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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arkansas-state-senator-asks-transgender-pharmacist-if-she-has-penis-committee-hearing Funny as this may seem, it's crazy that they want to give children the legal ability to make decisions about permanent changes to their bodies. I couldn't get a sweet barbed wire tattoo when I was 12 (thank God) because the age limit was 18. We can't even buy beer in this country until we're 21. If we're going to start letting children make adult decisions about their sex, then why stop there? Give 12 year olds their drivers licenses and let them get tattoos. Let them buy beer and cigarettes. Make them file tax returns as well. Even better, don't punish adults for banging minors, afterall the children are mature enough to say yes or no to a sex change. How is it any different from making a decision to get your sex changed? I don't care what an adult does to their body but for the love of God, leave the children alone.

What does that have to do with the violently liberal shut-up-and-comply agenda that's clearly being implemented by our elected officials...predominately democrats? Trump is a raging twit. Fact. Stop saying his name like it's some kind of defense or excuse for the horrific policies of the current administration. Our current administration has exacerbated or outright caused complete failures in America's economy, foreign policy, military readiness, immigration policy, border security, energy and transportation management, trust in our healthcare system, and faith in our baseline governing civics. The former president had nothing to do with ANY of that.

And one could say the former president had the most successful 3 years of any precidency and ushered the country into an amazing unparalleled prosperity which the current presidency has destroyed. Our country is alot worse off right now than it has been since Carter. And worse than then.

Boomer6, I’ve had to fight with finance and A staff regarding per diem at deployed locations where Airmen were billeted in contracted hotels off base but incorrectly authorized GMR. A dining facility is considered not available when government lodging on a US installation is not available. Therefore, locality meal rate is paid. It doesn’t matter if you eat a dining facility or not, even if they don’t charge you. If they put you off base, you get full per diem. Straight out of the JTR. Linked and pasted at the bottom of the post below the cut line. Appropriate items underlined. Story time. Long ago, I was tasked to stand up a Det at an overseas airport that didn’t have lodging on post. So about 100 of my closest friends and I were billeted at the Radisson Blue. Our orders were correctly written with full M&IE. After a couple weeks of working alongside transient MX deployed to a different unit, I found out they were only authorized GMR even though they were billeted off base in the same hotel as we were. About $100 per day difference. Almost $20k per maintainer for the length of their deployment They were all going broke eating off post, where a hamburger and a coke cost $35, or they had to take the hour long bus ride to base to eat at the DFAC. To top it off, they only provided transportation to the base at noon and midnight. So even on their day off, they had to spend all day on base. I felt terrible for these guys and spoke to their CC, gave himthe reference and was assured he would fix it. His fix was to file an IG complaint against me and get aircrew banned from the DFAC. After a protracted fight with finance, A4 and the IG, common sense prevailed and the maintainers were paid what they were owed. This had been going on for years, hundreds of airmen were incorrectly paid GMR when they were owed thousands more. To my knowledge, finance only corrected the vouchers and orders for the airmen deployed with me but subsequent deployments found the maintainers billeted at a nearby base with adequate facilities and then transported to the airport for duty each shift. Buenos ————————————————————————————————————- https://media.defense.gov/2022/Jan/04/2002917147/-1/-1/0/JTR.PDF#page55 JTR pg 2-34 D. Government Dining Facilities. A Government dining facility is available only when the Government quarters or ILP facility on the U.S. installation to which the Service member is assigned TDY are adequate and available. Government facilities should be used to the maximum extent possible. 1. Use of the Government dining facility must be directed in the travel authorization. The authorization must state when a Service member is to receive the PMR or GMR. Otherwise, the locality meal rate is paid. Schoolhouse training or other excepted circumstance may impact meal rate payable. 2. A dining facility is considered not available: a. When Government lodging on the U.S installation is not available. b. On travel days. c. When an AO determines that: (1) The use of the Government dining facility adversely affects mission (2) There is excessive distance between the Government dining facility and places of (3) Transportation is not reasonably available between the Government dining facility and places of duty or lodging. (4) Duty hours and Government dining facility operating hours are incompatible. 3. When a travel authorization directs the use of a Government dining facility for TDY travel and it is not available, a traveler must provide a statement of non-availability explaining which meals were not available and why, to receive reimbursement. The reason for non-availability must be acceptable to and approved by the AO. Once approved, the travel authorization must be modified to document the change in meal rate. 4. An organization may not treat TDY members as permanent party by providing Government meals in a dining facility at no charge. A TDY member pays for meals in the Government dining facility except in the following circumstances: Essential Unit Mess, field duty, sea duty, members traveling together with no reimbursement or Joint Task Force Operations. See the DoD Financial Management Regulation, Vol. 7A, Chapter 25.

