• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

The Trump Presidency

Status
Not open for further replies.
skyeagle409 said:
But then again, you were not in the same positions that I held to understand where I am coming from. There is much that you are unaware of.




Increasing the military budget is one thing that I agree with Trump.
Click to expand...

Does your secret insider knowledge make all their horrible decisions just plain go away?

How about bottom-up funding. Equip the man in the field, the engineers and the maintenance people/pools FIRST. After we get all the gloves you need and the double-ought 203 right-handed ratchet floozles, then buy a battleship. The way it works, and you know it, is that Hil's and Electric Boat and Rockwell and Lockheed get paid and get their budgets approved and the people in the field come in last.

When was the last time an Officer's Club had its funding cut back so that the grunts could have better food? When was any time they cancelled one of their fact-finding tours of the best hoochie bars in Satahip (2 days @ 4 hours of meetings wrapped around four days of leisure time) so they could get improved body armor for the troops?

It runs top to bottom. The Japanese just did a study on Okinawa and the US base there produces something like double the waste as the locals. That's waste in the area of waste!

How many pairs of gloves can you buy for $125,000,000,000? That's 125 billion dollars. That's the estimate by the Pentagon of their own waste.

It ain't the budget. It's the management. (And the lobbying industry.)
 
We have to honestly ask ourselves how much of the well-being of the US depends on its global power projection.
It is laughable to call it spending for "Defense" since that could be achieved for 1/1000th of the budget.
If it turns out that, yes, we need to have bases everywhere, control all shipping lanes and have to dominate air and space everywhere on the globe then the budget probably is too small.
 
Trebuchet said:
Can we get back on topic?

Trump has signed an executive order guaranteeing freedom of religion and speech. Which, of course, means exactly the opposite. Fortunately it appears pretty toothless.

I had to look up "Johnson Amendment" to see if it referred to Lyndon B. It does.
Click to expand...


But Trump said the order lifts a ban on hospitalized military personnel from receiving religious items...
Except, of course, such a ban doesn't actually exist.

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting religious liberty on Thursday, he singled out the US military for preventing troops from receiving religious items.

"People were forbidden from giving or receiving religious items at a military hospital where our brave service members were being treated, and when they wanted those religious items," Trump said at the signing ceremony. "These were great, great people. These are great soldiers. They wanted those items. They were precluded from getting them."

It was a comment that raised eyebrows at the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials are adamant there is no policy that prohibits members of the military from receiving religious items at military installations.

Military hospitals are considered the same as a military base, so security and patient privacy concerns require that any donation of any outside items by non-military groups be reviewed and distributed with chaplains overseeing religious matters. And no outside group can enter a hospital or a patients room without permission, according to defense officials.

But that doesn't mean service members there can't receive religious items. Indeed, service members have the option of declaring their faith in their personnel records so chaplains of that religion can ensure they get whatever religious items or services they wish.
Click to expand...


It turns out he was likely referring to a vaguely worded policy that was revised years ago.

Pentagon officials said he was likely referring to a situation in 2011 at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.

"In 2011, a local patient visitation policy was issued at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that was written to prevent unsolicited proselytizing from religious groups, including the distribution of their religious items to patients who had not asked for them," the Pentagon said in a statement sent to CNN.

"Due to the wording of that policy, religious groups interpreted the policy to be an outright ban on visitation and distribution of religious items," the statement continued. "The policy was subsequently re-written to eliminate ambiguity, stating that, 'Patients determine their visitors.'
Click to expand...
 
The Great Zaganza said:
We have to honestly ask ourselves how much of the well-being of the US depends on its global power projection.
It is laughable to call it spending for "Defense" since that could be achieved for 1/1000th of the budget.
If it turns out that, yes, we need to have bases everywhere, control all shipping lanes and have to dominate air and space everywhere on the globe then the budget probably is too small.
Click to expand...

This is the crux of the argument. What is our strategy and I would agree it seems to be to project overwhelming power anywhere in the world and on multiple fronts.

I haven't read through this document but it is a 2015 document on US military strategy. The strategy is clearly trying to address multiple threats from state and non-state actors at a global level and therefore requires the massive military spending. I think the strategy needs to be more focused on specific threats to the United States and not a such a widespread set of threats.

On top of this, you have of course congressmen (of both parties) who feed their local military industries with lucrative contracts whether the military wants them or not. I don't have any ideas how you stop this.
 
seayakin said:
This is the crux of the argument. What is our strategy and I would agree it seems to be to project overwhelming power anywhere in the world and on multiple fronts.

