The Next President is...

[Prozac]

How far from the dildo store was Rudy’s latest press conference? 

[SurelySerious]

5 hours ago, Homestar said:

I’ll take a law professor and senator over whatever Trump is calling his leadership skills. Has he ever led anything that didn’t end in bankruptcy?

Ill start: Trump University, Trump Steaks, the Taj Mahal..... Please don’t confuse Trump’s business acumen with his ability to pimp his brand. 

Invalid at release, I was comparing JFK and Obama, Trump was not considered in my post because I don’t care about him. 
 

Any other mis-aimed points you want to make?

Edited November 19, 2020 by SurelySerious

[slackline]

6 hours ago, ViperMan said:

Thoughtful discussion and words from ViperMan

Appreciate the dialogue that doesn't contain childish insults or sources like Rudy Giuliani or OAN.  

We'll just agree to disagree about the magical panacea, mostly because I'm not sure what you're referring to, what your definition of leadership is, and many other things that might be covered by that blanket statement.  I'll try to define what my idea of leadership is for you, and then we can shift from their to get on target.  Contrary to many fighter pilots' beliefs, EQ is actually incredibly important, even in the vault or stepping, or in the middle of a long sortie in combat.  Someone on here recently dismissed it as if it weren't important because they "just want someone who will hack the mish," or something equally as shortsighted.  A leader in combat should definitely be proficient in their specific mission set, but if they don't know how to actually work with different personalities their tactical prowess will only last so long, and they're inviting problems down the road.  I'm not sure how everything isn't a leadership problem at some level... Sometimes leadership means you picking up the slack and doing it yourself, sometimes it means letting your people stumble through the mental gymnastics to figure it out on their own, and sometimes it means you find the right people for that specific problem, or simply giving your people the parameters in which they should work and being accountable to the consequences.  There's chasms of difference in how to do those things and everything in between.  But that's leadership.  

I never said MX officers should be running the AF.  Their flavor of leadership isn't a cure all for every problem, but unfortunately, until very recently, the AF did a piss poor job teaching their people anything real about actual leadership.  The only people who got that training were very senior, and even then, maybe they did some, maybe they didn't.  I'm sorry, but combat leading is just as niche as running a MX squadron, maybe even more so, and I can't force you to see that, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree there too.  Most of my time in the 60 is combat, so I don't disagree that it teaches you valuable lessons, but not every AF level leadership problem requires a split-second, life or death risk decision.  Most of it is actually very boring.  If you only know combat level, tactical leadership, you'll be ill prepared for dealing with other required types of leadership problems.  Again, nothing I say will apparently make you believe this, but that's your deal, and anyone you supervise will have to manage.  Not saying you're not a great leader, maybe you are, but I'd put solid money that if your attitude is that only combat, aircrew leadership is the way to run the AF, you have unhappy people in your organization.  

I know a lot of great leaders in the AF, but they don't rely on their experience in the cockpit for real leadership 90%+ of the time.  They have worked on making themselves better leaders to benefit the people they are serving.  They read up on how to be better, not just in the vault...

On the pick of Harris being a racist thing, "whatever Russ, whatever..."  That's a fairly cynical, myopic viewpoint.  I think she's a crappy politician, but that's my opinion.  Plenty of people don't.  See, Sim's post about 73 million people thinking DT knows how to lead a country...  We're all entitled to our opinion.  If you label them all as stupid, I can't help you.  Heaven knows there's plenty of people on the left labeling all Trump supporters as stupid.  That's doing wonders for our country...

No clue what you're talking about on CA, don't really care.  If everything in CA but the Redwoods and Yosemite fell into the Pacific Ocean tomorrow, I wouldn't mind.  CA is full of crazies, so of course they're going to do/say stupid things.  

Edited November 19, 2020 by slackline

[slackline]

6 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

I’ll take combat leadership over law school professor any day. 

