Trump is back…the “Now What” thread

#2,351
LRRPF52 said:
If Putin had been able to steamroll through Ukraine, it would have presented the appearance of strategic capability to the Eastern European nations (who actually have been investing in their defense), because they still have pictures of their family members that were murdered by Russians from the last times (Winter War 1939, WWII, Hungary 1965, Czechoslovakia 1968).

The billions in US aid have mostly been older weapons stockpiles scheduled for destruction assigned a monetary value we already paid, remember? It’s actually a net-gain for us in weapons disposal, not that comrade Biden jumped on that opportunity anytime soon. There was still corruption through CIA and USAID, who have been used by NGOs for personal gain as a rule ever since JFK was assassinated. They will do that with any conflict as long as they are allowed to.

The Eastern Europeans, especially Poland, are stuck between a weak European core run by male feminists and stupid women in their parliaments....and adventurist Putin to the East. Not a good position to be in right now.

This is why Finland and Poland quickly invested so much in their national defense in the 1990s. Finland replaced their aging fleet of SAAB Drakens and MiG-21Fs with F-18C/D (not F/A-18, a side note but interesting to dive into), while Poland replaced their MiG-29s, Su-20s and Su-22Ms with F-16C/D Block 50/52s.

Meanwhile in Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and France, they drug their feet developing Typhoon and Rafale, which are at end-of-life relevancy for modern air combat. Now Finland and Poland are F-35 customers, looking to replace or augment their 4th Gen fleets of fighters. Because Germany never invested in a Tornado replacement, they had to order F-35s too. This was after they fired their Luftwaffe Chief many years ago when he recommended they invest in the F-35 program ASAP.

I would absolutely love to debate Col MacGregor. He’s an Army Armor officer who thinks tanks and artillery are central to modern combat power. That hasn’t been true since Korea at the latest. It shifted during WWII in favor of air power, and the US is without peer in that space.

He is painfully-uneducated about the overall US force structure, where our centers of strength are, and how we actually fight. This is especially-alarming because he was front-and-center in Desert Storm’s Battle of 73 Eastings. He was in the last war where the US military actually was let off the leash a little, so he should know, but he either doesn’t or misrepresents his statements about modern US military force structure.

You will notice though that he reverts to expressing US combat power in artillery and armor terms. These are really after-thoughts and dinosaurs left over from early 20th Century institutional inertia. While 73 Eastings was the most decisive armor victory in the history of armor warfare, F-111Fs and F-15Es could have attrited the same number of tanks in relatively short order.

The F-111F attrited more tanks than the A-10A did in Desert Storm, in 1/4 the sorties flown by A-10s. What we have nowadays are far more-capable than F-111Fs, 1980s-era F-16s, early F-15Es, and A-10s.

McGregor is not comfortable speaking on air power because it isn’t his career field, so he defaults to silly discussions about how many artillery shells we can produce and at what rates. It’s embarrassing.
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i was referring to his thoughts on pulling out of Ukraine 100%,everything and every body. tends to say same about Europe in general,maybe elsewhere. i find his idea to put them on our borders in full combat prep to be,actually,essential. what follows from that is a side discussion. this includes the the navy and CG on both coasts. his casualty #s from Ukraine are 1 way,others the opposite. who knows? we never will know. he does go overboard with the genocide rant re Gaza. he seems to be aware of some of the NWO and econ problems we have. all beside the point of using our mil to protect America and not involve ourselves in these MIC generated wars of choice. not looking good re Iran.
you still will NOT commit to what we should do re Ukraine and why. here you go-we should give not 1 shit if Putin goes to the channel. doesn't look like he could or wants to. there is nothing in Europe that we can't easily do without. except maybe a bunch of corp profits that help the elites make hay on the stock market. you seem aware that any benefit in European relations has all gone their way. we spent many lives and much treasure protecting and saving them from shit they started everywhere. Jefferson warned about it right at the start.
not happening but if he conquered Europe,how long would such an empire last? hx of empire's success in 19,20th centuries has not been particularly successful or long lasting. hasn't been much of a successful model anywhen. some exceptions but doesn't seem to be worth the cost in lives and wealth when we have so much of the planet to use for our own benefit.
 
#2,352
Putin would be capable of taking smaller Eastern European countries, especially had he successfully swept Ukraine.

My recommendations involve trillions of dollars worth of consequences, so I won’t post them openly. They are things that would end the conflict rapidly though, without US or NATO intervention. It would allow Trump to “wash his hands of this”, while ending the conflict in a brutal manner that nobody has considered.

