Leaderboard

The threat is believing it is flawed when it actually isn’t. At least not enough to affect an election. Imagine a situation in which your Wing Commander calls out your life support shop for improperly packing chutes. Now, let’s say they’ve passed every inspection, the MSG Commander was personally hired by the WG/CC, and despite the fact that they are human and occasionally make mistakes, there is no reason to believe they aren’t doing their jobs to the best of their abilities or aren’t meeting established standards. Yet the WG/CC still believes there is a problem. Is he within his rights to order additional inspections? Sure. Let’s say he does that and they still find the life support shop meets standards. Would it be good for the organization if the CC then publicly lambasted the entire process? Would it be appropriate for him to fire the MSG/CC without cause or to call individuals within the life support shop to demand evidence of wrongdoing? How about incessantly posting about the whole situation on Twitter or sending several base-wide emails a day complaining about how he hasn’t been treated well by the organization he’s supposed to be running? That there’s some deep seeded conspiracy amongst CGOs that’s hamstrung him since he showed up? Do you think his actions might have a negative effect on the Wing’s mission? Do you think he might be poisoning the trust of his airmen for years to come? That’s exactly what Trump is doing on a nationwide scale. Maybe things have changed, but the people I worked with in the Air Force would have never accepted this kind of “leadership”.

Of course fraud exists. It always will. Guess what? The one solid piece of evidence I’ve seen so far in this election was a guy who voted twice in Pennsylvania......for Donald Trump! Of course there are more cases than that, and there will be Democrats who committed fraud as well. The question of whether fraud exists is irrelevant. The question in play is whether widespread fraud exists at a scale that would affect the election. It doesn’t. The Right has claimed it does for a long time and never produced any evidence to back that claim up. This election is no different. The Trump campaign knows widespread fraud didn’t take place. His lawyers are taking great care to avoid claiming actual fraud in court. His endgame is to torpedo America’s faith in the pillar of our democracy without proof that it is broken. He is doing this because he is a petty, pathetic human being. And it is working. The damage being done right now, today, will be felt by our children and grandchildren. You say I’m deranged for calling him a shit slinging orangutan, but I think that’s probably too good for him at this point. He’s actively subverting our system from the inside. There’s a word far worse than orangutan for people who do that.

As long as you're upset about it, I can rest assured we're making some amount of sense.

IF you're on a normal browser you can use "private" or "incognito" mode and get some more free views. That's your cyber tip for the day!

