FLEA

I'm not even sure what anyone's point is right now? Do I just need another beer?

Legitimately curious, what was your plan for all that? Just illegally continue to keep troops positioned in Syria with no AUMF, hoping to outlast Assad's will power to maintain his own borders without sparking a major shooting war with Russia? And how would you justify this to your more strategic partner Turkey? How are you going to do all of the above when Turkey removes access to your air bases? How will you justify to American people using UE blood and treasure to build a new state in the ME illegally in the borders or another state with little interest for the US? Honestly want your thoughts on all of this.

Yes but he's putting Congress in a hole. He needs to start now to shift the blame to Congress for this catastrophe if he is still in office next year.

Shit, I cant remember names worth a fuck. I must have early onset dementia in my mid 30's.

In the opinion of his peers, which to me and many others, means nothing. You are quick the throw cable news under the bus but don't realize most people are already talking past that. What critical thinking are you performing when analyzing an article like Goldberg's? Did you ask what Goldberg has to gain from it? What does his publisher have to gain? What exactly is he saying, and more importantly, what exactly did he leave out? I think by now everyone knows I have an extraordinary low opinion of ALL journalist. (Really, I think they are among the lowest people in society.) I'm sure a lot of journalism out there is fine. But i trust it so much as I trust a Jeppeson approach plate without an approach plate review on a foreign airfield. Edit: In case anyone ask, no, I didn't catch my wife sleeping with a journalist. I just genuinely find them despicable people.

How do police document eye witness discrepancy in reports and intel analyst rate and score source reliability? Investigation is an art practiced in many fields. Journalist seem to forgot its a huge portion of theirs. But herein lies the difficulty with hiding your sources. If the source is unknown how is the public privy to the sources reliability? What do the other facts indicate? Better yet, don't make an assumption, just present both accounts, both sources, and then the empirical facts. Let the reader make a judgement then.

It has nothing to do with right vs left. I'm very central moderate. However, as early as highschool English I was told I need to cite my sources and in college, taught to critically think on articles that weren't appropriately cited. Now i'm older, have a ton of experience within government, and can read between the lines. I would never suggest government controlled journalism because I do think free press is instrumental to keeping the government in check. However, as a profession, journalist have a lot of word to do to return credibility to their field. For one, they are not experts on anything. Even an aviation journalist might know a lot about planes, but I would never trust him to fly one. How many times have you read an aviation related news article and had a short "that's not quite right" moment that changes the whole context of the article. Now apply that to EVERYTHING you've ever read in the news. Nothing you read is written by someone who is credentialed in the field they are writing on. They are simply "average joe's" writing for other "average joe's". Two, I have no reason to trust a journalist's integrity based on his profession. I don't trust the President based on his, why would I trust a journalist? Am I supposed to believe the guy who makes his living on his ability to get published in an era when shock news sells has any reason to be honest? Or his publisher who needs to concern himself with making the publications bottom line? Or is Brian Williams the face of journalist integrity I should be looking toward? At the end of the day though, almost ALL news media is for profit, And even that which is "not for profit" exist in a loose 501c grey area, because the reality is, if no one is reading your news, you aren't relevant. So shock value pulls "views" and "views" generate dollars. Few honest people in this world. I doubt journalism attracts more of them than any other profession. Three, and this is more of a personal taste, but the writing quality of journal news has really plummeted in the last 20 years. I don't have any specific examples on me at the moment but I feel about once a month I read an article and just role my eyes thinking "did a 12th grader write this?" I'm not talking so much about grammar/editing, but more so choice of words, phrases, terms, etc... A lot of what you read anymore just doesn't sound professional. Four, you make a good point about rolling the ball of power, if we were talking 20 years ago. But the reality is American's don't need to rely on journalist anymore, as we are in an era when any American can broadcast from home via social media. Trump saw that before his rivals and its one of the reasons he sits on the iron throne.

I think your biggest fallacy here though with journalist is most people don't believe they are professional or have integrity. American opinion of journal media is at an all time low. Also, I don't want a story. I want information. Let me make conjectures about what that information means. Your story is just opinionated rubbish that needs to stay between a journalist and their friends.