Putin obviously doesn’t respect Trump, and kind of can’t, since he has pasted himself into a corner by invading in the first place. Putin must be blocking out the Battle of Khasham, where he tested Trump’s resolve without provocation in Feb 2018.

It’s very interesting that Trump doesn’t mention that, as I think he wants to leave room for deescalation. He knows he carries a bigger military stick than Putin ever will, by orders of magnitude.

I think Trump is already looking at the natural consequences of the future of Europe. They will eventually boil over into civil war between Muslims and real Europeans, once the Muslim population bomb explodes on the major cities and they all find themselves outnumbered in their own countries.

The US should start thinking about screening European immigrants based on voting for liberal/leftist policies before allowing them to run away from their problems, then vote for the same crap here.

I have been forecasting multiple civil wars in Europe though since I saw what happened in 2005 in France. There have been multiple dust-ups since then of a similar nature, that are always sparked by some idiot savage getting himself killed, then the hordes blame the police and riot and destroy everything.
 
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#2,353
Demand for US advanced military systems is only going to increase though because of regional instability.

The UK just announced more F-35s to replace older Tranche 1 Typhoons.

Germany’s defense minister made a point to double down on Germany’s order for F-35s, since the stupid parliament in Germany never invested in a replacement for the Tornado. That was their only tactical nuclear delivery platform. They waited until the last moment, after firing their Chief Luftwaffe General who recommended buying into the F-35 program ASAP back in November 2017. They fired him in 2018:

German Air Force Chief fired for supporting F-35 (2018 article)
According Jane’s Gen Müllner’s outspoken public support for the Joint Strike Fighter as a successor to the German Tornado Fleet was pivotal in the decision for his early retirement. “The Luftwaffe considers the F-35’s capability as the benchmark for the selection process for the Tornado replacement, and I think I have expressed myself clearly enough as to what the favourite of the air force is,” Gen Müllner told last November.
Click to expand...

The problem for Europeans and Canada is that they have refused to invest in their future defense, so the US is the only arsenal of freedom remaining.

France and Germany have allocated 4.5 Billion for RDT&E in Future Air Combat Systems (FCAS). That’s going as well as you can imagine. France wants most of the industrial share, while blaming the Germans. Germany wants most of the industrial share, while blaming the French. Oh, by the way, they’re not going to be like “stupid Americas”, and are just going to ....skip over 5th Gen and pull their own 6th Gen out of a hat! It’s almost hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic.

iu


Meanwhile the Swedes think they already have 6th Gen, in a lightweight under-powered fighter than can’t even meet 1970s 4th Gen fighter metrics.

iu


These people are all delusional. The US invested in ATF RDT&E with $32 Billion before we even started building F-22As. It took a long time, was extremely difficult, and we did it with unprecedented pressure on contractors to build vastly-superior systems to anything that existed at the time.

iu


They then took those generational leaps in propulsion, stealth, sensors, avionics, DFLCS, EW, and leap-frogged it into the JSF program.

iu


In Europe, they were still farting around with Typhoon and Rafale all this time. We literally PCS’d to West Germany in 1980 to help with development of what became Typhoon, that’s how old and out-dated it is. To illustrate how weak they are, they have only built around 600 of them. It’s 45 years later!

Rafale is only around 300 airframes built. The first demonstrator flew on the 4th of July, 1986. That’s the universe speaking to you, France. Both the Rafale and EFA demonstrators were powered by.........US-built GE F404 engines (from the baby Hornet). They knocked-off what they could and made their own domestic engines, namely the EJ200 and SNECMA M88.

iu
 
#2,356
Rthur said:
The point is even if it's 1% what are we charging them?
Something tells me zero until now.
I don't care how accurate, I care if it is one sided deal.
Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

R
Click to expand...
It is not zero, not even President Trump contends that:
www.whitehouse.gov

Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency
www.whitehouse.gov

but it is lopsided in most cases. For example, EU has 10% on American cars, while we have 2.5% on EU cars (not trucks).

The EU tried to negotiate a trade deal before the tariff announcement, which would have been a lot less disruptive to the economy on both sides of The Atlantic.

www.theguardian.com

EU offered ‘zero-for-zero’ deal to US weeks before tariff announcement

Cars and other goods were to be included, according to EU trade commissioner, who says offer is still on table
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Note that the EU is not a country, and its member countries do not all agree on how to handle this situation, as you can see for yourself in the article.
 
