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While I don't lay all of the blame for our current situation at the feet of the Biden Administration, I think four big factors would have been very different had Trump won the election. Energy costs - Whatever you think about pipelines and the actual utility of the Keystone Pipeline, the Biden administration launched multiple executive orders at the energy industry which have most certainly impacted the price and availability of oil. The narratives are all over the place but when you attack pipelines, refineries and drilling, you are going to impact the price of oil. The administration is attempting to spin many of these issues like the 9,000 unused leases on federal land without admitting they are holding up many of those leases through lawsuits. Both sides are guilty and there are other factors like Putin going into Ukraine but ultimately Biden's policy has caused the price of oil to nearly doubled since he took office and most of that run up occurred well before Russia launched their attack. Continuing stimulus - Obviously we needed stimulus and support during a pandemic, but Biden continued to dump gasoline on what most knew was a raging fire. $1.9T in relief and payments kept people out of the workforce WAY longer than was needed. All that extra cash without workers available to produce goods caused a huge bubble of demand to surge through the economy. While the supply chain issues are not entirely Biden's fault, some of that blame does fall on the DNC and their unions, just look at the situation at the Long Beach Port. Crane operators making $250,000 a year refusing to work overtime in an emergency, refusing to allow non-union workers to help in an emergency and refusing to surge the port to 24 hour a day operations. I honestly think Trump would have federalized that operation, at least temporarily. I hope we learned our lesson on this one. COVID Lockdown Policy - Biden and his Uber left folks kept things closed WAY too long. The implications have had second and third order effects all across the economy. Fed Policy - While the Fed is meant to be an independent body they do seem to follow the lead of the President. They certainly did under Trump. The Fed COMPLETELY missed the boat on interest rates. They should have been slowly raising rates a year ago but they waited on perception of Biden and partially in response surging energy prices. Now that they are late to the game they are trying to fix everything all at once. When you signal four consecutive 50 basis point raises, the possibility of a 75 point basis raise, openly say interest rates should equal or exceed inflation and out right say the interest rate raises should be "front loaded", you again crush the economy. Most people don't realize the impact of increasing interest rates. Look at the report released today showing 1.4% GDP contraction, if you dig into the numbers you will see a decrease in home sales of over 1.5%. That will further crush the economy as fewer people buy appliances, building materials and other home upgrades. As my wealth advisor put it yesterday, they are going from creating inflation to completely putting out any fire related to the economy. As a frame of reference the U.S. Economy went from 6.9% in Q4 2021 to -1.4% in Q1 2022.

U.S. GDP SHRINKS 1.4% U.S. Inflation 8.5% from March 2021 - March 2022 No worries as long as we don't have bad tweets from the orange man.

Epic...Epic mistake. Sadly they have Stockholm syndrome...Is the Wedgetail better than the E-3, absolutely, but Wedgetail is 15 year old technology and there were other, newer, far more capable options. Sadly the warfighter will get another substandard product. I wonder why South Korea is walking away from Wedgetail....

First, more does not mean better and I hope you can see the difference. Notice in the chart below the vast majority of what would be considered the mainstream media organizations are well left. Among the worst is NPR which we as taxpayers subsidize, which is simply not right. Second, even if you gave equal credential weight to all of the sites lists, the number of left leaning sites is double what leans towards the right. I would disagree mainly because the problem became FAR worse under Trump. Under his term the Liberal media lost it's mind and went from bias to outright cheer leading and actively working for the DNC to win. They were (and still are), active and willing participants in suppressing news stories in order to shape the election. A bit of denial and hubris here brother. The Dems made great theater of their supposed outrage for most of Trump's term pushing a Russia Collusion lie based on a fake dossier that THEY built...all the way to impeachment in the house. Have you forgotten the live telecast of them slowly and painfully walking the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? They were also active participants in suppressing the Hunter Laptop story which most certainly would have impacted the election. Again, not saying Hunter is guilty, but as has been discussed the amount of evidence CLEARLY cleared the hurdle of an honest an unbiased press investigating what happened. Sadly the 4th estate is dead.

