Blue

It is kind of stunning when you look back at the last ~15 years. Progressive politics have co-opted nearly the entire Democrat Party. Meanwhile, the nation has faced incredible crises, that in years past might have seen people marching on DC with literal pitchforks and torches. Covid, Proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, rampant inflation, crushing wealth inequality, etc. Instead, in the face of those challenges, the national discussion is centered on an endless stream of increasingly fringe nonsense (I don't know how much further you can extend LGBTQQIP2SA, for example). It's incredible what's been done to this country, all in plain sight.

This is something that always got me - particularly when looking at the back at the evolution of the Air Force aircraft inventory from the 1950s to today. Ostensibly, the Air Force is supposed to be the nation's military experts in flying and fixing aircraft. By definition, we should have a lot of airplanes, and a lot of pilots. Yet, at every turn, we shun bringing on any fleet that is "different," or hasn't had the blessing of the larger defense establishment. We park C-27Js, we drag our feet with things like the AT-6 and the A-29 until the programs die a merciful death, and we strive to retire planes like the A-10. At the same time, we have the absurdly large "winner take all" competitions like the F-35 that lock us into one airframe for decades. There is always a lot of hand-waving that goes on about "efficiencies of scale," and "we need to retire this fleet in order to fund development of this new fleet," etc. I think the reality is that defense decisions are driven by what's best for defense companies. And with budget's being finite, the Lockheeds and Boeings of the world don't want to see the Air Force budget going towards feeding hundreds of C-27s, AT-6's, AT-29s, OV-10s, or anything else. When times are flush, those fleets would take away from the money available for their leviathan defense programs. When times are lean, someone in government might dare make an argument that maybe we could get by with a couple fewer F-35s, and instead plug the gap with AT-29s at a fraction of the cost. A lot of words to say I think "Inexpensive yet relevant platforms" are something the Air Force sorely needs, and used to have. But they're gone, and I don't think they're ever coming back.

The Air Heritage Museum C-123K "Thunder Pig" had an exciting landing at the Geneseo Airshow this past weekend. I believe it's the only flying C-123 on the airshow circuit (maybe the only one flying in the US). Got to tour it at Oshkosh several years ago. Neat airplane, and good people. Powered by two big radial engines, and has the pods for two J85 turbojets. Turbojets were normally used during takeoff and landing from what I understand, but are unfortunately no longer installed.

Drifting from the thread topic a bit, and somewhat outta my lane of experience. But I won't believe the fairy tales about squadrons of armed Air Tractors until they are no-shit sitting on an Air Force ramp somewhere. Yeah yeah, I know contracts signed, and development ongoing, and all that. At one point there was going to be a bunch of C-27Js in Air Force markings, too.....

I wouldn't unequivocally trust the service academies to put out accurate data on number of applications and number of selections. The Naval Academy has been shown in the past to inflate their numbers; I assume the other academies have done the same. That said, "down 70%" is an incredible number if accurate.

Real talk now - The current administration has a laser-like focus on identity politics, and no where is this more evident than in their political appointments, particularly in the high profile positions. And it doesn't get much more high profile than a service chief. The talk about qualifications and experience of different candidates is laughable. The next CSAF is going to be chosen based on which box they check. Given the current field, I assume it's going to be "First Female CSAF."

I mean, it's a story from a local Tucson news station. If I was a resident there, I sure would care what happens to the mission at DM. They've had Uncle Sam spending money in their community for decades. They don't want to see that gravy train stop. The article talks about "the DM 50," presumably a group of local business leaders. I've heard so much about the "Shifty 50" in Clovis NM and how it relates to Cannon AFB. What is it with these local 50-person business groups. Is that a Southwestern US thing? Speaking of Cannon, I'd read that when AFSOC went looking for their Western US base, DM was one of the finalists that lost out to Cannon. If the A-10 is going to be retired, it seems like a win to.....everyone to move people and missions out of Cannon and put them at DM.

