Lord Ratner

We've already proven that immigration to the United States is not something controlled by the migrant. It looks like the administration is already gearing up to send the TPS Venezuelans back to Venezuela, and if they stick to it then overthrowing a hostile regime will be yet another excuse removed from the asylum-for-everyone crowd. We spent so many decades being lied to about the illegal immigration situation that it now seems almost inconceivable that there was never a legitimate excuse or cause for it in the first place.

It would be quite refreshing if the United States reasserted control over the Americas. I know the fashionably isolationist wing of the Republican party is going to hate this, but they've gotten to live in a fantasy world that we built after 50 years of interventionism between the end of world War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. After 30 years of neglect, it appears we must once again participate in the game of thrones.

They just tried to elect a president. If the military doesn't try to assert control, they'll have a leader who is very Western-friendly. With what just happened, I doubt the Venezuelan generals are eager to take over the role of dictator at the moment. There should be no other puppeteers in our hemisphere.

I did a CDI once for a group of maintainers who had sucked up the engine covers into the engines of a kc-135 during an engine run at night. This was a group of five maintainers, all of whom had forgotten to bring a flashlight, and so instead of either finding a light source or just walking up to the engine to see if they were covered, they just skipped every procedure and rule to prevent this mishap fired them up. Sadly this is completely believable. I hope he went quick.

Eventually you realize that the entire organizational pressure to sacrifice is driven by nothing more than the unquenchable need for promotion and power of those working their way up towards the top. It's been a long fucking time since anything we were doing in the military actually mattered from the perspective of defending the Homeland. Sure, small operations here and there, but nothing that justifies the institutional insanity that everyone experienced while they were in. It's just a bunch of losers who desperately want to be generals. Even the "good dudes." Your personal and family life was meaningless to them because they didn't even care about their own. Flag officers. I still think there were some (rare) good O-6s.

Maybe it's changed, but the "above 50%" was very loosey goosey as well.

Short-Term, I expect volatility from here on out. The major moves have already been made. There may be some more life in the miners in the short term, but those all ballooned up pretty dramatically as well, and the miners won't be safe from an equity recession. Long-term, eventually a bubble is going to pop, at which point I expect the government to step in with eye-watering amounts of stimulus. That'll start phase two of the gold bull run. And if the crypto fairy tale collapses at some point, that'll be even more money shifting back into gold.

Damn, water really kills the wow factor of an explosive. Well. Most of them. Next phase?

Collapsed into the wheel wells shortly after takeoff and never uncollapsed before landing

So how much absence of evidence is required for the random people who saw nothing with their own eyes and know no one who saw anything? A few years ago one would look at this story and say "man it's kind of hard to believe that that many famous people were involved in a massive pedophilia ring over the course of years and with many very trackable forms of transportation, and no one blew the whistle knowing they could make a lot of money doing so and stop something evil from happening." But that was years ago, when there hadn't been investigations by both political parties and literally millions of people speculating, hypothesizing, and scrutinizing releases of information. Or the hundreds of women in the era of me too keeping silent when prominent figures on both sides of the political spectrum can be implicated. Not to mention staff and visitors. Now that this is one of the most investigated cases in modern history, it's not hard to believe anymore. It's becoming impossible to believe. Turns out Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile who also fancied himself a power broker and connection maker. Another completely unsurprising element to this whole story is that he went to Great lengths to keep his pedophilia hidden from the many, many, many people who would have everything to gain by turning him in and very little to lose. At this point, some of you guys just want it to be true. Personally I'm relieved that for once, the horrible conspiracy is just a theory.

Politics reflect the population, not the other way around. We have an unserious president because we have an unserious population, and that's not going to change until something serious happens to force them out of the delusion. Ironically, unserious politicians are going to accelerate the drive towards whatever ultra serious situation lies ahead.

Just wait. He didn't even make it a year before relapsing into full-on Trump mode. Three more years and anyone with a pulse running against Republicans will win in a landslide

Oh look. More predictable consequences from importing foreigners with a completely different culture and ideology then failing to integrate them because of "multiculturalism." Even better, the hero to stop them was another foreigner who apparently had integrated. The West needs to figure out what changed between the time when we welcomed foreigners dreaming of being American to now when we bring in a bunch of worthless young men who hate our society and yearn for paradise.

Wait... Did they consciously switch to Calibri at some point?

I can't believe it's been almost a decade. Damn I feel old 😂🤣

I could be pissed and resentful that the Air Force came after me for an accusation that every judge or JAG in the process saw as obviously absurd. It cost a lot of money and it put my family through quite a bit. Or I could be thankful that I made my stupid mistake in 2015 instead of 2007, when the Air Force was balls deep in the "women never lie about rape" narrative. I'd probably still be in jail if it had been in that era. I choose the latter. Most people on earth would cut off their right arm to be where I am professionally, financially, and medically. Timing is Everything It's better to be lucky than good There is no justice I wish I remember who the first person to share those rules with me was, because while they aren't a moral framework, they've always been a quick antidote to any potential pity-parties I've thrown for myself. You're never going to have men and women working together without fraternization. I know you know that too. I wasn't mad they went after me, but the mock indignation was pathetic.

