News –> Pentagon will start calling lawmakers Wed whose milcon projects will be delayed because $$ for them will go to Trump's border wall https://t.co/b5vjwKP8LJ
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 3, 2019
Trump is literally stealing money from the military for the sole purpose of being able to stand up at a rally and say, “The wall is being built.” And hope nobody asks how much of it.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 4, 2019
SupPport My OuR tROOPS!!! Even the Repubs aren’t buying this feral hog in a poke. Per Politico, “Trump defends cash grab for border projects as lawmakers lash out”:
… Defense Secretary Mark Esper informed congressional leaders on Tuesday of the cash grab from more than 100 military projects — such as upgrading military bases both at home and abroad — that will now be used to build a wall along the southern U.S. border. The move prompted an immediate uproar from lawmakers, who cried foul that the president had infringed on Congress’ appropriation authority.
Of the $1.08 billion in cuts coming from military facilities inside 23 U.S. states, 55 percent came from states Hillary Clinton won, versus 45 percent from states won by Trump, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Hardest hit was New York, where $160 million that was expected to go towards updating the engineering center and a parking structure at the U.S. Military Academy is being diverted…
(A whole bunch of red-state moms with kids in high school are currently screaming at their local reps, because West Point is a biiig draw for aspiring STEM students whose parents can’t afford to get them into Stanford.)
… Asked by reporters what he told members of Congress who would see projects in their districts affected by the diversion of funds, Trump said Wednesday he had delegated that task to Esper, who had “very good conversations” with “various” members, the president said.
“I didn’t tell [them] anything,” he said of the move. “The secretary of Defense spoke with members of Congress and explained it to them and I think he felt very good about it.” …
Preznit Toddler-in-Chief: Blames the stolen cookies on the dog Secretary.
And, of course:
… The cuts would fall even harder on two U.S. territories: Puerto Rico, which stands to lose $403 million worth of projects, and Guam, which would lose $257 million. Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria’s devastation in 2017 — and its government has come under repeated criticism from Trump, who denounced it last week as “one of the most corrupt places on earth” even as the island was facing a lashing from Hurricane Dorian.
The five projects in Puerto Rico are primarily to rebuild after severe damage from Hurricane Maria, a senior defense official said…
$10 million from cyber operations and $26 million from warship maintenance. Good thing there hasn't been a spate of cyber attacks against US infrastructure. Or for that matter we haven't had any lethal collisions involving Navy Destroyers that nearly sank. https://t.co/OpXDAbgDq8
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 4, 2019
New –> Here's the full list obtained by the Post of military projects (domestic and overseas) losing $$ due to Trump's border wall https://t.co/lDPvWZLmqG
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 4, 2019
I once repurposed some excess funds we had earmarked for Ebola-related contingencies to buy blankets and cooking fuel for refugees fleeing the Islamic State and had to get four separate congressional committees to sign off on it before I could spend a dollar. https://t.co/GDuOMOTH38
— Andrew Exum (@ExumAM) September 4, 2019
To be clear, this is a career civilian using a Marine catchphrase to celebrate the pilfering of funds from the military to fund a giant, useless monument to racism. https://t.co/sQmqg8YZEw
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 4, 2019
Why doesn’t he just go with the Sharpie Solution?
Wall = done, losers pic.twitter.com/pfruHKynp0
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) September 4, 2019
Raven
Fucking with Tyndall, good those redneck motherfuckers in Panama City deserve it. When we were down there he gave that speech and there were signs every 20ft “Save Tyndall”!
raven
Jeffro
Here’s what I put up on FB and also emailed to my RWNJ dad and bro:
Tell me the downside of blasting this news to the highest hilltops…THERE IS NONE! Go Dems, go!
?BillinGlendaleCA
Stanford has an Engineering School? Who knew?
HumboldtBlue
Just found this video of Trump trying to explain Hurricane Dorian.
Dark Knight may play a role, jus’ sayin’.
I think the Sharpie fence is a winner as well.
Then the Emus with Sharpie arms can be penned in for public safety reasons
Jeffro
You know, the other thing that might be worth beating on Repubs is…this is some pretty nickel-and-dime petty shit going on. Taking $10M from cyber operations to – what? – build about 200 yds of border fence? I thought the barbarian hordes and CAHRAVANS! were just about to overrun our pos here…if it’s such a crisis, doesn’t it deserve a big ol’ war tax and the immediate war footing of all our heavy industry? COOOAL! STEEEEEEL! C’mon, trumpov, you aren’t even playing the villain right, you’re just fucking lazy as always.
Duane
@Jeffro: Run government like a business HA! A business taking from one department to pay for another is a failing business. Looks like Mr. Big shot businessman is going bankrupt.
ETA: LIAR!
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
No one outside of Palo Alto.
No one outside of Palo Alto.
