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This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.

Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.

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He may be a little guy but that doesn't mean that he's a fall guy. The Special Forces at Fort Bragg are a law unto themselves. I've just finished reading The Fort Bragg Cartel and the things some of those guys have been up to, and the leniency of both their commanding officers and the local civilian police toward them, are shocking. Drug smuggling, murder, theft of arms, coming back from deployment with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their persons...not to mention the war crimes.
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Compared to a member of US Congress, or the senior executive branch, or the CEO class, they’re still nobody and the “little guy”.

Not that it’s defensible behavior.

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Is he important enough to get a presidential pardon? That's how you know whether he's a "little guy".

To be fair, that bar is quite a bit lower these days, but still..

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What's the going rate for pardons these days?
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I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"
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He profited $400K.

Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.

This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Trump's insiders own't be investigated
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He's actually too proud about it to hide it.

A 400 million plane "donation"

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There is zero chance this escalates further off this guy.
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Zero chance? What odds are you offering, because this bet looks very appealing?

I am guessing that you would not actually go all-in against a penny, and I’m curious to know what implied probability you actually offer. I will see your bet amount as an expression of your confidence level. If you say that you don’t bet, I’ll take that as an indication that you have no confidence, and believe the probability to be something above 50%

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Initially I did set a number to be donated to a favorite charity but decided it was in poor taste/mean spirited and quickly edited it out. We don’t need to be petty just because we disagree.

The Trump admin will not be held accountable for the blatant market manipulation and betting on internal info they engage in. That’s the smart “bet” metaphorically speaking. It’s a self enriching circus.

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You could place a prediction bet probably.
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Careful, you'll have Ka$hPatel wondering who to throw under a bus just for the giggles, the p0wn, and the extra $100 for his stripper lounge charity.
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> he isn’t a little guy

His salary this year was probably about $118k on standard pay scales. I’m not sure what your definition of little guy is, but to me that qualifies

(Not trying to be condescending to anybody here, that’s not far off my salary and I’d definitely call myself the little guy)

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Master sergeant is a respectable rank (first of senior NCO) but it’s not exactly a high ranking position. Speaking from AF experience, you’ll have a couple of them or higher in a 50 person squadron, and levels like group/wing command they’re oftentimes among the lowest ranking person in the room.

This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.

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A master sergeant is not remotely significant in the world of politics.
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If he was "behind the fence", at most he would be a team sergeant or maybe even assistant team sergeant. Talking 4-6 members max.
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They fired 4-star generals on a whim. The military is expected to be as loyal as the rest.
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According to Google Gemini, there are over 16,000 master sergeants. Might as well be some random, especially when it's literally the president himself, cabinet members, congress, and other cronies directly doing the same and even worse things.
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