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Today, a good friend and I flew formation. It was the first time in 34 years that two A-37's flew in formation in North America. Took them from Boise to St George VFR. And yes... it was a blast.

I know, I know, it's your username, if you weren't miserable about literally everything in the world, what else would you do? But it's pretty amazing to see people defending the *generals* against the first secdef in my lifetime that is telling them they have to live by the same standards they enforce.

missed an incredible opportunity to call it the HAWK-TUA (transport, unmanned aircraft)

So let me get this straight, 20 million illegal immigrants coming into the country is better than a small number of constitutional violations that are being resolved in the courts? That's the math. I don't work in the Congress, so I don't get to pick a made-up third option where the border is closed and there are no violations of constitutional rights. I have a choice between a candidate that made everything worse, dramatically, and a candidate who single-handedly reduced illegal immigration to near zero, while fucking up in some edge cases. That's pretty easy math to me. No one is denying the constitutional violations, though I suspect you would view far more of the deportation activity as a violation than I would. But even if I agreed with you on every single case, the alternative was a slow rolling catastrophe for my country and the country my children will inherit. Caveats are part of living in the real world. I will be very black and white in this point. If this is a literal statement, then you are a hack. And while I could put together a rather extensive list of individual things he has done that are quite easy for me or any other conservative-minded person to support, and I can even make a smaller list of things that any fair-minded liberal would support, if you can't do that on your own, then you are simply beyond any position that is worth engaging with. In that case, TDS is a fair label.

1. Russians are definitely the bad guys, but they’re on the other side of the world and have zero impact on my life; whereas progressives are banning free speech and trying to trans my kids. It’s not even close which of those two are my opponents. 2. Everyone criminally associated with Epstein and pedophilia in general should be beaten to death with hammers. If you have proof Trump is guilty of something let’s hear it, but the man had every possible avenue of prosecution against him explored and the D controlled DOJ didn’t link him to Epstein so…. Shenanigans.

Dude. Put down the big media talking points that say this is a binary problem created by republicans. It takes both sides and no one cares about Epstein, that scumbag and all the people who visited him from both parties are nothing more then chaff. The shutdown is the result of both parties being populated by raging narcissists who haven't breathed the same air as the average citizen for decades. They want you pissed at "the other side" so you don't do anything relevant to remove incumbents from power. Aim your ire at the real culprits: the people you voted for.

But only ones that didn't used to be dudes.

Many years ago, when one of my kids was young, he did not display the attitude/effort we expected of him during T-ball. End of season participation trophy’s get handed out, my wife makes him give it to her and she throws it into the nearest trash can, telling him he didn’t earn it (and why). All the other pussy parents looked on in disbelief. My kid basically never again had a bad attitude or lack of effort, and this incident was 9 years ago. The little things matter - coddling your kids produces shit adults.

I'm sure he's great. It's not like we have a cadre of purely sociopathic generals. But the nature of the system is such that only "yes men" are going to make it to the top. There's no real metric for effectiveness or success when we aren't in a global war of existential magnitude, so ass-covering and knob-polishing are the prerequisites. How many shitty bosses with toxic leadership did this guy serve without quitting? How about the first time his commander in chief babbled nonsensically on the global stage from 2017-2021? No, because there was still runway ahead for his career. These are the same chumps that spent their youth in the O-Clubs with strippers, drove back to their dorms drunk, then 20 years later told us with a straight face that if you have more than 3 drinks in a night (0-0-1-3) you are a bad officer, while neglecting to mention they have a bottle of Scotch in their Wing King desk. There was never a cause-of-the-day they wouldn't support, whether it was the drunk-sex-is-rape crusade of 2003, the great heritage room massacre of 2012, the Covid firings, or the transification attempt only recently squashed. They love their country, and they served it more than most Americans could ever fathom. But they were not, are not, men of principal and backbone. They are the ones who could best morph into whatever the next boss wanted from them, and the idea that an All-Call would be the last straw is laughable.

