Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Poopymonster]

I guess I just don’t have a grasp of what trolling is anymore.

It seems it's when Thomeone doesn't approve of the message.

[PACOX]

Not Pelosi's house. Here is her house complete with Code Pink demonstration during Bush era.

[IMG]https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2018/02/pelosis-house.jpg[/IG]

I can't even wrap my head around their attacks though. Are they mad that 'Democratic cities' offer programs and services to the homeless? Are they mad no one is flocking to their towns? Maybe they are boasting about their gated communities and ivory towers?

[starlord]

I've honestly come to the conclusion that they're not getting rid of him because I believe most of them are WITH him (ie. Dumbass Dump/Brexit supporters).

You don't let somebody abuse their powers this long, this often, and NOT have somebody in the upper echelons who isn't sympathetic to your views.

Which is why I rarely post here anymore... and I'm sure he and his upper echelon grifters are happy to hear that.

most of the actual, active leftists on this forum were banned years ago by the site master himself.

[D Luniz]

I can't even wrap my head around their attacks though. Are they mad that 'Democratic cities' offer programs and services to the homeless? Are they mad no one is flocking to their towns? Maybe they are boasting about their gated communities and ivory towers?

have you tried to exploit people that have hope and options? It damn near impossible
Its only slavery if its against their will

[Kaleredar]

most of the actual, active leftists on this forum were banned years ago by the site master himself.

The rumor come out: does Curse Network is extension of Murdoch’s media empire?

[omerome]

The Washington Post reports on --

"Paywall."

Um...hold on...okay. Wonkette cites WaPo and others on a focal point of Trump's economy.



The farmers in question still plan to vote for Trump again, amongst other stated reasons, because they still think their taxes are too high. Everyone here, even the rabid fanbase, knows there's no more help coming that way. The tax cut for the rich was already so stretched thin, that individual benefits revert in 2025. And the debt/deficit are ballooning faster than Trump's waistline. No more tax cuts are coming.

Now as a resident of upstate New York, I can safely attest to the fact that nobody's dumping coal sludge into the Lees' water, at least. So the regulation they're talking about on said water that affects them could only be what they are allowed to dump into the water themselves. And, as they're farmers, I'm thinking that means fertilizer, which currently they have too much of and are looking to remove without paying for its proper handling.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. If you're ashamed that your man Trump forced you to go on SNAP and you're still ready to vote for him again....you might just be full of shit.

This has to be the stupidest infraction I've ever seen. So facts are now offensive to people? What world are we living in? If I get infracted for this, so be it.

The point of the matter is, how can we have a discussion board where someone posts an article where it's backed up with facts and just because you don't like it, it's suddenly "offensive"? This is straight BS.

[Santti]

This has to be the stupidest infraction I've ever seen. So facts are now offensive to people? What world are we living in? If I get infracted for this, so be it.

The point of the matter is, how can we have a discussion board where someone posts an article where it's backed up with facts and just because you don't like it, it's suddenly "offensive"? This is straight BS.

Because it's Thwart. He's a Trump supporter. Go figure.

[Zaydin]

This has to be the stupidest infraction I've ever seen. So facts are now offensive to people? What world are we living in? If I get infracted for this, so be it.

The point of the matter is, how can we have a discussion board where someone posts an article where it's backed up with facts and just because you don't like it, it's suddenly "offensive"? This is straight BS.

It's the mod who must not be named. It's kind of his MO.

[draynay]

If that post was trolling, then Breccia has trolled over 23,000 times.

[omerome]

Because it's Thwart. He's a Trump supporter. Go figure.

I would have thought that as a mod, they should have a neutral presence on the board and their political affiliation would be irrelevant, but my expectations are simply too high, I guess.

I guess it speaks to what we're witnessing in real life. News outlets many times are simply reporting the news and just because it doesn't fit someone's narrative, it gets dismissed as "fake". Then only when it's translated into a talking point from their favorite source, like Fox, will they accept it. How shameful.

[CostinR]

Oh man there is so much to this. It's not really a Trump thing though. It's a "competing priorities and the future looks different than you may think" sort of thing.

.............

It would be a hell of a debate to have two Presidential candidates have a public debate on the pro's and cons of trying to extend the 1980s model another 10-15 years, or going all in on the inevitable future of state-level warfare now (even if its a bit early). Politicians in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s would have done that. Reagan would have addressed the nation on it. Today's so-called leaders? They don't respect the intelligence of people enough to do that. The right had the wrong priorities and the left thinks all people care about is jobs, healthcare and education. Well... they care about security too, and the time has come for that to be the top of the pile again.

So in summary the reason the navy is making noise on the subject because they want Congress to fund both shipbuilding and other priorities at the same time, because they want or need both in order to tackle the future threat of China, and because they believe Congress will give it to them.

I think we all know how this story ends, if we are honest enough to admit the truth: 1 trillion on defense spending by 2026, at worst by 2030.