For the second time in this conflict the pundits predicted Russia would quickly dominate at least part of Ukraine. It appears the Russians shifted to the south and an apparent strategy to make Ukraine a land locked country by capturing all access to the Black Sea. Several weeks ago the experts said this would be a different fight on wide open flat ground where the Russian armor advantage would allow for maneuver warfare and a more certain victory. The Russian also changed commanders and brought in a brutal dude who leveled much of contested Syria. The new commander seems content to slowly grind forward using massive firepower to level everything in front of the Russian. The will change once past Maripol and into open terrain. If the Ukrainians are going to hold they are going this added armor but more importantly they are going to have to fix their interior lines and supply chain. I have a friend on the ground who is leading a group of former SOF folks who are training the Ukrainians. Despite massive aid from the U.S. and other nations, supply issues and shortages continue to plague their efforts. If you watch FlightRadar24 you can see the steady stream of C-17's and other platforms pouring into border nations each day. Word form the ground is we have no problem getting supplies and equipment across the border but the Ukrainians don't have a mature supply chain that can move things to the front efficiently. Also, it appears some local commanders in areas well outside the fight have been hoarding weapons and supplies. Understandably they want to be prepared should the fight come their way but the front line folks are suffering as a result. Talking to my friend on the ground he related a story about a front line commander who recently rotated out of the front for a day to resupply and reequip. That commander lost six men they day before, they all bled out at a casualty collection point due to lack of medical supplies. Interestingly this morning I read a report stating the UK MOD thinks Ukraine again controls much of its airspace. It remains to be seen if they can take advantage of this change and move equipment and supplies quicker and more freely without being interdicted by the Russians. If they can get their new armor and a portion of the many anti-armor missile systems that have been provided to the front, they may well be able to deter a Russian combined arms maneuver style attack across the south. The question is how will Putin respond if the Ukrainians stop them again.

The Hunter story gains momentum and more and more details of the Fusion GPS story leak. The Dossier Hillary paid to have built and disseminated in order to sway an election then attempt to overturn an election through impeachment. Now emails are coming to light (below), showing how Fusion GPS, knowing the story was fake, worked with an all too willing press (NY Times, The Washington Post, ABC, Reuters), to name a few in the documents below), who lapped it up and with ZERO due diligence. A complete failure of journalism because they were so jaded with hate. When you think of division in this country remember it was Hillary and the DNC that drug us all through the mud with lies when we could have been focused on helping this country. See for yourself what reporters knew and how they participated in the Russia Hoax, John Durham just revealed hundreds of emails between Fusion GPS and The PRESS.

U.S. intel helped Ukraine protect air defenses, shoot down Russian plane carrying hundreds of troops

There is a HUGE difference and you know it. It is one thing for Foxnews to cover only items with a conservative slant or for MSNBC to hold a daily cry fest about Trump. It is another to absolutely suppress information and punish or ban news agencies that try to cover the story. It doesn't bother you that they shut down the NY Post account just for reporting the story, you see no issues there? Seriously? The issue is there is a story there, their are allegations about "10% for the big guy." If that same phrase was in any text, email, message found to be related to one of Trumps kids there would be a full on investigation by every news agency out there. Twitter and Facebook, IMMEDIATELY suppressed any mention and FALSELY as it turns out, labeled it misinformation. Hunter is a douchebag and was not on the ballot, but the implications AND testimony from people close was purposely prevented form getting to the public by Big Tech. it is the duty of the press to be the 4th estate, it is one thing for news agencies to have a slant for their audience, it is another for them to complicit in a cover up that sways an election.

