JESUS CHRIST Republicans get away with everything when it comes to Warring, hmm? Barack Obama and Bob Gates raised defense spending by 4%, or $20 billion, for the new budget, but made cuts to missile defense programs — that would exist only so Sarah Palin could pretend that she’s shooting down Putin’s flying dick from outer space — and killed $140 billion in F-22 RAPTOR DEATH PLANE contractor looting schemes. The “new money” will be focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet this has all been parlayed rather easily, on the teevee, into, “Why is Barack Obama not giving the Pentagon a single dollar, and why does he want to lose more wars?” [Washington Monthly, TPM]
Political Wire
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Kirsten Boyd Johnson (927)
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{ 41 comments }
This plays well with the hicks who only get their larnin’ via Fox news, AM talk radio, and what Leroy down at the cotton gin says. And they still think Saddam was behind 9/11 and we FOUND those WMD things.
If every penny of the budget isn’t diverted from starving American babies to a defense contractor, then the terrorists have won.
What do you expect from a party that releases budgets without numbers and a media that contains both “The Page” and Ed Henry?
Math, like reading and thinking, is for pussies.
Come on, Jim- I think asking the cable news networks to fact-check something is asking an awful lot of them.
Yeah, but when you raise overall spending by three trillion, a 20 billion increase seems like a cut.
If you think at all, the terrorists win.
That’s because lethal weaponry ownership of any sort, both private and federal, is a complete fucking third rail, durr. At least when you are accused of wanting to cut the defense budget, Republican congresslizards don’t synchronized murder-suicide.
Hell, it’s such a third rail, people are going nuclear over two separate measures that nobody has actually proposed, or wants. You thought the Fairness Doctrine ‘Controversy’ was stupid.
Yeah, Obama. HOW DARE YOU STEAL MONEY FROM THE MOUTHS OF GOLDPLATED BORDERLINE USELESS WEAPONS MAKERS AND THEIR POOR EXECUTIBS AND USE THAT MONEY FOR BETTER EQUIPMENT FOR THE TROOPS!
I guess support those made in China “Support The Troops” magnets really meant “Support the Defensive Industrials.”
It’s like a cut in defense spending, only different.
If we applied some of the right wing’s arguments to the defense budget:
– Fuck it, we shouldn’t spend anything on defense. If there was a real need for these weapons, the Invisible Hand would make them profitable on their own.
– Do you really want some government bureaucrat deciding whether the next close air support fighter is the F-22 or the F-35? Really?!
– You can’t solve a defense problem by just throwing money at it.
– This spending of unprecedented billions on defense is a massive power grab by the Obama administration — and it must be stopped!
But, but, but, without the F-22, what will Bill Pullman and Randy Quaid fly to shoot down the aliens? You don’t think alien technology is more advanced than the F-15? That thing was designed in the ’60s! I’m standing here at ground zero. But what if New York was attacked again, this time by aliens from another galaxy intent on colonizing the earth and killing all humans? Hmmmmm?
The fat fuck on Hardball (Maggie something) should worry more about her huge girth hurting her marriage than about Tom and Randy tying the knot down the street. I doubt her hubby is happy about having to climb that mountain twice a month…
[re=284431]Hooray For Anything[/re]: The real kicker here is this douche, Cohen, who says out of one side of his mouth that this will cause difficulties and pressure for the Obama administration, etc., and then admits immediately afterward that there was not, in fact, a defense cut of any sort. It’s sort of like Stephanopalous’s “now that the rumor’s out there, how will Obama respond???”
[re=284440]SayItWithWookies[/re]: Funny how that works. It’s almost like there are two sets of rules for Republicans…
I understand the fascist socialist atheist muslin and his associates have even cut the funds for the nuclear amphibian battleship program. An essential part of the GWOT.
And the space shield — how will we defend ourselves from improvised ICBMs?
