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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.

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

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.

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

Beautiful fam brother! I volunteer to be paid $50M for being bad at my job! I will cry all the way to the North Shore.

Definitely not them buying the F-15QA back in 2017...nope. Clearly quid pro quo for a 747 BBJ.

Norvell isn’t the guy. The Coliseum was incredible. My daughter wasn’t thrilled when we had to leave early due to my unruly son. I’ve only been to the Rose Bowl once - 2013 National Championship. Hell of a game.

So, what did a "Free 747" buy Qatar? Seems like basing at Mt Home.

I see you’ve Boeing’ed before… “Hey guys here’s version 6… massive improvements and upgrades over 4… sorry about taking away the ability to enroute RNAV.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the US of today, partisan identity has replaced national identity.

Thanks man! It was a pleasure! I’ll do another no cost one in the future for you when rates push lower! Jon

Not sure how many of y’all have seen the documentary about John. It’s well worth the watch. He’s always been my favorite comedy actor with Uncle Buck being the pinnacle (filled with heart warming sap at times but plenty of good humor too). He was a big guy but from the movie it appears his heart for others was even bigger. If you have Amazon its available there.

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

So, one guy who has never run a large legal office, federal or state, says the head of the DOJ is unqualified. But that same head of DOJ has run a state DOJ, which is pretty substantial. Las head of DOJ was quite the liberal lawyer, but had never actually run anything. How'd that turn out? I also am unaware when the last time a sitting head of DOJ argued a case. That's what minions are for. In the end, only one opinion matters. The guy we elected by a fairly large margin chose her. Gnash your teeth all you want, but that's the reality. Until or if he changes his mind. That whole "serving at the pleasure of the President" gotcha thing.

I'm sure Biff-T will call 'dibs' on her; but until she repeals the NFA and CGA, she's been a lame duck AG!

I wasn't sure what people saw in her when she was nominated, and I haven't seen much from her to change my opinion. She's pretty, and I suspect that was enough for Trump 🤣😂

Certainly not a perfect record, but overall, I voted for this: Illegal border crossings drop to lowest level since 1970: ‘Most secure border in American history’ Kash Patel says FBI agents fired over monitoring GOP senators Trump's DC police takeover: What the crime stats show National Guard Exceeds 2025 Recruiting Goals | American Military News Comey pleads not guilty in court after indictment on alleged false statements, obstruction As to non-citizens serving in the Guard and how they feel about helping ICE, while I certainly can't know, I imagine most of them feel like those immigrants who came here the legal way - make the illegals earn their entrance. Dude who enlisted is paying his dues to get his citizenship. Why should someone else get a free ride?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restoring-law-and-order-in-memphis/ Also, you think Memphis is Red?

Which ones specifically are you thinking about?

i know some red states with terrible blue cities, but not aware of crime ridden red cities (i guess it might happen if the city is trapped in a blue state). I’m still waiting for the AR or MS guard to invade TN and take Memphis from us. We’d be one of the safest places in the world without Memphis.

I have no problem with any bad city seeing intervention, regardless of local/state gov’s predominant party affiliation. That said, are there GOP led cities that should be prioritized over places like DC, Chicago, Portland, pick a city in CA, NYC, etc? I’m not implying there aren’t GOP-led cities with crime issues, but so far, has the priority been invalid?

No problem with it. US citizens in these cities have been abandoned by their city and in some cases, state, government. Their local govs have been heavily siding with/supporting criminals and their actions while willfully putting innocent citizen’s livelihood, and lives, at unacceptable risk. At some point (such as right now) the fed gov has a duty to step in to defend them. It’s incredibly sad portions of our country have come to this point, but the answer is not to just ignore it and say WGAF because you (the royal you) don’t live there.

My problem with Massie and Paul is they love to pontificate on libertarian utopia while completely ignoring the real world. Their minds live in a fantasy (like all “full” libertarians), and therefore they are roadblocks much of the time to REALISTIC results because they only will accept UNREALISTIC results. So, instead of accomplishing anything, they just run their mouths and generally get in the way. Ergo, hot air.

No, but he did call dibs.

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.

Reminds me of the 80s movie Gung Ho, make 15,000 cars a month or else…quality be damned Banking, enrichment training, etc…. If 1500 aeronautical ratings per FY is the one metric to go by then wing’em but give them post graduate training/enrichment training post T-6 and winging. Choir preaching but if there is waiting prior to FTU then give the Bobs a “win” while fixing the glitch I’m just a rando on BO but the training / program I’d advocate for would be affordable in the grand scheme, earlier I estimated about $230k in training costs, probably it would a bit less. Call it Mobility Pilot Training, whatever but justify by accomplishing tasks that these guys would be doing in their MQT after FTU, giving training & familiarity with NVGs, STOL, etc… If the FTUs can’t intake, build an infrastructure that can productively occupy your recent graduates while reducing subsequent training costs and risk, better prepared students perform better in WAY more expensive to fly aircraft and sims. Buy the training you need not new airplanes if the Bobs push back on acquiring new iron. Establish 3 programs, feather in grads from each of the main UPT bases as availability allows. - STOL program using a ME aircraft like a Twin Otter or Cessna Courier. Application to ACE is self evident and time/experience building. - Tail dragger course. Builds stick and rudder skills. - Sim based course for Transport category, probably should be the last course but introduction to fully automated flight deck, management of systems, experience building.