As for the public? The public is made up of a bunch immature children who don't have a serious bone in their body to handle such a debate, not as long as people across the political spectrum recognize China as a clear and present threat to the nation, like the USSR was recognized during the Cold War.

[Clone]

I would have thought that as a mod, they should have a neutral presence on the board and their political affiliation would be irrelevant, but my expectations are simply too high, I guess.

The right simply couldn't help themselves.

[Mayhem]

If that post was trolling, then Breccia has trolled over 23,000 times.

Breccia is the master-troll, Thwart just now caught on to it, Breccia escaped too many times.

Well deserved! /s

Really anyone can be a mod here.

[Crispin]

Mods with a radical political opinion just shouldnt be mods on a political forum.

You might aswell let a diehard Spurs fan mod a “everything premier league” forum.

[Flarelaine]

I really do not think discussing moderation will move us or the thread forward. Complaints about moderators should be addressed to global moderators in private messages.

[Dontrike]

I really do not think discussing moderation will move us or the thread forward. Complaints about moderators should be addressed to global moderators in private messages.

You'll have to explain then how when someone is trying to move the thread forward they are greeted with an infraction.

[Skroe]

So in summary the reason the navy is making noise on the subject because they want Congress to fund both shipbuilding and other priorities at the same time, because they want or need both in order to tackle the future threat of China, and because they believe Congress will give it to them.

I think we all know how this story ends, if we are honest enough to admit the truth: 1 trillion on defense spending by 2026, at worst by 2030.

As for the public? The public is made up of a bunch immature children who don't have a serious bone in their body to handle such a debate, not as long as people across the political spectrum recognize China as a clear and present threat to the nation, like the USSR was recognized during the Cold War.

I mean, as I said, that is certainly a big part of it, as always. It is also to force Congress to face the very real issue of sustaining that larger fleet (the whole "cost of ownership bit". But a big part of it is also a legitimate crossroads of what the future priorities of US Military spending should be, as, once again, decisions made in 2020 will resonate into 2035, much in the same was as the seeds of the 1990/1991 Gulf War's success and that "model" of military was planted in 1975 as Vietnam ended.

In the years we've had various national security / geopolitics discussions on this forum, many things have changed. The back in 2013 the Navy was spending $13 billion a year in ship building and was projected to need $21 billion a year by 2020 to meet its ship building needs... a number at the time considered unthinkable. But now the 2020 budget just passed into law allocates $22 billion a year with a requirement for $31 billion by 2030, a number that seems ridiculous right now (and would represent a doubling of the Navy ship building budget in a total of around 15 years with inflation probably in the realm of around 20%ish). If we keep on the current path, it'll probably happen. The other thing going on as well along side this, as previously discussed, is big money going into modernizing shipyards and potentially even building new ones.

But this assumes a very conventional approach to naval supremacy. It would be a hard investment into the same kinds (but better) of ships and weapons that have defined US naval capabilities going back to World War II in a sense. And that could be the right call. It could be the most sensible option.

The disconnect is that, in the time we've discussed the policy implications of the changing geopolitical landscape over the years, some things have come sharply into focus. Take the Third Offset Strategy. No longer theoretical. Now it's quite clear that the Third Offset Strategy's central pillar is going to be extremely distributed, networked platforms and weapons to take the concept of defense-in-depth to the next level. Lots of small things working together, like an organism, to do something. I think the bellweather for this is the cancellation of taking the E-8 JSTARS sensor package off its Boeing 707 body and slapping it on a 737 (which would be a sitting duck to Russia or China), and instead breaking up the capabilities of E-8 into many different platforms - drones, satellites, manned aircraft, high altitude blimps - and then functioning the data together from all these sources.

This approach has the capability of giving the US something truly unmatched in the world today, akin to the advantage we had in stealth technology and precision weapons when they were new (albeit the competition's tech in both areas is still well behind ours). Consider the disparity of what the US threw at Saddam Hussein in 1991 and what the Soviet Union threw at the Afghan Mujahideen just a few years before that. It was quite clear that 15 years of post-Vietrnam modernization put the US military in a class all by itself compared to the Soviet Union. The US going all-in on extremely distributed weaponry and platforms might do just that.

Thing is, a 355 ship fleet with 110 Large Surface ships at a cost of $2.1 billion a piece probably doesn't play a role that is exactly congruent with that. Rather instead building 300 Small Surface combatants at a $700 million cost, and then pairing them each with five slaved drone ships that do various things from being deeper missile clips to having offboard sensors. And maybe that SSC should have few weapons and sensors at all (other than self defense), and instead those slaved drone ships should be the ones with the cruise missiles and the sensors, and the SSC should just be a control ship for a mini-fleet.

This all sounds somewhat fantastic, because historically, we're basically where a Popular Mechanics magazine in 1975 was when speculating on what wondrous advances in technology, shipbuilding and aviation the US would have fifteen years hence. And as we all know, they got kind of ridiculous in their imagination. So it could be far more conservative, It could be something we haven't mentioned here. And that's kind of the point. Decision time is approaching, and the specific shape isn't clear.

