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Ted Cruz Proposes Reviving SDI To Counter N. Korean Nuclear Threat (blastingnews.com)
MarkWhittington writes: One of the more substantive issues that was discussed during the Republican presidential debate in Detroit concerned the latest threat to come out of North Korea. That country's mad, bad, and dangerous to know leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered his nuclear arsenal prepared and is firing missiles in the vicinity of Japan. The United States and South Korea have started military maneuvers, partly as a result of North Korea's actions. Discussions on deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea have also become urgent. Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas would go one step further. He proposed reviving the idea of space-based missile defenses that were part of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative.
You don't know what "bankrupt" means. It refers to liquidity; you are bankrupt when you can no longer meet your current obligations, which the US government has never been close to.
You also seem to be of the delusion that the US spends a lot of money on public assistance. It spends very little. For what we paid for the Iraq war (not including nation building expenses) we could fund US public assistance programs at the current levels for 219 years.
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my guess is you weren't involved in the last SDI development effort.
just contractors lining up at the trough. an unequivocal waste. they tried to
keep it open for as long as they could after notable people came out and
said it will never be useful, but they had to shut off the spigot eventually.
Except your wrong
Nevermind that public assistance isn't only an expense, it also boosts the economy and eases the burden on hospitals because people can afford to eat and heat their homes so they don't get sick.
The Iraq war tally will easily reach 6 trillion plus we have a ton of Veterans we aren't taking care of which is costing more and more money to deal with. But by all means, let's keep making more veterans, put more people needlessly into harms way to accomplish what?
Weapons got us into this mess, if we hadn't armed people during Iran Contra there would be a hell of a lot less weapons in the area and if we hadn't toppled the democratically elected Iran the whole region would be a lot more stable.
I have no idea why Reagan is held up as some kind of standard for Presidents. From what I can tell he united Germany, that was about it from what he did that was good. I'm sure there is more but trickle down economics started with him which was horrible, he helped solve Childhood hunger but then cut taxes so we couldn't afford it anymore. He removed our ability to deduct credit card interest rates on taxes. I would say he probably started the battle with the middle class.
You also seem to be of the delusion that the US spends a lot of money on public assistance. It spends very little. For what we paid for the Iraq war (not including nation building expenses) we could fund US public assistance programs at the current levels for 219 years.
That is rubbish.
Two-Thirds of All Federal Spending Went to Entitlement Programs in 2014
Federal Spending by the Numbers, 2014: Government Spending Trends in Graphics, Tables, and Key Points
Share of 2013 Spending
23.55% Social Security
18.33% National Defense
15.53% Income Security
14.41% Medicare
10.37% Health
06.39% Net Interest
04.02% Veterans Benefits and Services
02.65% Transportation
- truncated -
The US spends a great deal on public assistance / social welfare. The additional spending for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was a minor portion of the defense budget, and was dwarfed by social welfare spending every year. And please note that this is only Federal spending. States, counties, and cities also have their own budgets for social welfare spending.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I don't know what alternate reality you're living in. Social Security and Medicare are not Welfare.
I pay into Social Security and Medicare. While there's some small chance I may be deluding myself that I will ever get any of that money back, I am paying into it with the expectation that I will actually be getting it back. Some day when I start to draw Social Security, I will do it knowing that I paid for it.
You're truth needs a reality check.
Well, to answer your question literally, we'd have to go back to the 1930s, but that's skewed by the Great Depression, so let's look at Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs.
In 1959 the poverty rate for blacks was about 55%. Ten years later it was just over 30%. The poverty rates for whites + hispanics was about 17% in 1959, and about 10% ten years later.
Now saying the Great Society reduced poverty is post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. We can't know that for sure. But the one thing we can conclude is that the public assistance programs of the 1960s didn't mire people in government dependency -- at least most people who were targeted. It's conceivable that this may have happened to some people, just as some people are injured by vaccines.
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Your NY Times reference appears to be be disagreeing with you. You are technically correct in that there were things that could be called chemical weapons in Iraq, but "All munitions found were left over from pre-1991 Iraqi program". Many of the reports about these weapons were very clear that they were in no way serviceable, and were so dangerous to handle that they were often incinerated on-site to reduce the danger to those handling them.
