Merged All things Trump + Russia

[acbytesla]

Other nations are not up to the level of the US as far as sophisticated hardware and software are concerned, so it is understandable why the US spends more on its military and cyber technology, much of which is unknown to the public.

As a military retiree who has worked for the Air Force, Navy, and Army in military, civilian and defense contractor capacities, and who has engineered components, special tools and equipment for Air Force and Army, I say the military has been underfunded and say so from direct experience. I have been aware of squadrons that were so broke, they could not fill some of my orders for supplies. In fact, so broke in some cases, the Air Force did not have the money to fill my order for safety gloves for my workers. If you don't have inside experience, don't think you know everything there is to know. There is an old saying that goes something like this:

Those who think they know it all, are annoying to those of us who do.

As someone who spent decades selling to the military I would argue that the military is grossly over funded. I use to sell crap to the military that I knew they didn't need.

But this is about politics. Whether you believe that America should sacrifice healthcare and infrastructure for bombs and missiles to be the world's police man.

I'm reminded of of Eisenhower, certainly no pacifist.

'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.'

We have a substandard health care system and crumbling transportation infrastructure because we are paying for thousands of unused (thank god) nuclear warheads and missiles. It's not just the cost of the weapon systems. It is perks of private jets for generals. It's the parasitic weapons manufacturers. It's Blackwater, Boeing and Grumman spending billions doting and entertaining them. It's Generals retiring and then bringing down huge salaries from defense contractors.

It's also the opportunity costs. The best construction firms and manufacturers are no longer American. They're Spanish, Italian German, Chinese and Korean. Because those nations are focused on that. Go to any train station or airport in Europe, China and then go to Penn Station and LaGuardia.

Enough is enough. Time to rebuild America.

 

[dudalb]

Providing for the defense of a nation is the FIRST duty of a government. I am not against spending on the infratstuctre and favor a UHC of some sort, but also believe in a strong military. We can argue about the details...I think a lot of defense money is spend on the wrong things.....but not the basic doctrine.
And I detect a certain gut dislike of the military in your posts. Count me out there.
And see my signature for my opinion of doctrinaire Pacifists.

 

[d4m10n]

See post 2312. That is the point that d4m10n is making

Let me just add one thing to that post. We can be relatively confident Sessions knows he is allowed to flatly deny conversations which never happened, because he does so at other points in the same testimony. For example, see this exchange about the investigation into the Trump campaign:

BURR: You couldn't have had a conversation with the president about the investigation, because you were never briefed on the investigation...

(CROSSTALK)

SESSIONS: That is correct.

This leads me to conclude Sessions and Trump did discuss sacking Comey, prior to producing a pretext to be paraded in public. Quite probably they discussed the real reasons for the firing as well, which would make the AG's testimony . . . less than the whole truth.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

by invoking Schrodinger's Executive Privilege, which may be alive or dead depending on when his boss opens the box.

That's great!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...and call the Senators "colleague" over and over, hoping they will go easy on you and forget about their subpoena power.

It was obviously the old boys club invocation. Went right along with the wink wink joke about Kamala Harris' questioning.

Samantha Bee was on that one last night. Killed it.

 

[Stacko]

Pence has lawyered up.

 

[Stacko]

Pence has lawyered up.

He hired a criminal defense attorney instead of a guy that sues people.

Vice President Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The vice president’s office said Thursday that Pence has retained Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based lawyer and chairman of McGuire Woods who previously served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Pence’s decision comes less than a month after Trump hired his own private attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, to help navigate the investigations related to the Russia probe, and a day after The Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is widening his investigation to examine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.

“I can confirm that the Vice President has retained Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods to assist him in responding to inquiries by the special counsel,” said Jarrod Agen, a Pence spokesman, in an emailed statement. “The Vice President is focused entirely on his duties and promoting the President’s agenda and looks forward to a swift conclusion of this matter.”

 

[dudalb]

He hired a criminal defense attorney instead of a guy that sues people.

Which proves that Pence...and I do not like him at all....at least has more common sense then Donnie. At least Pence knew what kind of lawyer to hire.

 

[d4m10n]

Which proves that Pence...and I do not like him at all....at least has more common sense then Donnie. At least Pence knew what kind of lawyer to hire.

[emoji3] [emoji3] [emoji3]

But wait, I thought he has nothing to hide?

 

[Stacko]

Which proves that Pence...and I do not like him at all....at least has more common sense then Donnie. At least Pence knew what kind of lawyer to hire.

Pence also had the luxury of not being turned down due to concerns over payment and following instructions.