Medical experts, Intel experts, border experts....seems to be a recurring theme on one side of the aisle.

There are a whole lot of "medical experts" that need a good bitch slap and told to just shut the fuck up next time.

Let me give you an example of the bullshit dealt with just this week. For context, the member is activated stateside, but away from home. This is real life in the military... Finance: Sir, one of your members has an unauthorized purchase on his GTC. Me: What did he buy? *thinking this dude went to a strip joint* Finance: He bought a fishing license with his GTC. Me: *OK this dude clearly isn't as cool as I thought, but fishing is fun too...just not as fun as strippers* Me: *laughs then thinks....oh shit, this guy is serious.* Me: Does he have per diem to cover it? Finance: Yes. Me: Ok, then what's the problem? Finance: It's not an authorized purchase location? Me: Can I authorize it as his CC? Finance: Ummm.... Me: I mean, the dude could have done a cash advance for the same amount, right? Finance: Yes Me: Then he could have walked from that ATM with said cash and bought said item, right? Finance: Yes Me: ...and that's authorized? Finance: Yes Me: ...............silence.......... Finance: ............silence............ Me: the why the fuck are we having this conversation? Finance: The purchase location on his GTC isn't authorized. Me: But an ATM at the same location would have been fine? Finance: Yes sir. Me: *stares through phone muthafuckingly* Me: How much are we talking here. Finance: $25 dollars. Me: $%$%#&#*#((# Finance: Sir? Me: OK, what do you need? Finance: I need this form filled out, which requires an investigation. Me: WTF? Over $25, that is more than covered by his per diem? Finance: Yes sir...we have to have it for the auditors. Me: Can I just send you a memo that says it's good to go? Finance: No sir, the auditor requires this form. Me: Sure, I'll just clear my schedule of that unimportant shit like flying and launch an investigation into this great travesty that will certainly bankrupt the AF! Finance: Is that some kind of joke, we weren't issued a sense of humor at finance school (ok, that part might be made up...10% rule applies). So I spent a morning "investigating" a $25 purchase, where my comments were a veiled, I can't believe you made me do this and this is basically fraud waste and abuse of my time. Meanwhile, at DAL... Stuck out in a wx event where I can't get ahold of anyone from the company, and without any approvals/questions/forms filled out (gasp). I slap my credit card down for 2 cabs and 5 hotel rooms for the crew at the nicest hotel I can find. On the way to the airport the next day, I file the receipts with a note saying that we got stuck and I procured transportation/lodging for my crew. I was never questioned and paid out within a few days. Crazy talk, I know!

From where it isn't.

Follow up on a post I made 10 years ago... about an event that took place 17 years ago. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/killer-at-70000-feet-117615369/ Dave Russell was instrumental in this event while he was the U-2 squadron commander. Dave was laid to rest a couple hours ago. He died much too young following a 4-year fight with Multiple Myeloma... a plasma cell cancer. Dave owned HighFlyer Arms, a specialty gun store in Warrenton Virginia, and I believe the family will keep the store going. https://www.highflyerarms.com/ To Super Dave...

In your defense the FAIP MAFIA wasn't really established in your day. See below for Pic of Huggy completing BIP.

TDS in full effect. Inflation still raging, the SPR at a new record low (see chart below), and our borders wide open with fentanyl flowing across at record levels killing 300 Americans a day. Can you imagine if an airliner crashed everyday and killed 300 Americans because the border was open, there would be outrage. Instead, liberals cheer and enable more illegal immigrants to sneak across our border carrying millions of pills.

Clearly an amateur. Everyone knows you shoot your watch.

But it doesn’t cover half of $5k. $1,750 isn’t nothing and you might decide it’s still worth it but go in with eyes wide open.

This is a huge problem with exercise planning btw. It's a huge disproportion of Ops people who are focused on getting as many fighter squadrons there as possible and they completely forget the deployment itself is a huge part of the exercise. That means the logistics actually required to move a fighter squadron to include services, support, etc... So it never gets realized until last minute.

Yeah if you're going to an exercise you are "deployed" and they can use contingency lodging. Don't forget--The exercise isn't just for you. It's for the whole force structure chain. There are literally lodging plans that need tested to house people in high density locations like Korea. You're actually lucky you're getting hotel rooms. In Korea they stick everyone in a giant ass California tent with a bunch of bunks in it.

