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Every once in a while you have a good post. But then I remember one of your best was when you realized how wrong you were during COVID, so I can't be shocked that you are wrong again. Lets begin, and remember, we are comparing the (R) candidate to the (D) candidate, not the (R) candidate to a hypothetical utopia the left has never successfully delivered. And? I'm an atheist, but it's pretty hard to miss the gaping hole left by the decline of Judeo-Christian participation in America. A bunch of well-balanced (i.e. genetic/familial lottery winners) liberals somehow assume that all Americans can live the way they do, but there are lost, troubled, stupid, or weak people out there and they need what religion provided. No replacement has been offered. And does anyone actually prefer the left's alternative? Sorry, but until I hear leftists loudly-and-proudly repudiate the horror show of modern Islam, I'm not going to listen to their whining about the cruelty of Christianity. Casually accusing a bunch of people here of hidden racism is a nice touch. Common trait of the leftist: I'm not just of a different opinion... I'm morally superior and enlightened. Nevermind that states' rights is a fundamental premise of the founding of the nation and a perpetual struggle between the liberals and conservatives for the past 150 years. Nope, its racists! He made it worse with the third (and if I recall, largest) round of stimulus, and the "Inflation Reduction Act." The economy was already well into the recovery at that point. There absolutely would have been inflation either way, and if Trump won in 2020 I am pretty confident he would have also done another round of stimulus, so I personally give him no credit here. But Biden did absolutely make it worse. And Harris is going to do the same if you can believe her current (ever changing) set of policies. Uh Huh... and who approved those permits (and pipelines)? Why do we even have to waste time on this one? Which side openly demonizes fossil fuel production, which side doesn't? Pretty simple, unless you're a liar. Correct, but if inflation is a COVID reaction, so too is the unemployment drop. Can't have it both ways. There's that reasonable human in there, screaming for freedom. Let him out more. Can you reference the Nazi stuff? That's usually (and currently) the attack line of the hardcore progressives. Just pop into reddit to see who thinks they are fighting the Fourth Reich. It ain't the conservatives. Riot, not insurrection. Don't breeze over the huge difference. If it was a riot (it was)... who riots more? Conservatives or liberals? Who supports rioters more? Remember, in an election we compare the candidates to each other, not to the non-existent ideal. Source? Which party supported giving money to the Iranians? Which party helped Iran in the hopes their oil production would bring down gas prices? And which party attacked Netanyahu while Iran used their money to support Hamas and Hezbollah? You're doing poorly. Oh and alienating Saudi Arabia sure did wonders in the fight against Iran, huh? Which president was that again? Neither side (when I say Republican or Democrat I mean the political actors, never the voters) is ever going to castigate their candidate. Lets not forget that Kamala Harris is a serial liar who accused a good man of being a gang rapist just because she didn't want another conservative on the supreme court. She is *every bit* the immoral, lying, narcissistic piece of shit that Trump is. And her current boss is no different. We are in the phase of civilization where the wheels come off. Part of that is an incompetent, immoral political class. We will have better leaders after the great struggle, but not until it gets ugly. I have no objection to calling Trump out for what he is. But the constant fantasy on the left that there is a difference in moral fiber is laughable. The only difference is the policy. Period.

Financially incentivize domestic oil & gas energy production. Deregulation and disempowering unaccountable federal bureaucracy. Close the border. He wants those things, he made moves towards those things, Biden/Harris did the opposite. Embrace brevity.

It’s a sad truth but I still gotta vote for Trump to try to stop the far left advance who are continually emboldened when nobody opposes them. It’s like supporting the Soviets fighting the Nazis in WW2…painful to do but with no good options, it’s the lesser bad one. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

All good points Pooter, Harris baited Trump and he fell into it time & again. However what she (and the slavish “moderators”) failed to do: convince me she’d be a better POTUS than him. There’s a misunderstanding on the left that all Trump supporters are trapped in the gravity well of his personality cult. Sure some are, as some are for any POTUS candidate. But I trust Trump to seek policies important to me, and conversely I’m certain Harris will pursue policies I hate. Why? Because unlike other elections we have years of experience watching each of them in office, and actions matter more than spin (which they both do constantly). Harris embarrassed Trump (or rather, set him up to embassy himself) but is that a difficult task for someone so egotistical? Who cares. Did she convince anyone she’d be a trustworthy and competent POTUS? She performed better, but I don’t think either of them won the debate.

