Seapower & aerospace enthusiast. Aircraft carrier poet. Ex-Space Shuttle door gunner.

Joined September 2008
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the Hotlantic Alliance endures
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Historic transparency would be an aggressive push to fund and fully staff the long-dysfunctional Defense Department FOIA offices. When should we expect that?x.com/JoelValdezDOW/status/2…

This is the most transparent War Department in history. No amount of spin from the Fake News media will change that. The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility. These speechwriters routinely handle classified material and require SIPRNet access. As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that. Access to the office of the Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs @SeanParnellASW and to the Press Secretary remains available by appointment only.
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The rumors were true 👇per this
The pilot of the F-15E shot down over Iran had already been shot down once during the Iran war - by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 just a few weeks previously. Our latest, by @seandnaylor: thehighside.substack.com/p/p…
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Russia is "relentlessly targeting" critical infrastructure and democracy in the UK and across Europe, the head of the intelligence agency @GCHQ will warn. Anne Keast-Butler will also use the first of what is set to be an annual threat assessment to reveal that her officers are helping to counter "reckless sabotage and assassination attempts" by the Kremlin. She will warn that the risk of miscalculation, which could trigger wider conflict, "is as high as I have ever seen it". At the same time, Ms Keast-Butler will say in a lecture on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin is "going backwards on the battlefield" in Ukraine. You can read more here⬇️ news.sky.com/story/russia-re…
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NIXON: Bob, they’re telling me we need the E-7 Wedgetail. Big airplane. Radar on top. Looks like a 737 with a canoe strapped to it. HALDEMAN: That’s the general configuration, Mr. President. NIXON: Don’t get technical with me. HALDEMAN: I’ll try not to, sir. NIXON: And then the eggheads from Chantilly come in. Charts, folders, little arrows going around the planet. Space-based AMTI, they say. Persistent tracking, they say. Global coverage. Bob, any time a man says “global coverage,” he’s either selling you satellites or shaving cream. HALDEMAN: Which eggheads from Chantilly, sir? NIXON: What do you mean, which eggheads? HALDEMAN: NRO or SDA? NIXON: That’s exactly what I mean. Too many outfits. Too many letters. We used to have departments. Now we have alphabet soup with clearances. HALDEMAN: The NRO people would be the quiet ones. The SDA types would be the ones saying “proliferated architecture.” NIXON: Proliferated architecture. Sounds like a disease you get from a federal building. HALDEMAN: It’s contagious in budget hearings. NIXON: I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it. First they put cameras in space. Then radars. Then they tell me the airplane is obsolete. Then some damned Colonel with a slide rule says we need a Space Force. HALDEMAN: That term may test poorly. NIXON: Test poorly? Bob, it sounds like a toy line. Space Force. They could make a television show to sell the toys; the boys at Mattel would make an absolute killing. HALDEMAN: The Air Force would object to that characterization. NIXON: The Air Force would object to breathing if the Navy got appropriations for lungs. HALDEMAN: That’s probably true. NIXON: They’re out to get me, Bob. HALDEMAN: The Air Force? NIXON: The whole blue-suiter crowd. The bomber crowd, the missile crowd, the fellows who sit around drawing arrows over Poland. They want a new branch, new uniforms, new generals. And once they get space, they’ll look down at the White House and say, “There he is.” HALDEMAN: From Earth orbit, sir, the White House is a fairly small target. NIXON: Don’t reassure me with geometry.
Pentagon’s Mindset On E-7 Radar Aircraft It Tried To Axe Has Completely Changed: Hegseth E-7s to replace the Air Force's dwindling and aging fleet of E-3s are even more sorely needed now after one of the latter was lost to an Iranian attack. twz.com/air/pentagons-mindse…
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I don’t want comfort or convenience. I want abundant wildlife, I want a planet covered in forests & greenery, I want breathable air, I want literate kids, I want a revival of reading for pleasure and the arts, I want a culture not in danger of being dismantled by the tech-addled
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Phil Ewing retweeted
A B-1B Lancer is returning to the fleet well ahead of schedule after undergoing a historic "backbone" surgery! Read more here: afgsc.af.mil/News/Article-Di… @US_STRATCOM | @usairforce | @AFLCMCofficial | @HQ_AFMC | @22ARW | #B1Lancer | #B1
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In 1980, under command of CAPT Matthew Yelland, Nimitz encountered an electrical storm after leaving Pearl Harbor and lost all contact with the rest of the fleet. What happened during that period is still highly classified.
OTD in 1972: USS Nimitz (CVN-68) was launched. Next year she's set to finally retire 🫡
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It would be great if this wave of coverage out of Russia were correct. Yet the fact of the wave -- here 👇, in the Economist, in CNN etc, raises the question: are all the hacks saying something similar b/c it's so ... or is it groupthink? youtube.com/watch?v=K9su3iLw…
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In the old days when the Russians lost a nuclear reactor they acknowledged it -- if not immediately, within a timescale much shorter than the one between the sinking of this vessel ☝️and now ... and also made overt attempts to remediate or just assess the radiation risk
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... in the case of the Kursk they cut the bow off that sub and destroyed it to render the UXO torpedoes safe -- and deny snooping opportunities by Western navies -- and raised the rest of the hulk. Other nuke subs they've visited on multiple dives and measured the rads
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OSD bows to the inevitable. Let this be a lesson for people who think the White House will get what it wants when it comes to defense budgets. It's never worked quite like that. And every President has wished it did.
🚨 Secretary Hegseth tells HAC Chair Cole that they have sent OMB a budget amendment to add funding for E-7 Wedgetail to the FY27 request.
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Here’s What Happened To The NASA-Issued Speedmasters! fratellowatches.com/heres-wh…
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Counterintelligence 101: Zero electronic devices/cell phones (personal or USG) should make this trip. Not principals, staff, family, support, pilots, secret service, none! Any device will be penetrated, monitored, and owned forever by the CCP. Eyes wide open! @ChinaSelect
Two more U.S. C-17 transport aircraft carrying advance logistics for Trump's China visit landed at Beijing Capital Airport on May 3, bringing the total to four. @safaricheung
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