2 hours ago, nauseus said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-trump-spending-idUSKBN1K12BW

 

https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/nato-allies-now-spend-50-billion-more-defense-2016

You forgot that NATO added some new countries while Trump was in office.

 

But, I give you credit for providing links for backing up your assertion.

3 hours ago, impulse said:

And yet, more people would vote for him than for Biden, if the election were held today.

 

After TDS dies down and future history books are written, this is going to be called the most shameful period in DOJ history, weaponized against one party over the other.

 

And 20 years after they bury Trump, the Dems will still be blaming him for everything wrong with the country.

 

First of all, it's refreshing to see a Trump supporter who believes the polls? Or is that only when they show Trump ahead?

As for the rest, did you retrieve this information via your time machine or your crystal ball?

4 hours ago, nauseus said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-trump-spending-idUSKBN1K12BW

 

https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/nato-allies-now-spend-50-billion-more-defense-2016

First link. He made a demand. What did that do to make NATO stronger.

 

Second link. Article gives credit to Trump for increases in NATO budget that were already agreed to prior to Trump taking office. 

 

Next thing you know you'll be telling us that Trump's dealing with Kim also amount to a solid achievement.

4 hours ago, placeholder said:

First link. He made a demand. What did that do to make NATO stronger.

 

Second link. Article gives credit to Trump for increases in NATO budget that were already agreed to prior to Trump taking office. 

 

Next thing you know you'll be telling us that Trump's dealing with Kim also amount to a solid achievement.

The increases were pledges that been broken previously. 

1 hour ago, nauseus said:

The increases were pledges that been broken previously. 

No, they weren't broken. There was a timeline by which they had to be fulfilled. No interim steps along the way were specified. That deadline was 2024.

28 minutes ago, placeholder said:

No, they weren't broken. There was a timeline by which they had to be fulfilled. No interim steps along the way were specified. That deadline was 2024.

The original 2% target was "agreed" back in 2006 but several members' contributions actually declined after this and the agreement was not fulfilled. The 2024 deadline was included in a new 2014 pledge, when light members finally began to wake up after the Crimea was annexed! Even then money was slow to flow but after Trump complained about this directly to NATO in 2017, contributions improved more thereafter. Not politically correct, of course, but that's Trump and that worked.

 

 

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4glfwiMXgwQ

 

3 minutes ago, nauseus said:

The original 2% target was "agreed" back in 2006 but several members' contributions actually declined after this and the agreement was not fulfilled. The 2024 deadline was included in a new 2014 pledge, when light members finally began to wake up after the Crimea was annexed! Even then money was slow to flow but after Trump complained about this directly to NATO in 2017, contributions improved more thereafter. Not politically correct, of course, but that's Trump and that worked.

 

 

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4glfwiMXgwQ

 

I guess you put "agreed" in parentheses because there was no formal agreement with any kind of deadline. And, as the article points out, it was the Russian invasion of Crimea that spurred increased expenditures, not Donald Trump.

 

"At the Wales Summit in 2014, in response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and the turmoil in the Middle East, NATO Leaders agreed to reverse the trend of declining defence budgets and decided:

• Allies currently meeting the 2% guideline on defence spending will aim to continue to do so;
• Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will: halt any decline; aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; and aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls."                      https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

The article also goes on to note that since 2022 the pace of investment has accelerated. If I were to follow your example I could credit that to Biden the way you credit the earlier increased pace to Trump. But just like the Russian conquest of Crimea, this latest acceleration was due to another Russian act of aggression..

 

And thanks for sharing with me the link to a speech by Trump. What exactly does this prove?

waste of time, deleted 

20 hours ago, impulse said:

Sure, if you consider bragging about a $97 Billion surplus, then delivering a $25 Billion deficit as "doing quite well".

 

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/11/remember-that-budget-surplus-never-mind/

 

 

Clearly, you haven't been to California for a while. It's a nice place.

 

And, California has reserves to cover deficits.

11 hours ago, placeholder said:

I guess you put "agreed" in parentheses because there was no formal agreement with any kind of deadline. And, as the article points out, it was the Russian invasion of Crimea that spurred increased expenditures, not Donald Trump.

