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Miles was an awesome dude, mentor, and aviator. We lost contact over the years but I happened to see him at a fellow crewdog's wedding and it was great to catch up with him for a few hours that night. While I kept wanting to know about all the cool test stuff he got to do, he would mostly talk about what his family was doing and how proud he was of his kids. Tragic loss for his family, the Air Force, and the world in general.

I'm not sure if and whether Russia is interested or even capable of gaining territory further into the European continent, especially the UK and Western Europe. Surely they are a malign actor, and a persistent threat to the Baltics and Eastern Europe. But I dont know that they have their eyes set in any meaningful way on Germany, France, UK, etc. Happy to have my mind changed on that, Putin is a bad dude indeed. I do believe Europe is at a civilizational tipping point, and I dont think Russia is the cause. A few years ago I would have rolled my eyes at populists and right-wingers who blamed "Globalism" and the uniparty/elites/NGO complex. The past year Ive changed my perspective. Broadly I think the dogma of liberal universalism, global movement of people/goods/money, and abstract ideas have been taken to their breaking point. Jd Vance and Marco Rubio's speeches to the Munich Conference and EU/NATO folks were also informative. I think they were on to something much deeper than just spending X% of GDP on defense. Yes, EU/NATO have sucked on the teet of the US defense arsenal for 30+ years and are woefully behind investing in their fleets, aircraft, technology, weapons, etc. And their ranks are thin. But even if they could magically flip the switch, crank up production, and field new weapons/platforms there are more substantial issues. Politically and econimically, Western Europe is a mess. They let go of manufacturing, built massive welfare states with dependent patronages, bought off on Net-Zero climate nonsense courtesy of a petulant swedish girl, and made housing and everyday living out of reach for working and middle class citizens. I beleive the recent quote I heard was that Mississippi (our poorest state) was wealthier per capita than the UK. On top of that, they thought-police their citizens, quash dissent, and subordinate national sovereignty to corrupt technocrats. Imagine youre a 25 year old Brit/Frenchman/German...cant afford a place to live or raise a family (while 3rd worlders live off the system). Would those young Europeans go fight the Ruskis on behalf of their political leaders? Take this one step further. The past 30 years has brought massive social, cultural, and demographic change to Western Europe. London is now ~30% white British, Viennas public schools are almost majority Muslim. Street violence, urban decay, capitulation to multiculturalism, DEI, etc at the cost of the native culture (psychologist Erik Kaufman calls this "asymmetric multiculturalism). Finally, the grooming gangs. If you are unaware, for the past 30+ years, groups of predominantly Pakistani muslim men groomed, r*ped, and abused thousands of white British girls, mostly lower/working class. They were subjected to the most heinous, gruesome abuse...and worse yet, British authorities knew and largely did nothing. The inquiry is slowly being made public, and IMO is shaping up to be the crime of the century. Some estimates say upwards of 250,000 girls were abused, some killed, many gang r*ped by groups of foreigners. They saw it as an act of conquest, the state covered it up as not to arouse "anger" or upset the multicultural experiment. The epitome of suicidal empathy and frankly a civilization-ending phenomena. https://spectator.com/article/why-liberals-ignored-the-grooming-gang-scandal/ A commentor above mentioned David Betz and his prediction of civil war. I read his papers a year ago and have listened to several of his interviews. He is a traditional academic, not an activist, mild mannered and level headed (from what I gather). Given the stabbings, violence, grooming/r*pe gangs across Europe, I cant help but agree completely. He has made his way into semi-mainstream podcasts and journalism, and I havent seen any substantive criticism of his claims. Just the grooming gangs alone are enough to convince me a civil war in the Uk is inevitable (if not already underway). And for that reason, I cant foresee those young Brits/Frenchmen/Germans/etc going to the eastern front to fight Vlad. Why would they? Their own nations have been hollowed out, made unafforable, and their leaders gleefully subordinate sovereign, native interests to hostile foreigners. And if all the fighting age men went East, who would guard their own cities and towns?? No, if anything, those young men will likely revolt against their own governments and attempt to restore what was once a good culture and civilization. Very concerning, but probable IMO. For those reasons, I dont believe Russia is Europe's number 1 threat. Putin is a bad dude, but whats happened in their own countries is far worse. Sorry for the rant. Brevity not my strong suit.

