Discussion: Senate Dems Block $575B Defense Spending Bill

Well now, The Turtle does know a bit about dysfunction. He did after all write the book on How to Make the Senate Dysfunctional.

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More than half a trillion dollars a year on the military… There’s dysfunction alright but I don’t think either Senator has quite put their finger on the problem. Imagine what even $200 billion a year dropped on our country’s infrastructure could do for the country and the economy.

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The idea that if we quit over-spending so much on the military, which causes strife all around the world, we wouldn’t need to spend so much on the military is beyond the ability of the war happy to understand. And willingly so.

IOW, by reducing our footprint around the world and all of the aggression in the middle east alone we would quit irritating others and then the reduction would be at least two-fold. We’d be smaller by reducing obviously but then could scale back even more because there wouldn’t be the constant flare-ups due to our occupations.
If we weren’t in Ben Ghazi, there wouldn’t have been a Ben Ghazi.

Hell, just the savings on the stupid Republican investigations about the war that they started would be worthwhile. No Iraq-No Ben Ghazi.

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Turtle: “At a time when we face an array of terror threats around the globe, we cannot afford to put politics above support for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines,” said McConnell, R-Ky.

Judge Garland says Hello.

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Karma.

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Additionally, I don’t believe that $538 Billion includes money allocated to the Department of Energy for defense related nuclear programs or money allocated to the State Department for the CIA, which is obviously a defense related paramilitary organization. How many more billions would that add?

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Some 60% of the budget goes to defense. And its NOT the soldiers who get the money it’s defense contractors who like the NRA contribute heavily to our senators…

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Agree, DOD should be audited, if we did so we would find billions spent of nonsense, remember “gold plated toilet seats” or claw hammer sold by Gould Simulation Systems to the Navy for $435.

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In the old days Reid and McConnell would have come to a deal about votes on domestic bills but our political system is so dysfunctional the Democrats feel they can’t trust Republicans or Republicans are unwilling to provide votes for domestic programs.

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Wasn’t Ben Ghazi a “B” list actor in 1970s? I think it is Benghazi. :wink:

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Really, this. It come down to the simple fact that GOP leaders can no longer deliver votes and can’t be trusted to make mutually beneficial deals. They’ve become the Grand Old Party of One.

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“They’re the party of Trump, so don’t call us dysfunctional,”

Enough said!

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That needed repeating!

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Funny how every extra dollar spent on domestic programs requires a cut somewhere else to ostensibly pay for it. But military spending, that’s unquestionable.

but:

This has always been something of a red herring. The toilet seat, for example, was actually a toilet shroud, i.e. the entire molded plastic part of the bathroom wall that surrounds the toilet in an airplane. Custom designed for minimum weight, tested for g forces, fire safety blah blah with full documentation, and made in a production run of a few dozen. And the claw hammer from an aerospace company: yeah, it’s overpriced, but that’s why you don’t buy from them. It’s like calling up a white-shoe law firm and demanding that the managing partner buy a screwdriver and hand-deliver it to you. There is plenty of wasted money in DoD, but it’s far less publicized places. Like entire weapons systems that get built because a factory is in some committee chair’s district.

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WTG, HARRY, tell Mitch in two ABOUT dysfunction, TWO WORDS many Republicans won’t say…to use their words…I endorse ‘HE’ who will remain ‘NAMELESS’

AT RISK is Mitch’s Senate seat.

A rose by any other name is STILL a rose…

Donald Trump post child of DYSFUNCTION, 'AKA; in certain Republican circles as:

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Having worked for Congress and knowing how many marble steps there are I keep wondering why more of these country hating asses don’t fall and break their useless necks.

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What you say is true but the premise of not auditing DOD and to continue to allow logistic procurement to purchase a hammer from an aerospace company remains true. As for your last comment about a factory running because of someone’s district is high on the list of waste, I’m thinking the manufacturing of additional tanks just to have them rust away in an Alabama field or to dry rot in the desert southwest even though DOD says they don’t need them. In other words continuing to build for a western europe war scenario that was obsolete almost 30 years ago. A scenario by the way that has recently been dusted off, re:in May and as recently as a couple of days ago.

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hey mcturtle theres a UUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEEE difference between what you and the republicon party is doing and what the dems are doing…you do it because we have a black president and he isn’t A republicon and your petty vindictive and a bunch of assholes who only care about the ricvh and corporate…the dems do it because it’s the right thing to do and it’s not what the Right WOULD do

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If Congress really, really cared about the troops, you know, the ones risking their lives out where the fire is burning, they would raise their pay so that no soldier is forced to use public assistance such as food stamps. There is nothing wrong with such assistance, which is a vital part of our safety net. But what are we telling the men and women of the armed services about their value to our country?

Killing off just one of the many unnecessary weapons project would probably do the job. Why can’t Democrats promise to remedy this situation in their platform?

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