They have been wagging that missile defense shield tail ever since Reagan thought it up as Star Wars a million years ago. Lots of monies. Results, not so many. And we need the F-22 to deal with the mighty Afghan terrorist air force. Another generation of gold-plated buggy whips.
can’t we just buy our weapons at a gun show in kentucky like other normal countries do?
If the Prezdent won’t defend my family, I have no choice but to line the walls of my guest room with AK47s and replace the beds with a stockpile of ammo. All that money I refuse to pay in taxes will be well-spent on my own personal Pentagon.
[re=284459]sevenrepeat[/re]: Well, then they come with those tasteless ‘NOOBAMA==HITLAR” stickers.
But how can my dissatisfaction with these “cuts” be expressed by a hot beverage? Do I now send Folgers to the DoD?
[re=284445]Zadig[/re]: There is no truth, only Drudge
[re=284440]SayItWithWookies[/re]: We have a huge budget deficit and need to freeze government spending and eliminate wasteful spending so….ummm….ummm…what was I saying?
[re=284452]qwerty42[/re]: I know that you are trying, but muslin is a type of material. Perhaps your Hillbilly overbite prevents bilabial closure…i.e. the letter /m/.
that money should be spent to develop a way to blow limbaugh into space. no amount of jet propulsion has been successful, yet. also.
Ow, my balls!
4% increase? No stress test results? We desperately need to get the banks and the defense industry off the government teat. I’d say its pretty hopeless.
You expect a country that cannot count votes to do the math on whether a military appropriation represents a budgetary increase or a decrease????
Fuck, you set the bar way too high.
Remember when the Bushies were asked why they thought $700 million was necessary to save Wall St. back last fall? The answer? “We wanted a rilly rilly big number.”
You wanna know why you’re hearing those stuck-pig squealing noises? Find out in whose districts the affected defense contractors have their plants. After all those decades of fattening up from militarily useless taxpayer largesse, you think they’ll wean themselves from the trough?
These fuckers couldn’t find the will to forego their morning donut if they knew eating it would kill ‘em.
[re=284477]Canuckledragger[/re]: Sheesh, Mr. Dragger, I thought we were here to avoid the hard truths and distract ourselves with laughter. UR NOT HALPING.
[re=284475]hobospacejunkie[/re]: I know someone working on that game for the iphone.
I prefer the Republicans’ sensible, costed, teabag-led recovery plan:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1405/roadtorecoveryfinal17.jpg
[re=284471]Scandinavian Fetus[/re]: goodness gracious, are you sure about that?
[re=284452]qwerty42[/re]: We will protect ourselves from North Korea’s improvised ICBMs by allowing them to land in the ocean, as usual.
[re=284483]hobospacejunkie[/re]: I started to flame this topic in an earlier post today but my blood pressure got too high and I aborted the effort. Now my blood pressure is going up again.
I don’t post much here, and it frequently lacks snark, but at the same time my therapist has commented on my emphasis on the absurdity of the world… He’s also said I scare him, and he doesn’t mean he thinks I’m a raving lunatic – he’s sure I’m not.
Will Carrot Top teabag me, plz?
People realize Obama also cut his own $240mm/each fleet of Transformer Marine One stealth helicopters? That’s right, he has to ride around in those busted POS’s Bush used, of which we need like 50 because most of those creaking buckets in the shop at any time. And they reeks of near-beer and failure. He’s doing that for us!
[re=284567]Uncle Glenny[/re]: I hear you, Uncle G. One can pull one’s hair out over the insanity and/or one can attempt to laugh instead of weep.
Bye the bye, just returned from Las Vegas. We ordered our Bette Midler tickets and only after did we see that Carrot Top was also ‘performing’ while we were there. I don’t think we could’ve sat through Mr. Top’s show, even ironically, w/o wanting to bludgeon him with a blunt instrument. But tea-bagging from Carrot Top? Oh yeah…
[re=284471]Scandinavian Fetus[/re]: Hi, welcome to Wonkette. We love earnest folks.