I will never understand the argument that people in a country illegally should have a months- or years-long right to protest their removal. Are you here legally? If no, then you are deported. Deportation is not imprisonment or punishment, it is merely the cessation of violation. Where's the logical end to this nonsense? Should visa applicants in Zimbabwe have a right to "due process" if they are denied a green card? If not, why is it any different for the Zimbabwean who snuck in? If we are trying to give them prison sentences, then yeah, due process includes the right to a fair trial. But if we're just returning intruders to their rightful place, due process should include only food and water for the journey home.

Probably for the best. The Navy should be going with an already proven platform vs the T-7 just like how the Air Force should have as well. We waste so much time and money trying to reinvent the wheel when we don't have to. UPT is a great example of that. We don't need some new revolutionary trainer aircraft, we need something that works. Same with the syllabus and all of the changes in the last 6 years for UPT. New pilots are coming out of UPT with less experience and that puts more pressure on the FTU to teach things that they should have learned in UPT like TOLD. /rant

They don't care...orange man bad, who gives a flying F if thousands of Americans died from Iran's support of terror.

This MOU is hot garbage. It’s also not a deal and pretty much meaningless. The obvious reason Trump signed this POS is the midterms coming up. We did well for 40 days, then the train went off the tracks with a dumb idea of a ceasefire. Should have never happened, and it just keeps getting worse with this latest thing.

Milton’s post is spot on. I don’t care how politically incorrect it is to say, the next war in Europe is more likely to be caused by Islam. Putin and Russia is a side show. A cultural civil war in Western Europe would be devastating but is absolutely a risk on the path they’re on. Islam is not compatible with western values. The sooner we realize that as a collective society, the better western society will be.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/air-force-identifies-8-crew-members-killed-b-52-stratofortress-crash-edwards-air-force-base

If you have found any, I would love to see a verified claim that a citizen was deported accidentally. I have seen not one single instance, but even if there was one instance, that would not be relevant. If we had maybe 10 instances or 100 instances, that would start to matter. We're talking about tens of millions of people, and accident rate of 0 is not logical in any context, especially this context. Again, we are not talking about imprisonment, execution, asset seizure, or any other punitive government actions. Those absolutely demand due process. Being deported is simply fixing the glitch. This is one of those issues that doesn't require much research, because you know factually that if there were verified cases of law-abiding citizens being shipped off to El Salvador, you would never hear the end of it from one side of the political spectrum, just like when an immigrant murders and innocent woman on the subway, you never hear the end of it from the other side. So far the left has a bit of a problem producing any evidence of the threats they seem so adamant to defend us against.

Do you really think that this is just about figuring out whether or not the people are illegals or not? You think that's what the deportation judges are doing, looking for clues to figure out if they accidentally scooped up a citizen? Come on, you can't really think that, right? You think that in 2026, with the most unfathomably complex surveillance tools ever imagined by man, the real problem we are having is figuring out who is a citizen and who isn't? Exactly how many citizens are being accidentally deported? You ever met someone who had a hard time proving that they were a citizen? Lol, talk about bad faith.

The best fighter pilots in the world have been trained on an old piece of shit for decades. Stress and repetition, that's all you need. I'll take the graduating pilot who spent 300 hours in an analog dinosaur that kept him at the edge of his ability over the one with 100 hours in a state of the art, modern-day-relevant Gucci trainer. Cheap, simple, plentiful, and fast. That's all we need. But as usual, every acquisition is a vanity project for the good-idea fairies we call generals.

Yes, we get it. You’re a progressive who doesn’t like Trump or people who support Trump.

What I don't get is, why anyone here supports/defends/thinks this deal is good (enough), let alone think that this deal satisfies the goal of all the military action/lose of life, etc. I don't get it.

You mean 13 attributable to a mass murdering radical Islamic controlled government? We have been in conflict with Iran since 1979. More Americans have died from Iran directly or indirectly than from any other country. This escalation was bound to happen eventually.

Not mad at all, just calling out frauds like yourself. Your entire “knowledge base” is built on whatever the media spews and a significant political bias. You do not have first hand knowledge and you demonstrate such a lack of understanding of classification and information ops, I doubt you’re even in the mil, or at least in a role that would actually understand these things. Specifics? The last post I replied to, and somewhere around 90%+ of your other posts in this thread alone.

Don't think so, that is the bird that has been testing the new AESA.

And they've started issuing cards for flops, maybe this sport might finally take off in America.

