Lord Ratner

🎯 This is how you know the "elites" don't want the problem fixed. You could shut down illegal immigration in less than a year, to include the self-deportation of millions of illegals, without building anything. No additional agents, no increased court resources, nothing. Just redirect 5% of immigration agents to random workplace inspections across the country. Fine the employer $10,000 per illegal, per day of employment. After your third separate violation to go to jail. And as a bonus, the countries that actually need working age men working towards an improved society get them back. Seriously do we ever expect the countries of Central and South America to advance to stability if we keep poaching their most motivated workers?

You know, That's actually an interesting point. A much more effective and effort-efficient way of prepping would be to make sure you have a bunch of books that describe how to do the things that you only need to do if shit really goes to hell in a handbasket. Like the chemistry of making primers. 99% chance you never read the books, but for a couple hundred bucks you could probably put together a pretty extensive survivalist library. I'm going to have to add that to the project board. 🤣😂

If your argument is "you have to read the entire bill in its legislative text form before you are allowed to have an opinion on it" then there is a follow-on issue with your claim that the Republican senators in favor of it should be some sort of endorsement. I assure you, they did not read the bill in its entirety. Unfortunately the conflict in Ukraine is not exempted from the process of politics. You ask why Israel gets a pass on their funding, that's because both sides believe in funding them. That's it. Ukraine does not share the same support, so it must go through a more negotiated process. I would love to live in the world where political brinksmanship wasn't the standard on every issue everyday. But we are nearing the end of this saeculum, and that's just how it works. In 20 to 30 years, if we are both still around, we can marvel at the newfound efficiency that follows great global conflicts, and the cycle will repeat once more.

Fine. Fix that bill. Then you can have the Ukraine bill. I think you're trying to lump too many people into one group. At no point have I objected to spending the money on Ukraine, and I do not object to it now. In fact I have disagreed with those who claim we shouldn't be spending money on Ukraine because we have problems at home. We can do both. What we can't do is only support Ukraine, and continue to let our domestic issues languish. Both, or nothing. Politics is about negotiating, an inescapable, if sometimes unpleasant, reality. The Republicans are not crazy about funding Ukraine, and the Democrats are not crazy about fixing the border.

It's a garbage bill. Plain and simple. It does not fix the problems at the border, and exists solely to take away the Republican talking point going into the election. I 100% support torpedoing that bill. I'm completely in favor of supporting Ukraine, but they exist to me as just one issue facing this country, not *the* issue. For better or worse, Ukraine is not an issue that unites the Republican party. However it seems like the issue is of minimal importance to the Democrats as well. There are at least well-reasoned arguments on both sides surrounding the Ukraine debate. There are absolutely no well-reasoned arguments supporting the absolute dumpster fire situation at our Southern border. Democrats would condition aid for Ukraine on perpetuating an overtly anti-American border policy, and as such they can be trusted with *nothing* that isn't codified in legislation. How many times are Republicans going to fall for Democratic border "solutions?" No more. The Democrats dug themselves into this hole, and they can easily dig themselves out by simply fixing the border problem. Instead, for whatever unfathomable reason, they wish to perpetuate the millions of illegal aliens coming to this country, while still hoping to neutralize the issue going into the presidential election. Let's say that they are successful, and as a result are able to retain control of the White House for another 4 years. I believe that would be terrible for the country, and far worse than whatever is going to happen to Ukraine, especially considering that even the positive possible outcomes in the Ukraine conflict are nullified by incompetent American leadership in the following years.

I've said before that there's no reason why we can't support Ukraine *and* deal with the border crisis at the same time. We are capable as a country of multitasking. However if this bill does not include the border provisions, then we are by definition choosing Ukraine over our own border, and that I do not support at all. I hope the Republicans in the house tank this bill.

If they truly change the inspection system to be random and unannounced, that will greatly improve the lives of airmen. A lot of nonsense will have to be cut out for fear of ruining the records of Wing commanders everywhere. I wouldn't count on it

I'd bet dollars to donuts that this guy thinks cutting services will somehow cause his constituents to apply national level pressure to Texas to stop the flow. Of course it won't work that way, but I think a lot of people are gradually coming around to the realization that we have been electing sociopathic clowns to all positions of power for quite a while now. Legitimately, these are people who are exceptionally good actors, matched only by their exceptionally weak intellects.

I knew it was coming, but it's still a thrill 🤣😂

I just don't see a path to victory for her. Obviously all the Democrats vote for her, though I don't think she will stir up much enthusiasm amongst the moderate or Union Democrats. Obviously the Republicans won't vote for her, but she'll probably do a decent job boosting Republican turnout a bit. But the but the independent voters? Does she really pull them? Trump doesn't, though he'll do better with the spiraling immigration situation. But Hillary Clinton at least worked as a politician before running for president, Michelle Obama will purely be a president's wife running to be president. I don't know. But I think the bigger issue is that if she runs, there's no chance of getting RFK Jr out of the race, and I think he will harvest millions of votes from Democrats who don't just want to vote for the wife of a politician. You may have noticed that there is almost a complete media blackout of RFK Jr. They do not want anyone to realize he's still running.

I have always thought that Tucker Carlson has an excellent record on domestic issues and a nearly perfect streak of getting international issues dead wrong.

