Project Autocracy

[Screwball]

16 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Everything above was purchased at great expense by the American taxpayers for hotly contested requirements decision making process which involved their elected representatives as final arbitrator.  

So, there was a plan, there was a reason for the plan and there was follow on technology that drove their replacement.  

Maybe there was swindling involved in these investments but i would bet you have a technology grave yard of your own.  How many iphone or micro usb cables will you acquire before usb-c?

 

Poor analogy.

Here's some more waste for those with bad memory. 20 years of incompetence and billions and billions of taxpayer money pissed away to make the rich richer by turning brown people into pink mist that accomplished nothing. Well except even more graft, corruption, and death.

At war with the truth - The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war - Washington Post - from 2019.

I will add, one of the better things ever printed from this CIA mouthpiece. Maybe they will do the same on the money laundering cesspit known as Ukraine over the last 10+ years.

Edited December 8, 2024 by Screwball

[gehringer_2]

13 hours ago, romad1 said:

I gather some of them will now be turned into some sort of hybrid missile dispensers and have their guns removed. 

last thing I saw was the LCS were simply being decom'd. Hopefully they do find some kind of value recovery.

[gehringer_2]

23 hours ago, chasfh said:

I'm pretty sure they don't see it that way at all. Probably the opposite: without a sheriff in town, that makes it much easier for the Trump people to game the market to enrich themselves by ripping off the remaining 99%, only this time it will be legal for them to do it instead of illegal.

Probably true for Trump himself and maybe Elon. But the larger class of people that pay the $$ to support the GOP - people like the Koch's for example - need a system that works. 

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, Screwball said:

The amount of waste, by the military, government, and business (especially big business) is off the charts. It became this way due to inept clueless imbeciles who are bad at their job, and the only way to survive is to be a talented ass kisser because they work for more inept clueless people who don't know any better.

They can't fix any of this stuff because the same idiots created the mess to begin with.

And of course a whole bunch of money.

Inept clueless imbeciles is only part of the story. Another part is embezzlement by corrupt actors on the inside.

People tend to think everyone inside the government is inept or corrupt, but that's not true. The vast, vast majority of people who work for government are good, honest people who truly want to make a difference for the American people. It's just that stories of ineptitude and corruption are so pervasive in relation to their incidence, and the damage they do can be so vast, that it leads people to conclude the entire government is cooked. And that's why we have a high percentage of people who simply want to destroy it, and an entire political party whose power emanates from grooming those people.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Screwball said:

The F-35 is one of the biggest wastes of money and an epic boondoggles ever.

The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built

We even have graveyards for our waste (near Tuscon - been there - huge place - goes for miles). $$$$$$$$$

what odd here is not so much that stuff becomes obsolete, but that they don't go ahead and just scrap it out. The record of ever bringing anything out of these dead storage facilities is so thin it seems silly to keep them up.

[chasfh]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Probably true for Trump himself and maybe Elon. But the larger class of people that pay the $$ to support the GOP - people like the Koch's for example - need a system that works. 

I'm not convinced of that. I can't imagine the Kochs would not also personally benefit from a regime of zero regulation of financial instruments, same as the other billionaires. they certainly have the wherewithal to fund very strict control of their end of it in such a way that they would only win and never lose.

If you can specify exactly why they would not, I'd be interested in hearing that.

[romad1]

24 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

what odd here is not so much that stuff becomes obsolete, but that they don't go ahead and just scrap it out. The record of ever bringing anything out of these dead storage facilities is so thin it seems silly to keep them up.

Why are the PRC building planes trying to match the F-35’s capabilities and why are our allies desperate to add F-35’s to their own arsenals?

Also, does the entire history of warfare not shed light on the battles of procurement being some of the most best decisions or worst decisions made by various nations?  

For example, Hitler should have bought more of x rather than the v-2 which was an obscene expenditure for his country but which was in the immediate post war seized by both sides as crucial tech.  

Or, The obscene expenditure on the combined bomber offensive over Germany decided the fate of the Luftwaffe which couldn’t build fighters or any other anti aircraft weapons effective enough to stop it.  And for all that expense it allowed the allies to land in Normandy and to dominate the battlefield in France because of absolute control of the air. 

[gehringer_2]

37 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Also, does the entire history of warfare not shed light on the battles of procurement being some of the most best decisions or worst decisions made by various nations?  

Supposedly Russia has gone as deep as pulling T34 rust buckets out of storage to send against Ukraine. But Airplanes are a different animal. You can get some utility out of a tank with half a dozen things wrong with it. The possibility of getting any of the older mothballed airplanes in the air again seems pretty low. But it also becomes a systemic bureaucratic issue. No-one want to take responsibility to a decision to get rid of the stuff because while the risk that it was the wrong decision may be incredibly low, the credit in the org for it being the right decision is zero.

[romad1]

32 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Supposedly Russia has gone as deep as pulling T34 rust buckets out of storage to send against Ukraine. But Airplanes are a different animal. You can get some utility out of a tank with half a dozen things wrong with it. The possibility of getting any of the older mothballed airplanes in the air again seems pretty low. But it also becomes a systemic bureaucratic issue. No-one want to take responsibility to a decision to get rid of the stuff because while the risk that it was the wrong decision may be incredibly low, the credit in the org for it being the right decision is zero.