That sign better end up in a squadron bar

No, but he did call dibs.

There are probably tens of millions a year spent on useless TDYs/PCSs. Cue every person who goes to in-person PME, every bullshit “TDY for the boys” (but they are fun as shit!), every guy who travels to unending conferences and meetings while not providing, nor consuming, anything of value to their job and other attendees. We have endured a significant identity/priorities crisis for years in the DoD, and unfucking that is critical enough to not just throw it on YouTube or a TEAMs call (where nobody will actually listen/receive anything - they’ll be “present” with their muted mic symbol). Complaining about one TDY out of tons each of these GOs are doing yearly is lazy, political hacking on display. Attack the argument/point SECDEF is driving home, but you can’t, because it’s the most logical direction one has given in my lifetime. So, you jump to a retarded Red Herring argument of “but mAh TdY CoStS!” Hilarious, and sad at the same time.

You’ve led people before I’m sure. You are about to roll out a massive change in your organization’s culture and direction. For argument’s sake let’s say most of your minions are geographically separated. You’re saying you would do it over email?

I hope he doesn’t go after fat contractors Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Zeroed in my MPX yesterday, this thing drives nails at 50M.

No, the A-37 sounds like a T-38. it doesn't make the dog whistle of the T-37's J-69. The J-85 in the Super Tweet puts out as much in Mil as a T-38A puts out in Max.

UAL 737 has same number of kills as the F-22.

My favorite part of a government shutdown are the news mashups showing every politician from both sides taking the exact opposite position during the previous shutdown when it was the other team leading it.

Lol what comm SQ did you run where we could get 800 ppl on a VTC at once and it actually worked?

After only 40 years of service, what a quitter!

F/A-10

I'm here for all the firings. The government is bloated and ineffectual anyway. May as well stop paying for it. It's ugly, but finally someone is holding the line vs the insane out-of-control dem spending that has been unaccountable (literally) for years.

At least now we know what the bargain was to get the qataris to abandon Hamas and force the ceasefire. This might be another bit of 4d chess on behalf of the Trump administration. Giving the qataris a no shit facility in the United States is going to tie them to us in a much more concrete way than simply having a base in their country. My suspicion is that the Trump administration has decided that we are going to buy the qataris away from the Chinese and the Iranians. And we're going to lock them in with a deeply integrated military, similar to how we have locked in the Saudis. Obviously the 4D chess bit is tongue in cheek, but it's just another example of the Trump administration making a decision and buying into it 100%. In an era where the dreams of a cosmopolitan worldwide alliance have fallen apart, if the Republicans commit themselves to the concept of a Balkanized world again, we can start making moves to make sure that our sphere of influence is the more powerful one. The real problem of course will be the the pseudo-utopians on the far right and the far left that have turned into New age isolationists. They'll bitch and moan about the duplicitous nature of the Qatari regime as though that's not an inescapable facet of international relations. It's got to be a rough time to be a libertarian.

Disagree. We've had plenty of defense secretaries with zero military experience/only bureaucratic experience, and they weren't all idiots. The military is the primary form of defense, yet they'd never been in the military and some did fine. Bondi was actually an AG in Florida, so her not being a US attorney seems irrelevant. You know, kinda like Obama was a community organizer before he was a senator. What I'm saying is, disagree with her politics all you want, just come up with a less stupid analogy.

Disgruntledemployee, Perhaps if you view Trump as a non-politician, it may help you warm up to him. He isn’t a politician, he’s not a smooth talker, he’s blunt, says what’s on his mind and often gets in a lot of trouble for it. But he’s a damned effective leader, rough around the edges for sure, but he gets things done! I’m sure. He’s also beholden to no man, doesn’t need money, and loves America. I can think of a lot worse people. George Marshall was a very good soldier, leader, and undoubtably an effective politician to earn all those stars.

George Marshall would have, that's the barometer I use.

Obama golfed? Guarantee he used the red tee box.

It wasn't Coach Huggy. And many of the soccer parents were truly not happy I wouldn't.