I am cautiously optimistic like you, but not jumping up and down yet. Have you seen the outline of the deal? From what I read it differs from JCPOA in that it is performance based. The sanctions come off and the blockade ends when the straight opens. Eventually free up $25B of Iran's money as they meet other milestones. I much prefer a deal like this versus flying an airplane with pallets of cash just because they said they agree. As for the enriched materiel, they have "supposedly" agreed to no nukes and a plan dismantle their nuclear program, details to be negotiated... Indeed. They have far less traction these days and with the mid-terms approaching it is obvious Trump wants a deal in place, and oil back to $60 a barrel. Even with the back and forth oil is down 26% in the last 30 days and 4% just today at $74.50. I want you to be wrong, not to spike the ball but because I don't think any of us wants another forever war our kids have to fight. I will disagree for now, the jury is still out because a few things have happened. Iran's Air Force and Navy are completely toast. Yes they can still project power through TBMs and Drones but they are strategically in a much different place. Not saying it was worth it, just providing my BDA. Also, this fight reignited the discussion about building a bypass canal. A huge effort that likely won't happen but as an alternative plan the Gulf nations are investing heavily in extensive, multi-billion-dollar overland pipeline networks to secure their energy exports. The UAE operates the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, which pumps oil from the Habshan fields to the deep-water port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, bypassing Hormuz completely. The UAE is aggressively accelerating a second parallel pipeline to double this export capacity. Saudi operates and is expanding the East-West Petroline, which transports millions of barrels of oil per day from the Eastern Province directly to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. And efforts have resumed to build the multi-billion-dollar proposals for a Gulf Strategic Energy Corridor, a network of pipelines linking Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman to the Arabian Sea. Amen

This problem is an easy fix but there is a lack of political appetite to actually solve this - same could be said in this country until recently.

Maybe you should read the actual debates the framers of the 14th amendment had. Neither the declaration of Independence nor the original Constitution addresses this situation, which is exactly why the 14th amendment had to be written. Thank God the founding fathers knew that we would one day have you to be the sole interpreter of their wisdom 🤣😂 I'm not sure how you can have an ad hominem against a political group, but okay. It also happens to be true. As far as the forum for identifying yourself as a citizen, I will accept the least formal and most rapid forum that results in a negligible number of improper citizen deportations. Since you've been unable to identify a single recent case of an American citizen being improperly deported, we could just assume that it hasn't happened. As for the historical cases, those all sound about right. I especially liked the part where the deported citizens got hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for the government screw up. I'd be happy to 10x that penalty for any citizen involved in a similar miscarriage of Justice. That's not justification to tear it all down. There will always be fuck ups. Until then, from the time you are approached by the authorities (first opportunity), to the time you spend in a detention center awaiting processing with translators available (second opportunity), to an informal meeting with an immigration officer where you are allowed to make your case with phone and Internet access (third opportunity), to the time it takes to board your deportation flight (fourth opportunity), that would be plenty. But again this is all just an exercise false ignorance. You know damn well that proving citizenship isn't a problem. This is functionally identical to the voter ID debates that have been held in such bad faith by the left that it is almost beyond comprehension. It takes the same level of fake stupidity to believe that black people in America don't have access to identification as it does to believe that immigrants don't have access to proof of legal status. Do you have any immigrants in your family? My mother still has her green card number memorized. This just isn't a thing.

Welp

we had FON in the strait before the war started our own DNI threat assessment said they weren’t pursuing a nuke before the war started It’s pretty wild to see some of you guys cheerlead the admin talking points verbatim and then say I’m the one blinded by political bias.. Two thirds of your list of “clear war objectives” are this admin claiming the win based on getting back to the status quo we already had. This is like intentionally starting a war with Cuba and then patting yourself on the back for achieving freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Mexico.. like wtf are we even talking about. If I want to hear the admin party line bullshit I can just go listen to the press secretary, why not try presenting an independent thought that actually makes sense

The left doesn’t want to deport people who have been determined to be here illegally, so let’s not pretend this is a legitimate debate going on today.

Whatever makes you feel better buddy. You still didn’t answer the question (because you struggle with your arguments). Also, you’re so far off base it’s hilarious, but it does make me appreciate the internet. Remember how delusional you guys are that when a retired C-17 squadron commander came in a couple months ago with different views than the talk radio pumping into your assholes, you all literally said his account must have been compromised because you can’t COMPREHEND that you live in an echo chamber of delusion.

