tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post6225557236446372299..comments2023-10-30T06:31:05.501-07:00Comments on MilPub: This is (One Big Reason) Why We Can't Have Nice ThingsFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-74067682298049863172018-08-16T19:28:36.478-07:002018-08-16T19:28:36.478-07:00McCain act...
Money we don't have
For things...McCain act...<br /><br />Money we don't have<br /><br />For things we don't need<br /><br />So we can fight wars that won't happen<br /><br />with enemies who would wreck us if we even thought about it<br /><br />To provide jobs<br /><br />For Senator's<br /><br />Campaigns.<br /><br /><br /><br />I think we need to be a bit more realistic about what this shit fest is really about...pork.<br /><br />And nothing says, "BACON IS ON THE TABLE!" like military spending on things the military doesn't want, and will end up in Arizona with all the other Special Order items the Senator's said would keep them safe in their jobs.<br /><br />I mean, keep America safe.<br /><br />Sorry, forgot the talking point.sheerahkahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16694622087244891222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-62070943620104466592018-08-16T19:11:22.271-07:002018-08-16T19:11:22.271-07:00When I was a young man during my first year in uni...When I was a young man during my first year in uniform there was no NDAA. It soon caught up. But was generally less than two dozen pages. <br /><br />This year it was 800 pages. And some of those 800 pages have nothing to do with National Defense. There is a bit of non-military pork appended by congress critters.<br /><br />But it still needs an appropriations bill, which won't come until later.mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09123137206598163451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-1634632486301570352018-08-16T11:30:35.527-07:002018-08-16T11:30:35.527-07:00Ill be the first to agree on the CR problem. If th...Ill be the first to agree on the CR problem. If there's any upside to this monster at all, it's that.<br /><br />That said...I think you should think about WHY this is SSDD.<br /><br />Your issue is that spending isn't tied to "strategy". But why, given the sheer volume of largesse involved, should it be? EVERYbody is getting some pie, why bother asking about the baking? The only time, or reason, I can think of that the U.S. government has rationed military spending over the past century is 1) in wartime, and 2) when military spending was so limited as to make hard choices necessary.<br /><br />So I think this is a chicken/egg thing. If you have no geopolitical objectives other than global generational war fantasies then you end up throwing money at weapons and soldiers. If you throw enough money at weapons and soldiers you don't have to stop and think about whether that's a good idea, or if there might be a better way to spend that money.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-22973463310305329852018-08-16T10:10:31.164-07:002018-08-16T10:10:31.164-07:00To me it's basically SSDD.
There is one ben...To me it's basically SSDD. <br /><br />There is one benefit to this legislation since it's the first in over a decade to be completed before the FY and therefor the first time in a very long time that the military will not have to deal with part-year funding via CR's. We've been doing CR's for longer than most currently serving people have been in the service.<br /><br />During my stint in the civil service supporting a reserve unit, dealing with CR's was probably the most frustrating and disruptive I faced and at least for this coming year my successors can actually plan for and fund training.<br /><br />As far as the allocation of our national treasure goes in general, I would just go back to the fundamentals - what kind of foreign policy do we want/need; how does the military fit into that vision; what set of capabilities are required to meet those goals; and how much will it cost to develop and maintain those capabilities?<br /><br />Like so many other areas, military spending is unmoored from a larger strategy, even what passes for strategy these days, which are mostly platitudes. There are a lot of arguments about how we should spend more or less without much thought about why or what capabilities do we really need. So personally, I'm much less concerned about the total amount of military spending than I am on how it is spent and for what purpose.Andyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05924320590375035146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-18762074749188077672018-08-16T06:38:45.861-07:002018-08-16T06:38:45.861-07:00Christ, they're not even pretending anymore.
...Christ, they're not even pretending anymore.<br /><br />I keep coming back to the question I asked earlier; unless you're in on the grift, or making over half a million a year, what the hell is in it for you to vote for these people?<br /><br />I mean...the Left may not be a prize, but there's still SOME sense of public weal and responsibility there. The Right has gone - and has been for some time - full on gonzo, bull-goose looney. It's all QAnon, all the way down. Fantastic Islamophobic paranoia. Open pandering to plutocracy. Tongue-bathing religious nuts who want to push everyone not heterosexually Caucasian out into the wastelands. Cut down trees and drill, baby, drill.<br /><br />Given how amazingly pigheaded We the People are being about anthropogenic climate change and the appalling environmental, political, and social disasters that's going to cause I don't have a hell of a lot of hope for <i>homo sapiens</i> in general. But it would seem like simple commonsense that if you have a choice between voting for the person who may not be framing your house the way you'd like it, and the person who's going to set fire to it and burn it to the ground, there's no real "choice" there.<br /><br />But apparently there's enough people who think there is to put the rest of us into the dumpster with them.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-81973794765412097712018-08-15T18:33:46.418-07:002018-08-15T18:33:46.418-07:00I notice the Grifter-in-Chief found time to water ...I notice the Grifter-in-Chief found time to water down the ban on ZTE that was in the Congressional version of the NDAA. Musn't lose that half a Billion in Chinese financing for a Trump themed luxury hotel, golf course, spa, and country club in Beautiful Java:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.trumphotels.com/lido" rel="nofollow">https://www.trumphotels.com/lido</a><br /><br /><i>"Congress added a bipartisan provision to the NDAA bill to reinstate the overall ban on ZTE, but Republicans, urged on by the White House, had removed it from the final version of the bill that Trump signed."</i><br /><br /><a href="https://mashable.com/2018/08/14/ndaa-zte-huawei-ban/#pPwg7Dlbymqk" rel="nofollow">https://mashable.com/2018/08/14/ndaa-zte-huawei-ban/#pPwg7Dlbymqk</a><br /><br /><br />mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09123137206598163451noreply@blogger.com