The assassination isn't going to fly as entering us into a conflict because 1.) It didn't. Crises was over 48 hours later. 2.) Strike occured in a hostile zone that began (or resumed) under the Obama administration, in which we were already involved in an existing proxi conflict with Iran via their backing of Hezbollah affiliated militias. Iran was a beliggerent in the ISIS conflict and hence this was just a continuation of a conflict Trump inhereted. What I think is more uncomfortable is how many members of the Public can't name every conflict we've been in the last 20 years and think Iraq and Afghanistan are the only two. I especially criticize Obama on this one as he entered us into so many new conflicts after campaigning on peace and removing us from conflicts.

The fact you think Trump will bumble his way to an unintended conflict shows you aren't paying much attention to his guidance. He is the LEAST likely President we've had in probably 20 years to take us to war with anyone. Trump is ending and reducing our foreign entanglements and his policy is geared toward is being less dependent on foreign interest. He is very clear about that. He talks a big talk against some countries like nK and PRC but his likely hood to commit blood and metal is very low. He realizes the economic fallout on his legacy would be disasterous and he had a low appetite to go to war for other countries defense (i.e. Europe and sK) .

I think your bottom assessment is pretty accurate. People will still vote for him regardless because of policy though and not what he thinks. He's said some crappy things but he has also come a long way at getting us disentangled in the ME, which I think most troops care more about than statements about our nature.

So while some of this is verifiably true, a lot of this sounds like it's written by someone outside the military with little knowledge of how government works. About 1/3 of these decisions were made far below Trump's level. About another 1/3 aren't really even that big of a deal. And about 1/3 is stuff that he probably shouldn't have said, or a socially couth person at least wouldn't have said.

Fortunate thing is Airmen usually aren't paying much in taxes and won't have a large trap to fall into. However, this whole order is frustrating to me because noone asked for this. People already had the option to forgo tax witholdings on their pay and all this order did was take an option away from people where there was one before. Like, who thinks these types of things are good ideas? The only thing I can think of is stimulus 2 is in fact not dead and with this route POTUS is hoping to throw a tax deferment forgiveness into it.

This is all true. Definitely a "he said/she said" article. However, the Atlantic likely notified the White House and both parties last week they intended to publish the article. This is common in journalism before you publish a slandering story and I heard as early as Tuesday that the Atlantic intended to publish a story about Trump making negative remarks about the US military. So no surprises there. However.... This is the same President who called POW's losers, and who disparaged the gold star parents of a fallen veteran and described his merits creating jobs and real estate as equally sacrificial to the life of their son. I'm not saying this makes Trump a good or bad President. Its an interesting observation. If he is high functioning autistic, he would not be alone, as many people in the intel community believe his good buddy Putin is also high functioning. In fact, just looking up the definition of Asperger's again: "a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests." He definitely has repetitive speech patterns.

After the Atlantic story I'm starting to wonder if Trump isn't high functioning autistic which would actually explain A LOT about him. But I actually don't doubt the Atlantic story because he has said things in poor taste to military and veterans in the past. These arent just beyond the normal expectations of social couth but hint that Trump may be incapable of certain degrees of empathy.

Removed from ROTC for 2.7 GPA? Did the program requirement change? Used to be you had to maintain 2.5 to stay on program and 3.0 to maintain scholarship. I definitely know many people who did worse than you. Self included.

Noone is arguing for anything selfish. If that's how you see things, you are not listening.

So to be clear, I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I do though, heavily, heavily, believe in incompetence, because I've worked staff long enough to know the people informing the President are only at best 70% confident in the information they present him, and more often than not, they are only 50% confident. That's a complete guess, but I say that having been a contributor to 4 white papers that made the CJCS desk that he undoubtedly briefed at least one of them to POTUS at one point. I was only about 40% confident on that one, and another that I'm aware he briefed to Congress. I was only about 40% confident on my conclusions on those, but I had about 2 days to collect a massive ammount of data that we had not been historically tracking and most of it had to be estimated. Luckily these papers go through multiple levels of review and are heavily caveated but garbage in garbage out right? The executive decision cycle is usually heavily time sensitive and when you look at the decision matrix from gut feel to analysis paralysis we are often working very heavy on the gut feel side. Hence, data is interesting, but when you jump to draw conclusions from it, you are more often than not setting yourself up for failure.