That link says nothing about Iraq having the ability to ramp up production, and I have never seen any evidence that that was so. There is no denying that Sadam talked about wanting/having it, but that was just talk (and many intelligence agencies said so). And the Bush administration's main justification for going to war was that they had an active program (no evidence at the time, and we now know they did not), with some vague references to them talking to terrorists (al-Qaeda specifically) with the idea that Iraq would be arming them. At the time it was known that there had been a meeting, but all of the intelligence agencies were pretty sure that despite having common enemies, the two groups despised each other on basic grounds (e.g. the Suni vs. Shia strife that is playing out now).
No one is ever going to argue that Sadam Husain was a good man or leader, nor that his son's were going to be when he passed the reign over. But he was holding Iraq together (brutally), and without major civilian casualties. We destroyed the military that was holding it together, and then disbanded all of the local police forces on the theory that they were loyal to the previous regime. Only counting the first 4 years the estimates in Iraq are between 151,000 to over a million civilian deaths. If we had not invaded, those would not have happened.
There was really nothing for us to accomplish in Iraq, and the only thing we did was to open up a cesspool and set fire to the middle east for the next generation or so.
The SS receipts aren't general revenue despite the fact that politicians have played fast and loose with the rules over the years.
And lets not forget that Bush had a hard on for getting Iraq, someway, somehow.
Security briefing on day 1 of Bush's presidency: "How do we get Iraq?"
Security briefing on 9/11 attacks: "Can we use this to get Iraq?"
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
http://www.timelines.ws/countr...
1/30/01
Saddam's removal is top item of Bush's inaugural national security meeting. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill later recalls, "It was all about finding a way to do it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'" [Date the public knew: 1/10/04]
8/10/01
Major air raid on Iraq. (air defense installations destroyed)
Sep 2001
Curveball granted German asylum, ceases cooperating. British spy agency MI6 has told CIA that "elements of [his] behavior strike us as typical offabricators." [Date the public knew: 11/20/05]
9/11/01
Al Qaeda attacks. Minutes taken by a Rumsfeld aide five hours later: "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]." [Date the public knew: 9/4/02]
9/12/01
According to counterterror czar Richard Clarke, "[Bush] told us, 'I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this.'" Told evidence against Al Qaeda overwhelming, Bush asks for "any shred" Saddam was involved. [Date the public knew: 3/22/04]
9/20/01
British PM Tony Blair advises Bush not to lose focus on Al Qaeda. Bush replies: "I agree with you, Tony. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq." [Date the public knew: 5/1/04]
9/20/01
PNAC letter to Bush: "Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power." [Date the public knew: 9/21/01]
11/21/01
Bush collars Rumsfeld physically and asks: "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret."—Bob Woodward. [Date the public knew: 4/18/04]
12/9/01
Cheney on Meet the Press: "Well, the evidence is pretty conclusive that the Iraqis have indeed harbored terrorists." Also claims 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi spy in Prague, a claim he'll repeat long after CIA and Czechs disavow.
12/12/01
Rumsfeld demands plan for war against Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks proposes softening up Iraq: "I'm thinking in terms of spikes, Mr. Secretary. Spurts of activity followed by periods of inactivity." [Date the public knew: 8/3/04]
12/28/01
Gen. Franks briefs Bush on Iraq war plans. [Date the public knew: 3/5/03]
Feb 2002
"I was asked by one of the senior commanders of Central Command to go into his office. We did, the door was closed, and he turned to me, and he said, 'Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.'"—Sen. Bob Graham. [Date the public knew: 3/26/04]
March 2002
"Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."—Bush to Rice and three senators. [Date the public knew: 12/8/03]
3/13/02
Bush on Osama: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
3/22/02
Downing Street memo: "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaida is so far frankly unconvincingWe are still left with a problem of bringing public opinion to accept the imminence of a threat from IraqRegime change does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." [Date the public knew: 9/18/04]
3/24/02
Saddam "is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time."—Cheney on CNN
3/25/02
Downing Str
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.