One ping only, Dmitri... (is all it takes).

DOJ dropped the ball on not having a perp walk for Comey. Was satisfying seeing the mugshot. Now, let's see this hippo get perped walked and a mugshot. New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James indicted on fraud charge, source says

Dibs ... Again

Sure. You're a bad-faith debate participant who's gotten addicted to political news theater. Even Boomer could keep focused long enough to read that.

- It’s one TDY added to a list of many. Bottom line, why are you against a TDY added amongst a sea of executed/scheduled TDYs? It’s not whataboutism to state a fact that a large portion of the military adds TDYs throughout the year. If you want to argue about justification or perceived importance/utility of any TDY, then you are very inexperienced in the military/have no idea how the gov operates with regards to in-person vs. virtual application. Example: I’ve spent many TDYs watching GOs (also TDY) sit there and stare at their eyelids/the wall for days, while adding nothing to the situation and based on their reactions, taking nothing home with them. Welcome to the real world. (Experience I’m coming from: over 100 TDYs at tac/op/strat levels). - The boss is pushing a massive cultural shift, that has seen some resistance, and he’s sick of the resistance. Do you believe something of that high of priority to him does not warrant in-person interaction? Some comments above can be boiled down to, “this isn’t a big deal and therefore could have been an email/TEAMs call.” Do you believe from the boss’s perspective this “isn’t that big of a deal” and an email/TEAMs call is all he needs to do to get this train on the right track? People are bringing up “justification” of TDY, citing the topic as “not justifiable” for a TDY. They brought that up, it is not a red herring to discuss what they previously stated. - Some literally said it could have been a virtual discussion (email, TEAMs, YouTube, etc.) Is there a third option besides one of those or in-person? Because if there’s not (I can’t think of one), it can’t be a false dilemma because it is literally a dilemma (boss had to ask himself, “do I do this in person or virtual? Which one will be most effective for my directives/message?”) Ad hominem - I’ll take that one, my bad.

More parents than you would think will take your side. I sat kids on multiple occasions across multiple sports because of an attitude and only one time did I have a parent say anything about it (and the coward didn't come to me, they went to the club admin who backed me). I set clear expectations at the start and 95% of kids met them. The few that didn't found little support from their parents. I benched one kid and he walked away crying over towards his dad. His dad took one look at him and said something like "what'd you expect?" and the kid stopped crying because he realized he wasn't going to get anywhere. He didn't have an attitude with me the rest of the time I coached him. Also gave out exactly zero participation trophies or medals.

Those are the tanker dudes I love and respect. For the ones who would not move their location to better support TICs (especially really bad ones) or EPs/low fuel states, fuck you for being a gigantic pussy. For the young guys out there - do the right thing, deal with the man later.

Two. Very disappointed there weren't two lines - one for those returning to their jobs and one for those retiring. However, good speech by Hegseth, certainly not sugar-coated political correctness. Also, despite the non-culling of the herd, still like the idea of various minor princes(ess') being returned to the mother ship and seeing that they are not special; that there's actually a bunch of them. And that here are the direct, to your face, expectations. Hope the coming fat and PT tests start taking out the hippos. added: Air Force Downgrading USAFE Commander Job to 3 Stars Not a firing but certainly a loss of bloat.

Oh please. The only sword these guys fall on is the fleshy kind that gets you promoted if you don't gag too hard on it. His plan fell apart, so he's leaving. Same as it ever was.

First one to punch out post meeting.

Standards for everyone set at the appropriate male-based levels for physically demanding jobs. What a novel concept. I’m OK with a separate PT test for the non-combat side, but if you’re in a combat job or may see combat because you get attached to a combat unit, you must perform at a higher physical level.

Let's see how many flag officers evaporate now that they have to pass the PT test twice a year 🤣😂. It's so refreshing to have someone in charge of the Department of Murdering Foreigners say out loud that fat people are gross and shouldn't be in the military. Pete just won some points in my book.