#2,357
i had a personal work experience with the eu when they formed in the mid 90s.
we made some parts used by companies over there, and they put an import duty or whatever they called it that exceeded the profit margin.
so we had to lay off some people and open a factory in the uk.
that lasted until they let nitto denko build their own factory and they undercut us out of the business.
 
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#2,360
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#2,366
www.americanthinker.com

The Russia Tariff Canard

Cheap political attacks have been part of American life since before the ink dried on the Constitution. Even George Washington took fire from scornful scribes accusing him—the man who freed us from the shackles of the British crown—of mon...
www.americanthinker.com www.americanthinker.com

But the latest hit job on Donald Trump’s tariff policy—accusing him of “sparing” Russia while targeting Ukraine—stands out for its sheer dishonesty. It’s not just lazy. It’s willfully misleading.

The claim—explicit or implied—echoed across the New York Times, Axios, BBC, and the global peanut gallery—that Trump “spared” Russia while targeting Ukraine is more than misleading. It’s a lazy distortion at best—built to deflect attention from what’s actually happening: a long-overdue reset of U.S. trade policy that, for once, puts America’s interests first.

Let’s be clear: Russia has not been “spared.” It’s already under a battery of sanctions and trade restrictions that make any discussion of tariffs functionally moot. Under Trump and Biden, U.S. policy has effectively walled off Russian goods—sanctioning everything from energy and banking to luxury items.
Click to expand...
 
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#2,367
theLBC said:
i had a personal work experience with the eu when they formed in the mid 90s.
we made some parts used by companies over there, and they put an import duty or whatever they called it that exceeded the profit margin.
so we had to lay off some people and open a factory in the uk.
that lasted until they let nitto denko build their own factory and they undercut us out of the business.
Click to expand...
The EU is run by mentally-deranged feminists and leftists who literally think in ideological terms, then try to force the real world to fit into those erroneous concepts. Their parliamentarians think university degrees are a meaningful skill set to managing economies, immigration, infrastructure, and resources. I’ve lived and traveled throughout Europe since the 1970s, watching this all unfold. They treat their defense ministers as enemies, and always have during the past 50 years. Poland, Finland, and Norway might be the exceptions to that.

2017:

iu


iu


Imagine the majority Socialist-Solidarist EPP and Progressive Alliance of Socialists being the biggest parties in the EU bloc, making decisions about trade and defense.

They don’t even have defense listed in their party platforms. It’s all political ideologies taught in Marxist universities, European Green New Deal trash, silly catch-phrases and stupid buzzwords from shop-keepers and women who don’t know how their own nations work.

They don’t represent Europe well at all, and have limited real-world experience even at low levels of society.

Trump negotiating with them is like a shark vs baby seals.
 
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#2,368
softcock said:
Never seen that one coming.
.
Click to expand...
i hope you are wrong,but DOJ is looking a bit deep state. seeing a lot of talk,no real action on Epstein,JFK,RFK,MLK. the K stuff will take time to dig out and eval but diddy and Epstein,all we need is names to learn who the pervs are.
this guy is 1 who should have been fired and arrested on day 1. hard to see Kash promoting him. FBI went after Kash hard,so ???
Bondi has never been truly justice friendly,usually followed the deep state narrative. not sure why Desantis didn't reign her in some.
 
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#2,369
www.epi.org

The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was supposed to improve the U.S. trade deficit with China and create good jobs in the United States. But those promises have gone unfulfilled: the total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this...
www.epi.org www.epi.org

yup, just like duty or tariffs, i have seen this first hand when i was in manufacturing.
we sold a product to a big box store. they increased orders regularly.
when they got up to a certain amount, they toured the factory.
then they told us we had to reduce the cost, even though they were already marking up the items 400% and selling out.
our only option to lower the cost was to offshore the manual labor portions of the process, so those jobs moved to mexico.
 
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#2,370
theLBC said:
www.epi.org

The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was supposed to improve the U.S. trade deficit with China and create good jobs in the United States. But those promises have gone unfulfilled: the total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this...
www.epi.org www.epi.org

yup, just like duty or tariffs, i have seen this first hand when i was in manufacturing.
we sold a product to a big box store. they increased orders regularly.
when they got up to a certain amount, they toured the factory.
then they told us we had to reduce the cost, even though they were already marking up the items 400% and selling out.
our only option to lower the cost was to offshore the manual labor portions of the process, so those jobs moved to mexico.
Click to expand...

I'll bet despite demanding you lower cost by sending jobs overseas (there were stories of Walmart actually demanding jobs be shipped to China no matter what), they didn't lower their prices any or possibly even raised them.

