All Activity

David Sacks is quoting Huge Dixon? Gotta be fake news. I have family in state level politics, and I'm a little involved in this year's campaign. I know my State Rep to the US Congress personally through various events. Legit good dude. He had been staunchly anti-Ukraine funding since the beginning. About 2 months ago, his campaign had an online poll asking what his constituents thought. The poll results weren't published, but the hundreds of comments underneath were greater than 80% against. He flipped on this supplemental aid bill. I called his office twice in the last week. The staffer said he hasn't made any public comment yet and when he does, they'll get back to me. Word on the street he's been compromised and coerced. Not scheduled to attend any events when he returns from DC. Bear in mind that 79% of the funding for Ukraine isn't going to Ukraine. It's going to defense contractors, and not one of us here knows exactly what we're getting for that amount. They spent almost $67 million in lobbying Congress in the just the first half of 2023. Most of it going to PACs and members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Everyone has a price. Imagine the lobbying they can do with an influx of $49 Billion. It's a massive reward for unethical behavior and if they could overcome the resistance to this last supplemental aid bill, they're going to do it again, and more frequently. $1 Trillion in wealth is being transferred upwards every 100 days in your name. You are being robbed.

Sorry, that was directed at Lookie's very sanctimonious retort.

Chinese scientist who first published COVID sequence stages protest after being locked out of lab Yeah nothing to see here...

Understood Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Forget the extra two years being shot down. Didn’t anyone see the “25 hour cockpit voice recorder” requirement within the bill statement. No one will ever get close to the current 65 year max. Good luck to ya’ll.

Did the manifesto shed any light on the decor? Haha.

FIFY

Right, and we've never seen a program in the Air Force that didn't make it past the testing phase.

Lighten up Francis, you provided no link to a source showing this new pilot training program was in planning or execution right now so it was just u posting on BO that this was happening so that’s gospel and now everyone can settle down. Not really enough to justify an ad hominem IMHO. Done.

The local, adversarial to the feds, vso guy is worth their weight!

I almost didn't make it through

Isn't @Biff_T harvesting Cheetos in NorCal?

Best way to hold federal agents accountable is by Congress cutting their budget. The courts just aren't effective on this and frankly will never themselves be accountable to the people. Stop giving them a paycheck will get their attention, I'm sure. Effects Based Targeting

Dibs Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

?

Solid it depends here. Top 5 or 6 in my class were all commercial rated before UPT. The #1 guy had 269 hours of formation aerobatic jet time. I’ve also seen the 2000 hour regional pilot that is bottom of the class.

The only logical conclusion that one can come to is the agents were looking for a fight. If you think a dude is a gun runner, do you attack him in the place that he would have the most guns? A six year old could see the obvious absurdity. Or do you go get him in a place where at the absolute most he has a pistol hidden? I am not against qualified immunity, but maybe it does need some reform when a police state can violate every shred of common sense and seemingly intentionally escalate a situation to the point that any reasonable person would consider their lives in danger and take self defense actions. If I hear someone trying to kick my door in late at night and yelling 'Police', I'm not going to believe them and I'm going to defend my home. If I hear someone nicely knocking on my door, look outside, see multiple cop cars with their lights on and police in uniform, I will know that I'm not being attacked by a violent gang and I'll put my gun away before I open the door. These ATF agents and the leadership that approved the raid need to be held accountable. They killed a US citizen in his home when he almost certainly thought he was under attack by a band of lawless criminals, which isn't actually that far from the truth.

I had a VERY similar experience with my vision appointments. VERY shitty part of town, in a residential area, random house with basically a nicer shed where the garage used to be. Walked inside and dude had all the latest and greatest eye gadgets. Super nice guy who left the VA system for the same reasons as per him

I retired in 03 with 20%, more or less the VA telling me to go away. Then I retired to a rural county in Colorado and discovered an VSO whose goal was to get every Vet in the county a disabled vet license plate and concurrent pay. I'm up to 50% with back pay. Too bad I didn't find a guy like this in Oklahoma.