SFAW
@Duane:
They “forgot” to mention that the business they were modeling after was either Enron, or Charles Ponzi Investments.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: Heh!
Duane
@SFAW: Makes Bernie Madoff look like a panhandler. When Trumpov steals he does it to the people with guns. That some high-level theivery.
zhena gogolia
Wow, this thread about the House Dems strategy has me all excited.
https://twitter.com/blakesmustache/status/1166338399642558465
Jeffro
I’m seriously going to pound Republican “fiscal conservatives” and “libertarians” until the day I die about how trumpov literally ‘trumps’ every complaint they might have about a Democrat with the possible exception of eating babies on live TV – ok, any of THAT, and yeah I’ll vote for the Republican too. But seriously?
– strong on defense? Gotta vote Democrat.
– fiscal sanity? Gotta vote Democrat
– respect for our Constitution? Dems
– respect for our military? Dems
– sensible/sane foreign policy…respected around the world? Dems
– not in it to line their own pockets? Dems
it just goes on and on. A Dem VP going out of his way to stay at his president*s hotel (JESUS-EVENJIMMYCARTERHADTOPUTTHEFAMILYPEANUTFARMINTOABLINDTRUST!!!!!1!!) on a foreign junket? Um yeah, I don’t think you get to bang on Dems for staying at a friend’s house on Martha’s Vineyard anymore, GOP jackasses.
mad citizen
I know it’s much smaller potatoes, but still naked corruption, let’s not lose sight of the Barr/ Pence corruption:
In the mafia, there is a name for what Pence and Barr did
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/04/opinions/pence-barr-money-trumps-pocket-honig/index.html
I’ll be interested to see how much money the Pence party spent at the Trump Ireland place, and what he spent to reimburse for his family (although that is probably determined by government rules)
TenguPhule
In other words Donald Trump has successfully stolen the power of the purse from Congress.
And yet he still won’t be impeached.
Pretty soon Congress is going to find out that they’ve lost any remaining effective power in the federal system.
FelonyGovt
This is a disgrace. And you knew he would take more from blue states than red because he has never pretended to be president of the whole country.
TenguPhule
@zhena gogolia: The fatal flaw in the cunning plan is the assumption we still have effective institutions by the time they try to finally pull the trigger.
Jinchi
No need. He’s “self-impeaching”.
Redshift
In a sane world, this would destroy any reputation the GOP has for being strong in defense or “supporting the troops.”
But here in the darkest timeline, as soon as a Democrat is in charge, we’ll again hear all about how they’re the ones who can be trusted on defense (and care about deficits, of course.)
chris
Wait, the Pentagon couldn’t find a few billion in the couch? Is this the same Pentagon that vaporised a trillion dollars not so long ago? Hell, they could cancel a couple of F35s for this, but instead they’re going to cancel a daycare centre.
Jinchi
We already lived this story. Republicans started blaming Obama for the world economic collapse months before he took office.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has dithered for over two years and they’ve replaced maybe 75 miles of existing fencing. Now he wants to grab land illegally and rush to throw up hundreds more miles of the stuff. Isn’t the border 2000 miles long? The lawsuits write themselves.
Just another article of impeachment…
Duane
@FelonyGovt: Enjoy watching Moscow Mitch and other Senate repub’s sit there and take it like the worthlessness they are. Not a pair amongst the miserable bunch of cowards.
Jeffro
@Jinchi
To be fair, Obama was president on 9/11 and possibly also during Pearl Harbor, in a retro-Democratic-culpability kind of way. Plus the Great Depression.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: I thought that 9/11 was in Bill Clinton’s 3rd term.
chris
Cybercommand too? The thinkering is strong. But stupid. I’m pleased that my government has a better idea.
Duane
@Jeffro: It all adds up. Obama had been to New York, was born in Hawaii, read books about the depression and is a Democrat. Even worse he had the nerve to exist.
No Republican could tolerate the outrage.
Jeffro
@?BillinGlendaleCA: See, that’s just #FakeNews… Bill Clinton caused the 70’s oil crisis and was also there when Jimi…and Janis…(sob)…I can’t go on…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: Can we borrow yours, ya see we need to build this wall…
chris
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Real time testing coming right up. Call back in November, we’ll let you know if it worked.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Aah, shit, I’ve been saying for a while that Judge Crater’s disappearance was Hillary’s doing. The Hindenburg, too.
Kai-two
Gosh, I wonder what the chances are that democrat lawmakers will be disproportionately affected?
Jeffro
@SFAW: TOTALLY Hillary’s fault, both of them. I think she put the Judge ON the Hindenburg to cover all that shit up.
kindness
You know what’s coming next right? Republicans will propose to backfill the transferred money and when Democrats refuse Republicans will run on Democrats trying to weaken the military. Of course they will.
The MSM will eat it up of course.
Origuy
@Jeffro: He was there when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, made damned sure that Pilate washed his hands, sealed his fate.