My guess is Israel will not follow the historical US path, which is leave/stop conducting kinetic ops in place X, allowing the vacuum of “peace” to fill right back in with whatever terrorist orgs were there previously. If they do follow suit, then give it a couple years and Hamas will be right back to a meaningful force strength. The peace deal is historic, but it’s naive to think any peace deal made with Islamic terrorists is going to last. My bet is Israel realizes that and will act accordingly.

I think Trump was going to allow the IDF to invoke the Gen. Lemay theory of "You kill enough of them, they will stop fighting." After the Israelies put a missile into a building in Qatar probably with U.S. blessing, supporters of Hamas had to take the theory seriously.

I think Hamas realized that Israel was willing to go the full distance, and Trump probably told them (Hamas) he's not going to stop a full expulsion. Meaning they would displace each and every Palestinian from Gaza and just take all the land. I mean they're 69% of the way there anyway. Basically a full GTFO. Now, Hamas gets to hang on and maybe can have one more chance to accept a peaceful coexistence.

Spartan COD

Keep on keeping on brother/sister. You're doing the Lords work.

Hear ye, hear ye, the first single track UCT drop was certainly…unique: RC-135 x 8 F-15E x 4 RPA x 2 AC-130 x 1 B-52 x 1

Add Napier to that list! Complete BS.

Amongst us non-politicians, it’s not partisan. Polls show the vast majority of Americans, independent of party affiliation, want all of it released. Now what some of the politicians do may be different. So it’s more accurate in this specific case to say political/elite class rot, not simply societal rot.

You guys see the warzone that is Portland? https://x.com/BoLoudon/status/1975665503759966258 Should probably call up federal troops to put down the uprising. Probably around 2003. Afghanistan was a good time where 90% of society was on the same page, ever so briefly - Bush overextended - here we are. Had a chance in 2008 to come together against the 1% who caused the financial crash but turns out they own the media and convinced that movement to focus on Obamas birth certificate instead of systemic class problems. Then citizens united happened in 2010 and the country’s fate was sealed. And voila, here we are. Many otherwise well intentioned people on here no longer know if the Russians are the bad guys - but they damn well hate the “progressives.” It is a deep symptom of societal rot when it is partisan to want to know who is associated with epstein.

Taking the family to tailgate and watch the USC-Michigan game this weekend. First game at the Coliseum, should be fun!

Do you know how many times I have had that exact same conversation, my PTSD just kicked in, thanks bud.

I think we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone in senior leadership is concerned with actual skillsets or experience. What is happening is very simple: We can't maintain the jets we have and we can't acquire new ones in a reasonable timeframe. At the same time we must keep the slides green at all costs. The only answer left (short of offloading the entire operation to the civilian world) is to retcon what a UPT grad is. It costs AETC nothing to churn out crap and dump it into b-courses across the other MAJCOMs. B-course instructors will still wash out the weak swimmers, but at that point finding them a new home is an ACC/AMC/AFSOC/AFGSC problem. AETC's hands are clean (on paper) and the brass at Randolph have figured this out. They can even pitch the UPT cuts as #innovation and cost saving to keep the (even more out of touch) GOs in the Pentagon happy.

This is how beer goggles work.

Multiple decades, multiple platforms, communities, MAJCOMs, and GCCs. Have watched our support functions go down the drain across the board and the burden continue to be delegated to the ones on the pointy end that actually need the most support to do their jobs, take care of their families, and execute the Service’s core missions. But it wasn’t until leading hundreds of enlisted Airmen across scores of AFSCs that I truly felt the “what are we doing here” hit me in the deepest parts where I’d previously managed to keep alive that spark of pride of service. Showing up late, leaving early, doing the bare minimum and often not even that… some not even able to wear their uniforms, no interest in the actual mission (sometimes lip service and often complaining, but no motivation when given opportunities to participate)… an unhealthy focus on unearned awards, decs, inflated EPBs, and “good deals”… Get off the flight line for a tour or two into a job where enlisted outnumber officers by 100:1 and you’ll see. But at the same time I can’t blame “the enlisted”. It’s culture. It starts with accessions and boot camp, tech school, senior enlisted, and the officers that lead them. That is not to say a single officer can make the changes needed — despite higher leadership edicts and Dunning-Kruger-officer platitudinisms to the contrary. That may sound bitter, but I’m not passed over or at risk of not promoting again. It’s watching officer peers promote with half the motivation, half the understanding of the mission, half the time in service (when weekly input/output is considered), and embodying all of the same “enlisted” issues highlighted above, at senior grades, that is crushing… but they checked the boxes. It’s institutional, and maybe we should start there.

"Naked gunner hugs????". Not sure if that deserves a "WTF is wrong with you people" or a Seinfeld "Not that there is anything wrong with that." The only naked Hawg driver I recall was one of the guys on an Atlantic crossing going to the tanker boom stripped down to shock the chick boomer who was not impressed and unphased by stunt.

Yeah, we took our First Sergeant (medical I believe) to an Ex with a stop in Pattaya. Dinner on the outskirts of walking street - she about had a heart attack. This was after her perplexity that we didn’t use rank on the airplane. Truly different worlds we live in. Flight doc though? Took a shower in the airline club.

I hope the maintainer hangs that LOR proudly on his wall. And to the guy who wrote it, you’re a douche.

I have no idea what the majors were of people I flew with. Didn’t matter to us. As long as you knew/did your job. As long as you were someone I wanted to have a beer with afterwards. Sent from my iPhone