[re=284471]Scandinavian Fetus[/re]: Hi Sweetie Fetus. Lurk a couple more weeks and then try again. No offense, just tryin’ to help a newbie! kthx xoxo
Can I just say that this whole defense spending saga has just revealed all to me. 95% of the assholes in Congress don’t know what the hell that they are talking about. I’m not saying that no one should question Gates, but when numerous experts and former Defense secretaries have called for changing the way we spend in defense, and yet people still get on this, “The President doesn’t want to keep us safe” meme, all I can do is hang my head in shame. Gates has experience in national security/defense coming out of his ears. He has seen it all, and knows where the bodies are buried. Do any of these republican hacks really think that he would propose cuts that would put the country in harms way? No, they don’t—it just lets them dust off their, Dems don’t want to defend their country talking point.
And Cohen is right, some people/groups on the left — a union has already released a statement — oppose the cuts because it will mean job losses. Now, I am as sympathetic as the next person to job losses, especially in this economic environment, but what kind of asshole defends reckless and outdated spending by saying, well, if we try to be more effective, people will lose their jobs. Both sides have completely lost perspective–our Government has become one big cesspool for corruption and handouts.
[re=284642]carameltoe[/re]: Thank you, I think.
Just to let you know, I am old enough to shave.
In fact, I shave my shoulders and back twice a week.
Is there any chance that this will put me on the fast-track to “honorary membership?”
Wow, somehow I feel like an adolescent going through a “rite of passage” and an autumnal Mason candidate at the same time.
Has anyone here read De tocqueville for fucks sake?
How can you all talk like this, when you don’t have Wonkette festooned with American Flags. Giant Campbell Brown was a step in the right direction, but where is old glory? For a laugh, go read Hannity, they’re little panties are all in a knot over there! They’re actually anticipating ACORN and Obama’s civillian corps to intervene and crush the tea bagging, they’re almost hoping it will happen, the way they hoped for race riots after the last prez election.
Fortunately for them, they’re STILL sitting on their case of Campbell soup fingering a clip of ammo.
BTW I’m actually sorry they’re cutting the F22, it’s a great system, even if expensive. The F15′s are falling apart, the F117 is being retired. In tests, the F22 shoots everything down in the sky and the other planes don’t even know it’s there until they are too late. IOW it’s not a boondoggle, it’s a really good system that causes any rising competitors to think twice. Does that sound just awful? In all seriousness, there are bad guys out there, and this will make them think twice. THere, I said it….
[re=284811]DeathOfIrony[/re]: They’re not canceling the F-22, they’re just not buying 700 of them. We’ll have, like, eight squadrons of them once they close it out. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are looking at fielding a plane that is anywhere close to the F-22 in anything like those numbers. And the F-35 contract is being increased; it’s not a dedicated air superiority fighter, but it’s stealthier, faster and more maneuverable, with better weapons systems, than anything other than the F-22. Just because the F-22 performs as advertised doesn’t make it value for money.
I once attended a trade show with the keynote being an Army officer who spoke about the vast differences in tech between the U.S. military and Afghani insurgent fighters. He illustrated this point by saying that American helicopter pilots would see tiny flashes of light on the ground as they flew – these flashes of light being produced by $0.05 mirrors communicating in Morse code about U.S. military movements. And the sad thing, this Army guy noted, was that hardly anybody is proficient in Morse code anymore. AND that in order to communicate equivalently useful information between military units would take days – DAYS – as compared to the virtually “instant” messaging being used by TRIBESMEN.
Think about that.
Sure, the F-22 puts us 40 odd years ahead of the next competing first world nation, but are they a more imminent threat than the insurgent and guerrilla tactics being used against our boots on the ground in the desert?
As an engineer who works in defense, I am naturally drawn to marvel at the technology we’re creating. It’s straight out of sci-fi. It’s cool, yeah, but it’s not really needed.
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