Told ya! Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I'll provide a different POV. Don't get dental insurance. Dental insurance isn't like medical insurance. The annual maximums or benefit maximums or whatever your plan calls them are very low, ~ $1,500. They also typically don't pay 100% of whatever it is. Maybe 80%. So you're paying premiums every month for at most $1,500 of payback. Instead find a "fee for service" dentist that spends more than 20 minutes on a cleaning and pay their published cost. It'll be higher, but you'll probably get better care. Dental insurance reimbursement is pathetic so the dentists that have the option don't "take insurance." They might file for you, but they're not agreeing to the reimbursement rate set by the insurer. It might sound radical, but I've seen both sides of it and I just paid cash for my kid's orthodontics. Insurance wouldn't have covered it all anyway. The only difference was I was able to use an FSA, which you can't get on AD unfortunately. I chose the Dr based on qualifications other than just who was in the insurance network. I even got a cash discount.

Already done! Got my retirement order yesterday. I just have another 1.5 months left on this activation, then I'm a ghost until my fini this summer. I'm actually quite shocked at how easy/fast the process was to apply for retirement and get my order. All told, I think I spent 10 minutes to fill out the request, then the order showed up a week later. If only the VA process was as easy...

Somebody had to post it..

Good thing he slapped that thing down before it released it's payload.

Well, I guess we finally know what happened to Rainman.

Excellent summation of the historical problems of the ARC, especially the AD-Lite subset (AFRC) within it. I will say, regAF has always struggled with the concept of strategic reserve, and they certainly made a mockery of it during our foreign excursions to Iraq and AFG in the prior 20 years. It is also absolutely the case that for upper management, this all has always boiled down to a contemptuous affair singularly devoted to shorting people a retirement and benefits. No different than a private corporation attempting to minimize legacy labor costs. It's just that it's viewed with greater skepticism to suggest government managers to be engaging in such attempts at govt sanctioned wage theft, since it's not a for profit organization. Given the sacrifices and opportunity costs @FourFans130 already spoke about (and personally resonates with me, especially the impacts my service had on my ability to even make a family in the first place, and I'll save the details in the interest of my 5th), it becomes insult to injury since, while on status, we're not free to just quit like civilians can. As to regAF, it has always been a rank cake and eat it too, hypocritical organization. Bitch bitch bitch about folks leaving over an "up or out" management focus on promotions whilst the rank and file favor "tactical technician" track careers, which are anathema to regAF (and the reason I never did bother with regaf). But then they turn around and systemically kvetch about the ARC's existence writ large, which @Chida post expanded on in detail. I've always told the Alzheimer's ward that is the AvBonus thread: regAF doesn't care about money, they care about control. If they short you money that's a twofer. That's why they won't barter with their chattel even if it saves them money. The money is secondary to them: They want to control and throttle your time, in a way that suits them. That's why they hate Reservists, they've always found our legal ability to say no and leave money on the table for the sake of our lives (the very premise over reserve service as promised on the brochures mind you), too uppity for their liking.

4Fans: That'd be a "why" question, but I'll take a stab. Based on what I've observed over 10 years as a reserve/guard, it is now clear to me that RegAF 1. does not "like" the part-time ARC and would rather it not be a thing, 2. Has never gotten on board with the idea that ARC members rate a retirement (or anything, really). As a result nothing has ever fundamentally changed and nothing will change, I predict. Witness Congress over the years repeatedly tell DOD to fix the ARC's systemic problems, and what happens? Study after study, making Rand rich, but no hint of systemic change ever happens, just more band-aids. Examples: 1. Early in the GWOT RegAF complained that it was "hard" to access reserves for their purposes. DOD came up with yet another duty status called ADOS (we're now up to 30 duty statuses, BTW). RegAF worried that Reserves would then easily stay on ADOS their whole career and then get a Regular retirement. The 1095 rule was born--1095 was supposed to be tied to a position, but having no mechanism for tracking this, they tied it to the person, the added benefit being that they could deny a regular retirement to individuals (for the most part). Navy & Army are much more aggressive than AF when it comes to a concerted effort to deny. 2. AFRES has been talking for YEARS about reforming basic functions such as UTAPS and AROWS, yet all they have are excuses as to why they cannot. 3. DOD whined about medical readiness in the reserve. Congress responded with making Tricare and Tricare Dental available to reservists. DOD opposed this. 4. AFRES's record-keeping system for reserve points was basically non-existent. The effect was that reservists would apply for retirement and then have to prove their service. If unable, AFRES would deny the retirement. Congress responded with a band-aid fix of mandating PCARS and issuance of the 20-yr letter which could not be revoked. AFRES opposed this idea and watered it down to include an out for themselves: "the number of years of creditable service and retirement points upon which retired pay is computed may be adjusted to correct any error." Ergo, the onus is ultimately still on the reservist, potentially, to prove his service. 5. When I first entered the SELRES I asked many benefit questions to the finance/personnelists both at my group and ARPC. I received virtually no information and the information I did receive was littered with errors/outright wrong. I concluded that these people didn't know and didn't care because they were full-timers (whether ART or AGR or attempting a Regular retirement) and it didn't affect them. It became quite obvious to me that I would need to find answers on my own starting with title 10 and go from there because the AFIs themselves are littered with errors. 6. BLAB: RegAF runs the show, does not care about the ARC, and any attempts at reform point to the desire of RegAF and ARC Full-timers to just do away with the entire concept of a part-time force because it's pesky to them. This explains the constant drum beat of "we're an operational reserve." It also explains the constant push to get rid of IRR participation (achieved by AFRES except for ALO and CAP-RAP--but they're working on it), points for correspondence courses (achieved by the Army), and the absolute disaster that the IMA program is currently devolving into, sped along by the so-called "IMA Strategic Review Team." Basically the AF wants people on active duty or not on active duty, but can't seem to get there because of their desire to deny benefits in the name of saving money.