SpeedOfHeat has serious TDS posting two Missives in under an hour.

A few adds: - Stronger foreign policy than Biden/Harris…there weren’t new wars for us, Abraham Accords, didn’t lead a historically epic failure of a withdrawal like Biden/Harris did… - His fiscal policies are light years better than Harris’ proposal. Inflation is the worst under Biden/Harris since the late 70s/early 80s (and 2.2x the cumulative inflation vs. Trump’s first term). Harris’ proposal to tax unrealized gains alone shows she doesn’t even have a 3rd grade level understanding of economics. - Actually attempted to do something about the southern border vs. Harris literally do nothing for 3.5 years, despite even being officially put in charge of that exact problem. - Worked to bring more power back to the state level as intended by our founding fathers and documents @SpeedOfHeat Bottom line, many policies. The fact you don’t think he has policies demonstrates how you are so hell bent on emotional outrage/“go my team” minded you’re incapable of having unemotional, logical thought WRT politics, economics, etc.

Were you asleep between 2016 and 2020?

Trump just wants to be President and all the adulation that comes with the job, he doesn’t actually want to change anything. Harris fundamentally believes there are things wrong with America that only the government can change. She see’s it as the answer to problems. There’s an old Reagan quote about the scariest words of politician can say “’I’m here from the government and I’m here to help”. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

The American people lost the debate before it even started.

It’s embarrassing that these are the two choices to be our President. One’s an idiot, the other is a narcissist. We need to do better Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Ya, he has an inability to pass up the bait and loves to step on his crank...his ego just won't allow it. It's not a stretch to think immigrants eat pets...plenty of other cultures eat animals we call pets. But that's just a weird things to bring up. The whole thing was clearly biased toward Harris, which is totally jacked. Neither are fit for the office. I'm going to hate hearing her voice for 4 years.

Do you read anything here? Stop arguing with your fantasy of a conservative voter and argue with the ones in front of you.

Best post I’ve read in a very long time.

HOW DARE YOU!!!!

If only king for a day or if we had a congressman who would drop a turd into that shoe clerk punch bowl… introduce legislation giving the AF 6 months to get studs into FTU or other flight training after graduation or make it a 2 for 1 reduction in their commitment for every day past six months till they get to flight training If there’s no cost to the Bobs there’s no incentive to fix the glitch Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sadly I'm not surprised. Anytime Trump does well of anything, he immediately goes back to being lazy and assuming that he'll never fuck up again. The debate with Biden and the assassination attempt made him cocky. He'll probably realize that he fucked up this debate, but Kamala would be a fool to agree to another one. Fortunately he didn't do anything overly insane, so this probably won't move the needle much either way. I think he still has a very good shot at winning the electoral college, but not enough to bet on it.

Conspicuously quiet here the day after a major debate.. Anyway, here are my takeaways: Kamala: still as off putting and uncharismatic as ever. The media pushing her as some sort of “joyful” generational talent will never not be weird to me. Moderators: hyper biased as per the usual arrangement. Teed up Kamala for multiple dunks on trump and never once fact checked her BS. Fact checked about 50% of the things trump said. Trump: stepped on rakes literally all night long. Honestly a disaster of a performance. Hopefully this will put to bed the nonsense narrative on the right that trump is this galaxy brain media manipulator who can bend any media situation to his will. He was good at debating compared to Biden and that is about it. To recap: ✅ baited into a crowd size pissing contest ✅ quadrupled down on the stolen election conspiracy ✅ baited into more foot in mouth moments regarding Kamala’s race ✅ some wacky intolerant shit about immigrants eating peoples pets ✅ weirdly complimentary comments regarding Putin which set up Kamala for more dunks on him ✅ never addressed Kamala lying to the American people about Biden’s health ✅ baited into post birth abortion sillyness If the goal of this was to appeal to anyone other than his most staunch supporters, it was an epic fail.