Thanks for the response. First, my broader point is that making an argument about Trump being an outlier, bad-(leader/executive/whatever), or otherwise for firing people isn't a good point. The man fires a lot of people, has fired a lot of people in the past, and will probably fire a lot of people in the future. We knew this before he was president and now we feign surprise? Or use it to make some meta-point about him being X? I just don't think arguments that ignore the context of who someone is really get anywhere - that's what I was trying to get at. Honestly, I have been basically pretty neutral about ALL the presidents I have served under and if I'm being honest, haven't seen that big of a difference between Bush, Obama, and now Trump. My day-to-day has been fairly consistent and IMO not tied to who was in the white house. What I don't like is the hyper focus on personalities that we (meaning smart officers) are exhibiting throughout this tumultuous time. If I could go back four years and examine my opinion about what the impending Trump presidency would have looked like, I would have proved myself 100% correct - which is to say he didn't change all that much. The political and media apparatus was fully united against him and invested in a useless presidency. And low and behold, that's more or less what we've had. So all that is to say I don't worry too much about any one individual, as much as we like to pin the tail on the donkey, some of these problems require more that one person to address. That said, I am extremely concerned about what I see taking place within the democrat party. To your point about leadership, fine, I guess, but I've never been one to drink the AF's koolaid that leadership is a magical panacea for each, every, and all problem. That's a meme, and one that I think infects a lot of peoples' mindset in the AF. What we're missing most, IMO, is job competence and accountability. Are those functions of leadership? I suppose depending on your frame, more or less so. But when we call literally everything a leadership problem, we lose focus on how to solve problems because everything becomes the proverbial nail. Re: MX officers being better able to lead the USAF. This argument is the literal manifestation of "my dick is bigger than yours so I should be in charge." God bless our MX leadership - lord knows I don't want to do it. That said, the size of the organization they've "led" doesn't lead to them knowing the first thing about winning an air war or leading an air campaign. Nope. That's why they're not in charge of the Air Force and also why they should never be in charge of the Air Force. It's also why the type of leadership (or skillset, perhaps) disparaged above is exactly what's required - because it's serves the greater, fundamental purpose of our organization. No matter how many 0700 meetings some O-5/6 spends going over the blotter, they won't ever have the experience garnered only from Red/Green Flag, combat, pilot training, etc. They work a critical piece of the USAF, but it still only serves a supporting role. Finally, about DT's racism. Fine - he's extremely crass and says shitty things. But consider, if you will, that Joe Biden chose a running mate based on two primary factors: a v_gina and dark skin. Which of those (or both) qualifies you to lead the free world? Maybe it wasn't either. Maybe it was her ability to garner peak support of 15%? Maybe it was her ability to drop out of the race when she was teetering at about %1? The point is that the democrats are literally choosing their leadership based on what flavor of ice cream you are - it's not about any ability - let's not kid ourselves. That is racism - any which way you slice it. And it's particularly dangerous because it's "acceptable" - it's disguised. It is all done in order to create the facade of a "diverse coalition" in order to implement whatever bullshit they know they wouldn't be able to get done with white guys at the helm. Their "diversity" is a tool. Consider, if you will, California's most recent attempt to instantiate a racist policy into law (https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/prop-16-failed-in-california) - thankfully it failed. Consider the numerous other examples from the democrat party wherein they are attempting to do wildly Un-American things (i.e. blanket student debt forgiveness). So while DT may be an incompetent, racist, homophobe and everybody knows it - look at what the "woke" democrat party is trying to do - and they have the media on their side. That worries me a lot more than one Obama or one Trump. Hence, my disillusionment with the hyper-focus one individual.

(Speaking on the bolded part) I mean to be fair, that describes the Democrats as well. The Kavanaugh hearing was one of the most egregious examples of this, but some other fine examples are 4 years of BS Russian collusion and Poland impeachment. The shit volcano is honestly flowing down both sides of the mountain but I still see far more hypocrisy coming from the left. To segway a little bit here; I do not believe that there was actually widespread election fraud.I think Biden won and this election was a referendum on Trump. But I find it hilarious that high level democrat politicians as well as normal people I see on social media are now desperately clamoring for unity and saying that those going along with Trump’s election fraud claims are tearing this country apart. All coming from the same people that spent 4 years throwing temper tantrums and essentially trying to overthrow a sitting president all because of some strange orange man bad obsession. It’s the same level of hypocrisy that leads to people saying “no large gatherings due to covid!”, but then all of a sudden massive BLM protests and Biden election celebrations are okay. FWIW I’m actually glad that Trump lost because it removes his polarizing personality from the picture and now the democrats have to stand on their own with a garbage policy and a fractured party that can’t decide if it wants to go back to the mid 90s USA or to mid 60s Cuba. Edit: I realize that was a bit rambling and maybe had nothing to do with the current flow of conversation so my apologies.

Along those lines, I don’t usually watch Bill Maher, but I did happen to see this clip of him calling out some of the delusions of the current Democratic Party and why they didn’t do as well as they thought they would in the elections. I thought this really hit the nail on the head when it came down to what is wrong with “woke” culture.

The trenches dug on both sides of this election fraud thing are kind of hilarious. Both have valid points. The right is wise to be suspicious when the left has labeled the President as Hitler during/after this election. Wouldn’t you commit fraud to prevent Hitler from winning in an election? The left is wise to call BS on the President’s claims when he’s lied about so many other things in the past. If a girl kept lying to you about random shit, do you trust her latest excuse? Of course not. The burden is on the President’s team to show wrongdoing. This conjecture of “Venezuelan companies changing votes” makes for an interesting backdrop, but doesn’t show me actual fraud or a reason to not assume Biden won. I want facts. Numbers. Dates. Names. That might be impossible to provide, and yet fraud was actually committed. In that case, you eat this loss and get these state legislatures to fix their damn voting laws. You don’t go try to have states invalidate votes and appoint electors on their own, or whatever crackpot theory I’ve seen floating around the Internet. If the “Kraken” doesn’t materialize, but Trump kept telling everyone that it was there ... what a sad end to a fairly successful presidency policy wise.

