Politics

[Altitude sickness]

This attached clip is the current view of German prosecutors from an interview yesterday on American TV. The German government is raiding peoples homes in the middle of the night and arresting people and confiscating electronics who have said/posted/reposted something the government deems insulting. In other words the government is the determiner, judge and jury of what can be said. This is very reminiscent of Germany in the 1930's. The AFD is opposed to this. Free speech has been a western idea since before Socrates death for free speech. As an American perhaps I value this Human Right far more than Europeans and others in the west.

Jerome does a good job of allowing us to post free thoughts in this thread. Some good, some bad, some articulate, some not, some correct, some uninformed. There is no way the human species can learn, adapt, and grow without thinking out loud and sharing ideas. To share ideas one always takes the risk of insulting another, intentional or not. The members of AH do a good job of self policing. I have reposted inaccurate information before believing the source was correct. I also hold opinions contrary to the current German coalition government. If I was in Germany I could be fined and imprisoned for my views. If the AFD is the German party for free speech and more freedom for the masses, it is easy to see why they are gaining popularity. The upcoming German election will be interesting to watch unfold. We will all see which version of Germany the citizens choose to live in.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1891302425190863347

It was nice to see JD Vance call Germany out face to face.
We and all the EU nations need to squash these totalitarian government practices now.

We in the US tolerated these attacks against free speech during the Biden regime before Musk bought Twitter and exposed how intertwined the FBI, Facebook and Democrat were and operatives stomped on opposing views.

We should help the citizens of Germany escape this censorship and freedom.
Sanctions are in order.

 

[Brent in Az]

Social security admin sends out a proof of life form every year or to SS recipients.
Benefits are supposed to be cut off if the form is not filled out and returned by due date.
Recently, SSA has cut off SS benefits to expats in foreign countries who do not have a valid U.S address. It has caused quite a panic among those who rely on that monthly benefit payment to survive.

 

[Brent in Az]

Maybe Germany will revive the brown shirts...

 

[Brent in Az]

Does the U.S Navy have ship launched Missiles that can reach Tehran?

Just curious.

 

[Red Leg]

Now, if I'm not mistaken, you are a retired army general. Your war hawking is evident and you clamoring about your financial losses in the defense sector paints a vivid picture of how intertwined you are with the Military Industrial Complex.

From my point of view .3% of our GDP could be used to rehabilitate our infrastructure. $81B is nothing to sneeze at. A country as corrupt as Ukraine deserves nothing from the US. There are already treaties in place to buffer NATO countries from Russia, but people seem to forget those, otherwise there would already be a peace keeping operation in effect. Ukraine has had 33+ years to get their house in order, but they have been playing both sides and taken money from the West and Russia. Only now they are squawking when Russia comes to collect.

You yourself have all but said that Ukraine is whipping the snot out of Russia, so why is NATO and the rest of Europe even worried about a country that can't even settle up against Ukraine which is 1/4 it's population? Too much going on domestically and abroad (China) for me to even worry about a mafia guy trying to take territory from another mafia guy.

I honestly take offense to you comparing their independence to ours! I'm guessing you forgot they already gained independence in 1991 and I'd say it was a direct result of the pressure applied by the USA on the USSR during the Cold War (how much money and how many lives did the USA sacrifice for that I wonder?). It was their responsibility to have elections and keep their country intact after that, not ours. To hell with anyone that says the USA isn't doing enough now. Speaking about elections, when was the last one that Ukraine had? Who suspended the most recent one to maintain his stranglehold on the money and power he has gained? Personally, I can't wait for that pos to end up in a ditch.

You take offense, you call me names, and make assumptions about someone about whom you know nothing.

Normally, I would simply ignore such a response, but let me indulge you for a moment.

Yes, I am a retired general officer. I know of no one who abhors war more than a professional soldier. There are a number of other retired veterans here who I am certain would agree with me.

I have a very robust and diversified portfolio. Maybe as good as yours? The point I was making was that a president has the power to move markets by simply opening his mouth. I hope it is something Trump occasionally reflects upon as his term progresses.

