U.S. in any way and that we shouldn't happily assist them with stepping on every rake and landmine in Ukraine for pennies on the dollar...I don't know what to tell ya. $48B to Ukraine out of $6.3T in federal expenditures in 2022 is 0.7%. To help significantly kneecap one of our biggest geopolitical opponents. It would be a bargain at 10x the cost! Literally, if we could kneecap the Chinese military and oppressive CCP leadership in the same way and essentially guaranteed unfettered US & allied global dominance for a generation + for $1T and zero American lives lost, I would sign the check myself.

I think there's a legitimate Arsenal of Democracy case to me made on top of the realpolitik aspect. It just feels damned nice, for once in the past seventy years or so, to be on the side of a no shit more or less democratic and free people who are more than willing to put their own asses in the firing line on behalf of their country. We've spent trillions and tens of thousands of American lives in defense of people who couldn't find the will to fight for their country with two hands and a map. What a cruel joke it would be if we gave the Afghans our support for twenty years but couldn't be bothered to help Ukraine.

Let me know when a major global competitor starts getting their ass handed to them by Nigeria. We're not funding Ukraine because we love Ukraine. We're funding Ukraine because it is a unique opportunity to significantly degrade a major global competitor.

Look man, I agree the ad hominem was uncalled for (as it is in any environment). But your comparison is BS. Have you ever seen a seatbelt disclaimer in an automobile manual, warning people that it may not protect them in a collision? Have you ever seen an alcoholic beverage container tell people that driving after drinking it is just fine? Because here's the thing. Any surgical mask container you pick up ever since it became popular post COVID has a disclaimer about how it is not tested to protect against COVID 19 on the side. I'll say it again. If you want to mask up, go for it. The evidence for it is...not great. Therefore, it should not be mandated in normal medical settings in view of its downsides for medical treatment and communication.

Rules for thee, but not for me…

Nah bro, says that you oversimplify things significantly into right or wrong, black or white. You have become what you criticize, and you all wonder why folks stopped commenting back. The forum turned significantly more into an echo chamber the last year, which has been nice for you guys, but doesn’t necessarily represent reality. We all, right now, have the benefit of knowledge we did not have when decisions were being made. Your debrief choice (i can’t really call it a loop) is that we all made and then executed the wrong decisions in the beginning of the pandemic, and that “we” have doubled and tripled down and screeched the entire time. But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020. For example, we now know mRNA vaccines are entirely ineffective at stopping transmission - we were hopeful they would be very effective. Didn’t know that. We now know that we’re looking at a significantly lower mortality variant with significantly higher spread - the first variant spread slower but had a mortality rate about 10 times higher pre-vaccine. Didn’t know when that was coming. We know that COVID is airborne. Didn’t know that, remember folks sanitizing everything? We know how to test for it, and we know generally how long folks are contagious. We understand mortality risks much more completely now (fat and old). We did not know any of these things with significant certainty for a long time. You’ll also note that many folks on here changed our minds on many policies as more data emerged. As folks got vaccinated and mortality decreased and transmission reduction efforts clearly failed, many folks like me changed our opinions. We built SA and made decisions with said SA. You can demonize that, if you want, but it’s a pretty rough take. If your point is that in the absence of proof, we should be optimistic, fine, that’s your philosophy. But it doesn’t mean those that wanted to be conservative in the face of unknowns are inherently wrong and/or evil. In fact, you literally can’t prove that those efforts didn’t save significant lives (bang your head against the wall on that one, if you want). For the record, I think that masks and vaccine requirements now should be entirely removed in society with the exception of elderly care or hospitals. We should have gotten rid of it over a year ago for the military. There is more nuance to how decisions have to be made and opinions should be formed than you give credit.