These Rudy press conferences just keep getting better. First four seasons total landscaping and now he's got an oil slick running down the side of his face. This stuff is high comedy and that's before we even get to what he said in the press conference. Today the legal team was supposed to "release the kraken" in terms of fraud evidence. Turns out "the kraken" is just Rudy waving more random affidavits around and telling us he can't show them to us... because people might get doxxed. I wonder if the trump legal team has ever heard of redacting names from a document. Maybe that wasn't a known technique the last time Rudy was in a courtroom three decades ago. It's amazing to see how many people are still clinging to this sinking ship, but I guess that's the magic of internet anonymity. It lets you have all the fun of contrarianism without any of the embarrassment of being personally associated with this absolute clown show.

If incognito doesn't work, disable javascript - there's a chrome extension. Works like a charm on NYT. $0 spent.

That's true. Certainly nothing like the ANG C-130 that picked me up from Wake that had wifi and two jet skis in the back.

Off the street, you're probably going to be doing a lot of hanging out and doing nothing of substance while you wait for training. They'll put you in some AFSC for purposes of enlisting, but it may be completely unrelated, and not even in your hiring squadron. Just depends. Even then you'll likely still do nothing. Thats been my experience at least. I just use drill weekends as a time to continue to get to know the pilots. There are a lot of briefings you won't be able to sit in on at this stage without a TS clearance. I've never heard of units giving new-hires rides. Those are typically reserved for dudes who have done something special or have shown exemplary work ethic in the squadron. But, I also dont know jack, so YMMV. Also, its entirely possible to do you FC1 before you enlist with the unit, there were several guys at my FC1 who had not enlisted yet. But its beneficial to enlist asap, because then you get paid during drill. I think if you live a ways away from the base its a different story. If you've ever had any surgeries (aside from simple things like wisdom teeth) start getting all of your med records from that surgery. It can take a while for Dr. offices to get those, and you'll need them for MEPS. What you could do, and I've started doing so as advice from one of my units pilots, is start tracking everything you have done/will do post-hiring. Make it into a neat document for future hires. Things like what you had to do getting uniforms ordered, or computer access, anything that will be useful to the next guy getting hired. If there was some little trick you found to get X done quicker. You'll soon find out everyone on base acts like you're the first guy to get hired off the street and no one knows what the heck is going on. Even though that's not usually the case.

Wait a sec... you were all to eager to engage the past few pages. What's changed? If you believe I cannot budge from my position, that's false. I can and I'd like to. It's just my position hasn't been sufficiently challenged. I'm open minded to reason and logic. However, if you believe you, yourself, cannot be budged from your position, that says to me that you'll stand by it no matter what. That's closed minded. Listen, I asked a few easy to answer questions. If you're a smart person, and I'll give you credit and say that you likely are, you see that my line of questioning will yield answers that will follow a path of logic that's detrimental to your position. That's why you're not going to answer them. Bye, I guess.

Ooh, quotes! Let me do one for you: “In a way, the world−view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.” Heres one more: ”The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” This is fun.

With an Indiana girl on an Indiana night?

Yes. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9740535009 CLAIM: Dominion Voting Systems, one of the most widely used election technology firms in the United States, is owned by the company Smartmatic through an intermediary company called Indra. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Both Dominion and Smartmatic have released statements saying no ownership relationship exists between the two competing firms. Indra Sistemas, a Spanish company, told The Associated Press in an email it has never developed any project or had a commercial, contractual or corporate relationship with either firm. And yes, I chose to trust AP over the “community journalism” of Medium.

False choice. The threat is anytime your perception doesn't match or correspond with reality.

