Lawman

And next we can start talking about convergence windows… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok that’s not true. When it’s Ice Cream time they let him pick out his flavor from the window just like I do with my 6 year old. Sometimes he even gets sprinkles! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lot of video-bloggers with access and funding have been buying commercial satellite scans and doing what NGIC was doing from the get go of the conflict… counting hulls in storage yards. In terms of “what does funding this war buy” well… in this example Russia will no longer have the equipment to provide the means to conduct offensive ground warfare against its neighbors in NATO. Unfortunately nobody is doing YouTube videos on similar losses of more critical systems like engineering vehicles or self propelled artillery, that would paint an even bleaker story. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the case of the guy in question there was due process. He didn’t just lose his guns, he was found in position of them having been legally gated from having them due to his previous actions. It wasn’t just an arrest with charges later, he had a protective restraining order put on him. That requires a greater burden and demonstration of cause before a judge and comes with a maximum time it can be extended to (usually ~2 years). It isn’t an automatic loss end result. The ruling didn’t establish a new precedent, it confirmed an existing coverage of the 30 year old Lautenberg that this guy fell under (which the lower circuit court originally tried to overturn). It also had Barrett pointing out the flaws in the lower courts model in the ruling. There are plenty of good places to invest the political and financial capital pushing back on the legal encroachments of the 2nd amendment, but this is not a good one. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This isn’t a new problem. There are pictures of F-5s making mast level high speed passes over Chinese vessels out there in the headquarters of the PAF in Manila. For a job where you have to make effort to get to the other guy, fishing out there gets aggressive. Honestly I’d give 2 to 1 odds the Phils instigate things because they solidly believe that we want to get a pretext to come in swinging. There was a lot of concerted effort during the Obama administration to try and soften that attitude through engagement in JSOTF-P. They are phenomenally critical to any kind of action in that region, but after almost 40 years of being pushed around by China once we “left”they have a chip on their shoulder and a belief like a little brother at the playground that big brother (USA) will fix any fight they may start. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dude… vote. That’s your voice, and after that deal with the results. The second people scream dumb mottos like “taxation is theft” my immediate question is do you expect the fire department to show up if you call 911, or an ambulance to come when your kid gets hit by a car riding his bike? Do you like knowing your tap water isn’t full of some heavy metal chemical because an agency is insuring people aren’t violating the law? If you want these things, there is a social cost associated with an understood social contract. Part of that societal contract waaaaaaay down in the fine print is the understanding that we will abandon the status quo to defend it. Maybe that’s with massive reapplication of resources and industry, or maybe that’s with bodies whether they are direct combatants or they are (more likely) the immediately deputized post conflict population the maintain some semblance of order and protection while we get society back on its feet. That’s really where the plan for conscription is. We could be more “free” without those things… there are plenty of countries attempting that method of freedom. Nobody comfortable in the US would probably want the trade offs that come with it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

But that’s the problem with the vocal ultra libertarian slogans like “conscription is slavery” or “taxation is theft.” They sound nice when shouted philosophically to a room of like opinions, but no different than “believe the science” or “believe all women,” they are just that… slogans. They aren’t meant to be ignorant of nuance and accepted as bold faced boiler plate logic. Libertarian absolutism buts against the reality of societal contractual obligations. It’s like yes, you get to have freedoms… in a society… so long as we can maintain the societal status quo. And just as believing taxation is theft but expecting protection from outside forces, there is the reality that conscription is an agreed upon by consensus of a societal contract for participation. We don’t use it now in the status quo of taxing too and forming a profession of arms. That doesn’t mean it’s not a valid contingency for the continued preservation or restoration of a society, no different extremis areas like martial law. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Oh I think it’s completely a cop out, but it’s one a commander who is cheap can easily grab at and say “ok yeah let’s do it that way.” Same reason people get the 5 dollar hot and ready for a shop that “works through lunch to make mission.” Like what’s the minimal amount of effort I can make to reward good people working together to get it done. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depending on your legal shop this can be a problem. Lately it’s a lot of “that’s not allowed” with regards to self funding stuff because of the weird power control consent question that comes from a commander saying “we’re having a BBQ” and suddenly all the senior ranks are passing the hat around. The MWR and dining facilities have specific fund allotments and free food options that the unit funds can be used to but their quality is pretty crappy. What sucks is morale should be viewed as an expendable item just like POL or bench stock… Units should have funds to invest in it the way they best see fit whether that’s buying a lot of excess class I or paying the price down for ball tickets same as they have a TDY budget for PME. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know a girl who was a Dothan native, who became a Ft Riley KS wife, only to become a Dothan girl again after the divorce…. Nobody ever high fives a guy because they knew the same Longhorn waitress. Katie Perry, that might go differently. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yeah but this one is bragging rights and not just the consequences of some half way decent girl trading the only currency available for a ticket out of Andalusia/Troy/Dothan. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

But see that’s the thing, we are getting accelerated modernization through support of Ukraine, the media sphere talking points just don’t support the space required to have that conversation. ATACM and Bradley are being given to Ukraine under that financial dollar amount. That’s not to build the Ukrainians new equipment, we are divesting M2A2/3s that are still serviceable but near the end of life cycle and funding accelerated replacement of those stocks with A4s. 1st CAV will be the first unit to field A4s in an Armored Brigade Combat team about 2 years ahead of the original timeline for it, they are set to fall in on them returning from the EUCOM rotation they are on. Similarly ATACM isn’t being built to replace, the money funds PRISM. Upgrades are absolutely happening, and at the cost of equipment and ordnance we were going to have to pay to DRMO. And while we can sit in an arbitration of negotiated peace, the people selling the inevitable collapse of Ukraine are ignoring a lot of reality on the battlefield. The Ukrainians now possess and are permitted to use weapons to shape the Corps and Division deep areas, which they didn’t have in hand during their summer offensive. If you’re going to conduct offensive ground operations and you don’t have an Air Force with established air superiority conducting interdiction that’s going to be a necessary capability (the other big problem being engineering). They just started pushing the Russians north of Vovchansk for example they are well north of the River which was their defensive line. They can do that because they can shape the deep fight in a way they weren’t allowed too. Everybody screaming last summer about how come they don’t advance like us were largely ignoring or ignorant of that being something we would need to do if we were in their place. The artillery they did have last year was being used in direct support of their FLOT, which while effective at limiting casualties makes for slow movement to take the field from the opposing force because they can just feed in the strategic reserve. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So now it’s blood AND/OR treasure now. But nobody ever wants to talk about time. I think in our lack of a LSCO in recent times we’ve forgiven that those wars are thought of in spans of years. Iraq was an anomaly. What were general staffs doing in April-July of 1945… figuring out what they wanted to do in 1946, because there was never an assumption the end of a conflict was just around the bend. For less than 10% of the annual DOD budget because 811 billion per year is 80 billion annually in a 2.5 year of which ~60% of it went directly into building out our own stateside infrastructure and purchasing new stocks in exchange for old DRMO ones necessary to conduct LSCO in the evidence of expansionist policies from both our major opponents… we managed to: -Contribute to Russia losing something along the lines of 20% of its tactical Air power… -Destroy 60-70% of its Gen III+ MBTs and later armored vehicles (4th guards was training with T62s last summer)… -Neutralize every warship that would able to contest us or influence NATO territory with Calibr from the Black Sea or Baltic since that’s who they largely augmented with… -field test a butt load of emergent tech and methods rather than learn them the hard way… At the rate we are going between attrition in this war and NATO members moving to develop a real military across the continent we won’t need a 2 theatre military, because Russia won’t have one left to field offensively. This is the lowest return on investment in the history of our military spending. And in the meantime we demonstrate to the Chinese who are watching “no you can’t just invade and hold while we lose our attention span on your annexation of a neighbor.” Yeah that’s a win worth far more than maybe a dozen more B21s 6 years from now provided somebody doesn’t reappropriate that money for other things because we forget great powers type war is still a real thing out there like we did through the 90s and early 00s. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh I’m not saying he’s some paid KGB esque Russian actor, just a useful idiot (and an anti-Semitic piece of crap too). Russia has just used his vocal stupidity and bonafides of his “credible historian” to amplify this narrative that it’s somehow NATOs fault. His quotes and statements mirror stuff on RT and other state run propaganda outfits and other sources have pointed out the dubious location all all the sudden like/subscribe/share of a lot of his more anti-NATO Russian apologists posts. There is definitely an effort to put his and similar opinions in front of as many people as possible to generate opposition to continued support to Ukraine in opposition to Russian intent. Thats simply an Info War tactical (non kinetic) effort translating to operational and eventually strategic effects. And the fact so many people parrot it despite the fact that NATO didn’t go trying to expand, Poland and Hungry went looking to join to gain article V protection to their newly found sovereignty and made multiple efforts to attain it shows it’s been effective against a good size chunk of our population. Similar to that there was an early narrative in the war to show pictures of Ukrainians welcoming the German soldiers and talk about actions in WWII to say “see they are really Nazis” without including the context that after and the Stalin era the Ukrainians weren’t Nazis, they were simply desperate for survival. The Russians weren’t attempting to make the media out in space, just to control the caption of it and share it with as many people as possible. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also an important to point out that Meaesheimer’s viral video is getting a buttload of help from Russian assistance with their troll farms pumping the algorithm to keep it in view. Weird how a video from 2015 somehow breaks out all of a sudden across social media (especially TilTok) around about the same time it’s useful for Russia to attempt operational impact by eroding support for Ukraine. Almost like they understand the information part of multi-domain warfare…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah… it’s not our fault. NATO didn’t force him to do anything. He was never promised anything, and for that matter neither was Gorbachev. More to that point that when NATO did start expanding, there was permission given from the Russian government at the time in a quid pro quo exchange of billions in US currency to prop up its market economy (preventing another coup during the Yeltsin era), and agreements in time table that would be advantageous to both the Clinton and Yeltsin elections going that year. We (UN Forces) were active Combatants in Korea having actually exceeded the original mandate to protect South Korea by then attempting to unify the country crossing north of the 38th, the internationally recognized border in an attempt to punitively unify the peninsula only to get pushed back south of it and lose Seoul a second time…. Retake it…. And end up in a stalemate mostly along the 38th for over a year. South Korea didn’t give any territory or make concessions to just not have Inchon or Sokcho be theirs anymore. We negotiated for a return to the original status quo. We (UN/NATO) weren’t and aren’t active combatants in any of the territorial annexations through force that Russia has executed over the last two decades. A more apt comparison of what is being suggested now for a truce in this conflict in terms of a Korean War would be like the UN stabilizing the Pusan Perimeter for a while simultaneously having no combat casualties doing it, and then telling the ROK “ok this is the new South Korea, enjoy what we negotiated for you.” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

South Korea had been a country for a grand total of 2 years at the beginning of that Conflict. And it had been ruled by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Comparing that negotiated outcome to a conflict where the Ukrainians are solely the force on the ground conducting combat operations is at best a bad comparison for how things should be seen as necessary to negotiate ceasing of the conflict. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It kept their pilot corps more in line with current technology for simple cost than any other aircraft in the option group. Pays off for those that suddenly get their priorities in order now. It would be great to see a side by side comparison of the training hours, additional academics, retrain events, etc that occurred between aviators from later simpler aircraft like F4/Mirage/MiG-27/29 etc and then try to move to their new shiny F35s vs say a country that bought a handful of late model Vipers or Gripens. I’ll bet there are a couple people on this site that could offer anecdotal observations of foreign pilots coming from both groups to train up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a flaw in your logical format. The duty of a peace officer executing a warrant isn’t to determine guilt/innocence of individuals encountered in the conduct of their duty, it’s the preservation of civil order (ie non violence or destruction/chaos) and protection to bystanders at large and themselves in the execution of a legitimate action by the state. Somebody found on the premises being searched isn’t deemed a bystander at large, they are going to be detained which is within lawful permissions and cleared primarily on two protected grounds, preservation of evidence and officer safety, but with a load of case law behind them. The burden of right to detain/question/apprehend and hold within process limitations is met already by issuance of the warrant. Thats not on the officers following protocol, that’s on the state and the judge in demonstrating the burden to take that step across what is the status quo of respect to constitutional privacy. It’s a grey area our more vehemently libertarian minded refuse to acknowledge. That’s why they have to go to a judge to execute a proactive action