Choke yourself you sanctimonious prick. For the record, you are not as smart as you think you are, you have simply become a mindless part of the collective, endlessly spewing the same old PA verbiage. Here is the thing, I know the game, I’ve done all the in-res schools….ACSC, ASG, War College in DC…and I’ve sat behind the glass doors on the E-Ring as an exec and watched the buffoonery. Playing the $ money card overlooks a GLARING error, we did it to ourselves. The lack of vision from people like Buzz and Zatar is what got us here, for all too long we have been stuck in the endless Do Loop of “we can only have a fifth gen force” and we are paying the price for it in spades. 10 years ago a LOT of very smart people tried to tell them the $ crunch was coming and we could not afford a force of only F-22’s and F-35’s. Despite the fact that on the second night of OIF A-10’s were fighting inside the “Super MEZ”, the seniors insisted we double-down on fifth gen and now we cry when we have no $ to buy anything else. What do you expect when we are flying Raptors that cost $44,000 a flying hour and F-35’s that cost $36,000 a flying hour instead of a mixed high-low fleet that could have economically fought the fight we have been in for the 15 YEARS! Then as we piled ever more coal into the 5th gen steam engine that we couldn’t afford, we decided to cut people to pay the bill, and we took those people from the admin heart of the Squadrons (CSS), where they were needed most…Now, after purposely cutting people we suddenly come to the conclusion that the Air Force is On Verge of Manpower Collapse…freaking brilliant! Sadly, we had multiple chances to off-ramp this road to perdition and the Navy tried to show us the way like in 2006 when they broke the “no more 4th gen fighters for any service pact.” I was there the day the boss found out the Navy was getting 24 extra Super Hornets and I was in close trail as he barged into the N-8 office screaming explicatives at the CNO and his XP staff. The Navy response “well the Super Hornet is not a 4th gen airplane, it is a 4.5 gen airplane and we probably can’t afford all the F-35’s anyway.” Congress has been more than willing to gift us extra Vipers and Eagles every year, but we foolishly keep saying no and doubled down to the point we had to start closing fighter squadrons to pay the bills. The last ten years have seen a steady retreat from the TacAir redline, No lower than 2,300 fighters!…Ok No lower than 2,100 fighters! There was a huge gasp at 2,000, but we sliced right past that number faster than some late night yaki mandu through your system after a Friday night in Aragon Alley. As we started closing fighter squadrons we suddenly had fewer to fill AEF taskings so the bros and sisters on the end of the whip have to run even faster to make up for the shortage…starting to see the picture now? When it comes to your "retention tools" again, you don’t get it…what you call having bigger fish to fry than keeping pilots on the right side of the happy meter and using STOP LOSS as a retention tool is the PROOF that the entire thing is a scam. How can senior leaders profess to care about the force, mission first…people always, and say things like “Morale is pretty darn good” almost in the same breath they admit the Air Force is on the verge of a manpower collapse? This CSAF has made countless impassioned speeches about caring for people and “every Airman has a story”, but in the end as you admit the people are just numbers and their happiness doesn’t really matter. I get it that you will never make everyone happy and there will always be sport bitching, but this is something very different. This is the heart of your ability to be an Air Force, your professional pilot force telling you with their feet…”THINGS ARE Fed UP!” Only 38% of the pilot force took the bonus last year and the numbers look worse for this year…so I would submit you better make time to fix the happy meter. It is not about hating the messenger, it is about hating the smug asshat that parades around the room showing glee in his pronouncements from on high. You represent much of what is wrong with the current system.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/23/trump-bleach-one-year-484399 https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/ clearly one side of the aisle has their shit in a sock 😂