nsplayr

If you truly believe, like you said, that the oath you swore means nothing, the constitution is worthless because it’s not followed, and all of our various military operations are pointless, then I urge you to either not join, not re-enlist, or resign your commission ASAP, depending on who you are at this point career-wise. No additional debate is needed - your views as you’ve described them are not compatible with uniformed service. Good luck to you in your other endeavors. I’m all for being introspective and acknowledging how we as a nation have made (and continue to make) mistakes and how we can do better, but that’s not what you’re saying.

There is absolutely supposed to be independence between the AG and the President, not unlike between the IG and the CC. Does it always happen in practice? No. Do some folks toe the line? Yes. Is it written in the constitution somewhere exactly what the boundaries are? No. That doesn’t mean that the norms and best practices don’t exist, nor does ignorance of them mean they don’t exist. I for one don’t want any President directing politically sensitive investigations. That’s how dictatorships work…the leader is in charge of everything and the interior ministry is the steel-toed boot of the state on behalf of the dictator’s whims. Thats now how our system works, nowhere close, nor should any of us want that.

In addition to Preet, you can add Sessions, Comey, and BJ Pak in Georgia…

You do not understand how the justice department is supposed to work. The fact that the AG personally signed off means this went much higher up the chain than normal and for all intents and purposes that’s as high as this type of chain goes. It’s kind of like the IG…technically works for the Commander, but also has some independence and doesn’t clear all work ahead of time with the CC, especially in sensitive cases or when the boss might have conflicts.

This is extremely normal and how it’s supposed to work. The Attorney General Merrick Garland personally approved of the warrant being served…he even had a brief press conference about it. But he did not, nor should he have, pre-briefed President Biden. There is supposed to be some autonomy and political distance between the President and certain justice officials, like the director of the FBI and the AG, even though both are part of the executive branch and derive their powers and duties from the President’s constitutional charge to faithfully execute the laws. Different Presidents handle it differently and not always consistently. Bill Clinton, GWB and Obama I don’t think were ever really inappropriately close to their AGs, give or take. Trump was furious that Jeff Sessions and then Bill Barr weren’t basically his personal lawyers and enforcers and both eventually resigned because of it…so like I said…they handled it differently 😅

Some of these are very valid questions…worthy of answering during the course of an investigation! But this isn’t a hoax, an FBI false flag, or whatever other insane theories are out there. There is an investigation into alleged wrongdoing and lawbreaking. Unlike many folks I remember in 2016, I’m not going to chant “lock him up.” There should be an investigation, and if warranted, an indictment, trial and sentencing. Only after that do you do the locking up part, if needed, not before and certainly at the behest of a political mob. You also don’t just “give him a pass” based on previous unrelated cases, that’s now how the rule of law works.

100% this is a fact. See page 6. I have posted this link before but it’s the search warrant and record of property that was seized. And not just “classified.” TS/SCI specifically, which is why I say that. There are rumors of other types of data related to nukes and etc. but that’s all rumors and therefore not something I put any belief in at this point; let the investigation unfold. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22131373/unsealed-mar-a-lago-warrant.pdf

Trump has TS/SCI at his house in Florida 18 months into being a private citizen! That seems bad! I do in fact want the FBI to look into stuff like that, as well as any other lawbreaking done by Americans or in America and don’t hold the view that the FBI is some liberal stasi controlled in secret by Dark Brandon. Chris Wray, who is personally a Republican and currently the director of the FBI, was appointed by Trump out-of-cycle when he fired Comey. I don’t think he has some kind of vendetta against Trump, but maybe y’all can point your questions that way.

This is quite the point of view, especially if you are a currently-serving officer! Good luck to you.

What you’re advocating for here is the end of the rule of law. Perhaps you believe we’re already there but I do not. Even if you do believe the FBI is lawless, the right solution isn’t to use it for your own political gain as soon as you are able, it’s to bring it back to heel and within the bounds of the rule of law. Eye-for-an-eye justice is not the American way. I think we should continue to support and defend the constitution and improve or shore up any government functions that aren’t running optimally rather than wholesale throwing out our institutions and sliding into partisan authoritarianism. I guess you can make another choice but I mean…🤷‍♂️ How about we not give up on America and fulfill the oaths I’m pretty sure nearly all of us swore? 🇺🇸

