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The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

usatoday.com

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Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#81

Post by eesmith »

ahelwer wrote: post #61
elliekelly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to a recent survey of nearly 130,000 American consumers, the average American spends $10,489 each year in federal, state, and local income taxes.

I really don't know what you're arguing about here. To repeat myself, if I overestimated how much they paid, then it's even more people whose contributions are incinerated. Yay for my original point I guess?

I think the argument is that simple numbers don't really mean much, especially when misrepresented. If you have an point to make, it should be correct.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... says that payroll taxes and corporate income tax (in 2015) together are about the same contribution to federal income as individual income taxes, which puts a factor of 2 the other way in your estimate.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#82

Post by hackyhacky »

barnesto wrote: post #75
Finnucane wrote: post #27

"Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power." Which is the last the thing current administration wants anyone to be able to do.

Said the poster who mostly likely never served a day in the military or read one word from S&S. I've done both. More than once, actually. Both the Military Times and S&S suffer from the same bias as MSM. One down, potentially, and one to go in my mind. I also don't think taxpayer money should be going to VOA or PBS or NPR for the very same reasons. And don't think most of the military doesn't feel the same way. Most…

Do you have any evidence of that bias? Or are you of the opinion that any criticism of the President's policies is necessarily biased and therefore, in your words, BS?

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#83

Post by creaghpatr »

sneak wrote: post #77
barnesto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said the poster who mostly likely never served a day in the military or read one word from S&S. I've done both. More than once, actually. Both the Military Times and S&S suffer from the same bias as MSM. One down, potentially, and one to go in my mind. I also don't think taxpayer money should be going to VOA or PBS or NPR for the very same reasons. And don't think most of the military doesn't feel the same way. Most…

I think your comment may have been fine without the last line, which discards your cogent and reasonable argument up to that point and invites the world to engage in a culture war brawl that benefits no one.

A response worthy of OPs comment.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#84

Post by snowwrestler »

atonse wrote: post #20
stanfordkid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military budget is $700 billion, as stated in the article. They probably spend more than $15mm on toilet paper for a single Airforce base.

It's worse than you can imagine. I once witnessed a defense client creating a $5 mil project with a defense contractor out of thin air, because they didn't want to lose the money at the end of the fiscal year (which was 3 months away). Overnight, the defense contractor assembled a team of 20 people that were on the bench, so they could bill for the project. 20 random people that had never worked together before, all…

Sounds like you witnessed federal contract fraud, which is a felony.

Unfortunately there is no longer any good way to report this crime. Official whistleblower channels are compromised or ineffective, and going directly to the public... well, there are plenty of cautionary examples of how poorly that tends to go.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#85

Post by elliekelly »

ahelwer wrote: post #61
elliekelly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to a recent survey of nearly 130,000 American consumers, the average American spends $10,489 each year in federal, state, and local income taxes.

I really don't know what you're arguing about here. To repeat myself, if I overestimated how much they paid, then it's even more people whose contributions are incinerated. Yay for my original point I guess?

I'm not arguing, that number just seemed shockingly high to me so I suspected it was overstated. It was. That's all.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#86

Post by valuearb »

mikestew wrote: post #59
valuearb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “average” American doesn’t pay federal income taxes. Only 47% do.

The average American also has 2.3 kids. Are you going to counter-argue that no one has three tenths of a child?

Is it wrong that I believe it’s true?

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#87

Post by bilbo0s »

jakkyboi wrote: post #66
glitcher wrote: post #62

One thing I've always wondered about when it comes to the temporary nature of US presidential terms and their respective administrations - why does it seem like it's so much easier to dismantle things than to create them in the first place? Especially for things that took a substantial amount of time and effort to build, shouldn't we require much more scrutiny before considering an action that effectively dismantles/…

I think that's just the nature of government. If a large enough force acts, it's very easy to tear down such an abstract system.

In all honesty it doesn't even have to be large, it suffices to be powerful. Like the President. If you're the president, you don't really need the 535 people from congress to act with you. You only need them to not act, which they can be relied on to do more often than not. (In fact, I believe you don't even need all 535 of them to not act, only some of them can take the action of "no action" and you can do what you wish.)

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#88

Post by valuearb »

Bud wrote: post #68
valuearb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “average” American doesn’t pay federal income taxes. Only 47% do.

I'm not sure you are parsing what "average" means.

It was just a (innacurate) turn of phrase. A better way of saying it only 47% of Americans paying federal taxes contribute to Stars and Stripes.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#89

Post by liability »

Finnucane wrote: post #71
nicwolff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No contest: Trump harasses journalists at every rally – by now, hundreds or thousands of them. And whistle blowers? He fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and his brother after Vindman testified. His lackeys in the House exposed the IRS whistleblower by name.

It’s true that Obama was pretty agressive about prosecuting whistleblowers, but it also true that no president in modern times before the Donald has called the press ‘the enemy of the people’ and calls every criticism of him ‘fake news’.

Free speech is a two-way street. Journalists are allowed to criticize politicians, but for the same reason politicians are allowed to criticize journalists. The government prosecuting journalists concerns me more than the government criticizing journalists, though both are concerning. Thankfully Trump is too impotent to make good on most of his juvenile threats, or we'd definitely be in trouble. More than Trump, I fear a hypothetical future president who's competent enough to do more than spout hot air.

Re: The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down

#90

Post by hackyhacky »

barnesto wrote: post #75
Finnucane wrote: post #27

"Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power." Which is the last the thing current administration wants anyone to be able to do.

Said the poster who mostly likely never served a day in the military or read one word from S&S. I've done both. More than once, actually. Both the Military Times and S&S suffer from the same bias as MSM. One down, potentially, and one to go in my mind. I also don't think taxpayer money should be going to VOA or PBS or NPR for the very same reasons. And don't think most of the military doesn't feel the same way. Most…

Out of curiosity, do you think that taxpayer money should go towards campaign events for the President?
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