I haven't read through this document but it is a 2015 document on US military strategy. The strategy is clearly trying to address multiple threats from state and non-state actors at a global level and therefore requires the massive military spending. I think the strategy needs to be more focused on specific threats to the United States and not a such a widespread set of threats.

On top of this, you have of course congressmen (of both parties) who feed their local military industries with lucrative contracts whether the military wants them or not. I don't have any ideas how you stop this.
Click to expand...

Probably nobody does. That was Eisenhower's anxiety when he coined the phrase "military industrial complex."
 
seayakin said:
I think the strategy needs to be more focused on specific threats to the United States and not a such a widespread set of threats.
Click to expand...

To some, though, the best defense is a good offense.

Keep knocking them down in a forever war "over there", but they will never have the industrial or technological capacity to build nukes and submarines capable of sneaking up the Potomac.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Does your secret insider knowledge make all their horrible decisions just plain go away?

How about bottom-up funding. Equip the man in the field, the engineers and the maintenance people/pools FIRST.
Click to expand...


Just to let you know they also require safety equipment.

How many pairs of gloves can you buy for $125,000,000,000?
Click to expand...


Quite a bit but it is apparent that you are not familiar with the way things work in the military.


US commanders say budget cuts could hurt response to security crisis in Asia

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...s-military-budget-cuts-hurt-readiness-in-asia


Trump is on the right track to raise the military budget.
 
blutoski said:
The headline says "all" major news networks, but I notice Fox was absent from the list of examples.

Could this be related to [FDA Department Gets Order From White House Saying All Office TVs Must Be Programmed To Fox News Only] ?
Click to expand...

I recommend this little gadget: http://www.tvbgone.com/
It's a mini remote that sends "off" codes.

Also, initial reports might be wrong...
An FDA spokesperson got back to CBS News after our deadline, telling us, "There was no directive or memorandum from the Administration that went out to employees about broadcast news channels displaying on monitors in common areas throughout the FDA's White Oak campus."
 
Last edited:
newyorkguy said:
For me the worst thing about this is, it's part of Donnie's 2020 campaign. Already? What is this, nonstop campaigning? Really is like someone out of 1984. Unbelievable. :(
Click to expand...

He signed up for the 2020 campaign on literally the day he was inaugurated.
 
skyeagle409 said:
Just to let you know they also require safety equipment.




Quite a bit but it is apparent that you are not familiar with the way things work in the military.


US commanders say budget cuts could hurt response to security crisis in Asia

https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...s-military-budget-cuts-hurt-readiness-in-asia


Trump is on the right track to raise the military budget.
Click to expand...

I'm quite familiar with how the military spends their money, their bidding processes and budgetary constraints. And they have those lovely little house rules that prevent them from moving funds from A to B or C.

I'm also quite familiar with 'THEY LOST ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE BILLION DOLLARS AND THEY BURIED THEIR OWN AUDIT THAT SHOWED THIS".

Just don't lose $125,000,000,000.00 and you have all the money for gloves, body armor, plating for the troop carriers, etc...

Your solution is to throw more money at it because someone down the line is getting screwed. My solution is to throw out the guys up the line who are *********** with the funds that should be protecting front line personnel, engineers, maintenance, etc...
 
Foolmewunz said:
I'm quite familiar with how the military spends their money, their bidding processes and budgetary constraints.
Click to expand...


Then, why are you arguing with me? If you truly know what you are talking about, you would know the process when waste and abuse are identified. As a military supervisor and later, a defense contractor supervisor, I have dealt in financially military affairs. You do not understand the specifics of what I am talking about, so don't pretend like you know what you are talking about.

.
 
Last edited:
Stacko said:
Kushner family hawking EB-5 Visas for investors.

https://mobile.twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/860745047121076224
Click to expand...

Do we have a corruption thread? If not we need one.

Apparently Murdoch and Trump are speaking weekly or daily depending on which report you read. Murdoch gives Trump his own news channel to rival Pravda. Trump pulls strings to help Murdoch?

Murdoch Is Reportedly Advising Trump While DOJ Investigates Fox
The Justice Department is currently engaged in a wide-ranging investigation of Fox News. The inquiry includes a review of the network’s “settlements made with women who alleged sexual harassment by former Fox News boss Roger Ailes,” as well as “possible misconduct by Fox News personnel” over a period of years, and has grown to include the United States Postal Inspection Service, which has jurisdiction over some financial crimes, according to CNN.
Click to expand...

Of course they weren't always friends. Guess that changes when you want something.

But I digress.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom