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@Negatory I’m fairly positive Lawman is not trying to argue there’s tons of great billionaires on “his side” (whatever that means), and is simply highlighting the stupidity of this whole charade/medal, regardless of political affiliation (he just said Trump giving it to Elon would help cement the whole thing as a sham). Why is it you read something, engage turbo douche mode, and go on an unhinged rant that wildly misrepresents the person you’re replying to. For your own mental health, recommend some introspection and find a way to turn the blind, illogical, and generally unprovoked rage down a few notches. You’ll feel better and your communication skills probably would improve.

It’s official: Biden is the worst POTUS in our nations history.

I guess the presidential MOF is now worth less than the bronze star every behind-the-fence shoe clerk CC/Chief gets down range. What a joke.

Four nights ago, Beale did the Monday Night Football flyover at Levi Stadium. Challenging airspace, to say the least, and led by a young ex T-6 FAIP who is a brand new flight lead. This is how it is done. Perfection IMG_1720.mov Edit: forgot to mention... 58 and 60 year old A-models, with an iPad and a stopwatch

Yet another misfire. No one has a problem with billionaires per se. We have a problem with certain billionaire's objectives. See the following: Bill Gates' climate / clean meat / no meat / spray vaccine efforts, etc George Soros' bank-rolling all manner of "grass roots" campaigns to modify society, wage lawfare, BLM riots, et al Peter Thiel and Elon Musk aren't trying to dismantle our sovereignty or take away any of our rights. See the difference? These conversations would be more productive if you'd come to terms with your oppositions' actual POV.

My initial reaction to the idea of paying big salaries was “fuck no!” But I thought about it some more and it does make a lot of sense (especially considering nsplayr’s three criteria). But, I think if that was to be done, it absolutely would have to come with term limits. If no term limits, we wouldn’t see a change - just more people eyeing public office as a means to wealth and power. As a side desire, I’d also like to see a ban on individual stock investing during time of service. They can invest in standard index funds, IRAs, etc. That would go a long way towards minimizing insider trading that just about all of them do currently.

I flew a CRAF mission (2003?) into Kuwait City international and picked up the Patriot battery that shot down the Tornado and Hornet. Flying back to Frankfurt, the Battalion Exec was sitting on the jumpseat and we talked about the shoot downs. IIRC, the Tornado was interpreted as a ballistic missile track, had the wrong squawk codes therefore didn't respond to interrogation, so they shot. The Hornet was in a side lobe and the battery wasn't completely set up to fill in the lobe, also got interpreted as a ballistic track, the Hornet had the correct codes but the side lobe problem somehow affected the interrogation which failed, so they shot. The Exec said they would have to do some serious overhaul of their procedures when they got back to Ft. Bliss.

100% agree These 535+ odd balls we call Congress and the Executive Branch are in charge of a 6+ trillion dollar budget, the worlds most powerful military, intelligence and security apparatus and craft legislation controlling the world’s largest economy Pay them accordingly and STRICTLY restrict and monitor their finances and immediate family finances. No insider trading, no deal making but I have no problem with them making an almost bribe proof base salary and benefits to attract best/brightest A Congressman should be paid 1 million plus performance bonuses for a balanced/surplus budget, appropriation bills passed X days before the end of the FY, etc… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This. My best unpopular opinion is that we should pay our elected leaders significantly more; it would cut down on corruption and also attract better folks to those positions. Right now you either have to be independently wealthy, a real political zealot, or corrupt (or any combination of those!) to run for office. I, a dickhead O4 in the Guard, make more than the two United States Senators from my state, how wild is that? Top it off with the fact that I don't have to talk to reporters, maintain a household in my state + live part-time in DC, get a load of shit on social media (I do that part for free! 😇), etc. These people are making extremely important, impactful decisions for our country and we have not set up this system well for them. It's then no surprise why so few "normal," down to earth folks are in elected office - the pros/cons just do not work out in favor of going down that path unless you fit any or multiple of my three criteria above. Edit to add: same story re: cops & also teachers (to cross-post from another thread). Low comp + tough environment = shitty people and/or "true believer" / martyers. The good ones get burned out and leave, the bad ones stay, some good ones who stay are fighting uphill in the snow both ways. This is America and money talks...you wanna pay $60K for a super full-time gig wrangling feral children or the dregs of society out there tweaking on drugs? Sane people say no and become project managers for construction companies or sell insurance or fly airplanes instead.

I hope you boys haven't accidentally summoned PYB back into the chat. ETA: Oh shit! He's still actively posting on his site and clearly still lurks...

I've never been able to see the connection between term limits and resolving corruption. Am I to believe that a congress person can't engage in unethical behavior during their first term??? If anything, it just puts them under a time crucible to get all the goodies they're looking for run through as quickly as possible; it fast tracks whatever corrupt impulse is there in the first place. There's no inherent constraint placed on corruption by time. It may limit the time that someone has to become corrupt, but a good question to ponder is why don't we put 4-6 year term limits on officers? Why aren't we all corrupt by the time we're Lt Cols? I just don't see a connection there. The problem is lack of accountability and lack of transparency. When Nancy Pelosi was engaging in legislation that was going to benefit Nvidia and other tech companies while simultaneously purchasing stock options she knew would react positively to the actions she was taking, that all should have taken place within the public view. It wasn't classified. It wasn't secret. Basically I guess I'm effectively suggesting that congress people should be required to conduct all legislative business in full view of the public. I have no idea what that looks like, but body cameras would be a start. Drafting legislation? Put the computer screens on a YouTube stream. Meeting with a lobbyist? Have a camera crew there to stream it on X. Obviously this is ridiculous, but the core of the problem is our government is allowed to keep a lot of unsecret things secret.

