TRUMP: like a supermodel except like times 10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > TRUMP: like a supermodel except like times 10

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Yeah a Trump win is totally plausible, I'm just saying don't expect the general voting population to resemble GOP primary voters. The race is gonna look a lot different in six months.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 22:47

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# ? May 26, 2024 17:13

Wyld Thang: Feb 23, 2016

Helsing posted:

The estimates I've seen are that he'd need a big increase in white turnout and he'd need to win about 7 out of 10 white males, which is more than any president in modern memory has managed to do. That or he'd need to really sell himself to some of the women or ethnic voting blocks who currently express negative opinions of him in polls.

Nevada went for Trump.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 22:47

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Yes, and he defied expectations by winning about half the Hispanic votes in play. But that doesn't change the fact that last time in Nevada Hispanics voted 77%-22% for Obama over Romney or that pollsters don't find that most Hispanics have an extremely negative view of Trump.

I absolutely don't write the God Emperor off, I think he's done a remarkable job of defying political expectations and it's clear his campaign has the dankest memes. It's just that much in the way that everyone lectures the Bernouts about how their candidate hasn't been hit with real attacks yet, I'd largely say the same of Trump. Republicans saying "how could you be so mean to George W. Bush don't you know he kept us safe?!?!?!? :supaburn:

" doesn't count.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 22:54

Narciss: Nov 29, 2004; by Cowcaster

Helsing posted:

It's just that much in the way that everyone lectures the Bernouts about how their candidate hasn't been hit with real attacks yet, I'd largely say the same of Trump.

Hahaha what? The last 2 months has been nothing but the GOP establishment throwing EVERYTHING at Trump to see what sticks. KKK, small penis, Hitler comparisons, scam university, foreign workers, it goes on and on. As for Trump winning 7 in 10 white males to win the election - I can see it happening. The Dems (whether the nominee is Hillary or Bernie) have nothing to offer other than finger-wagging at us about how bad we should feel for our microaggressions and passive racism, and how much better we have it than everyone else. I've voted Democrat most of my life, but the party seems determined to drive people like me into the arms of an increasingly moderate GOP.

Narciss has issued a correction as of 23:07 on Mar 8, 2016

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:01

Fidel Castronaut: Dec 25, 2004; Houston, we're Havana problem.

I like the part of this thread where people were accusing Majorian and other non-Trump supporters of engaging in semantics and then No Mans Land said that you have to use the word "invade" to be an interventionist. Majorian really is doing God's work by talking to people as if they are people who should be taken seriously.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:07

No Mans Land: Feb 26, 2016; by Cowcaster

as a trump supporter, literally the only things that make me think negatively about him from his past are Trump University and hiring the 300 illegal polands and never paying them (although this was done through a subcontractor, still...he had to have known). The rest of the attacks are flailing hitjobs. I think he's seen the worst of the real attacks and the rest are lies from here on out.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:12

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Hilary will deploy an army of consultants to turn out every african american, millenial, Hispanic, single woman and university educated city dweller to the polls. Many of the lines that actually helped Trump in the Republican primary will be fodder for motivating these groups to vote against him. She won't have to lie about him because what he earnestly says and believes is repulsive to a non-trivial part of the voting American population. If the same coalition of voters who supported Obama turn out in similar numbers in 2016 the Democrats will win by an even larger margin than before.

On the other hand if millenials stay at home, if the economy shits itself and depresses Democratic voter turn out, if Trump can keeps defying all expectations, if a terrorist attack shakes everything up, then say hello to President Trump with a super majority in Congress and a full Supreme Court.

:goshawk:

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:24

Narciss: Nov 29, 2004; by Cowcaster

Helsing posted:

if a terrorist attack shakes everything up, then say hello to President Trump

Hadn't thought of that, but a Paris-level attack in the U.S. is well within the realm of possibility. Good luck to Hillary beating Trump if something like that happens before the general election.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:25

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

A news report about all the D&D posters in this thread sweating like Little Rubio when they think about a Trump! Presidency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...c4ec_story.html

quote:

Psychologists and massage therapists are reporting �Trump anxiety� among clients

March 6th

To the catalogue of anxieties her patients explore during therapy � marriage, children and careers � psychologist Alison Howard is now listening to a new source of stress: the political rise of Donald Trump.

