Trump Thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

They ever figure out who toppled the tombstones?

Im going to refrain from comment untill then, not going to set myself up for embarrassment should the suspected perps turn out to be the exact ones to make me look like an idiot....

The coming of wisdom...

[Greyblades]

Hallelujah brother.

[Montmorency]

That's "father" to you.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

That's "father" to you.

Nah...the trope he is riffing on is the "we are all brothers in Christ" slogan. And that version kindly does NOT emphasize that I am old enough to have sired him.

[Husar]

Unless they have the perps on camera or someone saw them, it would seem that we're all reserving comment until kingdom come.
Next time someone drives a car into a group of people....oh wait, that just happened, driver turned out to be a native German but some say the police can't be trusted on that anyway, has to be a refugee.

http://www.the-postillon.com/2017/02...-to-japan.html

Washington (dpo) - US President Donald Trump today offered his condolences to the Japanese government. He said that he was deeply moved by the devastation wreaked upon Tokyo by Godzilla and that he was shocked to the core when he saw the bloodbath on television yesterday evening.

[Beskar]

I will just leave this Bern right here...


https://twitter.com/SenSanders/statu...88569850494976
Really, why is he still President? He is a petulant child.

[Husar]

Here are some more carnival impressions including some explanatory text:

https://www.thelocal.de/20170227/in-...trump-no-mercy

[Montmorency]

A few more in this list.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Can't wait to see his speech to Congress. He could say "I own you all." and they would all clap for him

[Montmorency]

They say Trump is calling for the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

[Hooahguy]

The defense spending hike still wouldnt have as much an impact as cutting wasteful spending would do. Like for years we have been building more tanks despite the military saying they dont need any more tanks yet Congressman X from wherever doesnt want to close the tank factory in his district. That and arbitrary troop limits which forces commanders to make use of really expensive contractors instead of bringing in more soldiers who are on our dime anyways.

Plus diverting money away from our soft power apparatuses is a horrible idea.

[Montmorency]

The defense spending hike still wouldnt have as much an impact as cutting wasteful spending would do. Like for years we have been building more tanks despite the military saying they dont need any more tanks yet Congressman X from wherever doesnt want to close the tank factory in his district. That and arbitrary troop limits which forces commanders to make use of really expensive contractors instead of bringing in more soldiers who are on our dime anyways.

Plus diverting money away from our soft power apparatuses is a horrible idea.

Argument for tanks and other items is that expertise of engineers and technicians must be maintained. Solution: directly pay them comparatively-little to tinker with related stuff on at least a part-time basis, keep them sharp. Not complete contracts or products, just anything related to the necessary skill set for our major platforms.

At some point remember, it is more straightforward and cost-effective for the government to disembody private military-industrial corporations and absorb their skilled workers as operators of internal (federal) agencies.

It's best-suited for a proper great-power war, but you really have to wonder at the opportunity scale of paying ever more to keep renters on your property in anticipation of a future boom.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

.

Argument for tanks and other items is that expertise of engineers and technicians must be maintained. Solution: directly pay them comparatively-little to tinker with related stuff on at least a part-time basis, keep them sharp. Not complete contracts or products, just anything related to the necessary skill set for our major platforms.

Doesn't work that well. There are all sorts of "never written down anywhere" micro-behaviors etc. that those people working in the assembly process have to keep current in institutional memory in order to generate the best possible results. And that body of knowledge is often so specialized to the military product that the company cannot use it on "civvy street" effectively. I used to live near Newport News Shipbuilding -- the folks who make CVNs and will be making the CVNX's. They could not build an oil tanker to spec on time and under budget...but could make a supercarrier. Refueling jobs helped, but not enough; building a sub....did not work well as all the good sub builders work at a different place so it was slow and not as high quality, etc.

At some point remember, it is more straightforward and cost-effective for the government to disembody private military-industrial corporations and absorb their skilled workers as operators of internal (federal) agencies....

Like our old "arsenal" system....which was never efficient enough. Or maybe the PLA's factory system....which is NOT the most effective center for manufacturing.


All in all, the stuff is too specialized; has periods of non-production that are simply too long to maintain staff through; and then gets wrecked/bent/broken/expended in job lots when in actual use mandating rapid full replacement.


Military manufacture is likely never to be fully rationalizable.

