Senate The US Politics discussion

Can't wait for the 19th so this nonsense can be over. Trump is going to be president.

 

I am afraid you are in for disappointment on the former point. Trump will be sworn in come January, but that nonsense you refer to won't suddenly go away with it. As John Paul Jones said: "I have not yet begun to fight". And that is what you can expect from myself and every American who will not give Trump so much as an inch for the next 4 years. His first 100 days will not be a breeze given most of his Cabinet is unqualified and so Democrats will grill them in hearings for as long as they are able. Nor should you expect calls for his impeachment to stop starting from the moment he is sworn in up until he runs for re-election. And of course, expect many to claim he is not the legitimate president given his popular vote loss and the way he and the GOP attempted to de-legitimize Obama and how they were preparing to do the same for Hillary. So yeah, get ready for a lot of nonsense from both sides for the next four years.

 

Why has nobody seen this Trump guy's birth certificate? Something... fishy... is going on, there is something going on. I have sent investigators to New York to look into this, and let me tell you, they can not believe what they're finding, they cannot believe it.

Also, what is this church he's part of? Presbyterian, what is that? I just don't know about them. Have you heard about them? I don't know about them. I don't know.

And have you seen the picture of Donald Trump's father having lunch with crazy Lee Oswald? That guy shot JFK, I'm just saying. I mean, I'm just mentioning it, I don't know Donald Trump's father, I've met him once, he seemed like a nice guy.

 

one thing I really liked that Obama did was start the peace process with Cuba! The possibilities looked endless, Cuban Baseball players coming to America legally, Cuban Cigars, and so much more! sadly with Trump as president I feel like we go 1,000 steps backwards in the peace process with Cuba. heck I could see Trump Nuking Cuba

 

It made a lot of sense considering the overall likelihood of Castro dying while Obama was in office. It almost didn't happen, but at least the president laid the groundwork for the incoming president to undo it all through some ill-considered tweet or by putting a bunch of political novices in charge of managing diplomacy.

 

Trump wants to cancel Boeing's Air Force One contract. Makes sense. He can't paint TRUMP over it.

 

He released it in 2013

 

My dads of the mindset he doesn't care if Trump really messes up because the people who voted for him will get what they deserve. I kind of agree with him. I think when it is all said and done people are really going to miss Obama.

 

But not the long form.

 

I'm torn.

Apparently he's canceling it because they've gone way over budget? I like that idea. No more crazy spending like with the Osprey or F-35 disasters. If only those were canceled early and for good. I like the idea of a President actually being frugal. I like the populist idea of a President not wanting any extra spending done for his personal sake, though I have no reason to believe this of Trump, it is the opposite of his reputation, and his personal plane is quite extravagant. But if he wants to use his own plane, that might be fine with me. No taxpayer funded upgrades, though. You're not upgrading your plane on our dime. If that's what he's thinking, then he's just as corrupt as I thought.

But, I have no idea if he even knows what the hell he's talking about. Is it even over budget? Where is he getting his numbers? And what the hell does he know about building planes as sophisticated as Air Force One? Air Force One, while extravagant, is also very good at what it does, and what it does is very useful and important. It's one of those expenses I don't mind. We don't want to lose our President in a plane crash the way Poland did.

 

He's not making any sacrifices, the order is to be delivered in 2024. And the Secret Service has recommended exchanging them anyway, because the now 30 year old machines are increasingly harder to maintain as they get older. It has gone over budget, but it's an expense that must be made regardless.

 

Boeing has to deliver the Air Force Ones; there's not another American plane manufacturer. Whether they replace them or not is one thing, but Boeing'll be it...

 

not true.

Behold: the new Air Force One. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_208_Caravan

This can be modified for mid-air refueling at a cost of only $3 billion.

 

Even if he's making future presidents make sacrifices, it's still the same idea.

Must the expense be made? Are there no other options? Can it be done cheaper, with something else, or by someone else?

But I appreciate the value of Air Force One far more than, say, the Osprey or the F-35. If it's only over budget by a little bit in relative terms, then that's fine. **** happens with stuff this advanced. These planes are cutting edge, with all kinds of cool **** installed. Air Force One is like the James Bond of planes.

Really? What about Lockheed? (the producer of the...F-35)

Gulfstream?

No, Cessna! lol

I don't really know, I haven't kept up on this subject.

 

The parties at the state level chose a slate of electors, both democratic and republican. The electors are party people. Whichever party carries the state, that parties' slate of electors are apportioned to their candidate.