In recent days, at least two patients have invoked the Republican front-runner, including one who talked at length about being disturbed that Trump can be so divisive and popular at the same time, said Howard, who practices in the District.

What had happened to Trump during his childhood, the patient wanted to know, to make him such a �bad person�?

�He has stirred people up,� Howard said. �We�ve been told our whole lives not to say bad things about people, to not be bullies, to not ostracize people based on their skin color. We have these social mores, and he breaks all of them and he�s successful. And people are wondering how he gets away with it.�

Hand-wringing over Trump�s rapid climb, once confined to Washington�s political establishment, is now palpable among everyday Americans who are growing ever more anxious over the prospect of the billionaire reaching the White House.

With each Trump victory in the GOP primaries and caucuses, Democrats and Republicans alike are sharing their alarm with friends over dinner, with strangers over social media and, in some cases, with their therapists. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 69 percent of Americans said the idea of �President Trump� made them anxious.

For some, Trump�s diatribes against undocumented immigrants, Mexicans and Muslims evoke unpleasant flashbacks of dictators. For others, his raw-toned insults conjure memories of high school bullies.

Type �Trump� and phrases such as �scaring me� or �freaking me out� into Twitter�s search engine, and a litany of tweets unfurl, including one posted two weeks ago by Emma Taylor as she lay in bed in Los Angeles: �I literally can�t sleep because I just thought about how Trump may actually win the Presidency and now I�m having a panic attack.�

�It�s like a hurricane is coming at us, and I don�t have any way of knowing which way to go or how to combat it,� Taylor, 27, a Democrat, said in a phone interview. �He�s extremely reactionary, and that�s what scares me the most. I feel totally powerless, and it�s horrible.�

Democrats aren�t alone in their Trump anxiety.

Whitney Royston, 30, a Republican who works as an event coordinator in Littleton, Colo., said the prospect of a Trump presidency scares her because �he�s a sideshow. He doesn�t have anything to say. All he does is tell other people to shut up. If he were to become president, I fear that our world would come tumbling down.�

To divert herself, Royston said, she fantasizes that �someone will pop out of left field� to become the Republican nominee.

�Divine intervention, a hail Mary,� Royston said. She acknowledged that she�s not overly optimistic, considering that she hoped for the same kind of miracle to stop Barack Obama in 2008.

Alarmed by another wave of news coverage about Trump�s growing strength, Nancy Lauro, 52, a Brooklyn art teacher, sat at her computer recently and searched Google for information about acquiring Italian citizenship. She also inquired about Ireland, where she has family roots.

�As phobias and fears ago,� Lauro said later of her query, �this is not a pathological response to a normal situation, but a normal response to a pathological situation. Picking up one�s life feels impossible, but I keep flashing on those people who fled Germany when the writing was on the wall and those who didn�t. When do you take action to get out?�

Trump-inspired angst is apparently sufficient that on Super Tuesday, as he was piling up victories, Google recorded a 350 percent increase in users submitting the question, �How can I move to Canada?�

A radio disc jockey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, last month launched a website inviting Americans to relocate if Trump wins. Over several weeks, some 400,000 visitors have checked out Cape Breton�s official website � 100,000 more than all of last year.

�I call it the basket of golden eggs!� Mary Tulle, the head of Destination Cape Breton, said of Trump�s effect, the delight in her voice betraying not an iota of anxiety. �Our doors are open to everybody!�

Amanda Long, an Arlington, Va., massage therapist, is not among those fantasizing about escape. But she has grown accustomed in recent weeks to clients laying down on her table and bellowing, �Can you believe this guy?�

Long allows her clients to vent for a few minutes before she tries to quiet them, if only so they can relax and she can attend to their aches.

�It stresses me out to listen to it,� she said. �I can�t give you a good massage if I�m grabbing your shoulders like Donald Trump�s orange face.�

�It�s frightening�
If there is an unofficial capital of psychotherapy, it�s New York�s Upper West Side, where it�s easier to find a therapist than a parking space.

Judith Schweiger Levy, a psychologist in the neighborhood, has noticed a recent uptick in Trump references among her patients, including a middle-aged businesswoman who blurted out this week that her sister is supporting the billionaire.