My class got two fighters. Not zero, but definitely not the everybody gets a fighter times. I got gay ass helos. Helos were fucking awesome.

On 12 Sep 1947, an experimental new autopilot (or “mechanical brain,” as it was reported by the press) developed over the past two years at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, was used to fly a C-54 Skymaster from the All-Weather Test Center in Wilmington, Ohio, (an adjunct of Wright Field) to Bangor, Maine, to Miami, Florida, and then back again to Ohio. It was the second of three tests of the autopilot that year, with an earlier test conducted cross-country from Long Beach, California, to Dayton in June. The third test, occurring on 21 September, saw a crew of 11 fliers and observers flying across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to England. That third flight made national headlines, and won its commander—Col James M. Gillespie—the Thurman H. Bane Award (named for the McCook Field commander from 1918-1922) for 1947. (Photo: NMUSAF)

That still isn't a cost to the Bobs. They will PCS, promote, or retire out and then it will be someone else's problem. Make it a $2 reduction in their pay or retirement per delay. Something tangible, otherwise they will still wont care to get it right. And Congress will still fuck it up anyway when we hit sequestration, as is tradition.

Yup Commute worthy conversation on the subject There’s a lotta good nuggets in this conversation, a good bit is well worn ground but what I found particularly interesting is the discussion he has on the spiritual preparation for sacrifice Xi has started, don’t see an American leader anytime soon giving a guns vs butter speech, or why Americans should defend the Spratly Islands, if intend to resist aggression by the PRC in the SCS, whoever becomes POTUS needs to make that speech now methinks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edit: This thing would have been insane to see fly. It never happened but is part of history, never the less, as a crazy idea developed during the Cold War.

And at this company, I would give either one equal weight. I know they were still doing diversity interviews, but I think part of the problem here is that none of these companies want to announce anything like a hiring freeze officially, since it would have implications for the share price. And the only thing anybody in management is interested in at these companies is the share price. Absolutely zero people give a shit about the functioning of the airlines operationally.

Not that it’s to the extent of Biden, but Trump seems to have really lost a step too. Like lost his ability to think on his feet and flex quickly to the situation like he used to. A prime example from the debate: Moderators to Trump: “you said Kamala just started being black, I thought she was Indian” what trump should have said: “that’s called a figure of speech. Ever heard of that? What I mean is She’s being fake. She acts black around black audiences and she changes her accent to suit the situation. She plays up or plays down different aspects of her race for whatever is most beneficial to her at that moment. She’s a phony politician trying to be all things to all people.” what trump did say: incoherent ramblings that honestly made him sound more racist

I forgot he loved cats. 2. By now, any world leader knows they can probably manipulate the shit out of Trump. Bait him, reel him in, get what they want. ‐----------------------- Moderators, yep, they seemed zeroed in on Donnie and his wild facts, so much so that Harris went unchecked. She baited him quite well. People leave your rallies. Good chess with that one. He had an opportunity to tie her to Biden and make her disown him, but he couldn't pull it off. I'll say it again. If RNC/R leaders had cut DJT loose and developed other talent, there might be a real race going on here, but we this shitshow.

Please say his call sign is GRETA.

I didn't know if "furlough" to them includes the newly contractual "blank lines" that made furloughing a *lot* less expensive. Like I said, grain of salt, but our latest vacancy bid for March '25 (what we use to bid for upgrades and fleet changes) had a paltry number of upgrades. I think people forget how small the changes in passenger volume need to be to have large effects on pilot manning. And anyone who thinks Boeing is getting their shit together any time soon hasn't been paying attention.