With respect to the analogy between our revolution and Ukraine's war to maintain its independence, I am quite comfortable with the comparison and am hardly the first person to offer that observation. That it somehow offends you (exclamation point) rather than rationally discussing that comparison speaks to your issues rather than mine.

You are correct, Ukraine is indeed under martial law since the invasion. Do you honestly believe that we would hold a normal election were Chinese forces entrenched and engaged with ours while occupying the western quarter of our country?

There are no provisions of any treaty whatsoever guaranteeing Russia, much less the now defunct Soviet Union the right to have buffer states between it and NATO. None. Even Gorbachev admitted that in an interview in 2014 whatever Russian propagandists now attempt to claim.

"The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either."

Feel free to insult me as much as you wish. But I do not feel like we have any mutual ground for future dialogue.

 

[Red Leg]

Does the U.S Navy have ship launched Missiles that can reach Tehran?

Just curious.

Yes. Cruise missiles.

 

[mdwest]

Does the U.S Navy have ship launched Missiles that can reach Tehran?

Just curious.

Easily.

 

[DillonG]

 

[gbflyer]

A dear friend of mine just had two tragedies in 10 days, the loss of his spouse and the loss of his father. (Father was 95, spouse was 70ish) The mortal remains weren’t even cold yet and the auto-payment of social security benefits was cut off. The local banks immediately reversed the auto-deposits as soon as they were aware of their passing, neither have been issued death certificates yet.

The point: I find it deeply suspicious that SSA is paying out all these benefits to old people when they are incredibly vigilant to cease all payments within DAYS of passing sans a death certificate.

Unrelated, but I have another story that is first hand. I was a senior executive at a company that did all the processing for the means-test based Social Security supplemental income program. We also happened to have a database of every bank in America. We found that using simple technology, we could reject 16% of all applications for that program because they withheld accounts in their name during the application process. (Obviously to hide money which would preclude eligibility). Mind you, this wasn’t rocket science, but we’re talking about billions of dollars in benefits surely. The government was not interested in this service and would not allow us to use this simple vetting process that would reject about 1:7 of all applications automatically for cause.

Dang. It’s really changed in 12 months then. My FIL passed on Feb 9 2024. We had to call SSA after 2 months and let them know to stop sending autopay. The really scary part is that when my wife did the call, I guess they assumed she wasn’t lying about being his daughter, provided no identification or proof of legal standing, verbally gave them nothing other than his SSN, and it was a done deal. No certificate of death, nothing. It was by far the easiest part of dealing with his affairs, a cake walk compared to dealing with a financed engagement ring at Wells Fargo. hahahaha.

 

[Red Leg]

Sir, I am agreeing with you regarding Ukraine spending. Not offended in anyway, just pointing the flaw in your logic. Fact we paided more in total dollars. Saying I pay more in taxes than Warren Buffet or Elon Musk because my percentage higher is flawed logic

You literally described the accountant slight of hand, "a budgetary drill with a value assigned". With much of what we given them being at End of Life, the value could be zero, or a dollar, my point being the value is assigned based on some depreciation schedule. We could get them everything and assign a value of a dollar, we could sell them everything for a dollar. This is the accountant game, and I find it beyond frustrating since as you mention not an actual dollar is exchanging hands. I dont like how politics gets played while people die, but that is where I am bit naive.

I know of no other way to compare the budget sacrifices of Lithuania to the United States. Percentage of GDP is the only logical way of expressing that relative value of that commitment between such hugely different economies.

I am totally puzzled about what bothers you about the filling of military aid appropriations. I suppose we could transfer a billion actual dollars from the appropriation and let Ukraine transfer it back to us at 10 mil a copy or whatever the total cost is for Abrams tanks. But, is that a better management system? Or perhaps we should have contracted with GD directly for new production tanks, charging their full cost to the appropriation and thus American taxpayer? We would then add training and transportation costs on top of it.