Essentially corporate greed is what ruined the American economy, American jobs and the American dream.
Then somehow poor suckers are being told to "be patriotic and pay more" so that the same evil greedy bastard companies can make more fat profits?

Trump should actually go after Walmart and other companies that are responsible, but they probably pour too much money into campaigns and then also threaten "we'll fire a bunch of workers and hurt america bad if you don't give us what we want", kind of like the bankers.
 
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#2,371
W54/XM-388 said:
I'll bet despite demanding you lower cost by sending jobs overseas (there were stories of Walmart actually demanding jobs be shipped to China no matter what), they didn't lower their prices any or possibly even raised them.

Essentially corporate greed is what ruined the American economy, American jobs and the American dream.
Then somehow poor suckers are being told to "be patriotic and pay more" so that the same evil greedy bastard companies can make more fat profits?

Trump should actually go after Walmart and other companies that are responsible, but they probably pour too much money into campaigns and then also threaten "we'll fire a bunch of workers and hurt america bad if you don't give us what we want", kind of like the bankers.
Click to expand...
very true. but the greed and corruption of union workers and their corrupt leaders has to be figured in as well. they are heavily complicit in all the problems that started back in the 50s. "give us what we want or we will fuck up the work and destroy the company". both sides were heavily complicit in the whole destructive deindustrializing our economy. the complex role of the stock market and financialization of the economy are also something that needs a look. nothing simple here or fast to fix.
as far as unions are concerned,i have some experience with the role they played in the 70s or so. ie comparing my wages and union wages and performance expectations. unions have,for the most part,outlived any of the real needs there were for them in the past. Reagan did deal well with them. and,NO gov worker of ANY kind should ever be allowed ANY union memberships at all. teacher's unions are largely responsible for the dumbing down & radicalization of US students.
 
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#2,375
theLBC said:

US Conference Of Catholic Bishops Ends Refugee Program After USAID Funding Cut | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com

Click to expand...

What a fucking joke, means nothing. They walk away with Billions -$$$ of profit 'tax free', still flying 1st Class, The good Christian leadership will wait, hookup with the US Government again when things are more favorable a few years from now to take in more of the Treasury Grift all under the religious umbrella of doing Gods calling with the end goal of helping whole of humanity live in equality, all Gods children living equal at their lowest common denominator... 'except' For Them.
-
 
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#2,377
theLBC said:
Click to expand...


That law is an oldie goldie from the Clinton era ... 1996

You may also be interested in hits like this one.


SEC. 2. Purpose; sense of Congress.


(a) Purpose.—The purpose of this Act is to remove barriers to immigration status for non-citizen survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other crimes who may be eligible for protections under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and other vulnerable immigrants.


(j) Eliminate Civil Penalties for Failure To Depart.
Click to expand...
 
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#2,379
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#2,381
Malum Prohibitum said:
Why do you say it has nothing to do with OPEC increasing production? It has everything to do with that - 400,000 barrels a day increase, implemented way ahead of plan. OPEC wants oil too cheap for US producers to drill, baby, drill. OPEC will cut back supply again once another Democrat is in the White House.
Click to expand...
iu
 
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#2,384
Malum Prohibitum said:
Why do you say it has nothing to do with OPEC increasing production? It has everything to do with that - 400,000 barrels a day increase, implemented way ahead of plan. OPEC wants oil too cheap for US producers to drill, baby, drill. OPEC will cut back supply again once another Democrat is in the White House.
Click to expand...
Yep.

And some times sarcasm doesn't translate through text very well.
 
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#2,389
Malum Prohibitum said:
Why do you say it has nothing to do with OPEC increasing production? It has everything to do with that - 400,000 barrels a day increase, implemented way ahead of plan. OPEC wants oil too cheap for US producers to drill, baby, drill. OPEC will cut back supply again once another Democrat is in the White House.
Click to expand...
The increase alone would not have nearly the impact if not for expectations of reduced productivity, and therefore energy demands. It's the whole package. OPEC production is salting the wounds
 
#2,393
LRRPF52 said:
If Putin had been able to steamroll through Ukraine, it would have presented the appearance of strategic capability to the Eastern European nations (who actually have been investing in their defense), because they still have pictures of their family members that were murdered by Russians from the last times (Winter War 1939, WWII, Hungary 1965, Czechoslovakia 1968).

The billions in US aid have mostly been older weapons stockpiles scheduled for destruction assigned a monetary value we already paid, remember? It’s actually a net-gain for us in weapons disposal, not that comrade Biden jumped on that opportunity anytime soon. There was still corruption through CIA and USAID, who have been used by NGOs for personal gain as a rule ever since JFK was assassinated. They will do that with any conflict as long as they are allowed to.

