On the Nature of Things | Forum

YMix wrote:

Doc wrote:Reliable source you got there...

The source is my own reasoning. The Trump administration, just like any other administration, will be tickled pink to use the powers and capabilities of the intelligence community and will not curtail them in any significant way, freedom be damned.

YMix wrote:The intelligence community has power. Trump likes power. A lot. The people around him like power just as much as he does. It's safe to say that they want everything the community can give them and then some.

Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since the inauguration have probably cost the federal treasury about $10 million, based on figures used in an October government report analyzing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.

Palm Beach County officials plan to ask Washington to reimburse tens of thousands of dollars a day in expenses for deputies handling added security and traffic issues around the cramped Florida island whenever Trump is in town.

In New York, the city is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, according to police officials’ estimates, an amount that could reach $183 million a year.

This month, The Post reported that Secret Service and U.S. embassy staffers paid nearly $100,000 in hotel-room bills to support Eric Trump’s trip to promote a Trump-brand condo tower in Uruguay.

YMix wrote:

Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since the inauguration have probably cost the federal treasury about $10 million, based on figures used in an October government report analyzing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.

Palm Beach County officials plan to ask Washington to reimburse tens of thousands of dollars a day in expenses for deputies handling added security and traffic issues around the cramped Florida island whenever Trump is in town.

In New York, the city is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, according to police officials’ estimates, an amount that could reach $183 million a year.

This month, The Post reported that Secret Service and U.S. embassy staffers paid nearly $100,000 in hotel-room bills to support Eric Trump’s trip to promote a Trump-brand condo tower in Uruguay.

Mr Perfect's tax money at work.

Doc wrote:Where's the link Ymix? Its not even fake news without it.

YMix wrote:

Doc wrote:Where's the link Ymix? Its not even fake news without it.

You don't know how to google something?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... story.html

In New York, the city is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, according to police officials’ estimates, an amount that could reach $183 million a year.

Doc wrote:There are around 100 NYPD officers guarding Trump in NYC $500,000 per day comes to $5,000 per police officer Which means Police officers in NYC get $1.3 million dollars per year? REALLY?

YMix wrote:

Doc wrote:There are around 100 NYPD officers guarding Trump in NYC $500,000 per day comes to $5,000 per police officer Which means Police officers in NYC get $1.3 million dollars per year? REALLY?

There could be other costs, aside from wages, overtime, coffee and doughnuts.

Andrew Bacevich wrote:[...]

“America has spent approximately six trillion dollars in the Middle East,” Trump observed. As media personalities like to say, that’s trillion with a T. The sums expended pursuant to U.S. military misadventures in that part of the world are so gargantuan, Trump continued, that “we could have rebuilt our country—twice. And maybe even three times….”

[...]

Most of the trillions have long since sunk into the arid wastes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Remarkably, neither of these two places even qualified for mention in Trump’s hour-long oration.

Instead, the president used the occasion to urge Congress to give the Pentagon more money still—lots more. Trump is calling for “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history,” as if attributing the disappointing results of our recent wars to fiscal niggardliness.

For U.S. military leaders, for the national security apparatus as a whole, for defense contractors, and for the Congress itself, Trump was the bearer of good news. As commander-in-chief, he will observe the agreement forged by his immediate predecessors: When it comes to war and basic U.S. national security policy, there will be no accountability and no awkward questions.

There will be no inquiry into the misjudgments and failures that have saddled future generations with a six-trillion-dollar bill. There will be no postmortem. Except at the most trivial level, there will be no learning. There will, however, be more war.

[...]

Zack Morris wrote:I wonder if this will be the Presidency during which the first modern US carrier is sunk by an adversary? Could change the course of history.

Zack Morris wrote:I wonder if this will be the Presidency during which the first modern US carrier is sunk by an adversary? Could change the course of history.

Nonc Hilaire wrote:

Zack Morris wrote:I wonder if this will be the Presidency during which the first modern US carrier is sunk by an adversary? Could change the course of history.

Good metaphor. Trump sunk the supposedly unsinkable USS Hillary while all her aircraft were on sorties and now they are frantically trying to find a place to land.

Parodite wrote:Trump signs $110B defense deal with Saudi Arabia

This is a deal breaker. The Saudi criminals and main exporters of political Islamo-fascism into the West get a fat deal for free from the POTUS who promised to oppose them. Bad bad Trump.

Typhoon wrote:

Parodite wrote:Trump signs $110B defense deal with Saudi Arabia

This is a deal breaker. The Saudi criminals and main exporters of political Islamo-fascism into the West get a fat deal for free from the POTUS who promised to oppose them. Bad bad Trump.

Indeed. A continuation of the status quo given that 15/19 of the 9/11 perpetrators were Saudi nationals.
A continuation of the sham so-called War on Terror.

Also, supporting one side in the Sunni vs Shiite conflict is dumb.

Zack Morris wrote:Oh, sure, Parodite. That's exactly what Trumps going to do: slap the Saudis with a stick after feeding them $110 billion worth of no-strings-attached carrots. Mmm hmm.

I think the reality is that this was an uninteresting speech. Trump has no vision for the middle east other than kissing Saudi @ss. This trip is a total disaster. Sad!

Zack Morris wrote:Oh, sure, Parodite. That's exactly what Trumps going to do: slap the Saudis with a stick after feeding them $110 billion worth of no-strings-attached carrots. Mmm hmm.

Mr. Perfect wrote:

Zack Morris wrote:Oh, sure, Parodite. That's exactly what Trumps going to do: slap the Saudis with a stick after feeding them $110 billion worth of no-strings-attached carrots. Mmm hmm.

Just like Obama.