�She was so upset and worried that she could have a sister � someone so close to her � who would have zero problem with Trump,� Levy said. �Another patient � also a woman � all she could talk about was Trump and how he�s crazy and frightening.�

Ruminating on Trump�s effect, Levy said: �Part of the reason he makes people so anxious is that he has no anxiety himself. It�s frightening. I�m starting to feel anxious just talking about him.�

Another psychologist, Paul Saks, who practices in Greenwich Village, said Trump�s recent refusal to immediately disavow David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, has riled a patient who is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

�This is really resonating with him and troubling him,� Saks said. �Just that Trump has survived and that there�s such a cataclysmic shift in the Republican Party � an institution that�s part of our way of life even if you�re not a Republican � is going to disturb a lot of people.�

Mary Libbey, a psychologist on Central Park West, isn�t hearing about Trump from her patients. But she finds herself expressing her own anxiety about him to friends and colleagues.

�It helps me to talk about it,� she said. �I�m terrified that he could win. His impulsivity, his incomplete sentences, his strange, squinty eyes � to my mind, he�s a loosely held-together person.�

�A great entertainer�
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Pearl Harbor. The rise of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. The Cuban missile crisis. The slaying of John Kennedy. Richard Nixon�s resignation. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Americans are not unacquainted with anxious moments.

What makes Trump distinct is that he�s �a demagogue who has become a vessel for people�s anxiety and anger,� said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor. But Kazin likes to remind anxious friends that Trump�s slice of the Republican pie is 35 to 40 percent, and Republicans in general account for perhaps a third of the population.

�Half of his own party is against him,� Kazin said. �And even if he is elected, he�s not a hardened right-wing ideologue. Above all, he�s a great entertainer. He�s a con man who cons himself.�

In 1964, Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater�s presidential campaign inspired anxiety among voters who feared that he would start a nuclear war. But President Lyndon Johnson crushed Goldwater in a landslide.

Dan Seely, 86, who lives in New Hampshire, was a Republican in those days. He voted for Johnson because he feared Goldwater.

Seely, now a Democrat, is more afraid of Trump because he believes the billionaire has captivated the public in a way that Goldwater never did. �I see his signs on their front lawns,� he said. �It makes me wonder who these people are that they think he can be a suitable leader of the free world.�

Ken Goldstein, a Los Angeles-based author and businessman who is a Democrat, recalled meeting with a business associate recently and feeling astounded when the man said he thought Trump would �be great for America.�

�You just realize you have nothing more to say to that person,� he said.

Goldstein finds small comfort imagining Trump�s defeat, if only because his followers �are still there.�

�Who are these people?� he asked. �Are they at the grocery store, are they sitting next to me at Dodger Stadium? That makes me nervous.�

The Trump supporters!!!! The support is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE :frogsiren:

Helical Nightmares has issued a correction as of 23:31 on Mar 8, 2016

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:28

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009

No Mans Land posted:

as a trump supporter, literally the only things that make me think negatively about him from his past are Trump University and hiring the 300 illegal polands and never paying them (although this was done through a subcontractor, still...he had to have known). The rest of the attacks are flailing hitjobs. I think he's seen the worst of the real attacks and the rest are lies from here on out.

The torture stuff doesn't bother you? :stare:

Fidel Castronaut posted:

I like the part of this thread where people were accusing Majorian and other non-Trump supporters of engaging in semantics and then No Mans Land said that you have to use the word "invade" to be an interventionist. Majorian really is doing God's work by talking to people as if they are people who should be taken seriously.

Why thank you. Give a man enough rope, etc etc.

Helical Nightmares posted:

A news report about all the D&D posters in this thread sweating like Little Rubio when they think about a Trump! Presidency.

If anything, you should probably hit me on feeling overly confident that there won't be a Trump presidency. Because I'm pretty drat confident. :laugh:

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:35

fat bossy gerbil: Jul 1, 2007

Narciss posted:

an increasingly moderate GOP.

I, er... You sure about that buddy?

