nsplayr

I'm very familiar with how polling works and your first sentence there simply isn't accurate. For example, the most recent Fox News poll (Oct 6-8) where Tulsi had 1% briefly describes how they got their sample,: "Interviews were conducted October 6-8, 2019 among a random national sample of 1,003 registered voters (RV). Landline (229) and cellphone (774) telephone numbers were randomly selected for inclusion in the survey using a probability proportionate to size method, which means phone numbers for each state are proportional to the number of voters in each state." BL: Not just polling Democrats, not just polling likely voters, scientifically random sampling. To get the Dem primary question answered, they asked everyone in the sample a question like (sic), "Which party primary do you think you'll take part in?" and if the person answered Dem, they then asked them who they plan on supporting. History tells us that at this point it'll very likely either be Warren or Biden, possibly Bernie but less likely so. To compare, for the 2016 GOP nomination, Trump led every poll except one from 1 Nov until he became the nominee and was pulling usually around mid-20s against the field (i.e. where both Biden and Warren are today). The 2012 GOP nomination was a bit weird in that Gingrich and Romney were both fairly strong at this point, but Santorum made a historically late surge and went from ~1% around Nov 2012 to being the last man standing other than the eventual nominee Romney. To your second point that Tulsi is a "moderate," I also disagree. She's in favor of the same Medicare For All plan as Bernie, she backs an assault weapons ban, she's for free college, etc. She's in the leftward part of the party for sure apart from her...odd...foreign policy views. She's more left than me personally and I'm fairly progressive/liberal. If y'all are looking for a non-Biden moderate Democrat in the current field, I'd recommend checking out Steve Bullock (governor or Montana), Michael Bennett (senator from Colorado), Amy Klobuchar (senator from Minnesota), or to some degree Pete Butigieg (mayor of South Bend, IN). Bullock and Bennett I actually like but they've gotten so little traction that they haven't even made the last 2 debates and they won't make future debates either at this rate. The field has to narrow at some point and if you can't poll above 1% I'm sorry, thanks for playing. Klobuchar is fine in my book and has been on every debate stage, but again, she hasn't really caught on above 2-3% ever. Pete has caught on more and is polling IVO 13% in Iowa specifically, but he probably doesn't have a realistic path to the nomination IMHO. Interesting that you know some folks who might support Tulsi vs Trump...good to know!

Guys, just to be clear...as one of the few resident Democrats and as someone who follows politicos very closely as a hobby, there is just zero appetite for Tulsi Gabbard. She’s been in all of the debates except one (ie not being “totally ignored”), is an elected member of Congress (ie at least has some traditional qualifications), and she’s polling at less than 2% on average. No one polling that low this late in the primary has ever made even a bit of difference in the race. Her fundraising is basically non-existent for a Presidential-level campaign, and anecdotally of all the Democrats I know, I don’t know of a single person supporting her. I will give you than in an MFK of the Democratic primary, she gets my vote for the “F” category hands down. In all seriousness her oddly pro-Assad views are completely disqualifying in my book and I hope the good people of Hawaii make a difference choice for her seat in Congress in 2020. If y’all wanna like her as Republicans or conservatives because she’s hot and currently shitting on Hillary, go for it.

@brickhistory same here.

I mean, we all have our own political views, but I'm not sure your analysis here is sound. Democrats have won 4/5 national popular votes and every one since GWB won it in 2004. President Trump relied on a razor's edge strategy to barely win three key states and thus win the electoral college in 2016, and GWB's original victory in 2000 was decided at the Supreme Court. We're also somewhat overdue for an incumbent to lose a re-election bid, having had 3x two-term Presidents in a row (Clinton, GWB, Obama). The leading Dem candidates are all traditionally well-qualified (former VP, 2x Senators) and have net-positive personal approval ratings (i.e. unlike both Hillary and Trump in 2016). That being said, the Republicans have a great chance at winning too! President Trump is an incumbent and that has is a meaningful advantage. The country is fairly closely divided and Trump could plausibly repeat his previous narrow path to victory. The economy is doing fairly well in broad strokes, which is good for an incumbent President. Almost all indicators point to the 2020 election being close, and every recent election since the turn of the millenium has been close except 2008. Anyone who says the Dems (or Trump) don't have an ice cube's chance in hell are either lying to you, misinformed, or not putting forward an honest analysis IMHO. Finally, very interesting that you choose LBJ as a parallel to Trump since he made the stunning decision to not run for reelection 🧐

I'm a big fan of tightening ethics rules for lawmakers as well as for executive branch officials. The latest example of what you mentioned is here, Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) pleading guilty to insider trading.

Good / tough words here from the SDF commander Mazloum Abdi: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/13/kurds-assad-syria-russia-putin-turkey-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR3g1yRISC71Ao951AwmjFS3fq9W67CIXVaF8Qz2kFmSY6Dtv04BI-LBoFI

Was this a contest to list as many unconstitutional, unpopular, unwise and hugely costly policies in one post as possible? 😆

Say what you will about endless land wars in Asia (and having participated in several I'm not a big fan!), but the small SOF footprint we previously held in north east Syria was absolutely critical to maintaining the somewhat stable situation that was to our advantage. The SDF fought and died for us against ISIS and we quite literally cut and ran on a whim. How long to stay? Will there ever be an independent Kurdistan? What happens to the thousands of ISIS prisoners in the long-term? How do we deal with the reality that Assad is here to stay? How do we handle a dictatorial & increasingly oppositional NATO "ally" in Erdogon's Turkey? Great questions all around and I don't have great answers. But we literally chose the worst possibly path that answers none of those questions. The path we chose, with little to no planning or interagency process, forfeits all of our leverage in the region, cosigns the slaughter of some of best allies on the ground, potentially re-starts ISIS, and threatens our long-held forward-deployed nuclear forces posture. And for what? Great job everyone, hit the showers!