The cycle just keeps repeating. My class got ZERO fighters...(except for the Guard Guys), and you will see it reflected in retention. In my class: #1 wanted a Bomber and got a KC-10 #2 was a previous Bomber Nav (and was actually on a hard crew with our T-38 Flt/CC), not the best pilot but he got a B-1 I was #3 and all my flight commander could say was "Sorry Bro" Banked

Somewhere there’s a hot German babe in a dirndl calling dibs… Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

She mopped the floor with him. It was really something to see her manipulate him into being both old and child-like simultaneously. Old: squinting, tired, sweating, disheveled, and angry/crotchety. Young: easily tricked and baited, too cowardly to look at her. Immeasurably petty. The petulant child that he is. Also, thankfully there’s finally some consistent push-back on his insane talking points. Immigrants eating pets was a new one, but there are several others that make up his routine shtick: Women aborting babies at 9 months or executing them post-birth. Immigrants from now-empty "insane asylums" pouring into the country by the millions. And the worst of all, though it’s less specific, that the USA has been ‘destroyed’ or has become a “third-world nation.” He used the word “Destroyed” 14 times last night. Does anyone seriously buy this bull$hit? Ask yourself, how many immigrants have you seen eating cats? Do you know, or have you ever heard of a woman carrying a healthy pregnancy to 9 months and then suddenly deciding “ehh, never mind, I’ll just go get an abortion.” It's just so insanely stupid. Do you guys really encounter immigrants from insane asylums running rampant in your daily lives? As you go through your life in the US, is your perception really that the country has been “destroyed?” I travel all over this country as an airline pilot. We have challenges. We have problems, no doubt. It’s not perfect. There are improvements to be made and work to be done. But the USA is an amazing place to live. I for one, truly love it. Ironically, Trump plays “I’m proud to be an American” at the start of every rally, and then immediately rolls into a 90-minute tirade about what a shithole this country is. And the MAGA hats stand there and lap it up and ask for seconds. Trump started talking about this fantasy dystopian hellscape during his inaugural “American carnage” speech in 2017. 7 years later, it’s just so idiotic and predictable. He wants people to, as Orwell wrote, reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. He wants to gin up fear, hysteria, and panic. And the implication the entire time is that HE will be the one to fix it all. Not you. Not us as a country or society. Him. If he’s in office, all these problems will disappear, magically. And the opposite, of course, if he loses again. Our country will be “DeStroYed.” GMAFB. When either one of these two is elected, we will still have challenges and problems, just like we did under every other POTUS before. And America will still be an incredible place to live. Can you guys imagine a Squadron Commander that talked like Trump? That stood at the podium during a Change of Command and tried to appeal to the squadron members by telling them how shitty their squadron was? And how he alone would be its savior? Is that an inspirational leader? Are those the characteristics you look for in someone in charge? Trumpies are also saying the moderators were too hard on Trump, and fact-checked him too much, and were clearly in the bag for Harris. "....wHy DidN’T tHeY fActCheck HeR eQualLy????" Maybe, and this is a radical idea…. it’s because Trump has a short and predictable playbook of bull$shit lies and falsehoods that he routinely tells. Knowing 100% that he would say insane things like women are executing babies post-birth, ABC was obliged to take 5 minutes to prepare to counter those statements, rather than let obvious, crazy lies go un-challenged in front of ~60 million viewers. Maybe if Kamala had said things like immigrants are running around neighborhoods eating pets, or that the 2020 election was “stolen/rigged,” they would have fact-checked her equally.

Additionally, I keep seeing Trump voters retreating to the justification of his “Policies.” "I'm not voting for him, ....I don't love his character or personality, but I'm voting for his policies," they say. Sure. My question is, …..what policies? How on earth can you decipher what his policies are when he himself can’t tell you? I’m sure many have seen this recent gem: When asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable? And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”, here’s the transcript of his answer: And here's his answer last night to a question about his plans for health care: So again, I hear this over and over: "I'm voting for his policies." ....What policies? The guy says nothing. Inane rants. Total stream-of-consciousness rambling nonsense. He is a bull$hitter, through and through. He's the kid that got called on in class and didn't read the assigned homework. "Policies." Yeah right.