Blue

Does your home state have a fighter unit? Or any state that you've called home in the past (if you went to school out of state, or lived out of state for a long period of time)? Experiences vary, but having a tie to the state seemed to give you at least a small measure of extra consideration from some units. Looking at your post history, seemed like you applied to some New England units? Do you have ties to the area? Did you ever call any of them up to get any kind of feedback on your interviews, or if they'd be open to you trying again? Also, I did the "engineer at a defense contractor" gig for a bit. Good experience, but I think I'd go homeless before ever going back. It's OK to start, but chances are it'll eventually become soul-sucking, if it hasn't already. One of those things where you either leave as a hero, or stay long enough to become the villain.

You forgot to include his position as a Executive Consultant amongst the "elite" at Afterburner Inc...... https://www.afterburner.com/daniel-fuzz-walker/

Sigh. That clip really just seemed like another newscaster being incendiary for the sake of being incendiary. Whatever brings in the ratings, I suppose. The whole thing is tiresome though. The Air Force has decided that they need to appease the woke mob, and the associated Drive for Diversity, regardless of reason or logic. I honestly don't understand the background and chain-of-events that resulted in the current state of affairs, but regardless, here we are. I think everyone in any kind of position of power has seen the writing on the wall, and understands you're gonna get on the Woke Express, or you're gonna get left behind. Thus, you get Lt Gen Webb's comments. None of it really matters though, because the DoD doesn't really care about promoting diversity. They just care about the appearance of promoting diversity. Like anything else, just follow the money. If anyone really gave a shit about increasing the diversity of Air Force pilots, there is a pretty easy path. Take a small pile of money, and start installing tutors and AF JROTC programs in schools that have the diversity you're looking for. Put resources behind helping kids succeed in school. Take the kids that show promise, and put more resources behind them, like funding their PPL. Stand up the same programs in colleges. Tutors to help people succeed, and PPLs for those who show promise. FFS, it's Learning to Fly An Airplane. The vary nature of it tends to attract the hopes and dreams of kids and young adults. You'll have no shortage of people wanting to give it a try. However, all of that takes money, resources, and not to mention the leadership to promote a course of action that is going to take a couple of years to start generating winged pilots. And because the Air Force only wants to show the appearance of caring about diversity, you'll never get any appreciable resources and leadership behind it. You'll just see the endless calls for "More diversity in the ranks!!!" from the woke mob, and replies of "But, we're trying!!" from the DoD. And people like Tucker Carlson will make more breathless news clips that get passed round the interwebs. The clip above has been out for a little more than 24 hours, and already has almost 700k views and 10k comments. Not too bad for folks like #Tucker.

Can you give us a synopsis?

Sometime around November/December 2022 is when I anticipate you'll see the formal transfer of power. Post mid-term elections. Ol' Joe will probably experience "a fall," or some other mundane injury that'll put him in the hospital for a week or two. They'll invoke the 25th amendment, and Harris will be "temporarily" in charge. Joe will emerge from the hospital after a couple weeks, but it will be revealed that he's suffered "something" (a blood clot, a minor stroke, a minor heart attack, etc) that prevents him from continuing to serve. At that point, the Presidency will formally transfer to Harris. Some of the unfolding of events will occur over the holidays. The parts they don't want you to pay attention to are easier to mask during the holidays (much like bad corporate news is always released on a Friday before a three-day weekend). At the same time, they'll try to leverage the "spirit of the season" to rally the nation behind Biden and his family. Expect candid pictures of Dr Jill Biden and a bunch of grandkids waiting patiently at Walter Reed for news on Grandpa Joe, complete with a Christmas tree or two in the background. January 2023 will dawn with Kamala Harris as President of the United States. What that means, who the hell knows. I'm sure there will be renewed federal support for transgendered non-binary circus clowns, and other such theatrical nonsense. More importantly, any remaining roadblocks to our increased intervention in the Middle East will be dropped. Who ever is our Enemy #1 in the desert will be attacked with renewed vigor (either overtly or covertly). Iran would be the first guess, but if not, maybe some second-tier player like Libya in the early 2010s. At the same time, they'll crank up the monetary printing presses for good, and break-off the knob. Fun times I'm sure.

While I certainly don't agree with everything Kinzinger does, everything I've read points to Illinois' inevitable loss of a congressional seat happening somewhere in Southern IL (nowhere near Kinzinger's district in Northern IL). Have you seen different?

Congrats on the CSO slot. That's some varsity-level ineptitude on the part of your leadership.

My experience is pretty dated at this point, but I knew folks who went up for the Active Duty Flying Training Board ~15 years ago. At the time, it seemed like there was a tendency to pick people up right at the end of their eligibility (i.e. they were hitting the age or years of commissioned service limits). No guarantees, of course.

Just curious - is that something new? Are you only allowed to apply twice? I believe it used to be you could apply as many times as you wanted until you reached the max age or max total commissioned service time?

My assumption is the entire Democratic Party will work together to keep the "Weekend at Bernie's Biden's" game going until the 2022 midterms (21 months away from now). After that, who knows.

Having trouble finding the spot where CH said this. Can you point it out to me?