There are still Golfs flying. So I know that isn't true.

Ringing in 2025 like...

The visual makes for a heck of a ‘this is fine’ meme

Elon was not chosen by happenstance. He eliminated 75-80% of Twitter's employees, nearly overnight, and nothing changed. We complained for years in the military that there were too many unnecessary tasks. Too many unneeded CBTs. Too many steps on the deployment checklist. Elon rocked the tech and broader business world with a concept they had entirely forgotten: some things don't need to happen. Boom, DEI evaporates overnight. An entire industry that created tens of thousands of jobs... Gone. That's exactly what the Republicans want from Elon. But he had to buy Twitter to make that happen. With the federal government it will be far more about making the jobs undesirable, waiting for people to quit, then deleting the position. It won't work as cleanly as it did at Twitter, but it can still work.

It distracts from his track record of being wrong.

I failed to direct attention to the point I wanted to emphasize. It's not the money but the number of people: 130,000. I agree the government should attract and retain qualified people but I'm trying to wrap my cranium around the need for 130,000 that are being paid more than a governor who deals with the complex running of a state.

Despite how this dude looks in this short clip, he posts some great content where he hunts down an calls out mis/disinformation. Former Army intel guy/current cyber security guy. Anyway, just another data point and context for the dude Ryan is interviewing. https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYkTNsMtEL/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming/videos

Representation was not a full time job. I’m ok with it not paying like one. Paying very well (let’s not kid ourselves about a Senator’s salary) is how you get Bernie Sanders, who has never had a professional job aside from being an elected official, yet has three houses. I’ll buy more pay for specialized fields, but not a part time job.

Trump should just give it to Elon on day 1 to force the critics to admit all this crap is a sham. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was pretty hungover for my last piss test in the AF. I got a phone call from the CC's secretary to come in and do the dance. I didn't plan on going to the office that day as I was pretty much done working for Uncle Sam. I didn't end up going to the office but I did have to go see the secretary to get the notification of the piss test. I did the piss test and obviously never heard anything about it as I retired in 2018. I was a geographicly separated bachelor and I probably drank too much at the time (Irish, prior mx, boom operator and helicopter pilot equals good drinker). My wife and family came into town a few days later for my retirement.

I also would never do the job. You're dealing with the absolute worst part of society every day, often the same people over and over. I give them a lot of leeway with the interactions I see. BUT. When they fuck up willfully, they need to be held accountable. When they don't know basic laws (ignorance doesn't work for us) or how to apply them, they need to be held accountable. In most cases, without this type of publicity, they aren't ever held accountable.

I think it is hilarious that zero of the top 4 seed teams won a single game during the playoffs. Almost as funny as zero legacy SEC teams making the semi-finals. I'm waiting for the argument that the Georgia - ND results were only because of the delay and that the three loss Georgia is really better than ND or Ohio State, so they should continue on in the semis and bump out one of those teams because.... SEC.

We currently have 1 guy I know of in the MC-J pipeline that requested to be transferred. Seems like a really good dude; I haven't asked him his reasons for transferring. Last year before I retired there were rumors that AFSOC was about to send a whole lot of CV guys to MC-Js due to all the previously mentioned thrash and AFSOC parking a good chunk of the fleet at CVS; I haven't seen that reflected in the guys coming the pipeline yet. FWIW, my posts weren't meant to scare you off CV-22s if that's really the airframe and mission set you're most interested in. I have several CV buddies and all of them loved flying the aircraft. AFSOC is a phenomenal place to be in the AF. It's just that right now (and honestly for the foreseeable future) the CV-22 program has a lot of issues that don't seem to have any quick fixes. Their MX rates are atrocious (if you ever go to an AFSOC Wing Standup and watch the CV-22 MX officer brief the status of the fleet you'll understand) and the last 2-3 years it seemed like AFSOC was looking for a replacement (which won't come anytime soon, not sure how Connely being at the helm will affect this). Just data points for you to consider. Best of luck in whatever path you choose.

Maybe reform is needed for cops, but reforming society is the only real fix. I don’t envy these guys’ operating environment one bit - between a rock and a hard place is a major understatement. That said, I know power tripping asshole cops are out there, who give little fucks about treating people like shit and misrepresent situations to justify their actions. I also don’t believe those guys are the majority.

I stayed single and did well. Fortunately BQZip's mom drove to Del Rio on the weekends to keep my currency up.

Concur...for pennies on the dollar Russia has been neutralized as peer adversary. I've said it many times, the impact of this war on the Russian population will last for generations. A U.S. think tank, not the Ukrainian propaganda machine, has estimated Russian losses as epic. They've lost 40 soldiers for every square mile of ground they have seized. Russia seized 1,600 square miles of Ukraine's territory in 2024 while losing 427,000 troops, ISW says

Most of my interactions have gone something like: - chief walks into the room, has “the look” - Me: “oh hey chief, I’m running late for a sim brief, see ya later!” - Chief: “sounds good, I’ll tell them you were in the sim” There are good chiefs out there.

California is still flying Golfs.

What a pain in the ass. Been with them forever but writing is on the wall. Only having checking with them but switching everything over sucks.

Navy Federal 100%