US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6919

On February 19 2017 02:55 Nebuchad wrote:


Again you need to spend more time on progressive internet. There is no debate about Ellison vs Perez going on, the only debate going on is if Ellison is enough to trust the Democratic party again or not, and the people who are on the other side of that debate tend to be the Bernie or bust people that you mention. It's also logically consistent: when Schumer decides to back Ellison, it's a gesture to show Bernie's side of the party that they are heard. In general people tend to like being heard, politically, that's a good thing. I'm interested in why you would expect most Bernie people to be fine with Perez, do you have some citation of your own?

President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press echo the language of dictators, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” warning the nation to heed lessons of history.

Attacks on the press, McCain said, are “how dictators get started.”

“I hate the press. I hate you especially," McCain told NBC's Chuck Todd, according to excerpts of the interview set to air Sunday. "But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital. If you want to preserve – I'm very serious now – if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.”

McCain’s comments came in response to a question about Trump’s recent declaration, made via Twitter, that the press is the “enemy of the American People.”

“They get started by suppressing free press,” McCain said of dictators. “In other words, a consolidation of power when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I'm not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I'm just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.”

There is no love lost between Trump and McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee for president. Trump said during the campaign that McCain was not a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam, and has continued to lash out at McCain on Twitter since the election. McCain withdrew his support of Trump in October after a tape was released in which Trump bragged about groping women.

McCain is one of the most vocal Republicans in Congress calling for an investigation of Russian attempts to influence the presidential election.

Trump recently said on Twitter that McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a fellow Russia hawk, were “looking to start World War III” after the pair criticized his immigration ban, which has since been barred by federal courts.

On February 19 2017 10:08 kwizach wrote:

I don't see how you can claim that "the large majority of Bernie supporters care about Ellison vs Perez", let alone that they overwhelmingly support Ellison, without supporting that statement with poll numbers. Sanders received about 13 million votes in the primary, and the idea that you can confidently tell with no hard data how "the large majority" of them feel on this issue seems preposterous to me -- what you describe as the "progressive internet" is certainly not a representative sample of the people who voted for him in the primary. I'd also like to add that progressives are not only found among the supporters of Sanders or Ellison.

On February 19 2017 10:30 Nevuk wrote:
While a large % of people may not actively have an opinion on the DNC chairman, those that do happen to be extremely fucking loud. The shitfit that will get thrown if Perez gets the nod will be larger than most democrats expect, I'm pretty sure.

Remember that most of these people are convinced that the DNC actively wants to force them out of the party and that it has already engaged in mass conspiracies to delegitimize their views.

For a somewhat poor analogy, it'd be like if the RNC purposefully announced "no one that has ever posted in r/the_donald can have a say in the chair position." Imagine the hellhole that most social media sites would become. It's a somewhat similar group of people on the left who supported Bernie, skills-wise - those that are actually skilled at technology and well-versed in making memes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans control Congress so President Donald Trump's pledge to boost the Pentagon budget by tens of billions of dollars should be a sure bet.

It's not.

Trump faces skeptical Democrats whose support he'll need and resistance from fiscal conservatives opposed to repealing a 2011 law that set firm limits on military and domestic spending. Unless the president figures out a way to mollify the disparate camps, he'll have a tough time delivering on a signature campaign promise to rescue the armed forces from a festering financial crisis.

Senior U.S. commanders have flatly warned that the spending caps set by the Budget Control Act are squeezing the armed forces so hard that the number of ready-to-fight units is dwindling. That means beating powers such as Russia or China is tougher than it used to be as aging equipment stacks up, waiting to be repaired, and troops don't get enough training.

Gen. Daniel Allyn, the Army's vice chief of staff, startled many lawmakers when he testified recently that just three of the service's 58 active-duty and reserve brigade combat teams are ready to fight at a moment's notice.

Allyn and other four-star officers pleaded during separate hearings in the House and Senate for the spending limits to be repealed, clearing the way for the bigger budgets they say are needed to stop the military's readiness for combat from decaying further.

"We need to act now before it's too late," said Gen. Stephen Wilson, the Air Force's vice chief of staff.

The average age of Air Force aircraft is 27 years, according to Wilson, who added that more than half of the service's inventory would qualify for antique vehicle license plates in Virginia. On top of that, the Air Force is short 1,500 pilots and 3,400 aircraft maintainers, he said.

The Navy and Marine Corps are experiencing the same turbulence.

Trump, speaking at a White House news conference on Wednesday, said he's ordered a plan for a "massive rebuilding" of the armed forces. He didn't disclose how much he expected his blueprint to cost.

National security hawks in Congress have suggested a defense budget of $700 billion in 2018 — more than at any point during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total, which includes $60 billion for overseas combat operations, is $91 billion over the mandatory spending cap.

That's just a down payment to begin digging out of a readiness problem the Pentagon's top brass says will take years to fix. GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has envisioned annual increases of between 3 percent and 4 percent, culminating with an $800 billion budget for the armed forces in 2022.

Securing these sizable and sustained increases will require repealing the Budget Control Act. Trump, however, has proposed to eliminate only the budget limit on defense. That's a nonstarter for Democrats, who have long demanded parity between the two board categories of federal spending.

They've argued that Trump's approach will continue to restrict the budgets of the departments of State, Treasury and Justice, all of which play essential national security roles.

"We've always insisted, on our side of the aisle, that as long as the caps are in place, there should be equal relief," said Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee.

Trump will need at least a handful of Democrats on his side: It'll take 60 votes in the Senate to undo the budget law and Republicans hold 52 seats.

Republicans hold a larger majority in the House, but the party's deficit hawks are a significant obstacle. They see the caps as blunt yet effective tools to curb federal spending and prevent the national debt from spiraling further out of control.

On February 19 2017 11:14 Nevuk wrote:
Military spending in the US is in many ways a jobs program for red states.

On February 19 2017 11:26 GreenHorizons wrote:
Milo is just a big PC wuss (when it comes to Catholicism), kinda funny people on the right think he's some "truth teller" or intellectual.

Not surprised him and Mahar got along so well though, Milo is basically the next generation of Mahar.

On February 19 2017 12:46 Nemireck wrote:
Milo definitely looked out of his element in the Overtime segment when placed against a panel of intelligent people responding to his commentary. He's so used to the knee-jerk reactions from journalists and activists (and 20 year-old college kids) that when faced with real counter-points, he gets knocked around a little.

This is why he must be confronted and debated, rather than shut down by riots and protest. The more he has to face REAL opposition, the less effective his message becomes. Every time he gets shut out by riots/protest, it adds credibility to his ridiculous claims.

Ironically enough, if people just allowed him to speak and responded with intelligent criticism, their goal of making him irrelevant again would be achieved much quicker than the current strategies being employed by those that don't like him.

He's just a much more inflammatory version of the Stephen Colbert character. Real, true debate makes it easier to see (even if he doesn't operate in good faith, the debate itself exposes him for what he is... a character).