Because the reality is the most important consideration in choosing leadership is making sure the candidates check the appropriate diversity boxes. Whether that is a misplaced priority is another discussion (I certainly don't agree with it). When trying to fill a position like Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, you're already looking at a pretty small pool of eligible candidates. Now, add a requirement that the selectee must fit some diversity checkbox, and all of a sudden the pool gets even smaller. It's basic arithmetic. Sometimes, within the small pool you're still able to find a good candidate. Sometimes you don't. Selecting someone for a position like this is an imperfect process to begin with, and there is no sure-fire way to success. But the smaller you make the pool by adding extra constraints, the more chance you'll end up with some clown who doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.

Chief Ian Eishen (Edwards AFB, 412th Test Wing Command Chief) is a regular on Reddit, and is pretty well received. Seems to provide a lot of good, candid feedback to the Edwards AFB enlisted force. https://www.reddit.com/user/412TW_CCC/ Of course, as alluded to above, if your going to try to use social media in an official capacity, it helps to not be an idiot about it.

One doesn't need to be a trained mental health expert to know something is wrong with Joe Biden's mental state. Biden is 78 years old, the oldest person to ever sit in the Oval Office. The next closest is Reagan, who was 77 at the end of his presidency. This is a big fucking problem for the country, and I don't know how anyone can brush it off as "he's just old," or "people are just picking on poor Joe." Age-related mental decline is insidious. It comes and goes. Someone can have their mental faculties at 100% at the beginning of the day, but then as the day drags on and they wear mentally and physically, they get worse and worse. The results manifest themselves in several ways: people end up being excessively argumentative, they get tunnel vision and fixate on things with no rhyme or reason. Anyone who's had the pleasure of working with those in their late 60s and 70s has seen this play out before. It was rumored that Reagan was experiencing the beginning of mental decline during his second term; he even got some raised eyebrows during the 1984 Presidential race when he seemed to falter during the debates. That was a problem then, but at the very least you had an established team surrounding the president, and a more-or-less stable country and world. Now you've got Joe Biden, who's starting his presidency in today's chaotic world, and surrounding himself with an eclectic band of unproven staffers and Cabinet picks. Agree or disagree with Joe Biden's polices and ideals all you want. That's everyone's right as a red-blooded American. But the fact that we're starting a Presidential term with a 78 year old is a big fucking problem.

The internet is full of nutjobs spouting all means of bullshit. However, just because it sounds outlandish, doesn't mean there isn't a seed of truth there. To wit:

Video of Ashli Babbitt getting shot yesterday.

Anyone else expected that the US Capitol would have been a little more......defended? I mean, on today of all days, I would have expected the place to be guarded like Fort Knox. Instead, it looks like the halls of Congress have been stormed by the clientele from a Waffle House.

I've heard that before, but I'm not sure I buy it. When has the DoD/VA given a shit about managing healthcare costs?

Another message of thanks to Jon, Lisa, and the rest of the Trident team. I'm a first-time homebuyer, and the whole process (outside of Trident) was a mess. Our landlord was inflexible about our move-out date. The sellers of our new place were balky and difficult to deal with, and almost torpedoed the whole thing a couple of times. Our realtor had her moments, but we were clearly just one of many deals she was working, and nowhere near the top of her priority list. I had always assumed home-buying was a straight-forward affair, and it turned out to be anything but. Appreciated the insight from Jon and Lisa throughout the process. They were always quick to return calls, texts and e-mails, and offered options each time we ran into issues. Also, their rates beat everything else out there. Thanks Trident!

For those keeping score at home, the Epoch Times has a decent summary. They have a right-leaning bias for sure, but they also have done a decent job of keeping up with the status of the various lawsuits and other legal actions. https://www.theepochtimes.com/election-2020

Putting out a lot of smoke, noise, and bombast via Twitter, and then subsequently walking it back is kinda Trump 101. Early on, it did seem like there were a lot of legitimate questions about the election. Indeed, most of those have not stood up to any level of scrutiny. I anticipate Trump and his team will continue to push back until the Electoral College formally casts their ballots on 14 Dec. There is some precedent after all; Bush v Gore wasn't decided until 12 Dec. Assuming there isn't some kind of last minute "Hollywood-style reveal" of damning evidence in the next four weeks, I assume Trump and his team will start executing a more or less orderly exit after the Electoral College casts their vote. I'm sure there will be all kinds of media speculation about Trump refusing to leave, which will all turn out to be false. As much as Trump gets vilified, I sincerely doubt he'll barricade himself inside the Oval Office as some seem to think. I would have liked to see someone in power use this moment to advocate for a more confidence-inspiring federal election process. Would have loved to see Joe Biden stand up the morning of 4 November and state his full support for Trump utilizing all legal means to verify a fair election. Alas, that didn't happen. We have such a vast array of technology and wealth at our disposal, and yet we continue to look like a banana republic when the elections end up being close. Would love to see something change. Instead though, the memories of the 2020 election will start to fade, and we'll do it all over again another 4/8/12 years down the road.

I love this article. "To be clear, we're not going to have quotas. Instead, we're going to...........................have quotas."

Thought this was an interesting read on Arizona's shift from Red to Blue... https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/jodv7y/with_senate_win_mark_kelly_becomes_4th_astronaut/gb7u03m?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

How? Get rid of the tremendous amounts of Dark Money that really drives what politicians do. A worthy diatribe from Reddit just a couple hours ago below. Awful long, but I felt like it was worth the read. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ivlkl2/obama_calls_on_senate_not_to_fill_ginsburgs/g5t1vlj?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Mx Squadron culture and morale is a perennial topic on https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/ Toxic NCOs seems to be one of the more common threads, as opposed to O's.