Correlation does not equal causation. It's too early to determine this. I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to find clear statistics but nothing is clear. According to the National Center of Disease control, as of April, US annual deaths were actually down about 100,000. However, in another article the CDC reports an increase in July. Regardless, the natural annual increase that occurs because of an increasing elderly population is anywhere from about 0.5% to 1.5% depending if I use the Department of Health model or the UN model. Deaths in 2017 were 2.8M but I can't find 2018 or 2019. Regardless, even half of a % of 2.8M is 140K. That's a pretty large chunk of your 200K. Now while the timing is interesting (you claim since March) I was looking at the 2017 chart and the majority of their deaths actually occured Feb to April. It's possible since we were down in April we are simply expereincing correction. Again, your data is interesting, but not compelling. I don't think we'll be able to discern measurable casualties until 2-3 years after this thing is over and some really smart people at some really well paid universities can do some more detailed research. We also have to account for how many deaths are "Corona Related." Suicides are likely up due to increased isolation. In some states that closed clinics not directly involved in the fight against corona, some patients couldn't find health care for routine check-ups/procedures, likely leading to delayed heart disease or cancer diagnosis (#1 and 2 killer in US). You also likely have a Nationwide vitamin D deficiency as people spent more time indoors, suppressing immunity defense against more benign sickness. Little things that add up though.

Colin Noir's much anticipated analysis:

It's not against the law in WI for a 17yo to possess a long arm under adult supervision on private property. This was intended to allow children to hunt but apparently the law is vague enough that several defense attorneys think it will make a robust defense as Rittenhouse was on private property at invitation of the property owner before being chased off. Also worth noting he did not own the firearm and did not carry it across state lines. It was given to him in WI. I can't find more details but it sounds like it may belong to the friend who's property he was defending. It's unclear how the first shooting went down. The defense claims a protestor through a Molotov or some flaming object at Rittenhouse but there is no stand your ground laws or castle doctrine in WI. He would have to demonstrate he didn't have a reasonable means of retreat. Plausible either way. In WI self defense does not apply if you are committing another crime when you defend yourself. So hanging him on illegal possession of a firearm is a clear win for a prosecutor. However they are trying him for murder as an adult. A certain ethical question will arise when it is asked how his criminal status is regulated to the law regarding him as a child, but his due process regards him as an adult. Can he be both? Certainly interesting. From the video allone it looks like clear self defense to me, but everything really hinges on 1.) Did he have the firearm legally and 2.) Was the first shooting in self defense? Edit: Here is a link to the video. This looks like clear self defense, especially since he is agressively trying to get away before opening fire. However, this is after the first shooting, and the prosecuting attorney will likely narrate that the mob is trying to disarm/take him into custody after the first shooting.

I did miss that sentence and ill acknowledge that. I agree that contact tracing is a great idea on paper. I discount sK and JP mask wear because it was cultural habbits prior to the pandemic. I would actually attribute the biggest motivator to sK/JP success to be the fact that the average citizen in those countries is far more socially responsible than the average American. I was in Korea when the Daegu church breakout occured. Members of that church and their families were publicy shamed for weeks. There was a huge loss of face by those that participated and other churches that were still open shuddered immediately after. We don't have that cultural component in the US, hence your voluntary contact tracing I feel would have limited participation. There are other cultural aspects as well. Japanese and Koreans are generally cleaner than Americans and possess better hygiene. The point I'm trying to make to all this is there is more than being "industrialized economies." We don't buy stealth fighters because other countries procure stealth fighters. We assess a requirement and an individual need for it. Likewise, a state is going to respond to a crises based on it's individual circumstances. I'm not a supporter of the President. But I have worked high enough to know that data usually isn't accurate when it reaches the executive level, and there is no playbook for a pandemic response. Especially when that pandemic puts you at odds with your authoritarian Asian rival who is carefully watching your responses to make critiques on free democracies. That said, of all the policies you listed, I don't really think they were large contributors to the outbreak. We had a leveling curve until the Goeorge Floyd riots began. The single biggest mistake I put on the President is not recognizing the civil unrest and synergizing the strategy for the pandemic response to the civil unrest response at all. The country was looking for a voice of unification at that point and he completely missed the boat on it.

Ummmmm, he didn't answer the question I asked?.... I didn't ask what we could have done. I asked what JP and sK did. He didn't answer that. He made an assertion they handled the pandemic better. I made a very honest and curious inquiry to find out why he believed that. He wasn't able to back up his assertion. Not that hard to follow man.

So just to be clear, you can't name a single law, executive action, or national policy instituted in sK or JP in their COVID response, but you can name a bunch of things you think we should have done. Copy.

Ah ok. Can you explain to me specifically what policies sK and JP implemented that you would have reccommended the POTUS implement?