Murf 🫐

Anne Applebaum: "Orban has run out of other enemies. He's used migrants. He used the threat of LGBT gender changes as a threat. That's really not working anymore. He's constantly talking about threat because this is his understanding of how you win elections, you distract people, you make them afraid, and then they'll ignore reality and vote for you." Sound familiar?

Anne Applebaum on Viktor Orban: He took over the institutions of the Hungarian state one by one, using both the power of the state and money of oligarchs close to him. He took over 90% of the media. He took over the judiciary. He's trying to create a false picture of the world in order to get people to ignore the disaster he's created at home and vote for him.

This is what it’s like when social media and the like become topical experts in your field for 15 minutes. A couple of rules of thumb that will help all the new Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) subject matter experts: 1. Words mean things. Use precise and correct language. 2. USAF Combat Search and Rescue is a mission set focused on by HH-60Ws (Rescue Squadron - RQS), HC-130Js (RQS), Pararescue (PJ)/Combat Rescue Officers (CROs) (RQS), and A-10s (Fighter Squadron - FS). 3. The Airmen who comprise CSAR in point 2 are NOT SOF; they are CAF or Combat Air Force Airmen who are aligned under USAF Air Force Reserve Command, Air National Guard, and Air Combat Command. 4. Yes, USAF Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) as the air component of Special Operations Command does have their own PJs and CROs, but not HHs, HCs, or A-10s. AFSOC PJs and CROs are in Special Tactics Squadrons (STS). STS and RQS are separate and distinct and have different mandates. 5. CAF CSAR focuses on CSAR and can swing role to support or execute other missions. However, the focus is supporting the Combatant Commander and Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) CAF scheme of maneuver (attack, fighters, bombers, ISR) in projecting airpower through air domain operations. These are the forces who flew the daring DAYTIME immediate dynamic rescue of the F-15E pilot. 6. SOF does special operations in support of their lines of effort. There are plenty of books if you want more data. SOF can, and in this case did, swing role and support a rescue of the WSO. Not their main role or mission, but they have the skill sets and tools to plan and execute it, obviously. 7. The CAF and SOF will often interact, intersect, and one is often in a supportive role to the other (ie the CAF establishes and maintains air superiority, presents bombers and attack effects in support of SOCOM operations etc), and that supporting/supported relationship can be fluid. 8. Regardless of CAF or SOF, for members who project combat power, the intent is to achieve the commander’s intent. Ideally through effective and efficient means; however, the win is achieving the intent. The intent was taking back our own… full stop. The violence and hardware expended doesn’t actually matter. 9. For the new experts in all of this, and apparently the foreign folks who are also new experts and pointing out the loss of a couple of MC-130s (SOF), MH/AH-6 (SOF), a single A-10 (CAF), and obviously the F-15E (CAF): wait until you find out how many aircraft and other hardware we lose in training annually for combat or even the frontline fighters we lose training for air shows. That’s all open source. The losses on this mission to forcibly take back our WSO and not incur any blue service member losses is a win.

Part of it is that Elon pushes out push notifications for these alt-right propaganda slop accounts. If you create a new account on mobile, follow no one, and have your location set as US, you will almost certainly get notifications about Nick Sortor, Eric Daugherty and Jackson Hinkle tweets within the first two weeks.

These are the Twitter/X accounts with the most engagement so far in 2026. I suppose I had some intuition for how bad it was, but jeez, this is what you get when the ecosystem is broken.