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Mitch Staff says he was in the hospital due to a fall. I think it was more than gravity that caused said fall, maybe a Biden tripping hazard jumped in front of him. Here's him a year ago. And here's him yesterday. Spittin' image of a robustly healthy dude? Is she holding him up? I like the proof of life newspaper, nice touch. Weekend at Bernie's!

That dude who ducked wins the luckiest guy of the year award...but then when he touched the hot barrel is LOL.

It's a double-edged sword, but as Brabus so correctly pointed out, the impetus is on the military to protect sensitive and/or classified material. The same argument can be made about PA wanting to release information just so they can look good. I don't consider the media to be spies (well, not ALL of them), but we all know there is a lot of information our adversaries learn about us through open source reporting (a commonly cited intelligence community rule of thumb has long been that 60–90% of useful intelligence can originate from open sources). Those of us who have been on here for a while remember Rainman’s famous recommendation when it comes to the media (“never talk to them”) but they are not the only ones trying to extract info from us. “Loose Lips Sink Ships” and “Never Pass Up The Opportunity To Shut The Fuck Up!” remind us how important OPSEC is, especially on forums such as this one. Steve is a well-known and respected aviation journalist who has contributed a lot to this forum; but he’s not the USAF and shouldn’t be expected to protect its secrets like the rest of us. That’s our job! And I don’t fault him for sharing things, that’s his job!

Steve just to clarify, I don't necessarily think you're work as a journalist is toxic, I was more referring to the aviation newsphere in general. The Aviationist might as well be working for China. I admire your work, I own both of your Red Eagles books and sub to your channel. I just think it was a huge foul to mention specifics when you didn't have to. Even if its a poorly kept secret as you say why add to it? Why make our jobs harder? And I agree the bros you interviewed should be held accountable, but if I had heard the same details not once would I have even for one second ever thought to share them online. Happy to chat more offline if you want

I just grabbed an H&K VP9A1 F because I'm tired of stretching my little girl hands as far as they go to hit the slide release. It's actually a really nice pistol so far. I'm not crazy about the trigger-guard-mag-release, but I guess nothing is perfect. Also been working on a custom storage wall since I have a 3D printer. Pretty happy with it so far

I get where you’re coming from Sketch, but I think the energy should be directed at the dudes in the know who spill the beans (whether fully or through aggregate “partial” comments, eye winks, whatever). There’s nothing wrong with Steve’s passion, there’s something wrong with dudes opening their mouth on stuff they shouldn’t. Should I be mad at the Drive, or should I be mad at the douchebag who completely ignored the requirements of his security clearance and NDAs and gave info to a member of the press? I’ve enjoyed Steve’s work, even if I have a problem with people he has interviewed.

Sketch If it was supposed to be a secret that Doc was flying a Flanker when he was tragically killed, then it was an appallingly badly kept one, and the Air Force needs to do a much better job of keeping the compartments you speak of airtight. I take the "toxic journalist: 'Hey, I know X&Y'" allegation very seriously. It's disappointing that this is your conclusion about me. I wish I could tell you about some of the emotional drivers for researching the story and telling it the way I did, but they pertain to Doc's immediate family, and therefore rightly remain private.

he hasn't lost. and he's draining a fuck ton of western equipment along with our adventures in iran.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1724148098779478

RIP Lady G

I really wanted to reply with a perspective to this thread on my old account but never got around to it. I'm prefacing this as a long-time admirer of Steve's work, particularly covering the amazing history of the Red Eagles and his 10 percent truth channel, but I was absolutely appalled by this video when he released it and think it serves as a shining example of why the majority of current collection of aviation journalists & spotters are so toxic. Obviously, it goes without saying that the loss of Doc was tragic and his story/career should absolutely be highlighted, but what Steve did was literally the worst possible way to do it. Yes, he has every right to report what he wants and what his sources divulged (which was bad on their parts if they're credible), hes a journalist and we should celebrate free press. But the problem here is, like many of his counterparts (the Alex Holdings, Trevor Rogoways, David Cenciottis etc) they're obsessed with classified programs and getting the scoop for clicks while giving a big middle finger to OPSEC. These dudes likely don't realize the insane level of compartmentalization necessary to keep certain things from public eye, and they've literally created opsec briefings because of stuff they've reported (my buddys had to sit through several). Steve literally could've made the entire video without the single mentioning of a Flanker or any aircraft for that matter, but he used Docs' tragic loss as an excuse to tell the world "hey I know X&Y" about a black program, a program that I'm sure Doc was highly passionate about and spent much effort to help protect the integrity of. But journalists today are so obsessed with clicks and ad revenue that they almost forget the team they're playing for. Like Steve said, I know I'm probably not going to win any points with this post either.

Sorry for the delay. Dibs.

What's asymmetric about it? It's cruise missiles and long range drones for the land based attacks and various drones for shipping attacks.

And Pete can pound wood hard all day long, any punishment via Courts Martial comes from the jury, not Pete. Art 15 doesn't do jail. Dude wants Pete to overplay his hand... ammo for the counter attack. Best Pete can do, undue command influence and all, is push for Art 15.

Asymmetric warfare at its best. We better be talking hard notes, or better yet, be in on making this happen.

All part of the special military operation comrade

If it wasn't obvious, it should have been. Windows 8 was the first OS that was clearly and unambiguously designed to benefit Microsoft, not the end user. It's been nothing but the same in years since. Switched OSs many, many, many years ago at this point and couldn't be happier. No regrets. Perhaps the biggest crime of all is how embedded Microsoft has become in all layers of our society. Government, primary school, college, business, etc. It's unconscionable that the government uses a single-source end-user OS. Going forward it would be far better if the government mandated that different OS's be used by different agencies to break Microsoft's soft monopoly - ala Burger King vs McDonald's on USAF vs Navy bases.

I was reliably told years ago that Putin was on the cusp of a total and complete victory. What's going on here?

I propose a new amendment: All sitting NCA individuals should not be allowed to use social media while in office. Almost all Silent generation and many Boomers on the socials don't understand the simple fact: Most thoughts you have don't deserves and audience.

Such a strange coincidence that Israel hands US intelligence on increased threat to the big guy at this time.

Russia's industrial base getting hammered. Sea of Azov Russian shipping getting hammered. No gas/oil/supplies getting to Crimea. Starting to get sporty.

Closer to Putin thinking about using nukes.