The ATFs actions in an enforcement capacity should be removed or severely curtailed. Look we don’t have Treasury agents doing Elliot Ness bootlegger raids anymore, we don’t have other agency groups with their own group of local Joe door kickers taking down guys doing illicit internet stuff. IRS doesn’t conduct raids, they accompany them. The ATF should have its nuts removed and outsource that action to local and federal law enforcement which hasn’t shown its self to be collectively up its own ass. There is no reason the FBI field offices and local departments couldn’t fill that capacity and it would foster better inter agency cooperation. They can still be armed in the normal accomplishment of their duties, same way the crime scene guys all are, but it’s for an understand of protection or exigent circumstances not to go conducting raids because they want to moonlight as SWAT. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Funny story time... As I was getting close to retirement I was going through the evaluation process for a couple of claims. Even though I live 25 minutes from a large VA hospital with all kinds of specialists, the VA in their infinite wisdom decided to send me three hours away to Biloxi to a contracted ENT doctor. I was having some serious back issues which required injections under partial sedation and wouldn't you know the C&P exam was scheduled the same day as my back procedure. Knowing you never want to skip a C&P exam I came up with a plan to do both. The day arrived and luckily my back procedure was first thing in the morning...my wife took me to the hospital, they got me all doped up then crammed a few needles and meds into my discs and spine. My wife was flying to DC that afternoon to help her parents and was going to cancel but when my two best friends heard Biloxi and they volunteered to "help" by taking me to the exam...in reality they had a plan to turn it into a gambling trip. One of them has a large SUV so they put a bunch of pillows and blankets in the back, tossed me in and took of for Biloxi. I woke up a few hours later still out of it and asked how much longer.?..they were slow to reply..."we are not sure, we think we have the wrong address!" I slowly sat up expecting to see a medical center and instead I was shocked to see we were driving through an industrial complex. They was a towing company, a welding shop, a junkyard...all metal buildings. We arrive at the address and it was a metal building with a dirt parking lot. The Dr's name was on the door so I went inside and checked in. They took my name and told me to have a seat. I was still VERY groggy and when I looked around the waiting room it didn't make sense...right above me was Tweety Bird and Sylvester!!!! I actually thought I was seeing things from the anesthesia. I pulled out my phone and took the attached pictures to prove I wasn't crazy. The waiting room furniture was best described as medieval with swords everywhere. My buddies were waiting outside in the ruck so I texted them these pictures as proof, half expecting a trap door to open and drop me into a dungeon. Eventually they called my name and I go back to the exam room which was even more weird. The walls were completely covered in movie posters and there was a top shelf with all kinds of collectable toys...see video! A short time later the Dr comes in and starts asking questions. I had already done an audiology exam with a different provider and he was going through the results...finally he asks me "when you shoot your gun are you right or left handed?" I was kind of taken aback so he said "you know, your rifle you carry in the service." I replied - "Dr I am not an infantryman, I am a pilot." He seemed confused then he said...."well what kind of airplane?" I replied "AC-130 Gunships"...he looked at me for a second then he said "well what side of the airplane are the guns on?" I replied the "left"...he looked at the paperwork and said...."well, that makes sense...exam complete." He then spent the next 20 minutes telling me how he used to work in the VA hospital but was fired for speaking up...her game me a rundown of his manifesto, which he later emailed to me and send me on my way with validated hearing loss in my left ear and Tinnitus. My buddies laughed all the way to the casino, then they dumped a bunch of booze on top of my anesthesia and we played craps and blackjack half the night. IMG_6631.MOV

We are, but not how or where you might think. A very good friend of mine was heavy into the test world while on active duty. He's now retired and teaching AI how to conduct aerial combat. In his words, he's now doing far more to help the war fighter than he ever did before.

Well, worked for me so mileage may vary

Didn't really add much to the pool of active pilots, but it gave a lot of pilots two more years on the long-term disability payroll.