Even if some do defect form Trump, they are party loyalists and will not back HRC. This man simply wants Kasich or another Republican alternative.

That's why all of this is simply perfunctory.

 

He doesn't.

Trump pulled the "4 billion" out of his ass. The two new Air Force Ones are 1.65 billion in total. The man is just a pathological liar.

 

I just read an article on it before I saw it mentioned here. I'm just going off what I read there. The article mentioned that it has been recommended that the presidential planes be exchanged for two reasons. 1: Their technology is getting outdated. What specific technology and why it's important was not mentioned. 2: They are aging and will have been in service for 34 years by the time they're scheduled to be decommissioned, in 2024, which makes upkeep increasingly harder.

The ones currently flying were ordered by the Reagan administration, and were put in service in 1990.

Whether or not it can be done cheaper, I have no way of knowing. But as with any equipment, the need for upgrades is a given, so the expense is one that inevitably has to be made at some point. And as mentioned, it has been recommended that they be swapped sooner rather than later.

 

It's in the WaPost.

The entire cost of the program, including development costs, is expected to reach $4 billion, according an analysis by Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ne-should-be-canceled/?utm_term=.f20c94ab37fc

 

I've noticed that pessimistic candidates always loose. Hubert "There's still work to be done in Vietnam" Humphrey, Jimmy "Wear a sweater" Carter, Walter "Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I" Mondale, Michael "Don't read my lips" Dukakis, and Hillary "Your jobs aren't coming back" Clinton.

 

They only do combat vehicles. Boeing is the only one that does passenger planes within the US for large jets. Gulfstream does jets, and Cessna do non-jets for passenger planes, but none are suitable. Remember, military passenger planes (i.e. C-32s) are essentially converted versions of B757s.

 

Surprisingly this isn't Trump's fault........but lol.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-tower-secret-service-amenities-232216

 

Hey that's not a bad selling point. I would feel pretty damn secure there if I had a lease.

 

I agree that the US military spends insane amounts of money on things they don't need that also often don't work (the last two ships the Navy has made, the Litoral Combat Ship and Zumwalt class destroyers, both not only went over budget but keep breaking down).

However, that's not the same thing as Air Force One. Unlike extra extravagant combat vessels that we don't really need, we actually do need Air Force One. It's primarily designed to protect the President and allow him or her to run the country with full intelligence and defense capabilities from the air, including in a time of crisis. That's important to the stability of the nation in a time of crisis, and isn't something I particularly want them to cut corners on.

And what are the upkeep and fuel costs of the current plane versus what those of a newer plane would be? In general, planes from 1990 are far less efficient and reliable. And that's a normal plane. I can't imagine how expensive it is to maintain both safety and current defense and intelligence tech on those planes. So yes, new planes may be an expensive buy-in, but what are the relative long-term costs? And the relative risks of malfunction? Planes don't last forever. Most major commercial airlines in the Western World won't fly planes built in 1990 anymore. We shouldn't be trusting our President's life and the running of our government to an old plane either.

I also can't help but laugh at the fact that Trump wants to spend $10-20 billion on a wall that will do absolutely nothing to improve national security, but doesn't want to spend $4 billion on planes that actually do protect our executive branch and allow national security continue in a time of crisis.



I think someone else had the right of it, though: I fully expect Trump's next point to be, "the government should just let me upgrade my plane instead. It will be much cheaper." Which first of all would serve to remind that his idea of "nice" is just garish 80s opulence that modern luxury airlines would laugh at. But, more importantly, would show how little he understands about anything to do with security and running the government. Air Force One isn't expensive because of gold trimmed seats or whatever crap Donald's plane has; its expensive because of the high tech security and comms tech it has. And I can almost guarantee that experts would not consider Trump's own old plane remotely fit to be retrofitted with those piece of tech. For one thing, Air Force one actually has maneuverability that no other plane has. That's not something you can just retrofit into a plane. That has to do with the design of the plane from the ground up.

I appreciate real frugality in the government, because we do waste way too much money on nonsense. But coming from the guy who is making New York spend now half a million dollars a day so that he can work out of Trump tower, and so his family can stay there instead of moving to the White House (which taxpayers already pay to keep up)? Yeah, forgive me if I don't believe this is actually about Trump wanting to do something frugal. It's almost certainly a combination of wanting good optics for his base, but probably also pushing to try to use his own plane and get it upgraded, because Air Force one isn't garish enough for him.