@Pooteris freaking spot on. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best way forward is always to handle the current situation correctly. Ya know I’m frankly surprised conservatives are making these arguments that Trump should be potentially let off the hook in the same way they feel Hillary was because that would be “fair.” I always thought that conservatives agreed that “fair” meant not an equality of outcomes but by holding to a standard that gives an equality of opportunity. The way I see it, both Hillary and potentially Trump mishandled classified, with various circumstances in each case. The standard is doing so is bad and there should be consequences. The FBI declined to charge Hillary, although they did basically deep-6 her run at the presidency with the timing of their statements, and either way basically no one on any side thinks that case was handled correctly. Ok, so that’s a “minus” when we’re shot/killing that engagement. FBI didn’t do their jobs no matter what you think of her guilt. Does that mean when we’re evaluating the next shot any of that matters? No, it doesn’t. There is and should be a standard and we need to hold Trump to that. We’re not weeks away from an election where he’s on the ballot, he is a private citizen years out from any potential future office-seeking who was caught with classified at his house - handle that situation correctly. It’s frankly bullshit to do anything different and call it “fairness” and that type of argument in other contexts is often made by leftists who are equally wrong when they do it.

The fact that the AGR bonus is higher than the DSG bonus for a year of orders is whack. Your AGRs are usually in it to win it and already committed, where your DSGs are usually a bit more open to what comes down the pipe. If they wanted to move aviators from the fence line to being committed, it’d be exactly the reverse.

If the FBI wants to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop go for it, you won’t see me calling for the the FBI to be defunded or staging armed protests outside of field offices or trying to break into one. In fact the director of the FBI Chris Wray was appointed by Trump after he fired Comey, so I’m sure he doesn’t have some kind of overriding loyalty to Biden that’s preventing him from doing so. And FWIW I don’t support going back and re-litigating stuff from years/decades ago (eg GWB, drone strikes, emails from the Obama admin, etc.) If no charges were filed at the time then we can’t endlessly live in the past and put everyone on trial forever, something I think conservatives would agree with re: past racism/slavery and some other cultural issues. Handling the present correctly is always the best way to move forward.

I agree that Hillary and the server were bad! No charges were filed but…she lost the 2016 election in no small part due to that. Could have been handled better by the FBI all around. Ok, so you believe retaining classified documents in non-approved ways is bad and should be punished IAW the law. Great, let’s do that with the case at hand right now with Trump. Or you support Hillary having kinda been given a pass in terms of legal consequences, and therefore it’s only fair that Trump does too. I don’t agree, but that’s a logically consistent policy at least. Elites are above the law! BUT, what I’m failing to comprehend is anger that Hillary wasn’t charged or jailed but the same folks believe either Trump did nothing wrong or should not be punished or that we should abolish the FBI 🙄. Not speaking to anyone specific here, but many GOP politicians are going down this trail and I wish they would stop jumping on grenades for Trump before the facts are known beyond that he had TS/SCI docs at Mar-a-Lago. Hillary pretty much went away after she lost. She didn’t endorse in the 2020 primary until it was basically over, and speaking as a Democrat, no one in the party cares what she thinks or does or tweets at this point. Y’all can do that too!

Ok great, I am all for having fair and trustworthy federal law enforcement agencies. There are tons of liberals who look a the FBI very unfavorably for their Hillary investigation recently-ish and going as far back as Hoover and anti-commie stuff and terrible behavior during the civil rights era. Hell, there are liberals who still want to put Bush on trial over Guantanamo and Abi Ghraib and some on both sides who want to do the same for Obama over drone strikes, especially the al-Awlaki strike. I don’t agree with doing any of that FWIW. So let’s not treat people unfairly but let’s also enforce the law. Let’s handle this case with Trump and these classified documents the right way. The best time to start doing better is now and the best place to start doing better is here. That all being said, I do not inherently distrust the FBI, I don’t agree there is some kind of long running or Biden admin-specific anti-conservative bias at the Bureau, and I don’t think we need to relitigate cases where no charges were brought in the first place.

The point of that one being seized I’m guessing is that it’s a presidential record, subject to retention by the national archives. It’s the law, although ok you’re not gonna exactly arrest someone the same way as you might for possessing the TS/SCI, but it’s still a law. Same with the next line item…info re: the President of France…wonder what that was haha! Sacre bleu!