Because you are not telling the truth... 1. Unlike the deal with Obama we are not flying a plane full of cash to start things off, this is performance based deal. They get ZERO access to the funds until they comply with the nuclear details that have yet to be fully agreed upon. 2. There are no taxpayer dollars, again ZERO U.S. dollars. .69 seconds of GoogleFu and your argument is displayed as nonsense. It cool if you don't like this deal but when you lie to try and make you points sound better...it turns out ungood. 13 deaths...horrible, the outrage should go both ways like the other 13 you don't ever mention. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Darin T. Hoover Marine Corps Sergeant Johanny Rosario Pichardo Marine Corps Sergeant Nicole L. Gee Marine Corps Corporal Hunter Lopez Marine Corps Corporal Daegan W. Page Marine Corps Corporal Humberto A. Sanchez Marine Corps Lance Corporal David L. Espinoza Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jared M. Schmitz Marine Corps Lance Corporal Rylee J. McCollum Marine Corps Lance Corporal Dylan R. Merola Marine Corps Lance Corporal Kareem M. Nikoui Army Staff Sergeant Ryan C. Knauss Navy Hospital Corpsman Third Class Maxton W. Soviak

20 years ago, PBD-720 announced the retirement of the U-2. I was interviewed in the press and said "the last U-2 pilot isn't out of elementary school yet". I should have said "the last U-2 pilot isn't out of kindergarten yet". https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2006/01/04/Pentagon-to-retire-U-2-spy-plane/88231136416087/

🍺

Guessing they had some test engineers...terrible loss.

I appreciate that you lap up IRGC bullshit and continue to run your mouth about things you have no knowledge of. Seriously, is your side hustle as a contractor for IRGC PA? Take a break bud, you need it.

Or....agree to multiple deal and violate all of them - The lies began when Iran’s nuclear weapons program was first exposed. In 2002, an Iranian opposition group reported that Iran had built secret enrichment and heavy water production facilities in violation of treaty commitments. Following extensive diplomacy, Iran signed on to the Tehran Declaration in October 2003, agreeing to “suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.” However, in August 2005, Iran resumed its enrichment activities. This led to diplomatic action that resulted in a series of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions imposed on Iran starting with resolution 1696 in July 2006. Iran’s continued defiance of its pledge to halt enrichment led to a series of resolutions including 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835, and 1929. The consequences included monetary sanctions, import and export weapons embargoes, a travel ban on Iranian officials for their support of terror and other proscribed activities, and a ban of the development of ballistic missiles. (Iran often defied these penalties.) Everyone wants to hang their hats on JCPOA and turn a blind eye to them violating Security Council Resolution 2231 which endorsed JCPOA but limited their ballistic missile program....clearly they violated that (see Ballistic missiles shot at Diego Garcia). If that is not enough how about all the continued funding to Hamas and Hezzbolah...How many Americans have to die from Irans actions before it matters? Do any of you guys actually spend time in the vault?

As we inch closer to the mid-terms the left will continue to bang the "Orange Man Bad" drum while working in the background to dismantle America. The Virginia governor serves as the shinning beacon of that effort and could be in the mix for the next Presidential race. Despite claiming to be a moderate and refusing to condemn her racist Attorney General whose tests included death threats to an opponent's kids. She is off and running with extreme left policies including an attempt to get around SCOTUS with gun control Signed on May 14, this law prohibits the import, sale, manufacture, purchase, or transfer of certain semiautomatic firearms and magazines holding more than 15 rounds. Now she has signed a law designed to kill the Electoral College. Next will be an attempt to tax UNREALIZED Capital Gains.

Here is an example. OK, can we put the thread back on track? The Cabinet.

Don't conflate me with other people on this forum. I think that cop thread is a bunch of absolute nonsense. A few bad apples in an otherwise incredibly functioning system, but because the algorithm knows what makes you angry, once you go down that rabbit hole all you'll ever see are cops abusing people's rights. It's a waste of time, as are most exercises dystopian fantasy. I don't care about the school bombing either. Shit happens in war. If A single government official got on the news and high-fived each other and talked about how awesome it was to kill a bunch of little girls (you know, like the Palestinians do), then I'd have a problem. But since I'm a grown-up who served in the military, I know that collateral damage, even mistakenly, sometimes happens. Only children assume that you can build a system free from error or tragedy. Even more ironically, all this hand ringing over the girls school in a country that would happily slaughter my daughter as a heretic if they had half the chance. Don't forget if any of those girls had grown up to be raped in Iran, she'd have an honor killing to look forward to, if she was able to escape the Iranian justice system with proof that she wasn't a willing participant. Spare me. And as far as being disingenuous goes, that's pretty rich. Focusing on the negligible number of citizens who have been swept up in a solution (and not deported) that has been a long time coming is just a distraction. Just be honest, you don't want illegal aliens deported. That's fine, you are allowed a political opinion as much as anyone else, but trying to make it a morality play by over hyping the anomalies because you know that the core argument has no foundation in law, history, or morality, is weak tea.