Considering the CinC is surrounded by experts from every slice, this is an incredibly questionable statement.  What makes combat experience (such a teeny, tiny sliver of the things POTUS does) so much more important than a solid understanding of the law for POTUS?  If you think combat is what takes up most of POTUS's time, you watch too much TV.  

[SurelySerious]

3 minutes ago, slackline said:

Considering the CinC is surrounded by experts from every slice, this is an incredibly questionable statement.  What makes combat experience (such a teeny, tiny sliver of the things POTUS does) so much more important than a solid understanding of the law for POTUS?  If you think combat is what takes up most of POTUS's time, you watch too much TV.  

You mean from the perspective of making impact decisions, the combat leadership that JFK had versus being a law school professor where you lecture and don’t make any high pressure decisions? That experience difference? Please, spare me. Being a law school professor is not a high pressure leadership course. 

[slackline]

4 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

You mean from the perspective of making impact decisions, the combat leadership that JFK had versus being a law school professor where you lecture and don’t make any high pressure decisions? That experience difference? Please, spare me. Being a law school professor is not a high pressure leadership course. 

Didn't say it was.  You guys will accept a reality tv star, so a law professor should be a step up...  My point still stands.  You seem to think your slice of the world is the only one out there.  It kills me, the staggering amount of people that think combat experience is somehow a magic pill for making "impact decisions".  Might it help?  You bet.  Maybe JFK was a totally mediocre guy in the military.  We all know that just because the citation on your medal and your OPR say you're a hero, it doesn't mean it's true...

[SurelySerious]

Just now, slackline said:

Didn't say it was.  You guys will accept a reality tv star, so a law professor should be a step up...  My point still stands.  You seem to think your slice of the world is the only one out there.  It kills me, the staggering amount of people that think combat experience is somehow a magic pill for making "impact decisions".  Might it help?  You bet.  Maybe JFK was a totally mediocre guy in the military.  We all know that just because the citation on your medal and your OPR say you're a hero, it doesn't mean it's true...

Dude, am I talking about Trump? No. The comparison was Obama as a young Pres vs JFK as a young Pres and who actually had leadership development. 

[slackline]

3 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Dude, am I talking about Trump? No. The comparison was Obama as a young Pres vs JFK as a young Pres and who actually had leadership development. 

Yeah, I get that, but I'm drawing it out to show the comparison is not a good comparison.  If you can compare those two, why can't we then compare Obama and Trump?  It has a little more relevance to current events don't you think?  Who cares about JFK in this discussion?  

[SurelySerious]

7 minutes ago, slackline said:

Yeah, I get that, but I'm drawing it out to show the comparison is not a good comparison.  If you can compare those two, why can't we then compare Obama and Trump?  It has a little more relevance to current events don't you think?  Who cares about JFK in this discussion?  

Because the original discussion here was whether Obama as a law school professor and junior Senator had any leadership experience before the White House, and in that frame JFK as a young similarly aged President is a far better comparison. 

[slackline]

2 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Because the original discussion here was whether Obama as a law school professor and junior Senator had any leadership experience before the White House, and in that frame JFK as a young similarly aged President is a far better comparison. 

Ok, sure.  You were totally right to introduce a completely new player into the discussion on whether or not Trump is a good leader or not.  Well done...

Conversation goes: Trump's a bad leader. 

People naturally say Obama sucks more, he was too young to lead.

People then say Trump is a reality TV star and ignores his smart people.

SurelySerious says JFK was better than Obama in the leadership department because he was military.

You win...

[SurelySerious]

5 minutes ago, slackline said:

Ok, sure.  You were totally right to introduce a completely new player into the discussion on whether or not Trump is a good leader or not.  Well done...

Conversation goes: Trump's a bad leader. 

People naturally say Obama sucks more, he was too young to lead.

People then say Trump is a reality TV star and ignores his smart people.

SurelySerious says JFK was better than Obama in the leadership department because he was military.