The assigned value of the materiel is audited. I know it is popular to point out that the Pentagon can't pass an audit, but that doesn't mean the component parts of the vast defense structure aren't carefully managed. And yes, it is a fairly complex depreciation drill.

I suspect that @Mark A Ouellette could give us a tutorial of such valuation management.

 

[Hunt anything]

I feel that there is one thing missing from a lot of this Ukraine support debate. @Red Leg can verify but if I remember correctly in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of their nuclear weapons we would protect Ukraine from invasion. If this is true I feel we are obligated to help. Or it will be another broken promise from the US.

 

[YancyW]

I know of no other way to compare the budget sacrifices of Lithuania to the United States. Percentage of GDP is the only logical way of expressing that relative commitment.

I am totally puzzled about what bothers you about the filling of military aid appropriations. I suppose we could transfer a billion actual dollars from the appropriation and let Ukraine transfer it back to us at 10 mil a copy for Abrams tanks. But, is that a better management system? Should we have contracted with GD for new production tanks charging their full cost to the appropriation and thus American taxpayer?

The assigned value of the materiel is audited. I know it is popular to point out that the Pentagon can't pass an audit, but that doesn't mean the component parts of the vast defense structure aren't carefully managed. And yes, it is a fairly complex depreciation drill.

I suspect that @Mark A Ouellette could give us a tutorial of such valuation management.

But that has also happened, you can easily find it in the USAI approps packages. We absolutely paid vendors to produce equipment that went directly to Ukraine. We also used FMF to pay other NATO countries for backfilling equipment they provided to Ukraine. How much success do you think we will have on the end of use tracking for those TRTs?

 

[Wheels]

Hopefully this kind of political retaliation is a thing of the past. Reminds me of Gabbard being put on TSA watch list and Eric Adams being charged. If a person is a threat, sic a government agency on them.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1891562620466978839

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

I feel that there is one thing missing from a lot of this Ukraine support debate. @Red Leg can verify but if I remember correctly in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of their nuclear weapons we would protect Ukraine from invasion. If this is true I feel we are obligated to help. Or it will be another broken promise from the US.

Bill Clinton “agreed” to it but it was never submitted to the Senate as required under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution for official ratification.

 

[Red Leg]

But that has also happened, you can easily find it in the USAI approps packages. We absolutely paid vendors to produce equipment that went directly to Ukraine. We also used FMF to pay other NATO countries for backfilling equipment they provided to Ukraine.

Of course we did. I am clearly dense because I still do not understand your point. Some weapon systems (for instance suicide drone technology) were designed and fielded to deploy to Ukraine. That would be true of anything that we did not have in stockpile. Those development and acquisition costs would then be deducted from the Ukraine appropriations that had been approved by congress as opposed to coming out of the DOD budget.

We did indeed make arrangements with NATO partners to provide weapon systems from their inventories, Patriot and NASAMS are an example, that could be immediately deployed while we then backfilled them with either new production or our retired systems. Those values were also subtracted from the Ukraine appropriations rather than the annual DOD funding which reflected their use and deployment.

 

[CJW]

So the AFD is the party to be afraid of??? Apparently if you call a fatty fat, you'll get raided.

 

[Foxi]

Yes. That is what Trump campaigned on and shouldn't be a surprise.

Wheels,
then he first has to find a solution-the Ukrainian Rivera is guaranteed not to exist (the other one either, be realistic)

Trump was pretty clear about this in his first administration. He wants Europe to pull their weight with the NATO budget which is still not being met by most members. (Although this has improved). Trump has certainly insinuated that he may remove troops and NATO is on the table. Again, this should not be a shock to Europe.

Many large NATO states have now stepped up their efforts, giving up the transatlantic alliance? -You can't believe it-80 years Russian communists have tried to break us up.Now the Americans are doing it themselves.WOW.
Whether this is wise or not,it is a shock, in any case. It's like a father taking away his grown-up children's credit cards and now we have to leave Hotel Mama.It was comfortable for us to be protected by the USA, but to give up world power claims on a mostly peaceful, mostly prosperous continent with over 500 million inhabitants?