Yes. Page 6 shows “2A - various classified TS/SCI documents” from the FBI receipt of property. There are also several other line items for regular ole TS, Secret, and Confidential documents. https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=22131380-trump-warrant-uns

Fair enough, no one on here yet is full-throated defending the fact that Trump had TS/SCI at mar a lago, many GOP folks are however. My critiques of that are to the Royal “we” in that case, no one here specifically unless otherwise noted. It should be though! If you want fairness, if you want the law followed, you should apply it going forward. You can’t time-machine yourself back and handle past cases better, but you can handle present cases appropriately. You also shouldn’t wish for “makeup” calls like you see in sports sometimes. Refs: “Oh shit we missed that holding call bad…let’s do offensive pass interference on the next play/series to even things out.” Or conversely, “Well we’re just not calling pass interference this game, good luck!” NO! Handle things properly the first time and consistently (ideally), but second-best to that just press forward from today doing the right thing. If you want to be mad about Hillary/Bill/Obama/Joe & Hunter/Nancy/AOC great, I get it. I’m still mad at GWB about fucking up the Iraq War decision so badly but what are ya gonna do today in 2022? Those past grievances are not the discussion right now and even if your words don’t literally say “what about XX…” whataboutism abounds and it’s not good to get those kind of brain worms. What about the topic at hand? My view again is it seems pretty bad, but let’s let the facts present themselves more fully before rushing anyone off tot he gallows, and we should not be maligning the FBI or federal judges without clear evidence of wrongdoing.

This is the whataboutism! Hillary Hunter Nancy Pelosi laptops servers etc etc etc. Those are all conversations and grievances that can be had and aired, but not with me on the internet. Not worth the time spent for me, sorry. We can talk in person sometime but I imagine there are more fruitful things we could talk about instead 🍻 The situation at hand that I’m interested in is that in the last several days, the FBI executed a search warrant on Donald Trump’s house and walked away with TS/SCI and potentially even more sensitive stuff. The warrant indicated possible espionage concerns. He has not been the President for 18 months and has no reason to possess these documents. Without further speculation…that seems bad! I support federal law enforcement agencies looking into that and condemn threats against FBI agents and federal judicial folks who are doing their jobs. I also find it really lame to say this will help Trump politically somehow, just like being impeached twice and losing the 2020 election helped him? Some real 8-D chess going on here… To my Republican and conservative friends in general, I implore you to drop this guy and move on. Stop defending the indefensible by using a laundry list of every logical fallacy in the book. The GOP bench is stocked with other candidates who will enact policies you like and own the libs big time, I promise you.

I too encourage elite political leaders to be above the law and have the ability to commit ongoing crimes with no repercussions…for political convenience no less! 😑 Without speculating about any future charges or whatabouting anyone else’s past actions…having boxes of TS/SCI at your Florida golf club 18 months after leaving office seems bad. I would not want to be that guy.

Well then @Clark Griswold you can call me a proof #UnholyCabal member 😇 I grew up and am still middle class and I’ve enjoyed great personal benefits from an American-led western world order. Capitalism is great, free trade is great, no world wars (and winning the last two!) is great, and both the American working/middle class and especially the world’s population as a whole are significantly better off now than in the pre-WWII era. Obviously improvements can and should continue to be made and YMMV when there are 6.9 billion data points to consider, but I would not trade living in modern times in a wealthy western-aligned nation for any other time or place in history. 🇺🇸🌐 To stay on topic…

Good luck, it’s a blast! In flying Draco for ~5 years we went through 4 significant block upgrades of hardware, 4 major software updates for our main mission management setup, about a dozen smaller software updates (smaller still being 20+ new/changes features), and innumerable other random permutations of datalinks, new radios, etc. etc. Blended fleets are great 🤪 Flying the MQ-9 last week, I found out my sensor operator had never flown a block 1 aircraft before yet there we were, flying one, no restriction against it. Glad we didn’t have an EP, his ability to assist with the checklists would have been significantly degraded lol. Y’all will do great flying the Buff past her 100th year in service I’m sure 😎

^^ 💯 to all that. For everyone who’s an anti-globalist, my argument is always that we Americans especially and the world overall are immensely, measurably better off in almost every way in the modern era compared to any historical period. When/where would you rather live compared to post-WWII America? Paraphrasing a Churchill quote, our global economic and rules-based governance system is the worst one…except all the alternatives we’ve tried!

“Just like they stopped with South Ossetia / Georgia and Crimea, amirite? After having secured that territory surely Putin wouldn’t attack other parts of Ukraine, especially not Kiev!” -Bashi, a very smart man, circa anytime between summer 2008 and February 2022 Man, this has to be one of the clearest “who is bad & the aggressor vs who is good and defending their homeland” situations in my lifetime. If for some reason this war’s waters are muddled at all, you are in a much different place than I am. Fuck Putin, fuck a new Russian Empire, slava Ukraini, and welcome to NATO Sweden and Finland. Mil aid to Ukraine has been the most efficient DoD money spent in forever in terms of units of “US security objectives achieved” per dollar. Ukraine, when you need a reload on HIMARS rounds, holla, we gotcha.