US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5007

On September 16 2016 19:45 Acrofales wrote:

This doesn't seem a very useful thing to poll when she's in the middle of a bout of pneumonia. Presumably now that she is feeling better, and campaigining again, the numbers will return to whatever they were before.

The whole focus on health is beyond retarded (although the Clinton campaign did handle it exceptionally badly).

When Donald Meets Hillary

Who will win the debates? Trump’s approach was an important part of his strength in the primaries. But will it work when he faces Clinton onstage? [...]

Depending on what else is happening when the debates begin, they could prove to be consequential as well as riveting. Perhaps Donald Trump will fail in the one way that really matters in debates: by confirming, before people’s eyes, doubts they already had. In his case that might involve revealing an embarrassing gap in factual knowledge. His comment to George Stephanopoulos in late July that Russia was “not going to go into Ukraine, all right?” (two years after it already had) could have been devastating during a debate, when the audience is larger and the stakes are higher than in any given TV interview. Or it might involve a rash overstatement on a topic where minute shadings of presidential language can have enormous effect, such as his suggesting that he was not sure the U.S. should fulfill its until-now sacrosanct obligation to defend NATO allies even if they haven’t paid their dues, or to honor payments on the national debt. It might involve a bullying word or gesture toward Hillary Clinton or toward one of the demographic groups he has criticized. It could involve several of these in sequence, spewed out in a live version of one of Trump’s Twitter outbursts, which would reveal mainly that Hillary Clinton had fully gotten under his skin.

Viewers may get a sense that something like this is in store if Hillary Clinton has the relaxed and even jokey bearing that shows her (and for that matter, practically anyone) at her best. The main examples to date are the way she carried herself against Senator Bernie Sanders in most of their debates; her cool dismissal of questions at the congressional hearings on Benghazi last year; and her mockery of Trump as one of the “little men” you can “bait with a tweet” in her Democratic-convention speech. She might read Trump’s own words back at him verbatim, as she did in her convention speech—the harshest anti-Trump TV ads so far have mainly just been clips of him—showing rather than telling the audience that he should not be considered fit to govern. If all or most of this happens, and if the sound-off image is of a calm, confident Clinton and a fuming Trump, she will have won the debates and moved that much closer to winning the election.

But if Trump can seem easily rather than angrily in command, or if he can lure Clinton into joining him in an insult-for-insult exchange, or if she is beset by some new controversy for which she gives a hyper-legalistic rationalization, then the debates could be a turning point for Trump. As a two-term governor of California, Ronald Reagan was a vastly more experienced public figure than Donald Trump is now. Still, it took seeing him toe to toe with an incumbent president for many viewers to imagine him as commander in chief. A confident-seeming Trump might benefit in the same way, especially because the “expectations game” weighs so heavily in Trump’s favor. The stakes, the unpredictability, and the contrast are why we watch.

The Navy plans to arm its destroyers and other ships with high-tech, low-cost ship-board laser weapons engineered to quickly incinerate enemy drones, small boats, aircraft, ships and missiles, service officials told Scout Warrior.

The Office of Naval Research is working on 12-month, $53-million deal with Northrop Grumman to develop a Laser Weapon System Demonstrator through three phases; the phases include an initial design phase, ground-testing phase and then weapons testing at sea aboard a Navy Self Defense test ship, a Northrop statement said.

“The company will design, produce, integrate, and support the shipboard testing of a 150-kilowatt-class solid state (electric) laser weapon system,” the Northrop statement added. “The contract could grow to a total value of $91 million over 34 months if ONR exercises all of its contract options.”

Office of Naval Research officials told Scout Warrior an aim of the developmental program is to engineer a prototype weapons for further analysis.

"This system employs multi-spectral target detection and track capabilities as well as an advanced off-axis beam director with improved fiber laser technologies to provide extended target engagement ranges. Improvements of high power fiber lasers used to form the laser beam enable the increased power levels and extended range capabilities. Lessons learned, operating procedures, updated hardware and software derived from previous systems will be incorporated in this demonstration," Dr. Tom Beutner, director of the Air Warfare and Weapons branch, Office of Naval Research, told Scout Warrior in a written statement a few months ago.

“The possibilities can become integrated prototypes -- and the prototypes become reality when they become acquisition programs,” an ONR official said.

It is not yet clear when this weapon might be operational but the intention seems to be to arm surface ships such as destroyers, cruisers and possibly even carriers or an LCS with inexpensive offensive or defensive laser weapons technology.

“It is way too early to determine if this system will ever become operational. Northrop Grumman has been funded to set-up a demo to "demonstrate" the capabilities to senior leadership, who will then determine whether it is an asset worth further funding and turning into a program of record,” a Navy official told Scout Warrior.

Both Navy and Northrop Grumman officials often talk about the cost advantages of firing laser weapons to incinerate incoming enemy attacks or destroy enemy targets without having to expend an interceptor missile worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Navy officials describe this as getting ahead of the cost curve.

"For about the price of a gallon of diesel fuel per shot, we're offering the Navy a high-precision defensive approach that will protect not only its sailors, but also its wallet," said Guy Renard, director and program manager, directed energy, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

Meanwhile, the Navy has already deployed one laser system, called the Laser Weapons System, or LaWS, which has been operational for months.

LaWS uses heat energy from lasers to disable or destroy targets fast, slow, stationary and moving targets. The system has successfully incinerated UAVs and other targets in tests shots, and has been operational aboard an amphibious transport dock in the Persian Gulf, the USS Ponce.

The scalable weapon is designed to destroy threats for about $59-cents per shot, an amount that is exponentially lower that the hundreds of thousands or millions needed to fire an interceptor missile such as the Standard Missile-2, Navy officials explained.

On September 16 2016 23:15 On_Slaught wrote:
Trump to give a birther speech in 30min. What does he conceivable gain from this, regardless of what he says? It reminds people how stupid he is while distracting from his policy speeches of the last few days.

Over under 2 "sombody said once" statements from Trump? I'm going over.

Also, hoe many times he lies about Hillary starting thr birther movement. That should be good.

On September 16 2016 23:22 Dan HH wrote:

My bet is he's gonna say Obama was born in the US, otherwise it would be beyond idiotic to hold a speech about it

On September 16 2016 11:09 IgnE wrote:


Lil Wayne thinks racism is basically over.

On September 16 2016 22:19 Doodsmack wrote:
The statement is the polar opposite of an apology lol. 5% of the black vote ftw.

But don't worry Trump backers - 95% of black people just don't know what's best for them.

On September 16 2016 23:31 KwarK wrote:

In fairness 95% of all people probably don't know what's best for them. We have an obesity epidemic in the US, basic shit like "when you're full, stop eating" isn't working.

On September 16 2016 23:47 Acrofales wrote:

Way to oversimplify obesity...

On September 16 2016 23:47 Acrofales wrote:

Way to oversimplify obesity...

On September 16 2016 23:53 ticklishmusic wrote:
i recommend reading about food deserts for a start

On September 16 2016 23:55 KwarK wrote:

It's pretty hard to become obese if you stop eating when you've eaten enough food. What with thermodynamics and conservation of energy and so forth. We all wish it wasn't so because then we could stave off the inevitable heat death of the universe with sufficient McDonald's, but it just doesn't work the way we want it to.

And while there may be unique medical circumstances which are slightly more complicated in a few cases that still leaves most Americans struggling with "when you've eaten enough, stop eating".