There are a couple things that are no longer on order in warfare (at least for now) based on the first week of the 2022 Ukraine invasion by Russia.  Nobody wants to attempt tactical airlift or air assaults under fire.   The Russian "special forces" attempt to seize Hostumel airport taught a lesson that you cannot expect to move large groups of ground troops by air while the airspace is contested or modern anti-aircraft weapons exist. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airport

Now, there is no more self-loving element of the various World militaries as airborne forces (fighter pilots are right up there).   But, you will hear quickly from that airborne community that while they think they should be able to jump out of airplanes in certain circumstances when stealth conditions are available or in order to train in toughness and attention to detail, there is little value in having entire fleets of airlift aircraft with hundreds/thousands of troops crash into the ground while crossing the forward line of own troops.

[Tigermojo]

Really not impressed with Trump insulting Canada. You can insult Trudeau all you want but Canada is a free country, not a state. Not surprised Putin's puppet would want to take over a free country though...

[chasfh]

44 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Really not impressed with Trump insulting Canada. You can insult Trudeau all you want but Canada is a free country, not a state. Not surprised Putin's puppet would want to take over a free country though...

This is why people moving to Canada to avoid Trump is a fool's tactic.

[Tigeraholic1]

Canadian gov't keeps taking guns away from its citizens, weird.

 

https://apnews.com/article/canada-firearms-ban-ukraine-81ccaa341badb74bb27d34fc4bb29b17

[Archie]

5 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Canadian gov't keeps taking guns away from its citizens, weird.

 

https://apnews.com/article/canada-firearms-ban-ukraine-81ccaa341badb74bb27d34fc4bb29b17

I saw this a few days ago. This shows how stupid these people are and how little they know about firearms.  If any soldier in battle had an AR15 rifle they would be in deep trouble and highly outgunned.  A AR15 is no more suited for war as a hockey stick is for golf.

[CMRivdogs]

https://bsky.app/profile/sandra313.bsky.social/post/3lczyma6m722n
 

This, folks, is what gaslighting looks like. He paid a settlement to a victim and part of the settlement was likely that the victim’s name cannot be made public. This is how they are spinning this.
 

REP. RICH McCORMICK: I don't know what they're talking about when they talk about these anonymous complaints. Pete Hegseth doesn't know what they're talking about.

C-SPAN HOST: You're talking about the accusations of sexual assault? He paid a settlement so he does know who it is.

McCORMICK: No.

 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

https://bsky.app/profile/sandra313.bsky.social/post/3lczyma6m722n
 

This, folks, is what gaslighting looks like. He paid a settlement to a victim and part of the settlement was likely that the victim’s name cannot be made public. This is how they are spinning this.
 

REP. RICH McCORMICK: I don't know what they're talking about when they talk about these anonymous complaints. Pete Hegseth doesn't know what they're talking about.

C-SPAN HOST: You're talking about the accusations of sexual assault? He paid a settlement so he does know who it is.

McCORMICK: No.

 

[Tigeraholic1]

Rats starting to jump ship.

 

[CMRivdogs]

It really doesn't matter. if Trump cares about these folks he'll pardon them. He's the Oprah of pardons.

https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lczzq7imqi2o

NEW: Donald Trump fended off his four criminal cases but dozens of aides and allies are still on the hook in five state-level prosecutions that are likely to grind on for much of his presidency.

Details w @meganmesserly

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/11/trump-allies-state-legal-challenges-000246

Edited December 11, 2024 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

47 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Rats starting to jump ship.

 

Wray was a Trump apointee

[romad1]

12 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Wray was a Trump apointee

NM...I don't want to feed the troll.

Edited December 11, 2024 by romad1

[Tiger337]

On 12/8/2024 at 2:18 PM, chasfh said:

Inept clueless imbeciles is only part of the story. Another part is embezzlement by corrupt actors on the inside.

People tend to think everyone inside the government is inept or corrupt, but that's not true. The vast, vast majority of people who work for government are good, honest people who truly want to make a difference for the American people. It's just that stories of ineptitude and corruption are so pervasive in relation to their incidence, and the damage they do can be so vast, that it leads people to conclude the entire government is cooked. And that's why we have a high percentage of people who simply want to destroy it, and an entire political party whose power emanates from grooming those people.

The impression that everyone inside govt is corrupt comes from the fact that the most corrupt people are typically the ones that climb to the top and thus have the most influence.  Big companies are the same way.  

[Tigeraholic1]

17 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Wray was a Trump apointee

He sure was. Now we have Patel, can't wait for him to take over!

[Tigeraholic1]

7 minutes ago, romad1 said:

NM...I don't want to feed the troll.

Please make sure you quote me properly in your book!

[CMRivdogs]

3 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

He sure was. Now we have Patel, can't wait for him to take over!

He hasn't been approved yet. Besides your orange crush will fire him within two years, if not sooner.

Admit it, you never watched his gameshow

[Tigeraholic1]

19 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

He hasn't been approved yet. Besides your orange crush will fire him within two years, if not sooner.

Admit it, you never watched his gameshow

I sure did not. I was in my  20-30's building my nest egg. 16 hour days and saving every dang penny I could. Self-employed now just trying to not be bored! Thats why I have so much time to tangle with you good folks. 😁

[romad1]

 

 

Anna Bower

‪@annabower.bsky.social‬

 

BREAKING: Justice Juan Merchan denies one of Trump’s efforts to toss his criminal convictions in New York. The judge said President-elect Trump does not have immunity from prosecution bc testimony related “entirely to unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protections.”