The Eastern Europeans, especially Poland, are stuck between a weak European core run by male feminists and stupid women in their parliaments....and adventurist Putin to the East. Not a good position to be in right now.

This is why Finland and Poland quickly invested so much in their national defense in the 1990s. Finland replaced their aging fleet of SAAB Drakens and MiG-21Fs with F-18C/D (not F/A-18, a side note but interesting to dive into), while Poland replaced their MiG-29s, Su-20s and Su-22Ms with F-16C/D Block 50/52s.

Meanwhile in Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and France, they drug their feet developing Typhoon and Rafale, which are at end-of-life relevancy for modern air combat. Now Finland and Poland are F-35 customers, looking to replace or augment their 4th Gen fleets of fighters. Because Germany never invested in a Tornado replacement, they had to order F-35s too. This was after they fired their Luftwaffe Chief many years ago when he recommended they invest in the F-35 program ASAP.

I would absolutely love to debate Col MacGregor. He’s an Army Armor officer who thinks tanks and artillery are central to modern combat power. That hasn’t been true since Korea at the latest. It shifted during WWII in favor of air power, and the US is without peer in that space.

He is painfully-uneducated about the overall US force structure, where our centers of strength are, and how we actually fight. This is especially-alarming because he was front-and-center in Desert Storm’s Battle of 73 Eastings. He was in the last war where the US military actually was let off the leash a little, so he should know, but he either doesn’t or misrepresents his statements about modern US military force structure.

You will notice though that he reverts to expressing US combat power in artillery and armor terms. These are really after-thoughts and dinosaurs left over from early 20th Century institutional inertia. While 73 Eastings was the most decisive armor victory in the history of armor warfare, F-111Fs and F-15Es could have attrited the same number of tanks in relatively short order.

The F-111F attrited more tanks than the A-10A did in Desert Storm, in 1/4 the sorties flown by A-10s. What we have nowadays are far more-capable than F-111Fs, 1980s-era F-16s, early F-15Es, and A-10s.

McGregor is not comfortable speaking on air power because it isn’t his career field, so he defaults to silly discussions about how many artillery shells we can produce and at what rates. It’s embarrassing.
Click to expand...
for those of you obsessed with Russia's bad behavior (and yes,it has been often),try this. may have some predictive value.

 
#2,394
W54/XM-388 said:
I'll bet despite demanding you lower cost by sending jobs overseas (there were stories of Walmart actually demanding jobs be shipped to China no matter what), they didn't lower their prices any or possibly even raised them.

Essentially corporate greed is what ruined the American economy, American jobs and the American dream.
Then somehow poor suckers are being told to "be patriotic and pay more" so that the same evil greedy bastard companies can make more fat profits?

Trump should actually go after Walmart and other companies that are responsible, but they probably pour too much money into campaigns and then also threaten "we'll fire a bunch of workers and hurt america bad if you don't give us what we want", kind of like the bankers.
Click to expand...
There's pure capitalism and crony capitalism. Corporate greed goes unchecked in crony capitalism when campaign coffers get stuffed to look the other way.
 
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#2,395
gigamortis said:
There's pure capitalism and crony capitalism. Corporate greed goes unchecked in crony capitalism when campaign coffers get stuffed to look the other way.
Click to expand...
I spent years in college learning about the various forms of capitalism. Funny thing, although I learned about it I have never seen pure capitalism and exactly zero discussion on lobbyists. Imagine my surprise. The closest thing I have seen to pure capitalism is a farmers market - there isn’t a lot of GDP there so that’s probably the reason. Unless someone is trying to sell raw milk but that’s an entirely different issue.
 
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#2,397
GreenGO Juan said:
Your semi psychotic screeching doesn’t suit you. Try a different approach.

You suffer from a severe case of TDS.

Seek help my friend
Click to expand...
No screech. I replied to and countered a statement. It is the core purpose of a discussion forum. You might wanna "give it a shot" some day and try to venture beyond simplistic insults. ;)
 
#2,400
Malum Prohibitum said:
Why do you say it has nothing to do with OPEC increasing production? It has everything to do with that - 400,000 barrels a day increase, implemented way ahead of plan. OPEC wants oil too cheap for US producers to drill, baby, drill. OPEC will cut back supply again once another Democrat is in the White House.
Click to expand...

What is our tarrif on OPEC's oil?

Maybe we could subsidise domestic production, our guys could use the work.

It is all a cesspool of smoke, mirrors and lies.
 
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