You win...

Was I addressing Trump? No, your line of drivel is invalid. I was addressing the adoration for Obama as a great leader automatically because he had been a Senator as his qualification. Just because you can’t comprehend it, doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. 

[Homestar]

1 hour ago, SurelySerious said:

Invalid at release, I was comparing JFK and Obama, Trump was not considered in my post because I don’t care about him. 
 

Any other mis-aimed points you want to make?

I’m sorry I offended you. 🙄

[Seadogs]

This comment section is on par with r/politics on Reddit. Good job guys 👍

[SurelySerious]

24 minutes ago, Homestar said:

I’m sorry I offended you. 🙄

Keep up with the conversation. 

[Negatory]

37 minutes ago, Seadogs said:

This comment section is on par with r/politics on Reddit. Good job guys 👍

What does that even mean?

[Homestar]

14 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Keep up with the conversation. 

Was there a conversation going on? Sorry, it sounded like a bunch of noise. 

[SurelySerious]

57 minutes ago, Homestar said:

Was there a conversation going on? Sorry, it sounded like a bunch of noise. 

About the same level we get from you anytime anyone mentions Donnie. You know you don’t have to complain about him constantly, right?

[Homestar]

25 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

About the same level we get from you anytime anyone mentions Donnie. You know you don’t have to complain about him constantly, right?

Sorry. I seriously don’t even know why you’re so pissed about what I said. 

[Guardian]

I seriously don’t see how you could think he is pissed at what you said by reading it.

[Homestar]

16 minutes ago, Guardian said:

I seriously don’t see how you could think he is pissed at what you said by reading it.

Ok.

[SurelySerious]

32 minutes ago, Homestar said:

Ok.

You’re as bad as the crazy account guys with respect to having to get your say in. 

[17D_guy]

Well, Georgia just finished the hand recount...anyone care to guess what happened?

 

@Sim, @Seadogs I see Giuliani has upped the ante with "a national movement to defraud the election."  Still going with that?

 

[ViperMan]

4 hours ago, slackline said:

Appreciate the dialogue that doesn't contain childish insults or sources like Rudy Giuliani or OAN.  

We'll just agree to disagree about the magical panacea, mostly because I'm not sure what you're referring to, what your definition of leadership is, and many other things that might be covered by that blanket statement.  I'll try to define what my idea of leadership is for you, and then we can shift from their to get on target.  Contrary to many fighter pilots' beliefs, EQ is actually incredibly important, even in the vault or stepping, or in the middle of a long sortie in combat.  Someone on here recently dismissed it as if it weren't important because they "just want someone who will hack the mish," or something equally as shortsighted.  A leader in combat should definitely be proficient in their specific mission set, but if they don't know how to actually work with different personalities their tactical prowess will only last so long, and they're inviting problems down the road.  I'm not sure how everything isn't a leadership problem at some level... Sometimes leadership means you picking up the slack and doing it yourself, sometimes it means letting your people stumble through the mental gymnastics to figure it out on their own, and sometimes it means you find the right people for that specific problem, or simply giving your people the parameters in which they should work and being accountable to the consequences.  There's chasms of difference in how to do those things and everything in between.  But that's leadership.  

I never said MX officers should be running the AF.  Their flavor of leadership isn't a cure all for every problem, but unfortunately, until very recently, the AF did a piss poor job teaching their people anything real about actual leadership.  The only people who got that training were very senior, and even then, maybe they did some, maybe they didn't.  I'm sorry, but combat leading is just as niche as running a MX squadron, maybe even more so, and I can't force you to see that, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree there too.  Most of my time in the 60 is combat, so I don't disagree that it teaches you valuable lessons, but not every AF level leadership problem requires a split-second, life or death risk decision.  Most of it is actually very boring.  If you only know combat level, tactical leadership, you'll be ill prepared for dealing with other required types of leadership problems.  Again, nothing I say will apparently make you believe this, but that's your deal, and anyone you supervise will have to manage.  Not saying you're not a great leader, maybe you are, but I'd put solid money that if your attitude is that only combat, aircrew leadership is the way to run the AF, you have unhappy people in your organization.  

