War Footing!
The Trump Team, the folks who screamed holy murder about deficits and debt, just announced today they would present a budget for increased defense spending. Let’s see, right now we have 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending going to defense. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total. U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined. U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country – China.
So … I guess we need more rockets maybe. Or another aircraft carrier or two, just in case we take on the REST OF THE WORLD!! Are you kidding me? Last time I looked we had an epidemic of Alzheimers, diabetes, cancers, run down the list and tell the folks who have kin with those that we need to cut back on spending for cures and put it toward more bullets. Somebody explain to me this kind of priority when we’re already spending more than a third of all global military expenditures and we can’t win a war in Iraq or Afghanistan? Shoot me now.
I’m sorry, but this is immoral. Trump states ad nauseumtweet that we need to take care of Americans. So we buy more bombs? We upgrade the nuclear arsenal? We build a new Star Wars defense? Who’s kidding who here? Us Romans just keep piling up the garrisons, extending the empire, menacing the world. The current Commander-in-Chief wants to end Globalization. How about ending the military globalization, pardner?? Trade pacts, not so good. Military bases, great idea. How about 800 of them? More than any empire in history. More than the Romans ever dreamed.
Down the road from me, up in the salmonberry jungles of the interior, my neighbor Ronnie lives in a doublewide pretty much gone to wrack and ruin. His mizzus works upcountry in a hair salon, makes about enough to keep Ronnie in beer and off Medicaid. He’s got a veritable armory in the back bedroom, ammo and pistols, hunting rifles and even an illegal automatic AR-15. “Who you worried about?” I asked him the day he first showed me some of his prized possessions. “I’m worried about the damn Muslims, that’s who. And maybe you too.”
“I’d worry more about me, Ron, than I would those infiltrating, Koran-brainwashed refugees I never seem to run into.” Ron doesn’t have health insurance, says he doesn’t need it, never gets sick. His two year old Ford 150 with the gunrack in the back window probably eats up most of Kari’s salon wages, I’d bet. From our place some nights I can hear him target shooting when the wind is right. Drives the neighbors crazy. They ask if it’s legal to shoot guns out here in the wild wild South End. “Oh, it’s mostly legal,” I have to tell them. “Just part of living rural.” It’s not only the rural yahoos that love to shoot guns and collect more. It’s the whole damn country.
Hits: 182
Remember that line from the movie Hannah and Her Sisters? “If Jesus were alive today he would never stop throwing up.”
Got about an 15 minutes before the Combover-in-Chief gives his optimistic address to the nation. Don’t know about Jesus, but it’s going to ruin my dinner, for sure….
Skeeter,
Please, don’t you think a little caution is in order?
With a 9% increase in military spending, it’s possible the new Pentagon budget may contain funding for a proportionate yet decisive response toward criticism of the administration.
The AI algorithmic internet Trump-bots might be the only functioning part of the White House at this point in time. What if they discover your request at the end of paragraph two, “Shoot me now,” as well as determine you’re not a fan of the new Prez?
With a Trumportionate response, there goes the southern tip of Camano Island.
Drone me now…. The way this administration is operating — meaning, well oiled machine — good luck finding the Left Coast much less my skinny ass end of an island barely connected to America. Course, you got a good point. From now on I’m going to find fault with welfare cheats and illegal immigrants and religions that aren’t affiliated with Ted Cruz’s. Damn the poor, damn the uneducated, damn the people that didn’t learn English and won’t renounce their prior cultures!~!!! Damn the press and damn Hollywood. But … maybe spare Jon Stewart and his buddies. Okay, damn them too!! Damn the EPA and damn minorities. Hurrah for the Koch Boyz, hurrah for Dark Money! Hurray for gerrymandering and voter suppression! Hurray for all those things that make America great. I mean, Will make America great. Again. The way it was. Once upon a time ….