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:37

mannerup: Jan 11, 2004; ♬ I Know You're Dying Trying To Figure Me Out♬

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https://twitter.com/bencjacobs/status/692155362552778752

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:39

No Mans Land: Feb 26, 2016; by Cowcaster

Majorian posted:

The torture stuff doesn't bother you?

Not really, no. They kill civilians, fuckem. Uniformed combatants are covered under the Geneva Convention anyway. So its just the lowlifes fighting for allah that will get the shaft.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:49

Fidel Castronaut: Dec 25, 2004; Houston, we're Havana problem.

Helsing posted:

if a terrorist attack shakes everything up

I don't think a terrorist attack helps Trump. It's all fun and games but when people are scared for their lives, they are going to bet on the tested horse and that's when Hillary's experience as secretary of state will help. The right won't see it that way but they never were going to anyway.

I really don't see people thinking that the guy who, just this year, talked to a general for the first time is going to keep them safe if the US gets attacked.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:51

Jared Kush: Mar 4, 2015; by zen death robot

Helical Nightmares posted:

For some, Trump�s diatribes against undocumented immigrants, Mexicans and Muslims evoke unpleasant flashbacks of dictators. For others, his raw-toned insults conjure memories of high school bullies.

Hahahahaha

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:57

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

Majorian posted:

The torture stuff doesn't bother you?

I agree ISIS members should get to choose between water boarding, a bullet and reading your posts.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:58

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

T r a v i s posted:

Hahahahaha

His Strange Squinty Eyes.

Racists.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 23:59

Narciss: Nov 29, 2004; by Cowcaster

Fidel Castronaut posted:

when people are scared for their lives, they are going to bet on the tested horse and that's when Hillary's experience as secretary of state will help.

Ah yes, they will turn to the woman who couldn't protect her employees in the country she helped 'liberate'. I'm not sure her 'experience' is actually an asset.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:05

InsanityIsCrazy: Jan 25, 2003; by Lowtax

Narciss posted:

Ah yes, they will turn to the woman who couldn't protect her employees in the country she helped 'liberate'. I'm not sure her 'experience' is actually an asset.

lets hope nobody asks her how to set up their outlook accounts

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:09

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

Fidel Castronaut posted:

I don't think a terrorist attack helps Trump.

I don't know. Trump went after George W Bush for pointless wars so I could definitely see him capitalizing on another Obama administration failure, particularly after Obama's "ISIS is done"/next day Paris terror attacks.

Fidel Castronaut posted:

It's all fun and games but when people are scared for their lives, they are going to bet on the tested horse and that's when Hillary's experience as secretary of state will help. The right won't see it that way but they never were going to anyway.

I really don't see people thinking that the guy who, just this year, talked to a general for the first time is going to keep them safe if the US gets attacked.

This is good reasoning, and I see your point; but I'm just not convinced we have an understanding on where the American voters will turn if there is another terror attack during an election year.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:09

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

InsanityIsCrazy posted:

lets hope nobody asks her how to set up their outlook accounts

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:10

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009

No Mans Land posted:

Not really, no. They kill civilians, fuckem.

What if we, you know...don't have proof that they're actually terrorists? That has happened pretty frequently in our not-too-distant past, and it turned out that they weren't actually terrorists.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:14

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

Do you guys not remember the fiasco with no fly lists and rendition mix ups?

The we only do it to the bad guys reasoning is awfully naive. I hope you guys weren't cheering for Abu Ghraib

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:20

No Mans Land: Feb 26, 2016; by Cowcaster

Majorian posted:

What if we, you know...don't have proof that they're actually terrorists? That has happened pretty frequently in our not-too-distant past, and it turned out that they weren't actually terrorists.

Thems the breaks?