Yeah but did they wait too long? They know Kamala Harris is a guaranteed loss. Do they have time at this point to run a primary? I don't really know how it works this late in the game. If Biden is out then it seems like zero chance they are able to rein in Robert Kennedy, and I think if he's running as an independent the Democrats are in a Ross Perot scenario, also guaranteed to lose.

I'm sure his head will explode when he finds out that a lot of us don't think anyone over the age of 65 should be allowed to serve in Congress or the executive branch either.

Lol, exactly. Forgetting to turn off the anti-ice for 5 minutes and you get a total engine failure? That's the definition of a "real shocker."

Until I flew with Huggy I had no idea that we even had pilot training in 1865. His class patch was printed on papyrus...

This was 2010 and 2012. Same. I fly with a lot of captains who spent 10-20 years making those crap wages. Seems like they all thought they'd be at the regionals for a year or two, so they didn't care what the pay was, but then everything went to hell and suddenly it mattered. Personally I think the regionals are going to get swallowed into the legacy airlines if we don't get a slowdown soon. The huge benefit to the corporations of lower pay is dead, and if you get your regional pilots on to the mainline seniority list sooner, it makes it much less likely they will jump ship. The aircraft are also getting bigger and bigger, and in many cases are operating with fewer installed seats due to contractual limitations with the mainline pilot contracts. Suck the regionals into mainline and those limitations go away. But whatever makes the least sense is what will happen.

Bottom line, the airlines made being a pilot absolute dog shit for anybody who had to go through the regionals before making it to a legacy carrier. They took advantage of deregulation, mergers, and bankruptcies to rape and pillage the pilot pipeline for years. They did such a good job taking advantage of the regional pilots that everybody told their friends and family to pursue other careers. I remember when I was a FAIP having the regional pilots show up and talk about how they had to join the guard because they couldn't live off of $15,000 a year anymore. Absolutely insane that someone flying dozens/hundreds of people around the country everyday would be making that type of wage. So now we get the crocodile tears from the airlines about how there aren't enough pilots in the pipeline, and how unfortunate it is they have to pay the regionals so much money now to keep them from jumping ship. Fuck these guys. They took on billions of dollars of debt so they could buy back shares and bump their share-based compensation a few pennies each quarter, and they have the audacity to cry to us about manning and compensation. The 1500 hour requirement was put into place because of aviation mishaps and a reassessment of what is required to operate in the modern airspace. Absolutely nothing in that regard has changed, so neither should the experience requirements. If we keep rewarding these shitty executives by letting them run to the government to solve their self-induced problems, we're just going to get the same behavior over and over again.

Yes. And there are far more members under 63-64 who are against this than those in favor. Many remember the stagnation caused by the previous increase. And it removes leverage.

I will support age 60-whatever when there is meaningful testing that filters out pilots. Too fat? Bye. Can't handle *complex* surprise EPs in the sim? Bye. Can't pass a real medical exam from a random AME? Bye. Comparative cognitive testing from your previous attempts shows a decline? Bye. And not just for 65+, all pilots. But right now this is about guys who aren't ready for retirement, many of whom are convinced their particular struggles make them uniquely deserving, wanting more. My ability to retire early is affected by how soon others retire. So if the 65+ crowd can make a financial-based argument, so can I. But mostly I'm just tired of the Baby Boomers upending every system for their financial advantage then acting shocked that other generations don't appreciate being left the tattered ruins of a once functional societal pact.

It's not going anywhere. The population is more interested in what they can get from the government, and they will elect politicians based on it. Neither Trump or Biden claim any intention of fixing the deficit caused by these giveaways. Any threat to global stability is a threat to the governments' ability to continue the domestic handouts, so they will keep their head in the sand. Ironically, the obsession with short-term stability is going to guarantee the deterioration of conditions long-term.

He's one of my favorite comedians

Depending on exactly what the problem was, I've had this happen before. Tried to spin up the engines and it only got to ~13% before stalling out. We couldn't figure it out, and then the plane next to us reports the same problem. And then the plane next to them, and so on. Turns out the planes were angled such that the freezing rain froze the valve that controls air intake to the Apu. But only the planes that were lined up in the same direction. The solution was to shut down the APU and let the heat from the APU radiate outward and unfreeze the valve, but that required external power and by that point DFW was a circus. Eventually they called freezing rain in the METAR and just closed the airport for the night.

I know you're just trying to make a point, but you're wrong here. In that scenario you could just pay off the loan early. Zero risk. Like I said, it's been so long since the Fed wasn't fucking around with artificially low interest rates that we have forgotten how a market acts in time of limited liquidity.

No, I haven't. I'll keep them in mind if I decide to try carrying a Glock, but I've been really happy with the Sig P365X so far. Though I might just try them on my G17 for the range. Thanks for the tip

I never understood the obsession with 1911s. They are gorgeous, and I have one, but every time someone tells me they carry one I have to question their thought process. Ancient tech, low capacity, and a super light trigger pull. Just doesn't make sense to me for most realistic use scenarios. They are thin, so I guess that counts for something, but it's not like it's a small gun. Glocks are fucking hideous, and I don't love the grips, but it's a phenomenal weapon for actual use. Edit: Obviously I'm assuming your friend is using a Kimber 1911.. That's all I ever see from them.