[Montmorency]

In other words, it should depend on how much of a warmup-phase, and where, we are willing to tolerate for advanced production. The existing base wouldn't be sufficient for a real surge anyway and would be delayed in expansion for such a war footing (pretending that any sort of war now would depend on swamping a theater with many thousands of tanks or planes). It's not something to determine out of hand, but is worth looking into as a cost-saver while still maintaining adequate institutional and technical knowledge.

[Beskar]

So every fact Trump said was wrong.

But nothing to see here, run along. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain

[Greyblades]

So every fact Trump said was wrong.

...says the independant.

[Husar]

...says the independant.

And everyone else...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-to-congress/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ress-congress/
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/28/516717...on-of-congress
http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald...ech-fact-check

[Gilrandir]

I wonder was there ever such a prolonged opposition to any President after he had been sworn in and election battles had been left behind?

[Gilrandir]

Et tu, Brutes?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.fb07aca9bee1

[Greyblades]

Not quite, the article neglects to include the context of the statement; specifically the question it answers:

Franken: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week, that included information that “Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” These documents also allegedly say “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so you know. But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

Sessions can say that the context gave him the impression that they were asking specifically about information exchanges which he didnt consider the meetings with the ambassador as, without any record of the meetings noone can claim he was wrong to do so.

And everyone else...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-to-congress/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ress-congress/
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/28/516717...on-of-congress
http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald...ech-fact-check

These do not make the assertion of trump's speech being exclusively lies, as the independant does. Such a claim in a title that the content does not sustain is the hallmark of a fox news style propaganda outlet.

Edit it seems the independant changed the title since yesterday, I wonder why...

[Husar]

Not quite, the article neglects to include the context of the statement; specifically the question it answers:

Sessions can say that the context gave him the impression that they were asking specifically about information exchanges which he didnt consider the meetings with the ambassador as, without any record of the meetings noone can claim he was wrong to do so.

And if that is a lie and he gets away with it, is still a good thing of course.

These do not make the assertion of trump's speech being exclusively lies, as the independant does. Such a claim in a title that the content does not sustain is the hallmark of a fox news style propaganda outlet.

Edit it seems the independant changed the title since yesterday, I wonder why...

No, if you want to be pedantic, it said every fact was a lie, but a speech is not exclusively made up of facts as the subtitle also explains now.
Of course I didn't check whether those were all the fact in his speech, but you shouldn't blame them for misrepresenting things and then misrepresent their claim yourself.

It is quite telling that you always comment on the small misrepresentations of the press and completely ignore the enormous misrepresentations of Trump...

[Greyblades]

And if that is a lie and he gets away with it, is still a good thing of course.

If. It's not exactly uncommon for senators to meet with diplomats in official capacities, sessions meeting the russian ambassador twice without mentioning the election is completely plausable.

No, if you want to be pedantic, it said every fact was a lie, but a speech is not exclusively made up of facts as the subtitle also explains now.
Of course I didn't check whether those were all the fact in his speech, but you shouldn't blame them for misrepresenting things and then misrepresent their claim yourself.

I checked the way back machine and apparantly it hasnt changed it's title, I mistook Beskar's title for the article's. I'll own up to that one.

It is quite telling that you always comment on the small misrepresentations of the press and completely ignore the enormous misrepresentations of Trump...

Thus far the "enormous misrepresentations" of trump that have been posted here have either pendantic crap I couldnt care less about him lying about, like inaugeration numbers, or the media spinning what he says, as with the sweden comments.

The media's "small misrepresentations" on the other hand have been dominated by either stupid (Russia hacked the election, update #8,925), blatant character assassination (pissgate) or flirting with treason (CNN's "wouldnt it be sad if 18 people were assassinated as they gether for swearing in and an obama appointee got to be president? Hint. Hint.")

I will admit to jumping on the left wing propaganda sources that are used here, Beskar and Hopalong being repeat offenders, but I do that more out of annoyance at seeing a lack of objections from the rest of board, whereas right wing propaganda invariably gets you a group tounge lashing.

[Husar]

If. It's not exactly uncommon for senators to meet with diplomats in official capacities, sessions meeting the russian ambassador twice without mentioning the election is completely plausable.