 

"At the Wales Summit in 2014, in response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and the turmoil in the Middle East, NATO Leaders agreed to reverse the trend of declining defence budgets and decided:

• Allies currently meeting the 2% guideline on defence spending will aim to continue to do so;
• Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will: halt any decline; aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; and aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls."                      https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

The article also goes on to note that since 2022 the pace of investment has accelerated. If I were to follow your example I could credit that to Biden the way you credit the earlier increased pace to Trump. But just like the Russian conquest of Crimea, this latest acceleration was due to another Russian act of aggression..

 

And thanks for sharing with me the link to a speech by Trump. What exactly does this prove?

Wrong guess. I put "agreed" because the laggard members who had "agreed" to the 2% dragged their collective a$$es for the next 10 years, even contributing less after 2006, in some cases. The Russian annexation of Crimea did boost the NATO pot but so did Donald Trump - his threat that NATO might lose the USA as its main guard was at least as great as the threat from Russia. Trump's speech confirmed his message to NATO regarding funding - as in stop messing about and get your money on the table. He was quite right to press for this, as we can all see now.

 

On 9/18/2023 at 11:36 PM, placeholder said:

First of all, it's refreshing to see a Trump supporter who believes the polls? Or is that only when they show Trump ahead?

As for the rest, did you retrieve this information via your time machine or your crystal ball?

Got to catch up on some wingnut conspiracy reading during a long layover yesterday.  I'd downloaded (for a later read) a 2005 report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.  Which didn't happen anything like Johnson and McNamara claimed, and later lied about.  Repeatedly. 

 

So I don't need a crystal ball to see that wingnut conspiracy theories often turn into spoiler alerts when the documents get declassified.  The wingnut peaceniks claiming Gulf of Tonkin was contrived were proven right.  But only after losing 58,000 American lives and millions of innocent Vietnamese...

 

Here we go  with legacy candidates again.

First they gave us Hillary who in turn gave us trump,

Now the want to give us Biden who in turn could give us trump again. 

American politics are a joke that is not funny. 

Must be sad to be in a party that can't find anyone better than a has been geriatric to be the next POTUS candidate.

Personally I hope they put harris up for it as that would IMO guarantee 4 more years of Trump.

I'm sure that millions would hold their noses and vote Biden, but IMO harris would be too "smelly" even for that.

2 hours ago, impulse said:

Got to catch up on some wingnut conspiracy reading during a long layover yesterday.  I'd downloaded (for a later read) a 2005 report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.  Which didn't happen anything like Johnson and McNamara claimed, and later lied about.  Repeatedly. 

 

So I don't need a crystal ball to see that wingnut conspiracy theories often turn into spoiler alerts when the documents get declassified.  The wingnut peaceniks claiming Gulf of Tonkin was contrived were proven right.  But only after losing 58,000 American lives and millions of innocent Vietnamese...

 

A small scale deception involving a small boat attacking a much larger ship is possible to perpetrate. An alleged conspiracy like fraudulent elections or human-caused climate change would necessarily involve thousand and even tens of thousands. And unlike the Golf of Tonkin incident where questions were not answered , the right wing lunatic claims consistently  get exposed as falsehoods.

On 9/11/2023 at 4:45 PM, illisdean said:

Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?

 

"This is the question that Donald Trump, or whoever is the ultimate GOP nominee, should be constantly asking. At the next GOP debate, rather than debating Trump’s temperament and fitness to serve, while he is leading the GOP pack by 50 points, they should be hammering the question of whether average Americans are better or worse off than they were four years ago. The American voters can remember the good times of which there are many under Trump and compare it to past 31 months of the chronic ongoing  Biden dumpster fire performance.

 

It worked for Reagan in 1980 during the presidential debate in which Reagan posed what has become one of the most important campaign questions of all time: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Carter’s answer was a resounding “NO,” and in the final, crucial days of the campaign, his numbers tanked.

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/are-you-better-you-were-4-years-ago

 

 

The real question is whether Herman Cain is better off now than he was 4 years ago.

On 9/20/2023 at 8:51 AM, impulse said:

Got to catch up on some wingnut conspiracy reading during a long layover yesterday.  I'd downloaded (for a later read) a 2005 report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.  Which didn't happen anything like Johnson and McNamara claimed, and later lied about.  Repeatedly. 

 

So I don't need a crystal ball to see that wingnut conspiracy theories often turn into spoiler alerts when the documents get declassified.  The wingnut peaceniks claiming Gulf of Tonkin was contrived were proven right.  But only after losing 58,000 American lives and millions of innocent Vietnamese...

 

I saw Vietnamese photos of the attack on the US destroyer, in a Vietnamese military museum recently.