Eh, you look at Kathleen Hicks' bio, and it becomes clear how someone like her could arrive unprepared. She's a DC swamp creature through and through. She's spent her entire career within the DC Beltway. It's not surprising that she would appear so entirely out of touch. She probably thought Jon Stewart would crack a couple jokes, shake her hand, and leave. Look at her bio; she's spent her entire adult life as a bureaucrat in the federal government. She's married to a fellow swamp creature (Thomas Hicks) who had such career highlights as "helping to pursue low emissions alternative fuels" as Undersecretary of the Navy, and now runs a K-street advisory firm focusing on "help(ing) companies, organizations, governments and institutions prepare for, mitigate against and take advantage of change." Whatever the fuck that means. When people talk about the "Deep State," these are the kind of folks they're talking about. A huge body of career bureaucrats, answerable only to their fellow bureaucrats. They make buckets of money, and provide vanishingly little in return. As time goes on and their numbers increase, they only get more and more out of touch with the day to day lives or ordinary Americans.

Thanks, it works now!

I think most folks on this forum would prefer that DEI go away entirely, and people be hired based upon merit alone. My experience in corporate America has been that DEI preferences focus on very specific groups that do not include veteran status and age.

For one member, when I put in their name I got an error message: "You are not allowed to ignore that member." Just curious as to what the logic is for who can and can't be ignored?

Yeah, this is a particularly concerning aspect of the whole clown show. Karl Denninger does a good job of breaking it down. Excerpt below: This is a serious problem for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the number of people sitting in prison -- or convicted on connived, false claims with no ability for their defense to access the evidence proving that in many cases they were escorted. At worst most of these people are guilty of trespass, but even there you likely can't make it stick as trespass is voided if you're invited or chaperoned, and its quite clear that at least in some cases -- they are. There's another problem too: The Brady decision by the USSC makes clear that the prosecution must turn over all evidence they have which exculpates a defendant. It's not optional and it dates to 1963. The violations here are severe and in fact it appears basically universal. Indeed the definition of malicious prosecution is to bring a case before the court where you know the exculpatory evidence is so strong you'd never win a conviction and you intentionally withhold it from the defense. That opens up the DOJ and even the individuals involved to personal liability. I have no idea how the DOJ thought they'd get away with this indefinitely, but apparently they did think they would.

Is there a setting or some other method to not see a particular user when looking at threads? A "block" or "mute" option?

It's not even so much that "the government lied." Governments and politicians lie. It's an unfortunate aspect of our system of government. To me, it's more the fact that we're all awash in propaganda and narrative, and so many people are blind to it. The NPC memes that get tossed around are frighteningly accurate.

Dunno what to tell you. This board isn't "a good chunk of conservative media," or "a good chunk of conservatives." The only person saying any of this in this thread is you.

It's difficult to take your posts seriously when you start off with juvenile nonsense like "Putin simps," and then proceed to categorize every disagreement into some bullshit "red vs blue" narrative. Be better.

Interesting link, and quite the rabbit hole. Seems like a fascinating hobby. Some quotes from the article below. I'm amazed that these can not only circumnavigate the entire globe, but can do it multiple times. Well built balloons can totally circumnavigate the globe several times over several months before degrading. There is speculation that at least one of the objects shot down over Canada, Yukon by a US Air Force jet may have been amateur radio pico balloon K9YO-15 which was launched from Illinois on October 10 2022. It was on it's seventh circumnavigation of the globe after being aloft for 123 days. The launch blog post indicates that the K9YO-15 balloon was flying a silver mylar 32" sphere SAG balloon which appears to be this one from balloons.online.

Hasn't Haiti been more or less on the brink of being a failed state for the past......forever? I remember someone opining once about all the great things Hattian immigrants have done in the US, and their impressive accomplishments here. And how sad it is that all that talent couldn't be leveraged in their home country. I'm sure the problems of the country are multifaceted, and an onion that goes 1000 layers deep. This board has a wide readership, maybe someone will come along and offer a perspective that goes beyond my Wikipedia-deep knowledge of the place. Someone has to lead the charge, but it shouldn't be Uncle Sam, due to our relatively poor track record in that respect. Haiti shared Hispaniola Island with the Dominican Republic. Surely the D.R. has a vested interest in the health of their neighbor. The linked article also talks about Jamaica taking a role. Taking a quick look at Haiti on Google Maps and waving my ill-informed but well-intentioned magic wand: Tell Cuba we'll open up trade and relations - no strings attached - as long as they provide a safe haven for the Haitians. Don't we have some mothballed Cold War bases in Puerto Rico? Open those up, and make it a staging area for supplies. All I know is Haiti has a population of about 12 million people. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of humanity. If we have the ability, we should do something. At the same time, it seems like every time we "do something" on the global stage, it goes horribly wrong. I dunno.