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:20

Al!: Apr 2, 2010

trump supporters itt are guys that got beaten up a lot in high school and found that they liked it

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:20

DAD LOST MY IPOD: Feb 3, 2012; Fats Dominar is on the case

No Mans Land posted:

Despite the narrative about women and minority groups, I don't think Trump will have an issue with them going by the numbers. This election will be decided individual by individual.

going by the numbers he's going to be slaughtered by them; he won 46% of the latino primary voters in NV, which if you crunch the numbers is .035% of the state's latino population. that's just going by the numbers, you understand.

in nevada, 80,000 people voted in the democratic caucus, of which 20% were latino by exit polling, or 16,000. who won the latino vote is disputed, so let's go with the exit polling and say she won 46%. that's 7,360.
trump won 45% of the latino caucus-goers for the Rs. that sounds nice, until you realize that they made up 8% of the electorate, or 5,990. 45% of that is 2,695, or a bit more than a third of what hillary got. losing a demographic like that is a trouncing. it gets even more damning when you look at black voters:
61% of the voters in the SC dem primaries were black, or 224,169. she won 84% of them, or 188,302. on the republican side, black voters were 1%, or 7,379. we don't know at what rate they broke for trump, but let's be generous and say he did twice as well with them as with the overall voter base. that's 65%, or 4,796. that means hillary did nearly 40 times better with black voters than trump.

when you just go by percentages within each primary, you ignore the fact that minority voters are not split 50/50 between parties, and since independents choose which primary to be part of, you can get an accurate picture of which way they're likely to lean in the general. i'm not saying trump has no path to the white house-- he does-- but the idea that discontented minority voters are going to get him there is a fantasy.

No Mans Land posted:

Thems the breaks?

do you feel equally comfortable with the idea that suicide attacks against the West are justified because "we can't be 100% sure that the people we're shooting were involved in the bombing and invasion of our country, but them's the breaks?"

DAD LOST MY IPOD has issued a correction as of 00:23 on Mar 9, 2016

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:21

Fidel Castronaut: Dec 25, 2004; Houston, we're Havana problem.

Narciss posted:

Ah yes, they will turn to the woman who couldn't protect her employees in the country she helped 'liberate'. I'm not sure her 'experience' is actually an asset.

She has a picture of her watching bin Laden get killed. Of course, it wasn't like she orchestrated the mission but Obama and his administration definitely rode that all the way to his second inauguration. Her foibles aren't going to hurt her. She simply knows more about the middle east than Trump does and she can turn on the "kill our enemies" rhetoric when she wants to.

Not defending her or our foreign policies but her credibility exists on this front whereas Trump has no record. In fact, he has military brass contradicting him on his proposals to bomb everything and torture everybody.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:25

No Mans Land: Feb 26, 2016; by Cowcaster

DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:

do you feel equally comfortable with the idea that suicide attacks against the West are justified because "we can't be 100% sure that the people we're shooting were involved in the bombing and invasion of our country, but them's the breaks?"

Now that you mention it, yes I do

Justified by them, not us

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:27

DAD LOST MY IPOD: Feb 3, 2012; Fats Dominar is on the case

Fidel Castronaut posted:

She has a picture of her watching bin Laden get killed. Of course, it wasn't like she orchestrated the mission but Obama and his administration definitely rode that all the way to his second inauguration. Her foibles aren't going to hurt her. She simply knows more about the middle east than Trump does and she can turn on the "kill our enemies" rhetoric when she wants to.

Not defending her or our foreign policies but her credibility exists on this front whereas Trump has no record. In fact, he has military brass contradicting him on his proposals to bomb everything and torture everybody.

you should probably read narciss's post history before engaging with him fyi

No Mans Land posted:

Now that you mention it, yes I do

Justified by them, not us

i don't really understand what you're getting at with that second sentence; they think it's ok, but we don't? ok, but i'm not talking moral relativism. i applaud your moral consistency, if that's what this is, but i believe that suicide attacks against civilians are immoral (hot take!) because they're almost guaranteed to hurt innocents. likewise, i believe that widespread extraordinary rendition and torture are immoral, because it's almost guaranteed to hurt innocents. also torture doesn't work, but that's a separate issue entirely. i think the reason we are fighting isis is that they are barbaric and cruel and are trying to subject innocents to that cruelty and barbarism, and that if all we have to offer is more barbarism and cruelty we might as well not waste lives and treasure and let isis get on with it.