Alots getting waived on the USAF side, atleast from what I've been told. My unit just sent a guy to UPT with partial color blindness and I met another guy going through IFF at 38. I say start working towards that goal now and in 3-5 years you could be in a prime spot to get picked up. If you can keep your record clean (both medically and judicially) with nothing new, start building hours and show leadership potential it could pan out. Nobody knows how the landscape will look by then but you can still stack the odds in your favor.

According to Google, Missouri's per capita income is $67,587 while GB's purchasing power parity (not exactly apples to apples, but pretty close) is $67,559. But however fast we are to throw rocks at Europe for their massive social welfare states, we need to be just as fast hitting ourselves over the nugget with those same rocks. GB spends an insane 22.1% of their GDP on social programs. By comparison, the United States only spends 22.7%. You read that right, the theoretical bastion of individual freedom and capitalism spends MORE on social spending per GDP than the UK, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and New Zealand. Much of Europe spends more, like France at >30% and Germany at almost 27%. The west is taxing and nanny stating itself into irrelevance. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/dashboards/social-expenditure-dashboard.html I think you're spot on with the rest of the social stuff, in which the EU leads the US by a good 6-9 years. Maybe beating the war drum might wake up the population to look around and wonder who would actually fight for the country. Walk down the streets of London and I don't see many eligible draftees, let alone ones that I would trust handing a gun and fighting next to me.

RIP Evil Him Him

Nice try. First two links have no deportations. Third link has no names, so the circumstances of the deportation cannot be determined, but every similar named case has been exactly the same. The illegal alien parents of a birthright citizen child(ren) elected to take their citizen children with them back to the country of their deportation. Not the same, and you know it. In fact there's already federal court precedence that removes qualified immunity from law enforcement officials that do not promptly release someone after proving their citizenship. Morales v. Chadbourne But it is a very compelling reason to join the rest of the world and the framers of the 14th amendment in abolishing the nonsense of birthright citizenship.

The UK is having a special election, which could force out Starmer. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/most-important-election-since-1938-220311085.html

It is “incoherent” to you because you are blinded by your hatred for this administration. This is actually the first military conflict I’ve ever seen with clear strategic objectives (1) Attrite their military and military industrial complex (2) Ensure FON in the SOH (3) Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon Also please a huge shoutout to our kick ass Airmen across every platform and specialty who projected power under circumstances that none of us alive to this day have experienced. That extends to all the guard and reservists who were involuntarily mobilized and knocked it out of the park.

Yeah, I’m curious as how the T-7 will work as a trainer, without having an intermediate high performance trainer when this training paradigm comes to fruition I swapped fleets and went to the Bus and FBW / advanced automated systems are awesome and a better jet but they can make you complacent and atrophy certain flying skills. A jet that requires a certain amount of attention just to fly it properly has its advantages as a trainer but time will tell….

And yet somehow y'all don't care about the thousands of Americans dying yearly from the lack of proper Healthcare, shelter, or food in this country. Or millions suffering after we cut usaid plus our loss of global soft power. There are so many better things we could've spent these funds with a better roi in terms of $ for American lives. It's not orange man bad. It's not Iran good. It's the fact that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And now after having squeezed it anyways, we're in a worse off position than we started in by any measure of regional status quo be that Jul 15, May 18, Oct 23, or Jan 26.

WOAI'He is a leader, he's a hero': Wife remembers Edwards AFB...Lauren Smith, the wife of one of the victims killed in the B-52 crash at Edwards Air Force Base, sits down with Eyewitness News to talk about the life of her hu

Their cyber operations are also good and getting better.

The War ZoneFour U-2S Spy Planes Would Be Restored In Bill That Would...Congress is also moving to again block the Air Force from retiring the entire U-2 fleet amid continued questions about capability gaps.

Boeing pulls out, sts The War ZoneBoeing Drops Out Of Navy's T-45 Jet Trainer Replacement C...The field of competitors to design and build the Navy's next jet trainer has narrowed to just two teams, and both are putting forward twin-engine designs.

Seems to be some deja vu here