roguetechie

No, it's not
 
Now as to the question you're really asking judging by the next page and a half of thread, former four star Generals are people who you definitely shouldn't blindly respect either.
 
I mean, is what is going on right now incredibly disturbing because we see as many "high level people" talking the way they're talking right now?
 
Fuck yes!
 
The rule of law, the status quo, and the social contract have all catastrophically failed and the fucking rats are trying to position themselves as best as they can for whatever comes next based on the information they have available to them and the former allies they believe that they can still trust at least marginally.
 
Now, the rest of the world laughing at us though.... Who the fuck cares? They're more inept corrupt unable to function and hypocritical than we ever thought of being! (That's definitely a bad thing mind you, the world is circling the toilet bowl I'll give you that)
 
But seriously here, the brush you're painting Trump with really has far more to do with the stereotypical American total lack of awareness about foreign politics, political figures, and scandals being used as a sadly effective weapon against a sitting president by persons with their own agendas!
 
I mean for the love of fuck Walter... Really?
 
British politics= sodomy with a side of snobbery
 
French politics= blowjobs between bouts of nepotism
 
Don't even make me bring up India or fucking Germany here! Holy fuck!
 
When you have a combination of unreasonable expectations and a lack of general awareness about politics other places, yeah trump might look like an unmitigated disaster and profound embarrassment to the nation.
 
But honestly, I'd hoped more people could figure out that if Trump was ACTUALLY that much of an anomaly in those circles he never would have gotten in! (Silly me I also hoped said people would then start asking pointed questions about just what the fuck is going on in the beltway and board rooms of our media companies, so I guess we've all been making stupid ass assumptions about the intellectual capacity and curiosity of the American public... C'est la guerre and all that shit)

No, it's not
 
Now as to the question you're really asking judging by the next page and a half of thread, former four star Generals are people who you definitely shouldn't blindly respect either.
 
I mean, is what is going on right now incredibly disturbing because we see as many "high level people" talking the way they're talking right now?
 
Fuck yes!
 
The rule of law, the status quo, and the social contract have all catastrophically failed and the fucking rats are trying to position themselves as best as they can for whatever comes next based on the information they have available to them and the former allies they believe that they can still trust at least marginally.
 
Now, the rest of the world laughing at us though.... Who the fuck cares? They're more inept corrupt unable to function and hypocritical than we ever thought of being! (That's definitely a bad thing mind you, the world is circling the toilet bowl I'll give you that)
 
But seriously here, the brush you're painting Trump with really has far more to do with the stereotypical American total lack of awareness about foreign politics, political figures, and scandals being used as a sadly effective weapon against a sitting president by persons with their own agendas!
 
I mean for the love of fuck Walter... Really?
 
British politics= sodomy with a side of snobbery
 
French politics= blowjobs between bouts of nepotism
 
Don't even make me bring up India or fucking Germany here! Holy fuck!
 
When you have a combination of unreasonable expectations and a lack of general awareness about politics other places, yeah trump might look like an unmitigated disaster and profound embarrassment to the nation.
 
But honestly, I'd hoped more people could figure out that if Trump was ACTUALLY that much of an anomaly in those circles he never would have gotten in! (Silly me I also hoped said people would then start asking pointed questions about just what the fuck is going on in the beltway and board rooms of our media companies, so I guess we've all been making stupid ass assumptions about the intellectual capacity and curiosity of the American public... C'est la guerre and all that shit)

As always, the first thing to understand with President Trump is that these are negotiations. He's a negotiator. And I read these tariffs as an opening salvo to get politicians from these various countries to the negotiating table, preferably separately where we as the US have the advantage and not as a trade bloc. There are different strategies to open negotiations, and this is the classic ask twice as much as you want opening gambit.
 
Tariffs helped build American industry, starting from America's founding through the 19th Century Industrial Revolution and into the 20th Century, the "American Century". If we didn't have tariffs, we'd still be exporting cotton and raw materials to Liverpool in return for finished goods. As it is, thanks to the bean-counters and the politicians whom they've bought off since the 1990s, America has been reduced to exporting raw materials to China in return for finished goods. History has not been kind to countries in that predicament.
 
Of course the economists and bean-counters who are outsourcing jobs and factories overseas think they're immune to the lessons of history.
 
Back on subject, another advantage to domestic steel and aluminum production is an environmental one. American factories and foundries are by orders of magnitude cleaner than their Chinese and Indian counterparts. Environmentalists like to talk a big game about saving the planet by shutting down steel plants in Pittsburg and coal mines in West Virginia but all they've done is just out-sourced pollution to China (and India) who give zero fucks about poisoning their rivers and air. In countries with 1.5 billion people apiece, life is cheap.
 