I know a lot of great leaders in the AF, but they don't rely on their experience in the cockpit for real leadership 90%+ of the time.  They have worked on making themselves better leaders to benefit the people they are serving.  They read up on how to be better, not just in the vault...

On the pick of Harris being a racist thing, "whatever Russ, whatever..."  That's a fairly cynical, myopic viewpoint.  I think she's a crappy politician, but that's my opinion.  Plenty of people don't.  See, Sim's post about 73 million people thinking DT knows how to lead a country...  We're all entitled to our opinion.  If you label them all as stupid, I can't help you.  Heaven knows there's plenty of people on the left labeling all Trump supporters as stupid.  That's doing wonders for our country...

No clue what you're talking about on CA, don't really care.  If everything in CA but the Redwoods and Yosemite fell into the Pacific Ocean tomorrow, I wouldn't mind.  CA is full of crazies, so of course they're going to do/say stupid things.  

I was mostly referring to the displacement of basic job competency and it's replacement with "leadership" that has occurred throughout all levels of our society - including the Air Force. Good leaders can be many different things - one thing they ALL must be is extremely competent in their basic job responsibilities. I think there are valid complaints throughout the AF that such a reversal of priorities has taken place. I fully support the notion that EQ and people matter and agree that there is a mindset of "hacking the mish is all that matters" is sometimes used to disparage all the "queep" that exists in the AF. Some of that is justified, but it is usually used to justify laziness or neglecting other important shit. That doesn't mean leadership is more important than basic job ability.

Cynical? Myopic? Ok. Sure. Do you have a counter argument? Or are Clark Griswold quotes valid for kills in this debrief now? My test for racism is swapping some of the variables and seeing what it looks like. Donald Trump saying he's only going to hire straight, white males is the same thing as Joe Biden saying he's going to only hire a woman of "color." One of those gets a pass (nay, applause) - one most certainly doesn't. Undergirding both of those different (but same) statements is the tacit argument that those immutable characteristics provide value in a place where the other person cannot. i.e. it values man over woman, or white over black, or woman over black, or black over white. No one I know is comfortable making that argument. If they're put to the task, some sort of hand-waving like "representation" comes out, but that just shifts the racism to who's being represented...we keep it treetop, but at the end of the day, it's racism. Frankly, none of this (IMO) should even require defense or justification - it should be common ground we all can agree on.

California is an example of a democrat monolith that is completely out of control and is trying to do absolutely ridiculous things. I don't live there, either. I just worry about what might come out of there. Wasn't asking you to care about CA, I brought it up to help you see "my" bigger picture and where I'm coming from re: the democrat establishment. To bring it back to the original point, again, I'm much more worried about an empowered democrat establishment that has the entire corporate media complex carrying water for them, as opposed to one singular personality, such as Trump or Obama.

[Prozac]

 

So I admittedly didn’t watch the whole press conference but HOLY SHIT, Rudy and the gang are claiming that Venezuela, with help from the Chinese and the Cubans, designed and built rigged American voting machines, and that the whole scheme was masterminded by none other than Hugo Chavez (who, last time I checked, was dead)! No shit, I’m not embellishing here, that’s actually a claim they’re making. It’s time for Republicans to distance themselves from this clown show. Sim, I know you’re about to tell us all about this is all true and how Chavez is still alive and has taken over Epstein’s island and is hosting the Clintons and Soros there as we speak. Cool. The scary thing is a good chunk of the country would believe all of this. If it weren’t for that fact, I’d find this fucking hilarious. 

[Darth]

36 minutes ago, Prozac said:

The scary thing is a good chuck of the country WILL believe all of this.

Fixed it for you....