[emoji3] [emoji3] [emoji3]

But wait, I thought he has nothing to hide?

Even the innocent should have lawyers to help them navigate these types of investigations. No reason to accidently incriminate yourself. On the other hand as head of the transition, I doubt Pence's hands are clean.

 

[dudalb]

Pence was also a practicing attorney until he entered politics,so it should come as no surprise he has more legal savvy then Trumpy.

 

[phiwum]

[emoji3] [emoji3] [emoji3]

But wait, I thought he has nothing to hide?

Surely, hiring a lawyer doesn't imply guilt.

 

[Stacko]

Surely, hiring a lawyer doesn't imply guilt.

No but Trump's ambulance chaser said no one else needed outside counsel.

 

[acbytesla]

Which proves that Pence...and I do not like him at all....at least has more common sense then Donnie. At least Pence knew what kind of lawyer to hire.

Trump faced a much different situation than Trump. Law firm after law firm turned down Trump when he went seeking representation. And why would they do that? Because Trump doesn't pay and he doesn't listen.

 

[NoahFence]

Providing for the defense of a nation is the FIRST duty of a government. I am not against spending on the infratstuctre and favor a UHC of some sort, but also believe in a strong military. We can argue about the details...I think a lot of defense money is spend on the wrong things.....but not the basic doctrine.
And I detect a certain gut dislike of the military in your posts. Count me out there.
And see my signature for my opinion of doctrinaire Pacifists.

Armies aren't the only thing that can attack the citizens of a country. Ask New Orleans. Ask anyone on the Carolina coast.

Or the residents of Thailand and Japan. Ask them if infrastructure could have helped.

I was trying and failing miserably to get this point through to our resident Libertarians. By not staffing FEMA and NOAA and the like, Trump is derelict in his duty as is written in our constitution.

Standing armies are not the only threat. Hell, they're not even the biggest threat we face now.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Wow, it's hard to imagine a more transparent lie. Pretty much every country has interfered in the affairs of others throughout history. You'd have to be pretty gullible, or ideologically invested, to believe that.

Also, do we not count military invasion as "interference"? Because...

 

[CapelDodger]

Senate passes the bill limiting what Trump can do with the Russia Sanctions by an overwhelming majority. Now the fun begins.

Only if Trump tries something with Russian Sanctions, which he's hardly going to be sparing time for. The practical impact on sanctions is, to my eye, nil. The significance is in it being done at all : what did they mean by that? Are they establishing some clear blue water between themselves and Trump that they can reference should, heaven forfend, this whole Russia thing go gangrenous? It certainly looks like a hedge to me.

 

[CapelDodger]

Wow, it's hard to imagine a more transparent lie. Pretty much every country has interfered in the affairs of others throughout history. You'd have to be pretty gullible, or ideologically invested, to believe that.

For most of history countries didn't exist, but that aside, when Putin says "We do not interfere ..." he's referring to Russia today : the detritus of history can hardly be held to its - nor his - account.

Putin's lie is transparent for the benefit of his Russian audience : even if he didn't interfere to promote Trump he wants them to believe he did.

 

[quadraginta]

Providing for the defense of a nation is the FIRST duty of a government. I am not against spending on the infratstuctre and favor a UHC of some sort, but also believe in a strong military. We can argue about the details...I think a lot of defense money is spend on the wrong things.....but not the basic doctrine.

And spending defense money on the wrong things is all he was talking about. So apparently you agree with him.

And I detect a certain gut dislike of the military in your posts. Count me out there.

I detected nothing of the sort.

I detected a dislike of extravagant, wasteful spending, and procurement of unneeded or unsuitable military equipment engineered by insiders expecting a reward for their disregard for the welfare of the military or the country. Not quite the same thing.

And according to you, not anything you disagree with him about.

Dick Cheney took out an entire $57 billion stealth bomber program that McDonald Douglas and General Dynamics, along with their mouthpieces in the Pentagon and Congress, fought tooth and nail for. $5 billion had already been wasted before he pulled the plug.

Did you detect a certain gut dislike of the military in Cheney when he did that?

And see my signature for my opinion of doctrinaire Pacifists.

What has that got to do with anything?

Just threw it in there so you could try to be a little more deprecatory and insulting?

Nothing he wrote even approaches anything resembling pacifism of any sort. Certainly not "doctrinaire". (Whatever the hell you think you mean by that.)

 

[quadraginta]

He hired a criminal defense attorney instead of a guy that sues people.

I hope he really needs one.

Taking out Pence along with Trump would be next to the best outcome of all this.

Catching Ryan in the same net would be the first.