When you think about it, it makes absolutely zero sense from an environmental standpoint to transport scrap metal and coal across the country - past shuttered factories and steel plants - to Seattle and other West Coast ports in order to load them onto cargo ships in order to ship it across the Pacific to China where it has to be offloaded, shipped to foundries and factories, repackaged as finished goods, reloaded into shipping containers, sent back across the Pacific to Seattle and other West Coast ports in order to then ship the goods back across the United States.
 
Another factor is quality of the product. Chinese steel is absolute garbage, as are the mechanical parts and tools made from it. Anyone who has had any experience with construction or mechanical parts made from Chinese steel knows this. Which is why it is zero surprise that the guy sitting in the Oval Office who made his fortune building skyscrapers, hotels, resorts, and casinos using steel doesn't want the country solely dependent on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. Donald Trump's schtick as an eccentric billionaire is that he hob-nobs with his construction workers, hard-hatted guys named Eddie and Vinny and Tony who work with their hands and who aren't afraid to tell their boss "Hey, Donald, dis steel we're getting ain't no gud". 
 
It's the difference of buying something "cheap" at Walmart, knowing you'll have to throw it away after a couple months versus dropping a little bit extra on a quality item that can last years (or a lifetime). Take the Craftsman tool line for instance. Craftsman used to put out a good made in USA product that was affordable and which would theoretically last a lifetime. And if it didn't, you returned the tool for a new one, no questions asked. Well, just like everything, the Craftsman line got sold off piecemeal by Sears in a blatant profit grab by its corporate board, the tools are now made in China, with a joke of a warranty, and the things fall apart after one or two uses. I had to buy a ratchet set once upon a time after this happened and the thing fell apart in my hands while I was working on my 'Stang.
 
Of course economists, bean-counters, and politicians who have never gotten their hands dirty in their life and who don't know how to even change their oil, let alone an alternator, or a battery, or a fuel pump don't understand or care. And the crazy thing is, these "cheap" Chinese parts which are supposed to be so much affordable than American aren't even cheap. Look up the price of a Chinese made car battery. It's ridiculous. 
 
Finally, in my TLDR post, there is the trickle-down effect of protecting American manufacturing jobs. It is written in stone as part of the Republican Ten Commandments that tax cuts are GOOD, and trickle-down economics works, so if you give a tax break to the rich (and middle class) this will help the economy since folks will spend money and yada yada. 
 
So it is always confusing that the biggest proponents of trickle-down economics, the sort of guys who jerk off each evening to a picture of milton Friedman, HATE tariffs. They're the sort who'd sell out their country and fellow citizens in order to save twenty bucks on a flat screen TV. 
 
What is ignored, is the societal costs of not having a thriving industrial base. Particularly in a continental power of 310 million people. We're not Norway or Portugal or Austria who can get by on a one-trick economic pony, relying on oil profits, or wine, or exporting Austrian economic theories to gullible Libertarians. The US economy has to be multi-faceted because of the diaspora of our population across multiple climatic and economic zones. 
 
If I have to spend $10 extra dollars on an American made washing machine so my fellow American in Scranton can have a good job, that means I'm not sending $20 dollars to the state and federal government to pay for that man's food stamps and welfare checks. If that man has a good job, it means his son and daughter are all the more likely to get a good upbringing and good education. If that man doesn't have a job it means he's more likely to divorce his wife. it means his son is more likely to engage in a life of crime. That son will rob from me. I have to pay for a police officer to arrest him,  two lawyers to defend and prosecute him, and money to jail him.  It means his daughter will be all that more likely to have kids out of wedlock herself. Or get an abortion.
 
And what slays me is that many of the same people who oppose protecting American industry, great "thinkers" like William Kristol, or the brainiacs at National Review, or Ben Shapiro who's never worked a real job in his life, all profess to be good, godly Christians (or Orthodox Jews) who are so holy and saintly. And yet when it comes to American manufacturing jobs, these guys are like the shitters in an online video game telling their team to "Git gud". As if everyone wants to spend six figures on a college education so they can sit in a cubicle typing code the rest of their lives.
 
Of course the real reason the aforementioned intellectuals who are so much smarter than everyone else hate blue collar manufacturing jobs is because those people voted for Donald Trump.
 
(Gotta go IRL) Finally, there is the very real "multiplier effect" of manufacturing jobs. The sort of men (and women) who work at a factory tend to have a more positive effect on the economy.  Even the raving liberals at HuffPo seem to feel that way.
 
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-jasinowski/jobs-multiplier_b_4002113.html

Not only that, he was fired two days before he would have earned a pension!

Tor-M2KM as separate module

Gotta say, for a premium gun, this much discontinuity in the rail is a bit concerning:
 

The quality of Soviet maskirovka has fallen off quite a bit lately...

Amateurs... You're not supposed to get all the way undressed, if she's more than a C cup or less than 4 inches shorter than you wear combat boots for extra pedal reach, and it's really best if she can bump shift with her elbow while facing backwards if you're going to do it in a manual transmission car.

WHY THE FUCK NOT?
 
Can you just IMAGINE the potential comedy value that could come from this?!

Syrian Air Defence Forces.....We finally hit one! 

I am inclined to believe roguetechie's engineering commentary concerning improvised drug paraphrenalia. 

That Tucker Carlson thing was unbelievably bizarre, I could not disagree with or roll my eyes at a single thing he said.
 
What strange land is this where people like this are the last public voices of reason we have left?

That Tucker Carlson thing was unbelievably bizarre, I could not disagree with or roll my eyes at a single thing he said.
 
What strange land is this where people like this are the last public voices of reason we have left?

It's not at all uncommon to find the same evidence of extensive hand fitting in WW2 German aircraft, that one finds in their armor.  Lots of hand labelled switches, interior markings, and signs of "good enough" engineering.
While in U.S. aircraft, you find standardized switches, control layouts, lighting equipment, etc across types and makers, with the level of fit and finish expected of a highly industrialized nation.
 
Yeah, there is that whole "Oh but dere stuff wuz"..
Frankly, a lot of their stuff was shit.

The homeless people in Portland have nicer paraphernalia than that...
 
Matter of fact, if you offered a homeless person in Portland a hit off either of those they'd probably say something like "here bro let's just use mine"...
 
They'd feel bad for you for having such shabby paraphernalia and let you smoke some of their weed instead because you are obviously disadvantaged or mentally handicapped.
 
 

When you want Kriss Vector, but have only a Glock

 

I think he was insinuating that the leaks could have been the result of an infestation of bugs Don.

Woman gouges out own eyes in front of church
 
Why do I feel like this is the start of a Supernatural episode...
 

I think that's a galil in 7.62 NATO that's been tinkered with some

One thing I noticed from talking to my own Grandpa who was an aircraft mechanic on a carrier in the Pacific, when I'd ask him about what kinda planes he worked on etc he'd always say oh that was a long time ago I don't remember the designations now...
 
The man kept a few foot lockers with I swear to god every manual he could get his hands on very carefully stored in his closet and his navy service paperwork locked in a drawer in his desk.
 
For some reason he'd tell you little things here and there but not go into detail.
 
And just by having known him and done untold hundreds of projects with him I can safely say he very likely still could have worked on those airplanes without much needing to even consult all those manuals he meticulously saved.
 
The one thing he would share though is that they believed in what they were doing and did everything they could to do their jobs to the absolute best of their abilities.
 
I can't really imagine that people with this kind of attitude would not use such a potentially valuable device, but I can fully see them for whatever reason not talking about it years or decades later to historians etc.

Stop thinking and fully accept the narrative on the memo that you want to be true
 

Wait you mean literally everything we've been getting called retarded conspiracy theorists for believing in the whole time that has actually been looked into honestly has turned out to be true?
 
Go mothafuckin figure...
 
And oh holy shit I hope at least some of it was lies and statistically completely unlikely misunderstandings.
 
More than that though, the way I see it is that at this point the real problem going forward is that something absolutely needs to get done about this now...
 
The people who got behind this and supported the people doing the digging to get this information are just really not the people you want to dickslap in the forehead with an utter lack of action on this. To put it mildly, they are just really NOT the people you want to suddenly decide the social contract really is null and void.
 
And that my friends is why all this shit pisses me off so much! These fucks like pelosi Obama McCain and Clinton are so fucking ignorant overconfident and arrogant that they really think they can amateur hour shit like this and get caught occasionally and not rip the fucking country to pieces in the process!
 
Actually truthfully they give no fucks if they rip the country apart as a result of their bullshit because as far as they're concerned if they can't sit in the big chairs they want this bitch burned to the ground!
 
Like I said, the real problem now is that something actually has to happen to deal with this fucking mess and I'm not terribly convinced that anyone is ready for the true ramifications of all this.

Right after the FBI director read Nunes’s memo.