DAD LOST MY IPOD has issued a correction as of 00:31 on Mar 9, 2016

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:27

Al!: Apr 2, 2010

DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:

going by the numbers he's going to be slaughtered by them; he won 46% of the latino primary voters in NV, which if you crunch the numbers is .035% of the state's latino population. that's just going by the numbers, you understand.

in nevada, 80,000 people voted in the democratic caucus, of which 20% were latino by exit polling, or 16,000. who won the latino vote is disputed, so let's go with the exit polling and say she won 46%. that's 7,360.
trump won 45% of the latino caucus-goers for the Rs. that sounds nice, until you realize that they made up 8% of the electorate, or 5,990. 45% of that is 2,695, or a bit more than a third of what hillary got. losing a demographic like that is a trouncing. it gets even more damning when you look at black voters:
61% of the voters in the SC dem primaries were black, or 224,169. she won 84% of them, or 188,302. on the republican side, black voters were 1%, or 7,379. we don't know at what rate they broke for trump, but let's be generous and say he did twice as well with them as with the overall voter base. that's 65%, or 4,796. that means hillary did nearly 40 times better with black voters than trump.

when you just go by percentages within each primary, you ignore the fact that minority voters are not split 50/50 between parties, and since independents choose which primary to be part of, you can get an accurate picture of which way they're likely to lean in the general. i'm not saying trump has no path to the white house-- he does-- but the idea that discontented minority voters are going to get him there is a fantasy.

do you feel equally comfortable with the idea that suicide attacks against the West are justified because "we can't be 100% sure that the people we're shooting were involved in the bombing and invasion of our country, but them's the breaks?"

Republicans like to trot out the tiny handful of minorities who support them so they can scream about who the real racists are. Remember how excited they were to find that black guy who loves the Confederacy when the whole confederate flag dust up happened?

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:28

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

Al! posted:

Republicans like to trot out the tiny handful of minorities who support them so they can scream about who the real racists are. Remember how excited they were to find that black guy who loves the Confederacy when the whole confederate flag dust up happened?

You mean poo poo similar to how Gloria Steinem called women who voted for Bernie "boy chasers"?

Both parties are guilty of race/sex/prejudice baiting.

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:32

InsanityIsCrazy: Jan 25, 2003; by Lowtax

Helical Nightmares posted:

You mean poo poo similar to how Gloria Steinem called women who voted for Bernie "boy chasers"?

Both parties are guilty of race/sex/prejudice baiting.

spoken like a real bernie bro :rolleyes:

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:33

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

InsanityIsCrazy posted:

spoken like a real bernie bro

Am I a bernie bro or Trump nazi? Which is it!!! :ohdear:

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:35

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009

No Mans Land posted:

Thems the breaks?

Okay, so you're just a sociopath then. :thumbsup:

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:55

Terror Sweat: Mar 15, 2009

No Mans Land posted:

Not really, no. They kill civilians, fuckem. Uniformed combatants are covered under the Geneva Convention anyway. So its just the lowlifes fighting for allah that will get the shaft.

theres no actual proof these guys are terrorists

# ? Mar 9, 2016 00:57

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

oh no and some of the germans killed during WWII weren't nazis

:cry:

# ? Mar 9, 2016 01:14

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

Re: Trump and the Military Industrial Complex.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/03/02/trump-is-right-about-defense-spending-and-that-should-scare-you/

Opinion piece by Matthew Gault is a defense reporter for War Is Boring. He produces and co-hosts "War College," Reuters' military podcast

quote:

Donald Trump is right about defense spending � and that should scare you

Donald Trump could be the only presidential candidate talking sense about for the American military�s budget. That should scare everyone.

�I�m gonna build a military that�s gonna be much stronger than it is right now,� the real- estate-mogul-turned-tautological-demagogue said on Meet the Press. �It�s gonna be so strong, nobody�s gonna mess with us. But you know what? We can do it for a lot less.�

He�s right.

U.S. military spending is out of control. The Defense Department budget for 2016 is $573 billion. President Barack Obama�s 2017 proposal ups it to $582 billion. By comparison, China spent around $145 billion and Russia around $40 billion in 2015. Moscow would have spent more, but the falling price of oil, sanctions and the ensuing economic crisis stayed its hand.

As Trump has pointed out many times, Washington can build and maintain an amazing military arsenal for a fraction of what it�s paying now. He�s also right about one of the causes of the bloated budget: expensive prestige weapons systems such as the Littoral Combat Ship and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The much-maligned F-35 will cost at least $1.5 trillion during the 55 years that its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, expects it to be flying. That number is up $500 billion from the original high estimate. But with a long list of problems plaguing the stealth fighter, that price will most likely grow.