Trump has encouraged Europe to build up their military since 2017. Why does Europe want to rely on American soldiers being in their midst. I would think Europe would want American soldiers out of Europe.

You're wrong: the demonstrations against the Nato Double-Track Decision and against the USA were over 45 years ago

Unless they just want a free lunch.

There is something to what you say

. What country doesn't want to be as self sufficient as possible in defense of themselves. The only times you see foreign troops in a country throughout history is when that nation has been conquered. Why wouldn't Europe and it's individual nations want to have their own army and not rely on someone else.

Every country in Europe has its own army,well,the Principality of Liechtenstein (40,000 inhabitants) and Monaco probably don't.But the others do.You mustn't forget one thing and the younger AH members won't know that: Germany should always be kept small militarily. Because the 4th Reich might have been feared again.The reunification of Germany was a horror for all countries. Only Spain (Gonzalez) and the USA (Bush father) were in favor of it(we never forget that).

How do you think a European army could work? The EU alone has 27 states(Europe 48 states). Should a German EU defense minister send Italian military and other contingents to the Ukrain? Would the French want to give up their nuclear missiles? No, that doesn't work. These are dreams. Brussels (EU headquarters) can't even manage to abolish summer time in all countries .

Regarding the AFD. This sounds a lot like Trump's own position for America. Probably a reason Vance and the Trump administration feels an affiliation for AFD. Similar to Le Pen, and Meloni who are proud of their countries and don't care for the regulatory overreach of Brussels.

I skimmed through the English version of AFD's website. It looks similar to positions that Trump and the preponderance of the American populace stand for.

https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf

Yes, then you are all Nazis according to our mainstream media

You mean like Merkel did in vocally favoring Clinton in the 2016 American presidential election over Trump. Or like the UK Labor Party did last fall in sending Labor Party members to America to actually campaign for Harris.



The NAZI party gained power by cracking down on free speech. Similar to what the EU and most member states are working to do more of right now. The AFD wants free speech. How do you suppress a populace if you allow them to freely express themselves, even in politics.

After all, 6 million voters have voted for them( and this Sunday we have 25% AFD Voters in Germany,I'm sure) and they are not being listened to, or rather they reject all cooperation, preferring to go along with the communists and the Greens, of course, who are prepared to ruin everything, the main thing being that the air in Bangladesh is free of particulate matter.

The Nazi acronym stands for National Socialist. Over recent decades many on the left have rebranded them as far right to disassociate as much as they can from them., while in actually they were self admitted far left nationalists. From afar, it seems the various coalitions of CDU, CSU, FDP, SPD are much closer aligned to socialism and AFD is the counter balance.

they are not close to classical socialism (CDU = except Merkel Angela, who was a product of the communist SED), no, they pass the balls to each other and do not let anyone into their club, they think they do everything right and others do not need them.

 

[CJW]

Islamic Australian nurses claiming they have killed and will kill Israelis who come to them for treatment.

 

[YancyW]

I feel that there is one thing missing from a lot of this Ukraine support debate. @Red Leg can verify but if I remember correctly in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of their nuclear weapons we would protect Ukraine from invasion. If this is true I feel we are obligated to help. Or it will be another broken promise from the US.

If you have neat handwriting you can fit the Budapest Memorandum on a cocktail napkin, it does not in any way oblige United States to defend Ukraine, only to seek action by the UN Security Council if aggression against Ukraine meets certain parameters.

 

[Red Leg]

Bill Clinton “agreed” to it but it was never submitted to the Senate as required under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution for official ratification.

Probably not. Certainly Gorbachev didn't think so as I noted above.

This is a good article on the subject.

‘There was no promise not to enlarge NATO’ - Harvard Law School

Robert Zoellick, the U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate the end of the Cold War, says Vladimir Putin’s claims about Ukraine are part of a disinformation campaign.

hls.harvard.edu