mcbush

Re: 13K over end strength. Last numbers I saw were at the end of FY19 citing our end of FY18 stats. So this data’s a year old, but it showed that the total force is short roughly 2K pilots out of a required 21K. If you exclude the ARC and look just at AD, we were apparently 1.8K short on CGOs and 1K over on FGOs for a total of 807 AD pilots short. Not sure I believe those numbers, but that’s what’s on the slide. Obviously that also implies that the ARC is about 1.2K shy. Bashi, same thing here as above. The last PC app we sent up got disapprovals all the way up to the PC office, and still ultimately got approved for 6 months off. I think your odds are still good.

Didn't have the pleasure of knowing him personally, but it's obvious he was a titan of a man. Cheers, sir.

Congrats on your good timing, Duck!

C-12 is correct

In addition to what drewpey said, if you want actual statues that were potentially violated, consider 52 USC 30121 for example: ”It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive (from a foreign national)... a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value... or an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.” Zelensky was allegedly solicited for two things: an investigation into the Bidens and a big public announcement about it. It’s the second part that ties this to an election, and makes it reasonable for a person to raise his hand and ask the question, IMO.

You guys are ridiculous. In what universe are some guy’s tweets more credible than the sworn testimony of a Purple Heart-winning career military officer who works at the NSC? Call me naive if you want, and sure, the PH and other trophies don’t really add to his credibility per se, but this guy doesn’t deserve to be crucified and have his patriotism called into question just for trying to do his j-o-b.

Interested in Trump by 300+. Not interested in Trump by 62 with 4 caveats. Interested in prosecuting crimes committed by anyone regardless of party or position. Not interested in debating the "Deep State."

Which of his policies do you think will prevent "everyone else from having the chance" to make $2M? Higher taxes? The top federal tax rate in 1969, at the start of those 50 years that I mentioned, was 70%.

Ah, so here's the rub. What was originally "Trump by 300+ electoral votes" is now "if the House votes to impeach and send articles of impeachment to the Senate and if the Senate conducts a trial and if Trump is not convicted and removed from office and if Trump runs again, then Trump will win not by 300+ electoral votes but by garnering at least a 300-238 margin of victory." For what it's worth, when I say Seahawks by 4, I mean that I expect them to win by a margin of at least 4 points, not that I think they'll win by a score of 4-2. To move on from being a sarcastic dick for a second, I also don't think I buy the argument that impeachment strengthens Trump's re-election chances. The way I see it, the Republican base will turn out for the man 100%, and I just don't think there are many moderates or independents who will be moved off the fence by this, especially since I think we're underselling the potential for additional damaging info to spill out over the course of the investigation. On the other hand, there's already so much damaging info out there that I don't think there's much else that can push people toward the Democratic party either. Bottom line at the bottom: with very few exceptions, people are set in their ways, they already know who they're going to vote for, and there's not much that can change their mind at this point.

I don't agree with many of Bernie's positions, but I don't know how you can make an intellectual integrity argument against the guy. Not only is he not on the list that you cited, but if you open up the full list past the top 50, it shows him in 423rd place in terms of net wealth amongst Congressmen. Some quick Googling puts his current net worth at $2-2.5 million. How could he have amassed such a fortune as a career elected official? Keep in mind, this dude is 78 years old. If we assume he started saving when he was 28 and earned the market's 10% nominal return over the past 50 years, you know how much he'd have to put away every month to have $2.5M today? ....$172

If you're actually being serious and not just talking out your ass, I'll take both those bets at any price.

This is a discussion for a SCIF, but AMC has actually funded systems improvements on multiple MAF aircraft now, in addition to what they put on the -46. Happy to discuss on SIPR. That said, at the end of the day, all of these aircraft still have the RCS of an aircraft carrier.

You’re speaking to the squadron commander.

Typically it’s the mission planners at TACC/AMD/TDD depending on the theater and mission type. Lot more considerations go into that than the idiots on FB would think.

Here’s the full text of the memo, for those who want to do their own research: USCIS Policy Alert

Elmo C-12s are a small enough program that you probably still need to know someone and do some networking though, despite the assignments being posted online now. PM me if you need help getting in touch with the right folks. Great gig and one of the better kept secrets out there.

Can you help me build some SA on why it’s so important not to have any gap during the transition? How severe is the ass pain that results from a break in service?

Not that she's got anything on current day Charlie, but it sounds like Jennifer Connelly's taking over the role

Unless you actually need the money now, you're better off just holding on and riding the wave. Many studies show that buy-and-hold outperforms market timing >69% of the time. Think about it this way - let's say you sell today and there is a 10% correction immediately after that. If you sell and pay $9k in taxes, you're left with $91k. If you hold and eat a 10% dip, you're sitting at $90k... virtually identical scenarios. On the other hand, if you sell now and the market goes up another 10%, you're talking about the difference between $91k and $110k and you're going to be kicking yourself. Couple that with the fact that the market tends to rise over time, and holding starts to look even better. Short term losses and gains are almost impossible to predict, but macro performance in the long- to very long-term is actually pretty easy: the market's going to go up, and the longer you hold on, the better your odds are of capturing that return. Here's another example. Let's say you're 35-40 right now and don't need the money right away, so you're looking at a 30-year horizon for your investments. What are the odds that the market will rise over the course of those 30 years? Obviously there aren't any guarantees about the future, but if you use the past as a guide, you would say virtually 100%. If you look at the performance of the S&P 500 over the past century, and try to pick the absolute worst time to invest (at the market peak immediately prior to the Great Depression) with a 30-year horizon, you're still looking at about an 8% annual return over that time period. If you let short-term fear and emotions rule out, you might get lucky here and there, but the odds aren't in your favor when you're betting against that kind of long-term macroeconomic trend. Hold on long enough though, and you're almost guaranteed to win.

The select and non-select lists for both the O-4 and O-5 boards made it down to the wing exec level today, at least in my neck of the woods. PSDM says no one’s supposed to find out until public release on 9 Jul, but if you have any bros working the desk, they should have the data for you.

To be clear, it was Barr, not Mueller, who said that Mueller hadn’t found anything to charge him with, regardless of DOJ policy. Tell me if that matches Mueller’s opinion on the matter, verbatim from the statement he gave earlier this week: “...we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The introduction to volume two of our report explains that decision. It explains that under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. The special counsel's office is part of the Department of Justice and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider. The department's written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report and I will describe two of them for you. First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now. And second, the opinion said that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge. So that was justice department policy, those were the principles under which we operated and from them, we concluded we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.” Full transcript

Promoting 100% of eligibles is hard.

Honestly I don’t even know why you guys take the time to discuss this. We’re not any closer to fielding a new airframe than we were 10 years and 1400 posts ago. The Air Force will never make the intelligent move to acquire a light attack platform.

Valid for a kill, kill called

Copy, just wondering what proportion of ROTC/OTS guys EAD before the Academy folks every year. i.e. if 2000 people are getting promoted, do the USAFA grads generally end up with line numbers 200-900, 1200-1900, etc. I’m sure it ebbs and flows a bit and isn’t important in the long run, just curious.