No no, it was much more than that, but the charges were contradictory, which was my point. I see how I made it seem that way though, my bad. Short(ish) version: got wasted at a house party full of all ranks and hooked up with an E who was married. I was too. Mild petting. Really fucking dumb, I know, but pretty tame as far as the Sport of Kings™ goes. But she was married, and had been caught cheating a couple times before by her husband, so when he found out, she claimed she was raped. The investigation was... Sloppy. OSI wired my accuser to try to catch a confession, which they didn't remotely get, but for whatever reason they wrote in the summary that I confessed. So that convinced the chain of command to press charges. But then they charged me with sexual assault and fraternization, which are kinda mutually exclusive in this context. That resulted in a really disjointed prosecution that fell apart for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the absence of rape and the lack of a confession. I'll never know for sure, but I think the judge was so pissed at the prosecution for throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck that he looked at the frat charge in a way that favored my case. Either way, I was found not guilty. Of course I admitted to drunkenly fooling around with the accuser on the stand, yet was found not guilty. So my SqCC who married an E and my WgCC who was a well known recovering alcoholic gave me an LOR for drunken fraternization; conduct unbecoming. I get it, my conduct was rather unbecoming, but it was very clear to everyone (including my next commanders) that it was sour grapes for losing the case in court. So yeah, @illusive it could be a whole lot worse. But I still had a lot of fun in the AF, so you're probably fine. Sorry, if I write any more then Boomers' hemorrhoids are going to flare up 🤣😂.

You'd be surprised, the reality was even dumber. Before my trial my commander didn't want to send me to SOS in-res. But after I was acquitted, my new leadership wanted to "make up" for the ordeal and started dumping opportunities on me. I was dangerously close to getting the notorious "SOS DG" before I told my flight commander that awards were wasted on me. I was airline bound. And by far the easiest 10 months of my career were the months OSI was trying put me in jail. It sounds crazy now, but being stationed in Europe with no job and no flying was pretty great. Edit: I forgot to add, I was prosecuted for fraternization and irresponsible drinking by a squadron commander who married an E from his squadron and a wing commander who gave seminars about his alcoholism from his CGO years. Joseph Heller had it right 🤷🏻‍♂️

Lol, that post wasn't for you. And not just because I didn't include any pictures. You're more of a "color inside the lines" guy. Nothing wrong with that, the military needs guys like you more than it needs guys like me. But our disgruntled poster here is either a "why do things that way when it doesn't make sense" type of guy, or he just expects his rewards to be a direct reflection of his efforts. The military has never and will never be a great place for those type of people.

To this point specifically, don't listen to the people telling you that you're wasting 11 years by not chasing the retirement. The money you make at the airlines can be astronomical. It will more than make up for the retirement, including the medical coverage. That being said, the guard and reserve are a great way to get to retirement after you have a seniority number at the airlines. But if the military made you as unhappy as it sounds, the garden reserve are not going to be enough of a change for you. Especially the way they are these days. To the broader topic, I was fortunate enough to figure out the game very early in my career. So I just didn't do the things that I didn't want to do or didn't enjoy doing. The catch to the whole system is that you have to do a bunch of unpleasant stuff to get ahead, but getting ahead just puts you in a position to have to do more unpleasant stuff. Some people loved the queep. Some people tolerated it. I hated it. So I didn't do it. Now ironically my Air Force career ended rather spectacularly for unrelated reasons, but even if I hadn't been court-martialed, my career was never going to go anywhere. I flew a lot, that's about it. It would have been more upsetting if I had put a lot of effort in to things I hated doing. But still. Suck it up. It's just work

This is the part where Trump's infantile ego pushes him to stupidity that will cost Republicans everything. I had hoped he could at least make it to the midterms. Oh well.

What a bunch of random people on the internet think about you is irrelevant. But I've flown with multiple guys in Kinzinger's squadron, and nobody had anything good to say about him from both before and after his time in Congress. Being perfectly honest, you seem like you would be yet another politician who has no fundamental grasp about how a huge portion of the population thinks or lives. But you've never seemed like the type to seek out power as some sort of extension of narcissism, so that already puts you at an advantage. Good luck, and thanks for participating

Gotcha. Yeah that's fucking bonkers.

So I understand the argument against based on the risk of collateral damage, but from the perspective of the maneuver itself, are there many examples of "unjustified" PIT maneuvers? You're either running from the cops or you're not. That just sounds like the pinnacle of "win stupid prizes." Or are the Arkansas troopers ramming cars 60 seconds after turning on the lights?

I have a friend who is a YouTuber who makes nothing but a bunch of woman-hating incel videos. It's not quite like this, because it's literally him reacting to the videos with a soundboard and shit. Last I checked he was making about $40,000 a month doing it putting out a couple videos a day. The hilarious part is that he is an absolute beta in his marriage and is barely manly enough to put together an Ikea couch. But because everything on the internet is fake he has thousands and thousands of lonely men who watch his videos everyday and hold him up as some sort of alpha hero. 🤣😂 He knows it's going to all come crashing down one day, but he's making an absolute killing doing it right now and I have always appreciated a good hustle.