I did one of these for my wife recently. Can confirm that it was a hit. Fairly easy to make too. Congrats on the retirement!

I hope these guys got intro'd to some air-to-ground tactics because I've got a feeling they'll be employing sooner rather than later 😬

Had a buddy "deploy" to Curacao flying the -135. I thought he was on vacation when I saw pics of him and his wife snorkeling haha. Not sure if that even counts but it seemed pretty damn sweet.

Lol, they're just Rick Rolling us all at this point. Honestly I stopped caring what anyone in Big Blue leadership says about light attack, and I worked on the the project personally in my civilian job and was a big proponent in general. While a light attack capability as an MWS flown by USAF crews could still do a lot of good around the world, it's a good idea that's peak time was probably about 15 years ago and we're pretty clearly now moving in a different direction as an Air Force. My BL: RIP Light Attack, we hardly knew ye...

@pilot I was explicitly not making an argument one way or the other on the facts. The reason I responded to you was that you essentially dismissed Bacevich as a Trump-basher / Obama boot-licker & nothing more, and I thought that was unfair given his credentials and long record of consistent thinking and writing on US foreign policy. Read widely, deeply and even read people with whom you might be inclined to disagree. Start your list with well-credentialed voices that have relevant expertise - I would put Bacevich in this category. Probably good advice for life in general.

FWIW Andrew Bacevich is a self-described conservative with a view of US foreign policy that is deeply skeptical that military power is an all-purpose salve that it's often used as. This has put him at odds at times with the current President as well as both of his predecessors. He's also a retired Army Colonel who served in Vietnam who earned a PhD from Princeton and lost a son to combat in Iraq. All this to say: read him for yourself and figure out if you agree or disagree with his thoughts. I don't count myself in the camp that agrees with him reflexively, but I respect his thinking enough to at least read his writing on occasion. My recommendation is to start here, published in 2008.

Bingo. Fixing the pilot shortage: Cheap + Good = actual innovation in UFT that produces more, better aviators to man the future force Good + Fast = retention of current pilots, i.e. pay a much bigger bonus (and also fix QOL & leadership issues) Cheap + Fast = this is clearly what we've chosen, see orange section below

Pending further investigations, the problem here almost certainly isn't what anyone in the Air Force did, it's that the President has not divested his personal financial stake in and control of numerous businesses. While serving as President, he personally benefits from these businesses that both create the perception of corruption as well as break what I think is pretty clear language in the constitution & subsequent court cases and DOJ guidelines about the President taking money/gifts/etc. from foreign powers (i.e. emoluments). Jimmy Carter put his family peanut farm in a blind trust when he was elected, and DJT should have done the same with his businesses. The fact that the President has made millions off of stays and events at his hotels that very likely would not have taken place were he not President is the issue - this stuff with the USAF is another (small) straw on this particular camel's back. A couple dozen airmen staying at Turnberry pales in comparison to what takes place at the President's DC hotel on a weekly basis.

Gotta hand it to British Tabloids, they often have an excellent sense of humor.

Pontius Pilatus depicted below:

So like...a T-6? Why would you buy some unproven aircraft with a Ukrainian engine rather than the aircraft damn near every pilot left in the AF already trained on?

I found myself the specific next assignment that would have kept me in for 4+ more years of AD, and was still told, "No, FU, PCS to Cannon." Oh well, see ya guys then I guess 🤷‍♂️ Been in the Guard almost 5 years now with a good shot to be on orders as long as I want, as well as the option to just DSG and fly the line occasionally if shit goes sideways. The grass is definitely greener. Go Guard!

Great story, thanks for sharing. Side note: the aerobatics champ was assigned to a bomber...lol, even in WWII there was no justice!

I recently-ish did ROPMA to O4 and did not have a PRF that I as aware of. Then again, my old unit also sent me to that board without telling me (I was under the mistaken impression I had another year), and also with my package (sts) missing my 2x latest OPRs. 😆 Aaaand I still got picked up so hey, anyone with a pulse has a chance in the Guard baby! It was a 96% selection rate for my AFSC at the time (12S) on that board, so I'm glad to know I'm not in the bottom 4% of my peer group. That being said, while I did get picked up, I also max performed O3 by doing the full 7 years which was obv less $$ in the bank and also put me well "behind" where my year group bros who stayed on active duty were. ROPMA giveth and ROPMA maketh thee wait I guess is the moral of the story. Another random datapoint from the peanut gallery: 7.269 years active duty (AFSOC) and 4.69 years in the Guard (AFSOC and now ACC) and I've never seen a PRF. Only people I know who had were either execs or were themselves being promoted to O4/O5 and were "doing it live."

There are both pretty close to what you asked for in terms of dimensions and are sorta like fancier versions of the big pubs bags we got at Nav school back in the day: https://www.pilotmall.com/collections/flight-bags-accessories/products/the-ultimate-multi-tasker-from-crew-gear https://www.pilotmall.com/collections/flight-bags-accessories/products/balistic-nylon-rolling-flight-case-on-wheels

Not sure if it was fully FAA-compliant and all that, but I may or may not have heard of a couple of OV-10s with MX-15s on them before... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22343/those-suped-up-ov-10-broncos-that-took-on-isis-in-iraq-are-being-sold-off

I had a separation date set and deployed less than 6 months from that date. Returned approx 6 weeks later and started terminal within 5 days. 2014 timeframe from CVS so YMMV. No idea on the regs because no one tried to stop me, they just have me weird looks as I simultaneously ran pre-deployment and Air Force outprocessing checklists 🤷‍♂️