So I admittedly didn’t watch the whole press conference but HOLY SHIT, Rudy and the gang are claiming that Venezuela, with help from the Chinese and the Cubans, designed and built rigged American voting machines, and that the whole scheme was masterminded by none other than Hugo Chavez (who, last time I checked, was dead)! No shit, I’m not embellishing here, that’s actually a claim they’re making. It’s time for Republicans to distance themselves from this clown show. Sim, I know you’re about to tell us all about this is all true and how Chavez is still alive and has taken over Epstein’s island and is hosting the Clintons and Soros there as we speak. Cool. The scary thing is a good chunk of the country would believe all of this. If it weren’t for that fact, I’d find this fucking hilarious.

I was mostly referring to the displacement of basic job competency and it's replacement with "leadership" that has occurred throughout all levels of our society - including the Air Force. Good leaders can be many different things - one thing they ALL must be is extremely competent in their basic job responsibilities. I think there are valid complaints throughout the AF that such a reversal of priorities has taken place. I fully support the notion that EQ and people matter and agree that there is a mindset of "hacking the mish is all that matters" is sometimes used to disparage all the "queep" that exists in the AF. Some of that is justified, but it is usually used to justify laziness or neglecting other important shit. That doesn't mean leadership is more important than basic job ability. Cynical? Myopic? Ok. Sure. Do you have a counter argument? Or are Clark Griswold quotes valid for kills in this debrief now? My test for racism is swapping some of the variables and seeing what it looks like. Donald Trump saying he's only going to hire straight, white males is the same thing as Joe Biden saying he's going to only hire a woman of "color." One of those gets a pass (nay, applause) - one most certainly doesn't. Undergirding both of those different (but same) statements is the tacit argument that those immutable characteristics provide value in a place where the other person cannot. i.e. it values man over woman, or white over black, or woman over black, or black over white. No one I know is comfortable making that argument. If they're put to the task, some sort of hand-waving like "representation" comes out, but that just shifts the racism to who's being represented...we keep it treetop, but at the end of the day, it's racism. Frankly, none of this (IMO) should even require defense or justification - it should be common ground we all can agree on. California is an example of a democrat monolith that is completely out of control and is trying to do absolutely ridiculous things. I don't live there, either. I just worry about what might come out of there. Wasn't asking you to care about CA, I brought it up to help you see "my" bigger picture and where I'm coming from re: the democrat establishment. To bring it back to the original point, again, I'm much more worried about an empowered democrat establishment that has the entire corporate media complex carrying water for them, as opposed to one singular personality, such as Trump or Obama.

Didn't say it was. You guys will accept a reality tv star, so a law professor should be a step up... My point still stands. You seem to think your slice of the world is the only one out there. It kills me, the staggering amount of people that think combat experience is somehow a magic pill for making "impact decisions". Might it help? You bet. Maybe JFK was a totally mediocre guy in the military. We all know that just because the citation on your medal and your OPR say you're a hero, it doesn't mean it's true...

Considering the CinC is surrounded by experts from every slice, this is an incredibly questionable statement. What makes combat experience (such a teeny, tiny sliver of the things POTUS does) so much more important than a solid understanding of the law for POTUS? If you think combat is what takes up most of POTUS's time, you watch too much TV.

How far from the dildo store was Rudy’s latest press conference?

73 million of the voted individuals would disagree with that statement.

Unironically believing that Trump is blundering idiot that stumbled into building skyscrapers with his name on and becoming POTUS. 🤣 🤥

Just a reminder that the “leader” we’re talking about led his businesses so well that he was once reduced to selling overpriced meat at the mall...

If you think trump has exhibited anything resembling good leadership during his tenure, you are not a serious person. There are some pro-trump arguments I can buy: you like him on policy, or because he's a middle finger troll to the radical left, but good leadership is not one of them. On the topic of administration turnover: -yes every administration has turnover -no it isn't inherently a bad thing -no it isn't surprising the "you're fired" guy has fired a lot of people I just wonder how trump supporters justify the scathing criticisms coming from high profile resignees like Mattis. 10 minutes ago Mattis was the most respected military leader in a generation and proof positive that trump was putting an incredible team together. But when he says trump is an incompetent egomaniac who's impossible to work with, it's chaffed off with incredible ease.