like a search/arrest warrant vs a reactive situation like a situation of exigent circumstances or a simple response to dispatch call. People can scream “guilty until proven innocent,” but reality is there are stages every citizen goes through between innocent to guilty, an example being pre trial custody. The entire concept of bail is built on that being constitutionally permissible. Same is true of assumption of connection to crimes by being present in a location that has met the burden of a warrant. This guy isn’t the poor bastard that responded to noise in the night and the door kickers got the address wrong, this dude is living in a house knowing or ignoring his actions as a felon and expecting to be treated the same as the guy that isn’t doing that. Sorry not sorry, no different than running human trafficking out of your basement, you are actively engaged in crime, so the idea he could have innocently thought it was anybody but law enforcement is a made up argument. Look I can’t stand the ATF, because they are redundant and clown shoe in their professionalism compared to other agency’s, but using this shooting as evidence of the police state is a bad hill to die on. This wasn’t invented charges, or victimless crimes, and if this dude had been slinging Coke/meth/etc and killed by the DEA it wouldn’t have been a blip on the Glocktalk/NRA/USSA forum type circles or generate any action in Congress. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hey who had “Color Revolution Theory” on their IA Campaign Bingo card? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Battle of 73 Easting was the last major tank on tank engagement during the 91 Gulf war. Started in a sand storm as a movement to contact (the big left hook of the ground war), named after the geographic position that it took place on since it happened literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a complete routing of the Republican Guard unit encountered which was vastly superior in size to the force that encountered it. 2nd ACR basically conducted a text book example of movement to contact by a Cavalry unit conducting “covering” (security mission) for a Division and decimated a larger force through speed, surprise, and violence of action. I’m doing so they cemented the Abrams (and Bradley) reputation in the question of what would happen when it came up against T-72. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting Leo is the shorthand nickname for the German Leopard tank. Widely considered the only real competitive model of tank to achieve the same prominence and capability of the Abrams because of its wide export market. The A5-7 series are impressive, but I’d argue the limits on the Leo are more to do with the way countries use them rather than specific capability of an individual model. Personally I really like what the Koreans did with K2, but they have a lot of unique capes built into that tank specific for where they plan to fight with it that we don’t necessarily need for the cost it would add to the unit price. Honestly the greatest tank improvement would be including a true ECS system to provide and maintain crew comfort. You wouldn’t suffer nearly the danger to having hatches unbuttoned if it could maintain a viable temperature inside the hull. It would also vastly increase crew effectiveness from a rest/fatigue mindset, but the Army doesn’t think about that hence no requirements paperwork until we spent 30 years deploying tanks to the desert. We are only now starting to see that get into fighting vehicles of all types. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think a lot of people have built some sort of mythic reputation to the Abrams kind of like the A-10. It’s not invincible, in fact we have had them knocked out of action in every major fight they’ve ever been part of often times to RPGs. It’s just that story doesn’t override the “legend of 73 Easting.” Abrams and Leo are both just as vulnerable to action as would be expected of any Armor vehicle. But what they do remarkably better than other tanks (specifically Russian ones) is crew survivability. We can always make a new tank (with the exception of the British which is a whole other issue). It takes a lot longer to make and train good tankers much less teach them to fight as a combined arms unit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not only that, but in order to join NATO following the illegal annexation of its territory in 2014, Ukraine would have had to officially recognize the Donbas and Crimea as Russian due to the requirements in NATO for applying. Since Ukraine has refused to do that (along with most of the western aligned world) it would be impossible for them to join NATO. Putin’s narrative of NATO expansion as some existential crises to Russia is built on bullshit. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Wait I thought they had to invade to stop the Nazis… Which Russian talking point are we committed too this month? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You’re deliberately misquoting or cutting out statements of context and then misrepresenting or ignoring parts of those statements for your own twisted up ends. Absolutely nothing I said in the first 2 paragraphs were disconnected from the actual 3rd one you decided to cherry pick from, nor did I ever imply that these systems were the end all replacement for higher cost munitions you did. You made that part up in space to circle us back to a wider “we can’t afford and therefore,” narrative., and now you’re trying to pretend you didn’t. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk