Lord Ratner

Imagine for one second *wanting* to be like the Army or Marines. Yikes.

Obviously Biden hasn't been fit to serve, but he didn't say he was dropping out for health reasons. That was very tactical and obvious. Nobody on the Democratic side, and hopefully the Republican side, wants him to drop out because no one wants President Harris. No part of that would be good for this country, and she is not going to be an improvement over the Obama staffers that have been running the White House for 4 years now. Yeah, the will of the people has been subverted, but we can go another few months and get an elected president with the capacity to fulfill the duties of the office. The last thing we need is President Harris with only 4 months to perform as many executive actions as possible to justify her presidency and position as the incumbent.

What? Maduro goes when he is killed. The Venezuelans should get on it. I get what you're saying, but if they don't get rid of him, he will be replaced by another "not going anywhere" dictator. Kinda how he replaced Chavez...

Who's job is it to fix Venezuela if not the Venezuelans? Zero asylum for adults males and childless females.

The real power move would have been "that's what your Dad says."

AA won't now either. They got spooked by some guy who is threatening to sue and even doing an embry riddle study for evidence, so they standardized everything against beards to cover their bases

Seriously, my five o'clock shadow looks like 5 days of growth for some of these children we are hiring 😂

Found the guy who can't grow a beard 😂🤣

I have a theory that the people who are against beards are the same people who can't grow a good looking beard. I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone wants to post a selfie, but anecdotally it's been a pretty consistent coincidence. I also find it hilarious when people argue that beards don't look professional. The period of time where professionals were clean shaven is quite minimal compared to the period of time where the baddest motherfuckers on the planet all have beards. And in fact, even in this era the real badasses still have beards. Of course there are a subset of men who are not blessed with follicle dominance, yet still insist on foisting their inferior peach fuzz lady-beards on society. But I suspect the involuntary celibacy associated with such shameful, demeaning displays of facial inadequacy will purge them from the gene pool fast enough.

I've flown with a couple. He is not popular.

No one thought DEI would get a president killed. If Trump hadn't turned his head, that's exactly where we'd be. You already get the B team when you're a former president. The number of women in charge of organizations that are massively skewed towards male participation, including the military, is statistical proof that we are selecting weaker leaders to promote a progressive vision of the world. We all knew this already, but now we're at the point in the story where the consequences start to manifest. Shapiro had a great point on this. Why are all the agents immediately around Trump smaller than him?

There are a lot of people on the fence. They don't like the man, but they don't like what's happening around them more. This will be the final straw for many. Elon Musk is a good example. I expect more famous people to suddenly find their courage after this.

That guy looks... Challenged. I hope nobody is expecting some sort of clear-cut ideology from this dude. The people crazy enough to do something like this, the same type of people who usually have some sort of manifesto, are rarely as political as they are just outright crazy. But this might be the best thing I could have ever happened to Trump. That's absolutely the photograph of the century, so far.

This. Rhetoric has consequences.

What's remarkable is that a judge who's sole job is to interpret and apply the Constitution would not be familiar with the state constitutions that preceded the US Constitution. While Virginia is the most likely "original source" for the second amendment, the other states had versions that explicitly codified self-defense as a function of the right to bear arms.

It's not going to be pretty.

Springer is from the Jurassic era, so his brother was probably a retired captain before the pay rates were so generous. In May I managed to do 52k (60k with the 401k included) as an FO at AA, but that involved flying everyday for three weeks straight and most days on the fourth week. As a Captain at the top of scale that would have been 76k (90k w/401k). I'd die young if I did that with any regularity.

Yeah, but was she hot?

Well that didn't take long. If you can't tell the difference... To me the bigger outrage is *how* these officers enforced this stupid law. Like Boomer said, I don't expect them to be constitutional scholars, but a cop should be fired for treating a civilian like that during a non-violent encounter.

Yep. I generally take a middle ground approach, I don't miss important things, but my wife is very good about me being John for the day-to-day dinner and activities type of stuff. I figure I can make an extra 50 to 100 Grand a year if I was willing to fly anything anytime, but I'm simply not. It's too good of a job to fuck up by working that hard.

Yes but that really is the Crux of the question. I don't know you so I can't answer, But I have learned in 6 years that it is actually relatively small number of pilots who are willing to play the game to the point where it puts them ahead. As somewhat biased towards that game I can't say that I understand it fully, but I spent a significant amount of my flights explaining the various hustles to captains and at the end of the day they decide that life is simply easier getting a schedule in PBS and flying it, or sitting for reserve and hoping they don't get the call. Can't really half-ass a hustle. If it requires flexibility, you have to have the family that knows you could miss dinner tonight. If it requires gaming the FAR117 restrictions, then you have to be willing to put in the flight hours to build those conflicts. If it requires holiday flying, weekend flying, or flying long turns that have you going to the airport early in the morning and getting back late at night... You get the idea. If you can commit to a hustle then you will end up with a disproportionate share of a particular airline resource, either pay, time at home, pay per hours worked, whatever. If you half ass it, you'll just end up incredibly frustrated. So if you're the guy that likes predictability, I suspect that the widebody world will treat you better. If not, then it is almost certain you will benefit more from your seniority on the narrow body.

The American people did not.

I do not consider anything surprising for the FBI at this point, but is there even the suggestion of evidence this happened? The most damning evidence against Trump in the Florida documents case is a secret recording of Trump admitting he knew they were classified and that he failed to declassify them... Recorded by Trump himself. Has anything suggested the use of secret devices in this case?

I'm not sure what the correct thread is for this, but Trump made it possible, so I'll put it here. SCOTUS just overturned Chevron. If it wasn't for Roe this would be the biggest news from the SCOTUS in a decade at least, and it's still the most consequential by a landslide. This is a massive win for small government, assuming there are no gotchas in the ruling. I haven't gotten to read it yet.

I'd vote for Kennedy if he was younger. He's a safe middle candidate who won't set the world on fire while we await quality candidates. But he's 70, so, no.