Translate: In my opinion, he didn’t lead anything.

I’ll take combat leadership over law school professor any day.

Sure, he was good at speaking and was charismatic and academically knows law, but is that providing leadership opportunities? Not in the same way JFK had to as a PT boat skipper, I would argue, if you want to look at young political wonders. Kind of like MAF HPOs from Phoenix to your reference, I guess the way I look at it.

This checks with what I have seen. I've learned that hospitals will typically run 80-90% full in November and December due to people taking care of issues (i.e. surgeries) before their deductible resets. But a bunch of knee replacements is a different patient population than a bunch of COVID positive patients. The hospital I work at has a solid surge plan, and contingencies on top of contingencies, but if individuals don't change their behaviors we will be overrun. Much like AF leadership assuming there will be a pilot in the seat when needed, the public assumes there will be a bed for them if they get sick. It's true right this minute but it's might not be true in a few weeks.

I think the ball is in your court for whatever you want to request. You may or may not realize it but professionally right now you have more power in your career than you have probably had before based on what you said. So I’d try to figure if this is your last assignment before retiring then figure out where you want to end up, and then what jobs are there and request that.

He has. It was on one of his Joe Rogan appearances. Don't care to look it up. I agree it was a very bad take/look and i'd be pissed if i were one of the parents.

I'm going to do it. After I left AD earlier this year I started working at a hospital and have been involved in COVID surge planning since the beginning. I would have been hesitant to get it if only political leaders gave it a thumbs up but with multiple sets of experts giving the go ahead getting it I feel ok about it. I expect my health system to receive one of the first rounds of the vaccine and my family will be authorized to get it then. I'm with @ThreeHoler in wanting to reduce my risk to COVID. Though the death rate for 35 year old healthy-ish men is low the randomness of the long term impacts and deaths concern me. 538, through their Podcast "PODCAST-19", did a great job explaining what we know about long COVID. Basically 20% of people who got SARS in 2013 still weren't at 100% two years later. We don't know if the same will hold for COVID but I really don't want to personally find out. My family has also canceled Thanksgiving. We moved across the country post AD to be closer to family but with my in-laws comorbidities and age if one of us has COVID they will probably catch it and die. It doesn't help that in Nebraska right now if you put 10 people in a room there is a 40% chance somebody has an active case of COVID. I feel comfortable managing risk but this juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

get them a general star so they can pin it inside their flight cap and aspire for greatness *sarcasm*

I was a Marine maintainer, and I will have you know, that we also have adjustable wrenches and a flat head screwdriver (but only a big one). The selection of hammers was pretty incredible though.

Speaking as a dude who has yet to get picked up (so take this with a grain of salt)... Be yourself. No, seriously -- if you have to put on a facade to get hired then you'll probably eventually regret it. It's a chance for you to get a feel for the unit just as much as it is for them to get a feel for you. There really does seem to be a pretty big difference in culture from unit to unit, even among the same aircraft. If this one doesn't seem like a good fit for you, remember that there might be another one out there that is. It's not worth putting on a fake persona. Don't ask questions just for the sake of it. Basic information about the unit's history and mission can be easily found online. Asking things like that poses the risk of making it look like you have little initiative. Do ask questions you're genuinely curious about. Most pilots are happy to tell you about what there is to do in the area, what neighborhoods are nice, what they do for work (if they're a part-timer), where they went to UPT, etc. Practice an "elevator introduction". You'll be meeting dozens of people so you want to be able to introduce yourself and give a little sample of your story in about 15-20 seconds, but without sounding too rehearsed. IMO you shouldn't necessarily try to sell yourself (like you might in an actual interview) here since that could come off as way cocky. Just stick to facts. Treat everyone you meet with respect, regardless of rank. If you do something that rubs them the wrong way, there's a good chance that word of it could make it to the pilots on the hiring board. This includes the most junior enlisted. You might get to drink at the squadron bar, but don't get too casual. It's a great opportunity to shoot the shit and let the real you out in a more relaxed atmosphere, but don't start treating members of the squadron like they're your buddies you've known your whole life. There's definitely a balance to strike here because you don't want to be too uptight, but it's probably not a good idea to start calling pilots "bro" or "dude" after a couple of drinks (I've seen it happen). To piggyback on that last point, don't drink too much (or even at all if you don't drink). Know your limits. It's a opportunity to get to know the unit in a less formal setting -- not an opportunity to get sloppy and show them you like to party. Take time to chat with other applicants too. IMO it shows that you're a team player and you're not antisocial. The connections you make can also be valuable too, I've kept in touch with other applicants I've met and learned a lot from them. It's also pretty awesome running into people you already know at other meet and greets.