Of course it is, it's just a bit strange that every meeting Trump team members had with Russians somehow never seems to have happened until someone finds out it did.

Thus far the "enormous misrepresentations" of trump that have been posted here have either pendantic crap I couldnt care less about him lying about, like inaugeration numbers, or the media spinning what he says, as with the sweden comments.

The media's "small misrepresentations" on the other hand have been dominated by either stupid (Russia hacked the election, update #8,925), blatant character assassination (pissgate) or flirting with treason (CNN's "wouldnt it be sad if 18 people were assassinated as they gether for swearing in and an obama appointee got to be president? Hint. Hint.")

Bogus is stuff like this: http://www.eater.com/2017/2/28/14753...up-personality

It's a bit like saying you're a terrible person because you try not to get Ebola instead of embracing the new experience.

As for his lies being unimportant, now that is also bogus since he uses these lies to justify his retarded policies. He lies about Mexicans and then builds a wall, he makes a bullshit point about islamic countries and then bans their citizens from entering the US. He makes bogus claims about the economy in an attempt to gather more support and so on and on. Not to forget his bogus claim of draining the swamp and being there for every American, and then he greenlights two pipelines without any further consideration while several agencies like the EPA are basically shut down "until further consideration" or however it was justified.
He's so deep in the swamp, he can't even reach his bootstraps anymore. And it's certainly not small stuff noone cares about.

[Montmorency]

Make America Great Again?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Morning finds us slowly nosing out to sea. The huge ‘Landing Ship (Tank)’, with its collapsible bows, is a ponderous and slow craft. It turns with a kind of arthritic limping and skewing. Its path is complicated by the mass of shipping which lies like the tufts of a continuous carpet from Southampton out past the Isle of Wight and into the Channel.
Ships are detaching themselves from the mass and heading in the same general direction towards the mists of the sea horizon. The departing ships ease out into a formation reminiscent of hounds and huntsmen. Somewhere out on the flanks, naval destroyers, minesweepers and patrol boats ride flank on our main procession. For a while the incredible multitude of ships fascinates us, and we search for words: shoals, armadas, swarms, swaths, hordes – clustered upon the grey-green sea like blackfly on a leaf.
Then we turn to conversation with the American sailors. In 1944 Yanks are still strange creatures to most British people except in southern towns invaded by their new armies. From childhood I have seen Texans bidding for bulls in the market at Hereford, but Yanks in general are still a novelty, a mixture of Edward G. Robinson, Gary Cooper and Bing Crosby. Obviously to them we are an equal novelty – our rough clothes, our primitive armaments, our meagre rations, our pale faces, our stilted speech.
The Stuart is an American-built tank, as is also the Sherman, but it is obviously unknown to the sailors, who clamber over it with interest. One sailor fingers my Sten gun superciliously. ‘What’s this, son? A toy for your little brother back home?’ I too am not impressed by the Sten, which, they say, is patched together in back street garages. It is liable to jam and, when actually firing, sprays its bullets wildly, depending on profusion of bullets rather than accuracy of aim.
‘Are you aiming to fight Germans with this, son?’ persists the sailor, waving the fragile-looking Sten. ‘Aw, don’t give me that. Here, come and look at some real guns.’
We go up to the seamen’s quarters. My friend pulls out an old blue kitbag. Opens it. Extracts a tommy-gun. The style of the old gangster films. Solid, compact, sinister. ‘Accurate!’ says my Yank. ‘Reliable. That’s a real gun. Take it, son. You’ll be fighting Fritzies. We won’t be meeting any Fritzies in this baked bean tin of a ship. Take it and shoot a few for me and my friends from Tacoma, Washington.’
‘You can’t mean it,’ I say. ‘Don’t you have to sign for it? Or return it to stores? Or lay it out for kit inspections?’
‘Sign for it? Stores? Kit inspections? Where do you think you are? Bucking-Ham Palace? Take it, son. There’s plenty more where that came from.’
Sid is also in the seamen’s quarters, squatting on a bunk and laying out our forty-eight hours ration pack for the Yanks to see. We have a small cake of soup powder looking like a solidified version of the scum one finds at the sea’s edge. We have tea powder, incorporating coarse tea, lumpy dehydrated milk and grey sugar. We have porridge powder looking similar to, but even more anaemic than, the soup. We have hard biscuit. We have all the luxuries of the Cafe Royal. Someone has described our powdered soup as ‘dehydrated tablecloth’.
One of the seamen snorts in disgust. ‘If the Germans don’t bump you off, that chow will. You can’t go ashore with nothing to eat. Hey, Barney, fetch the Quartermaster. These boys can’t starve on those beaches.’
The Quartermaster has an even thicker jungle of stripes than our guide of yesterday. He picks over our pocket-sized rations for forty-eight hours. Looks sad. ‘Bloody graveyard food,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t feed a hundred-year-old corpse. This a joke of that thin beanpole Montgomery? We must do something about this. Follow me, boys.’
We descend a number of iron ladders into a large storeroom. Rows and rows of cardboard boxes stand piled around the iron walls. ‘Help yourselves, boys. Take what you want. Nothing to pay. A birthday present from your Uncle Sam. Bloody beanpole Montgomery! Take what you want. One thing: don’t leave any half-empty boxes. If you open a box, empty it and throw the box over the side. And give the Fritzies hell.’
We tear a box out of the nearest pile. Rip open the cover. Tinned ‘Chicken’, carol the labels. We reach for another pile. ‘Tomato Juice’, the labels laugh. We stagger to the other end of the room. ‘Corned Beef Hash’, the labels chant. And across the room, ‘Yellow Cling Peaches’, the labels whisper. This is Paradise, Aladdin’s Cave and Fortnum & Mason’s all in one. Glory, glory, Hallelujah. Hip! Hip! for Uncle Sam! AND his Quartermaster!
Sid, Johnny and I fill two cartons with assorted goods. Lug them up ladders, along gangways past grinning Americans, down into our cavern. Load up the American tank with American luxuries. I see the Sherman behind us, not one of our Regiment, tossing out 75-mm shells. Laying the shells on the engine covers. Loading on more American goods.
‘What are you going to do with those shells?’ I ask the driver of the Sherman. 75-mm shells are massive contraptions. Made in one piece, bright brass case and black iron shot joined together, the finished product is about as long as my arm and about as broad as my lower thigh. They take up a lot of room in the turret and in the storage spaces in the hull called ‘sponsons’.
‘Bugger me if we’re going to carry all that lot ashore when we can stock up with Yankee food,’ says the driver. ‘We’ll toss the shells into the sea once it gets dark.’
‘They’ll get shot at dawn,’ says Bernard. ‘We’re not going to do that are we, Ken?’ My disciplined body shudders at the thought. ‘If I’m going to get shot,’ I reply, ‘I leave it to some Jerry at a thousand yards and not a dozen blokes in a firing squad at ten paces, thank you!’ But we discard a spare can of water, and Sid throws out an old case from in his compartment, and we grow more like Lipton’s without specifically infringing any regimental ordinances.

