ACW

A quiet, nerdy gentleman who enjoys good company, rational conversation. Free minds & markets. May the Force be with you!📚💸🗽⚖️⚔️🌎⚓️🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇭🇰🇮🇱#NAFO

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

Land Value Tax fixes this.

[KC-10 Driver ✈️ 👨‍✈️ B-737 Wrangler @MCCCANM]

This is good. I’m paraphrasing the Blue Angels “Boss” (flight lead):

“One of our pilots found himself over the crowd in an unsafe situation”.

Acknowledges the issue.

Then explains they reviewed & won’t do it again. Professional. Restores trust. Thank you!

[Las Vegas Locally 🌴 @LasVegasLocally]

Two people in plain clothes tackled and tried to handcuff a man at Harry Reid International Airport on Monday.

When they saw they were being filmed, they quickly left.

A TSA agent was present and said they were law enforcement.

Very strange "arrest." (Video by Chris Motley)

[KC-10 Driver ✈️ 👨‍✈️ B-737 Wrangler @MCCCANM]

Sounds like a decision was made. Fine, it was never my decision to make.

A word of caution, though: When we let this slide we send a message to everyone from the T-6 drivers to the B-52 drivers that they can get away with it, too. And they will try.

When – not if – something goes wrong, the press & politicians on both sides are going to hang everyone in the chain of command. There will be no safe harbors or protectors. The public will want heads. I can already see the headlines & it reads just like the B-52 crash at Fairchild. It will be a scandal.

I don’t want the pilot to lose their wings, or even be kicked out of the military, but when there is no discipline, that sends a message.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

I encountered O4s and O5s who didn't know why NATO was founded. (I would ask every year as a kind of check.) They knew everything there was to know about flying helicopters or serving on carriers - which is what the military asked of them! - but sometimes, not much else.

[Cuckturd @CattardSlim]

There's a reason the FAA banned jets from flying over crowds at airshows.

Pete Hegseth's tiny dick is going to get someone killed.

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

Joni gets it exactly right. I’d add a few things to his analysis.

The EU’s SAFE program to prioritize domestic arms procurement over U.S. purchases is only a logical consequence of the MAGA shakedown of the last eighteen months, a shakedown that has coincided with Colby’s various side hustles. See the serial pauses on Biden-authorised aid packages to Ukraine, or the cancellation of cross-border strike authorisation using Western munitions — an authority since mercifully transferred to SACEUR in opposition to Colby. SAFE also looks prescient in light of the stockpile shortages and reported hiccups in foreign deliveries resulting from the Iran war.

As Joni notes, you don’t get to tell the Europeans they must become militarily independent and autonomous because they’re on their own, only to then dictate terms about who they can and can’t buy weapons from.

Also important to remember is that Colby is despised most of all by Republican defense and security hawks in Congress. I mean to say, they really, really hate him.

This is why whole sections of the NDAA were written to shackle him vis-a-vis Ukraine aid and U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe. (Rubio stopped the latest attempt by DoD; and while the headlines attributed that attempt to Hegseth, who is busy worrying about the T levels of the enlisted, it is always Colby shaping Pentagon decision-making.) This is also why Kirill Dmitriev, whose efforts to broker rapprochement between Moscow and Washington now lie in ruins, is amplifying Colby’s pompous and hypocritical nonsense on Twitter, while the same Republican hawks in Congress advance Lindsey Graham’s sanctions bill with Trump’s evident consent.

And it’s not just Europe being bullied anymore.

At the weekend, the FT reported that erstwhile booster of a “pivot to Asia” has taken to hectoring the Japanese and Australians about their pre-commitments to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. Colby is now using a snap Pentagon review of AUKUS to muscle Canberra over as-yet-undelivered U.S. submarines (no doubt to great bellylaughter in Paris).

Even “ideal” allies that tick all the MAGA boxes eventually get treated like the help by this entitled asshole, who only pretends to have strategic prerogatives and principles, but who has burnt so many bridges, as it were, he’s got more enemies at home than abroad.

[Luke Metro @luke_metro]

we are heading towards the wrong side of the meme

[ACW @ACW4AK]

@Empireaesth A harbinger of doom for Hong Kong democracy.

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

The command structure that brought you “losing a war with Iran” continues its efforts to purge the officer corps and politicize promotions.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Crimea was supposed to be Putin’s fortress: a military base, Black Sea launchpad, and imperial trophy.

Now its 2.5 million people face blackouts, water cuts, fuel shortages, dead cell service, broken transit, rising prices and a collapsed tourist season, — Politico. 1/

[Matthew Warwick @mpwarwick]

From 17 frigates to 5 frigates in the space of 17 years. The sort of surface fleet mismanagement that people will write books about in years to come.

[Scott Greenfield @ScottGreenfield]

ICE was given $75 billion, $20 million of which was specifically allocated for body cams. They had no body cams.

[Scott Greenfield @ScottGreenfield]

ICE did it again, another person killed.

ICE lied about it again, another false claim that the person was trying to run agents down.

[Tomi 🇺🇦🇫🇮🇪🇺 @TallbarFIN]

During WW2, Finland developed one of the most effective long-range reconnaissance forces in Europe.

Small teams of just a handful of soldiers regularly infiltrated deep behind Soviet lines - sometimes over 300 km - gathering intelligence that shaped operations on the front. 🧵

[Scott Greenfield @ScottGreenfield]

Lindsey Graham, RIP

While I've never been a supporter of Graham, he was one of the few in Trump's orbit who understood the critical importance of supporting Ukraine rather than Putin.

[ACW @ACW4AK]

@cherrycrushTV

[Patrick J. Wolf @PatWolf]

Things I’m okay with my tax dollars going towards

[ACW @ACW4AK]

I wonder if we will ever see Putin hanging by his heels, like Mussolini. Or by his neck. I’m not too picky. Either would be most satisfactory and just.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Browder: Putin stole too much money. He knows one day a million people march on Red Square — and it won't be an elegant exit, it'll be violent and bloody for him personally.

He can kill Navalny, kill Nemtsov, imprison individuals. But not a million people.

[ACW @ACW4AK]

GDP & INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY

Together, they go hand in hand towards victory, but they are not determinants of war in & of themselves. Effective military doctrine & coherent strategy w/ allies, plus strong domestic/public support & willpower, are also vital ingredients for victory.

[The Alex Nowrasteh @AlexNowrasteh]

Everybody says GDP doesn’t matter until they have to fight a war.