If you don't see it I don't think I can help you understand the danger. Justice Thomas said it fair better than I could: Today's digital platforms, Thomas argued, "provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech," but he said it also concentrates control "of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties." They are NOT acting differently because as you suggest it damages their business, they are doing to to sway an election and seize power. Did you forget they purposely suppressed the Hunter Biden Laptop story which as it turns out is TRUE. It is beyond me how anyone who swore an oath to the Constitution can think that was right. I am NOT saying Trump won the election or that it was stolen. But these companies did manipulate and suppress information that might have impacted the outcome. At the very least the report should have been investigated but they immediately suffocated the story and they suspended a new organization for posting an article about the laptop, come on man...seriously, come on man! To this day Vladimir Putin can post his tripe, the leader of the Taliban can preach hate and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can tweet calling for genocide but a former President is banned.

I hope Elon puts a knee to the Twitter leadership's neck and exposes the "algorithms" they have been using. Here is a little hint of how the big tech oligarch's think and how "fair" they are when it comes to free speech.

I understand they are under investigation now...I read a story that said their request to perform the stunt was denied.

He has already purged some military folks, I have to imagine his circle is shrinking.

The casualties continue to mount and the numbers are staggering. In 60 days Russian has suffered 30,000 casualties, 10,000 of which are KIA. For context that is four time what the U.S. lost in Afghanistan in 20 YEARS. I read a report yesterday that said Russia has lost 25% of its combat power.

Thanks! I thought I read there was a slight delay, appreciate the info. Thanks brother, time to get to work. I've built a few ARs and tricked out PC Charger, can't wait to get a can on them.

Which can did you go with? Just finished an AR-15 build and it is time to get a good suppressor. Anyone know when the Efiling starts?

AOW is a different animal form Lite Attack and while I love the Scorpion Jet for the Lite Attack Role, it does not fit with the AOW construct...neither would Viking. AOW is about expeditionary operations and while the jets have long endurance, they will never operate off a dirt strip. Sky Warden is NOT Archangel or Thrush...the mission systems and weapons collapse the stack into a single entity that can fly 10 hour missions off the dirt with very deep magazines and three sensors. Will be see how this plays out, the funding was in the 2023 budget so they are going to buy something.

I don't see a lot crashes just because it has a tail wheel, ground ops are different but the 802 is a dream to fly and lands as easy as any USAF airplane I've ever flown, certainly easier than a C-130. The SOCOM budget cuts are not as bad as some make them out to be although I was concerned about the associated S&T cuts...dumb. The current budget fight is because the lunatic on the 3rd floor is focused on killing the gunship community and made huge cuts in manpower and tails to pay other unneeded support related bills. He is trying to secure his legacy as a change agent and now that he is going to AF/A3 the damage will be permanent...there is actually a path for him to CVSAF, god help those still in uniform. Oh and Fat Tony coming in to replace him at AFSOC, that is just the cherry on top of a crap sunday.

An epic mistake... Ukraine dominates the news, but if you are not reading about what is happening in Afghanistan, Syria and Africa you are WRONG. Also, we are about to open the spigot on Iranian oil which will in short order turn into more funding for the VEOs that are reconstituting. It is just a matter of time.

If you are looking for a way to help I highly recommend the The Mozart Group They are looking for funds AND volunteers. The founder is a good friend and retired Marine O-6 who has been on the ground in Ukraine for some time trying to make a difference. He stood up this group and they are working hard to train Ukrainian forces in a large array of tactics and capabilities as they kick the shit out of the Russians.

A divorce lawyer revealed the top 5 professions a woman should avoid marrying in a now-viral TikTok Meanwhile, pilots, including those who work in the military, have a lot of responsibility as they are "in control of like 150, 200 people's lives at a time," she added. "And they tend to be very narcissistic and very controlling." What is your point bitch, go make me a sandwich...

Your packages will be late... Initial word is no injuries (aside from an underwear change), they declared and reported hydraulic issues. dhl3.mp4 dhl2.mp4

That didn't sound like fun...at all.

KA-52 Shot down with ATGM. The Russians have a lost a LOT of equipment in five weeks.