[HopAlongBunny]

A nice little summary of The Russian Invasion so far:

http://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide

Main takeaway: Much smoke, no fire
Some of the stuff has been (or perceived as) "true enough" to cost Flynn his job, and raise questions about Sessions veracity.
It could be "Bigger than Watergate!" as some claim; it could be just another embarrassing speed bump

[Gilrandir]

Of course it is, it's just a bit strange that every meeting Trump team members had with Russians somehow never seems to have happened until someone finds out it did.

And it is even stranger, that those meeting were with Russians only - no Chinese, Germans, Turks or Syrians.

[HopAlongBunny]

The "shadowy" Russian ambassador:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39150526

"Nice guy", "Dogged pursuit of nation's objectives", "Hosts great lunches"; he must be a spy!!!
The line between being an effective diplomat or a spy is awfully fine; as yet, no substance to the charge he is a spy (anymore than any diplomat)

[Shaka_Khan]

They ever figure out who toppled the tombstones?

Im going to refrain from comment untill then, not going to set myself up for embarrassment should the suspected perps turn out to be the exact ones to make me look like an idiot.

It was the erosion from severe rainfall, climate change denier.

[Sarmatian]

And it is even stranger, that those meeting were with Russians only - no Chinese, Germans, Turks or Syrians.

Actually...

[Brenus]

Me think Trump reorganised USA deployment: Russia not big threat, China much bigger threat (in building and sea grubber), let's encircled China with help (or neutralised) Russia.