If it were up to me, I would keep the Ticonderoga-class Crusiers (all of them) in the fleet and relatively up to date, past 2030. They're aging, but they're still very capable and really, the Navy just doesn't want to pay for them anymore and they won't be useless in 2030 compared to 2020. Keep them all in the fleet. I'd slow destroyer shipbuilding to 1 per year (from two) and double Small Surface Combatant Shipbuilding to 4 per year, so that we have all 20 planned in 5 years. I'd shift to a 3 Virginia-class submarine-per-year build plan (and 4 in years without a Columbia-class), and begin early planning for a post-Virginia attack sub more in line with the Sea Wolf, but built around drone-teaming and with more missile tubes. I'd commit to building the already contracted CVN-80 USS Enterprise, the CVN-81 carriers, but not any more. I would life extended the oldest 4 Nimitz class carriers another decade.

That all sounds rather grand, but it's pure holding pattern stuff. Because I'd use the time in filling out those contracts to nail down exactly what the 2025-2040 shipbuilding vision would look like. What is not clear now should be much clearer in five years. And that may mean no more Destroyers / Large Surface Combatant procurement past 2025. And it may mean all the Cruisers go out of the fleet all at once around 2031 (replaced by Flight-III Arliegh Burke Destroyers. But by that time, we'll have a clearer vision of if we need to be (and would start) building post-Burke Destroyers or hard shift to a highly distributed direction, in which case we wouldn't want to build 100,000 ton carriers past CVN-81 either either.

Oh, one more thing. Missiles. The Air Force and Navy are finally doing it right after years of doing nothing, but the essential program is the Tomahawk successor. Forget hypersonic or stuff like that. That's specialty stuff the US only needs a few dozen of. The Tomahawk successor has to be a combined land-attack / anti-ship and medium-altitude anti-air all-in-one missile. It needs to have extraordinary range. It needs to have built-in AI so it can be fired without a target being chosen. And lastly, it needs to have a diameter half of the Patriot, so it can be quad-packed and each ship can carry more missiles. The Air Force is doing something similar with it's AIM-120 successor, which will answer a key problem of the F-35 (by letting it carry more missiles).

This entire scheme is a bunch of hot air if everything on the sea is brimining with versatile missiles in extraordinary numbers. And they won't need to be hypersonic or particularly fancy if the US has the ability to launch so many of them that there isn't an anti-missile system on Earth with a clip deep enough to shoot them all down.

So yes. $1 trillion by 2030 easily. And you know what? It should cost that.

[Flarelaine]

You'll have to explain then how when someone is trying to move the thread forward they are greeted with an infraction.

The rules do not allow me to discuss specific infractions, but if you don't mind me sharing my personal observation: the politics forum's Overton window has shifted mostly away from Trump and the GOP. At least when you count posters, not volume - those still supporting them work hard to make up for numbers. The tentative consensus that Trump is bad, especially in the thread dedicated to the notion, emboldens posters to mock Trump supporters. That may be justified as opinion, but overly broad jabs can safely be assumed to insult other posters (reports usually confirm this) and that is against the rules here.

I am just asking everyone to put some more thought into their posts to avoid such situations. When discussing Trump's latest gaffe, keep the insults to him. When discussing Trump's entourage, keep the insults to them. When discussing supporters still holding on, keep the insults to them. I recognize there is a lot of frustration about Trump and his continued support which leads to lashing out at people still standing up for him. But "people still standing up for Trump are stupid" will remain infractable. "These specific people who are not posters here still standing up for Trump are stupid" will probably pass.

[Xyonai]

Putting this here because it's not part of the Impeachment fuckery - yet - but it looks like ol' Rudy has been caught making back channel calls to the President of Venezuela.

So, yeah, that's a thing.

[Pannonian]

The rules do not allow me to discuss specific infractions, but if you don't mind me sharing my personal observation: the politics forum's Overton window has shifted mostly away from Trump and the GOP. At least when you count posters, not volume - those still supporting them work hard to make up for numbers. The tentative consensus that Trump is bad, especially in the thread dedicated to the notion, emboldens posters to mock Trump supporters. That may be justified as opinion, but overly broad jabs can safely be assumed to insult other posters (reports usually confirm this) and that is against the rules here.

I am just asking everyone to put some more thought into their posts to avoid such situations. When discussing Trump's latest gaffe, keep the insults to him. When discussing Trump's entourage, keep the insults to them. When discussing supporters still holding on, keep the insults to them. I recognize there is a lot of frustration about Trump and his continued support which leads to lashing out at people still standing up for him. But "people still standing up for Trump are stupid" will remain infractable. "These specific people who are not posters here still standing up for Trump are stupid" will probably pass.

The problem is that most of us know when we fuck up. Normally you get an infraction, and it's more or less clear why your received it. You also get educated by other peoples infraction. "Ah, this thing seems to be too much, it's infactionworthy" - which you, yourself can use when writing posts and avoid the infractionable behavior.

The problem at this point is: What is infraction-worthy abput that.