AOC and The Squad are Faux Progressives

@wildgrass said
As a former Republican, I totally see where you're coming from. But we don't live in a capitalistic society anymore. Republicans broke it with bailouts for banks and incredibly eye popping corporate welfare checks. A trillion dollars is an absurd amount of money to spend on a failed military project. That's a million millions. A million millions paid to military contractors ...[text shortened]... f we're giving away free money, I'd rather give it to the individuals and not the failed businesses.

Obama also was not interested in our having a very strong military. Being weak. You too? We had to spend money for the helicopter to get into Bin Laden’s compound. We prob have more helicopters and more jets than we need. Do you think it’s better to be light in armaments, or to have more than enough...? I lean towards strong military myself. Everyone has diff opinions, I wasn’t in the room when those decisions were made, and neither I nor you are privy to Intel.

The workings of govt as related to businesses (like bailin Chrysler years ago ) is fraught with mistakes and miscues. Hindsight is 20/20, but some were worth it.

@averagejoe1 said
Obama also was not interested in our having a very strong military. Being weak. You too? We had to spend money for the helicopter to get into Bin Laden’s compound. We prob have more helicopters and more jets than we need. Do you think it’s better to be light in armaments, or to have more than enough...? I lean towards strong military myself. Everyone has diff opin ...[text shortened]... rysler years ago ) is fraught with mistakes and miscues. Hindsight is 20/20, but some were worth it.

You misconstrue strength with funding. An Obama-era audit run by the Pentagon itself identified hundreds of billions of waste yearly. It was money they admittedly didn't need to ensure our military strength. But politicians keep giving it to them, like an overfed cow, because strength. The Pentagon isn't asking for it, so politicians shouldn't be taking it from taxpayers in the first place.

The workings of our guverment have more to do with political calculations than strategic ones.

@wildgrass said
You misconstrue strength with funding. An Obama-era audit run by the Pentagon itself identified hundreds of billions of waste yearly. It was money they admittedly didn't need to ensure our military strength. But politicians keep giving it to them, like an overfed cow, because strength. The Pentagon isn't asking for it, so politicians shouldn't be taking it from taxpayers in ...[text shortened]... e.

The workings of our guverment have more to do with political calculations than strategic ones.

I'm curious, are you pacifist?

@averagejoe1 said
I'm curious, are you pacifist?

LOL no.

The Pentagon budget is a wasteful, unaccountable socialist jobs program. Medicare, on the other hand, has teams of people investigating fraud and negotiating for lower prices on medical services.

There are tons of examples. Under Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to cut funding for production of the C-17 cargo plane because the military no longer needs it. Congress instead approved 10 more orders, because the contracts employ thousands of people in dozens of states.

We're making planes that we are never going to use because strength.

@averagejoe1 said
I'm curious, are you pacifist?

Lol argue for taxpayers money to be spent on healthcare and your a Socialist but question the criminal waste of money in the defence budget and you must be a Pacifist. Tut tut tut.

@averagejoe1 said
Obama also was not interested in our having a very strong military. Being weak. You too? We had to spend money for the helicopter to get into Bin Laden’s compound. We prob have more helicopters and more jets than we need. Do you think it’s better to be light in armaments, or to have more than enough...? I lean towards strong military myself. Everyone has diff opin ...[text shortened]... rysler years ago ) is fraught with mistakes and miscues. Hindsight is 20/20, but some were worth it.

The stealth helicopter used in the bin Laden raid was not a sign of a "weak military"!

@athousandyoung said
The stealth helicopter used in the bin Laden raid was not a sign of a "weak military"!

Themachines were preObsma i think. He was not one to spend monedy on war stuff. As to the planes ‘ not being used’..... Simply, that we have them, tho unused, makes ourenemy think twice about treading on the USA. We dont have to ‘use’ them, they are an insurance policy. Gotta dpend the money, i hate it. We could instead give the money to people who have no money, but little good that would do if the poor (and us) would have no armaments to defend an attack. There IS a big Picture, you know.

@averagejoe1 said
Themachines were preObsma i think. He was not one to spend monedy on war stuff. As to the planes ‘ not being used’..... Simply, that we have them, tho unused, makes ourenemy think twice about treading on the USA. We dont have to ‘use’ them, they are an insurance policy. Gotta dpend the money, i hate it. We could instead give the money to people who have no money, but li ...[text shortened]... if the poor (and us) would have no armaments to defend an attack. There IS a big Picture, you know.

We spend $750 billion on defense every year and the center of our American government fell in 2 hours to the guys on duck dynasty. How can you not conclude that they are just robbing us blind?

@wildgrass said
We spend $750 billion on defense every year and the center of our American government fell in 2 hours to the guys on duck dynasty. How can you not conclude that they are just robbing us blind?

But, Does this not show the need to maybe even have more defense? If it had gotten unbelievably, indescribably bad, I can envision a few jets, taken out of the hangers, scrambling overhead to overwhelm the crowd. Before they killed our president. You would not want him killed. You would want the jets. Well, at least, I would.

@averagejoe1 said
But, Does this not show the need to maybe even have more defense? If it had gotten unbelievably, indescribably bad, I can envision a few jets, taken out of the hangers, scrambling overhead to overwhelm the crowd. Before they killed our president. You would not want him killed. You would want the jets. Well, at least, I would.

I can't believe you just made me google "how many jets does the US military have?"

The answer: enough to blot out the sun everywhere forever.

Say you've got a huge stack of money in your attic, but no food on the table. Should we go get more money?

@wildgrass said
I can't believe you just made me google "how many jets does the US military have?"

The answer: enough to blot out the sun everywhere forever.

Say you've got a huge stack of money in your attic, but no food on the table. Should we go get more money?

I'm not on any armed forces committee, so cannot answer that, but you and I dont really know how many planes Korea and China have, do we? And, what if they join up against us? And have more jets? Ahhhhh, now you see.... It is a Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared.
But you dont think so. Interesting indeed.

@averagejoe1 said
I'm not on any armed forces committee, so cannot answer that, but you and I dont really know how many planes Korea and China have, do we? And, what if they join up against us? And have more jets? Ahhhhh, now you see.... It is a Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared.
But you dont think so. Interesting indeed.

You don't need to be on the committee. They've stated they don't need the money.

The Boy Scout Motto is be prepared. The US Defense Department motto is "We provide the force to ensure our nation's security. We don't need the money, stop giving us all this money, what are we going to do with this money? Buy hookers and bar tabs? This is an obscene amount of money."

If every single country in the world simultaneously declared war on us right now, we'd have lots more firepower than all of them combined. And yet they were trying to defend the Capitol yesterday but had to run around all those money bags being thrown at them by Republican lobbyists. Because strength?