The F-22 does the same.

"We asked the companies if there were any incriminating relationships and they said 'No'." LOL.

From your link: "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." Yet you are saying there were inconsistencies. Which is it? None or Some? Now this is the frustrating thing: You go on to claim that I've quoted the above sources you listed. I didn't. Now you'll go back and check, and maybe post something like "My Bad." Once Again. How many times are you going to falsely attribute things to me just to score a debate point? For someone who seems so concerned about fact finding and truth, you sure seem to fire from the hip anything that suits your narrative, valid or not. Why is it you didn't correctly attribute the sources which I actually did link to: New York Times, CBS, CNN? You're being disingenuous. Are you dismissing the contents of those articles as well?

I'll bite. Not surprised with Trump. Surprised with people's continued defense of his actions/"leadership". Surprised officers think Trump has any leadership skills whatsoever. Surprised it isn't clearly, painfully obvious that he has way less leadership capability than virtually every president in recent history. I wasn't a fan of Obama before or during his presidency, but he clearly exhibited more leadership capability than Trump has at any point during his 4 years. By yours and the other points made here, making decisions doesn't equate to leadership. Being an executive, running multiple failed companies doesn't equate to leadership. Being a reality TV personality doesn't equate to leadership. By your question, I take it to mean a person has no place running the Free world without massive experience in leadership? In your incredibly wise opinion, what's that bar/limit? AF officers have no place in most leadership capacities by your logic. "Leading" a two, fourship or , whoa, an LFE is actual leadership? Leading a squadron with maybe 100 people? Stop kidding yourself. MX officers have twice as much leadership as most of us pilots by the time they're Captains, but that's heresy in the pilot's AF. People get offended, but you are being hypocritical saying Obama had no leadership experience when you claim your own experience is actually leadership. Trump made for "ok" reality TV, that's it. He's been a failure who was given a massive jumpstart by daddy, and survived off name recognition the rest of the time. I'm using some hyperbole, but you get the idea... I'd almost guarantee that most of the intelligent people in this board, if I were able to give them the amount of money Trump was given by his daddy, would be just as rich if not moreso by now. With a much less questionable history (you know, misogyny, disgusting comments about dating his daughter, and clear evidence of racism) and a lot less bankruptcies... But Trump is a great leader, sure. Seriously, a PT boat skipper equates for you? You're probably in the group that includes leading an LFE as massive leadership experience and thinks a fighter pilot could easily lead any other type of squadron because they know BFM... People often aren't prepared for the govt position they're given. They are surrounded by people invested in ensuring they have good advice and help. Most depend on that. Some, Trump, ignore it because they "know" better than everyone. Trump's publicly claimed as much. He knows more than his generals about all the military decisions he's made. He said so... Great leader. You guys win. ETA: Let me clarify that while I do acknowledge leading in combat and even in LFEs is actual leadership, my point is that it is a very specific form of leadership that doesn’t slice across all situations nicely. I’ve led in the flying world and the non-flying world. Two different animals. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This comment section is on par with r/politics on Reddit. Good job guys 👍

Bottom line: extraordinary allegations require extraordinary evidence. If you're going to claim a nationwide voter fraud conspiracy, you're gonna need to do a hell of a lot better than stream-of-consciousness rants from Rudy Giuliani. You're also going to have to answer why the trump camp isn't actually alleging fraud in the court cases even though they won't stop talking about it in pressers. There is a complete mismatch between their public messaging and the court filings. (It's almost like they're completely aware they're full of s***)