�I hear stories,� Trump said in a speech before the New Hampshire primary, �like they�re ordering missiles they don�t want because of politics, because of special interests, because the company that makes the missiles is a contributor.�

America�s defense is crucial. But something is wrong when Washington is spending almost five times as much as its rivals and throwing away billions on untested weapon systems. Most of the other presidential hopefuls agree. �We can�t just pour vast sums back into the Pentagon,� Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said during a campaign stop in South Carolina.

Cruz promised to rein in the military, audit the Pentagon and figure out why it�s spending so much cash. Then he promised to add 125,000 troops to the Army, 177 ships to the Navy and expand the Air Force by 20 percent.

Cruz wouldn�t put a price tag on these additions. But his plan would likely up the annual defense budget by tens of billions of dollars � if not hundreds of billions. One military expert, Benjamin Friedman of the CATO Institute, estimated that the Cruz plan would cost roughly $2.6 trillion over the next eight years.

Ballistic-missile-launching submarines aren�t cheap, for example, and Cruz wants 12 of them. �If you think it�s too expensive to defend this nation,� Cruz said, �try not defending it.�

He�s not alone. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wants to revitalize the Navy, double down on the troubled F-35 and develop a new amphibious assault vehicle. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, like Cruz, wanted to reform military spending while increasing the Pentagon budget by $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

Ohio Governor John Kasich might be expected to have a more reasonable stance. After all, he sat on the House Armed Services Committee for almost 18 years, where he slashed budgets and challenged wasteful Pentagon projects.

But that past is a liability for him. The Super PAC that backed Bush funded a string of attack ads accusing Kasich of going soft on defense. Not wanting to appear weak, the governor now talks about increasing defense spending by $102 billion a year.

Even the Democrats are in on the game. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to propose a military budget, but she has long pledged strong support for the troops. Meanwhile, she is calling for an independent commissioner to audit the Pentagon for waste, fraud and abuse � the usual suspects.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is one candidate who has a clear record in terms of the Pentagon budget. He wants to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal and has long supported a 50 percent cut in defense spending.

At the same time, however, Sanders seems to tolerate the $1.5-trillion albatross, the F-35. Which makes sense if you consider that Vermont could lose a lot of jobs if the F-35 disappeared. Sanders persuaded the jet�s manufacturer to put a research center in Vermont and bring 18 jets to the state National Guard.

Sanders has a history of protecting military contractors � if they bring jobs to his state. When he was mayor of Burlington in the 1980s, he pushed its police force to arrest nonviolent protesters at a local General Electric plant. The factory produced Gatling guns and also was one of the largest employers in the area.

Yet, Sanders ideological beliefs can sometimes color his views. He was chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in 2014 as scandal swept the Department of Veterans Affairs. Even as many VA supporters called for reforms, Sanders defended the hospital system because he felt conservatives were attacking a major government social-welfare agency.

He still defends his stewardship of the committee. �When I was chairman, what we did is pass a $15-billion piece of legislation,� Sanders said during a recent debate with Clinton. �We went further than any time in recent history in improving the healthcare of the men and women in this country who put their lives on the line to defend us.�

In the age of terrorism and Islamic State bombers, the prevailing political wisdom holds that appearing soft on defense can lose a candidate the general election. For many of the 2016 presidential candidates, looking strong means spending a ton of cash. Even if you�re from the party that holds fiscal responsibility as its cornerstone.

But Trump doesn�t care about any of that. In speech after speech, he has called out politicians and defense contractors for colluding to build costly weapons systems at the price of national security.

During a radio program last October, for example, Trump called out the trouble-ridden F-35. �[Test pilots are] saying it doesn�t perform as well as our existing equipment, which is much less expensive,� Trump said. �So when I hear that, immediately I say we have to do something, because you know, they�re spending billions.�

Like so many Trump plans, the specifics are hazy. But on this issue, he�s got the right idea.

In a political climate full of fear of foreign threats and gung-ho about the military, it could take a populist strongman like Trump to deliver the harsh truth: When it comes to the military, the United States can do so much more with so much less.