Yeah, this bit in particular. It's amazing how many people don't recognize this. It's not like it's some big secret or anything; it's well documented.

You know, I'd maybe give you and the US government the benefit of the doubt, had I been living in a cave for the last 22 years. However, I haven't been in a cave. I've watched us squander blood and treasure in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and other places. None of those places seem better off after our intervention. I watched Bush Jr declare "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. We were there for eight more years. Some of our forces are still there. I watched us chase Bin Laden to Tora Bora in 2001, only to fuck it all away. We eventually got him 10 years later. We stuck around for another 10 years (for who knows what fucking reason), before leaving in disgrace with the country in shambles. We've proven that when we get involved, we're there for decades. It's concerning that people unquestioningly support our efforts in Ukraine, without acknowledging our track record. Also, I keep hearing things like "we're beating Russia at bargain basement prices!" "Look how well we're doing!" In a couple weeks, we're going to mark the first anniversary of the invasion. Is Ukraine really doing better today than they were a year ago? According to the mainstream press, we were winning in Vietnam, right up until the point Tet happened. And we were winning in Iraq and Afghanistan, right up to the point that we weren't. Maybe next week, Putin will capitulate. Maybe he'll be overthrown by moderates who will make piece with Ukraine, and open up free trade with the West. That would be a good deal. I'd love for the US and Russia to have completely open relations. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, some Russian Mig-29s came over to the US to participate in airshows. I went to an airshow outside Chicago, and got one of the pilots to sign my windbreaker. It was a cool event, and even at my young age, I sensed the promise of the time. But given our track record, the above seems unlikely. Given our track record, it seems much more likely that we're going to keep pouring money down the rat hole, in our attempt to topple Putin. At this point, we've pretty much declared that getting rid of Putin is the only "off ramp" here. How long are we going to support Ukraine? How long is it really going to take? Also, as a side note, we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to give Ukraine support, but not support. Tanks, but not F-16s. How has this kind of "limited war" worked out for us in the past? Our history has shown something else, too. When our economy gets good and proper fucked up, when we run out of rabbits to pull out of our hat, we go to war. That's what's happening now. Bought groceries lately? I have decent resources, and I'm astounded at the price increases. I don't know how anyone on limited incomes affords to eat anymore. Honestly, I know I'm wasting my keystrokes here. We're on the path, and ain't nothing going to stop us at this point. Bureaucratic inertia and all that. Those with the money benefit from a good long war, so a good long war is what we're gonna get. Sucks for the people of Ukraine, the people of Russia, and the people of the US.

I bet Uncle Sam ponies up the dough to replenish stocks in a lot quicker than 10-15 years. I'd guess more like 24-48 months. I remember hanging out with some of the old timers at the depot in the early 2000s. They talked about how the bomb dumps in CONUS were emptied out for Gulf War I; using up a lot of the stuff that had been left over from Vietnam, along with everything built-up during the Reagan years. The current war in Ukraine is a boon to the weapons makers. This is a problem.

Yeah, this. I get it, the Bear is not necessarily our friend. But there are a hell of a lot of people out there in the US who've bought into the propaganda that Russia is some kind of arch enemy. It's mind boggling.

Damn. Perhaps there is some justice. Curious - what kind of back pay was he owed (I assume he was still getting paid while winding through the separation process)? How long was he "in limbo" for, and what was he doing the whole time (stuck in a desk job somewhere)? On the whole, was this ultimately a benefit or hinderance on his career? Was his choice in orders to that new squadron something that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise?

Dunno. I think most of the "political commentators" do it as just a part time thing, but who knows. Given Kinzinger's visibility and "recency of experience," maybe he'll be able to make it as a full time gig. Kind of wonder what the half-life is of a CNN "Senior Political Commentator," though. Depending on how the political winds blow, CNN may quickly find Kinzinger's opinion to be irrelevant. Interesting to see how things shake out. Seems like loyal Congress-critters usually find themselves rewarded with cushy jobs at lobbying firms, think tanks, private equity, etc. So far, Kinzinger is missing out on all those options. CNN "Senior Political Commentator" seems like a lame consolation prize......

Loyalty. They want to see who's loyal to the organization, and who isn't. Loyal people don't question the absurdities and the nonsense. They just salute smartly and do whatever the boss says.