Trump Signs Defense Bill With Watered-Down ZTE Sanctions (cnet.com) 86
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: President Donald Trump on Monday signed a $716 billion defense policy bill that weakened efforts to punish Chinese telecom giant ZTE for violating trade laws. The bill, named for ailing Arizona Sen. John McCain, prohibits the U.S. government and its contractors from buying certain telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from ZTE, Huawei and a handful of other Chinese communications companies. The ban covers components and services deemed "essential" or "critical" to any government system. Some lawmakers had hoped to use the bill to reinstate tough penalties against ZTE, but the compromise bill removed a provision that would undo a deal the Commerce Department struck in June for ZTE to pay a $1 billion penalty to resume business with U.S. suppliers. But lawmakers agreed to abandon that effort in late July. Huawei called the inclusion of its products in the bill "ineffective, misguided and unconstitutional." They added: "It does nothing to identify real security risks or improve supply chain security, and will only serve to stifle innovation while increasing internet costs for U.S. consumers and businesses. We believe that the American people deserve equal access to the best possible connections and smart device options, and will keep working to make this happen."
What Trade Negotiations? (Score:1)
What part of National Security don't you understand? The tariffs against Canada were implemented under the pretense of National Security! National Security is not a bargaining chip.
Yet, we ease sanctions against China as part of a National Defense bill. Not just any sanctions though. These are sanctions that were implemented specifically against bad actors who made products which threaten our NATIONAL SECURITY!
Re: Part of Trade Negotiations (Score:2)
+5 correct
We can't implicate Dianne Feinstein! (Score:1, Insightful)
OMG! We can't make a big deal of the Democrat who headed the Senate Intelligence Committee having employed a Chinese spy for twenty fucking years!
That'd make Democrats look bad.
I mean hell, the FBI actually WARNED Feinstein instead of sending their own spies, errr, informants at her! She must be PROTECTED!!!
Making a big deal out of Chinese espionage would implicate a DEMOCRAT leader and draw attention from Russia! Russia! Russia!!!!!
Re:ZTE Sanctions Watered Down (Score:5, Funny)
So, we have demonstrably proven that the Chinese are conducting Cyber-warfare against us. This includes shipping pre-hacked devices to the United States, such as networking equipment and video surveillance systems.
Yet we impose a tariff on Canadian steel for national security purposes? WTF
The tariff's on Canada are to punish Canada for exporting Justin Bieber to us.
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Not really about the Statue of Liberty:
The Guess Who are Canadian, and Burton Cummings (the song's lyricist) insists it has nothing to do with American pride. "What was on my mind was that girls in the States seemed to get older quicker than our girls and that made them, well, dangerous," Cummings told the Toronto Star in 2014. "When I said 'American woman, stay away from me,' I really meant 'Canadian woman, I prefer you.' It was all a happy accident."
I do agree that the song is usually misinterpreted by Americans though
This is a good read of the history of the song.
http://www.songfacts.com/detai... [songfacts.com]
Here's the tweet (Score:1)
Nah, it was this tweet. Trump believed USA had a massive deficit with Canada, Justin Trudeau explained to him that was false, USA has a massive trade *surplus* with Canada. Now Trump cannot back down and doubles and triples down on it. Justin is cute, and young, and smart and Trump cannot therefore accept facts as facts.
" We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada
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The truth is that the US has a slight trade deficit with Canada if all you look at is goods. If you included services in the equation the US has a rather large trade surplus with Canada.
also (Score:5, Insightful)
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$717 billion (Score:5, Insightful)
Classic. That is when I hear the word "Conservative" or "Progressive" in relation to politics, I always laugh.
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Republicans do what it takes to protect this nation.
By spending more than the Navy themselves said that they need?
unlimited money for welfare queens
You mean like defense contractors?
Re:$717 billion (Score:4, Funny)
Democrat party wants free rain for terrorists
Are you suggesting we should make them pay for all of their rain instead?
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"Congress approved $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships, even though the Navy only requested one."
Classic. That is when I hear the word "Conservative" or "Progressive" in relation to politics, I always laugh.
Conservative is a hilarious name if you think of it in terms of conservation of resources, but if you think of it in terms of conservation of white power it makes perfect[ly horrible] sense. Progressives are not in charge of government at the moment, so I'm not sure what that particular label has to do with this announcement. Could you enlighten us?
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"Congress approved $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships, even though the Navy only requested one."
Because they didn't take the Navy littorally!
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"Congress approved $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships, even though the Navy only requested one."
That should be the response whenever anyone talks about how Congress should specify all regulations instead of leaving it up to experts in an agency.
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Cheeto wouldn't even use the proper name of the bill. He dropped Senator McCain's name from it when referencing the bill...he's a child.
He's under no obligation to use the stupid name of a bill.
Every bill of any note is always named the "I Love Puppies and Rainbows" bill, even if all it does is fund the 100th version of the Robert Byrd Pig Research Institute.
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Yet you've posted disparaging remarks about Senator McCain in the past. So why the hypocrisy?
There's no hypocrisy there. It's childish not to say the name of a thing simply because it has the name of someone you don't like in it, but it's not childish to criticize someone's actions if you find them objectionable.
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Cheeto wouldn't even use the proper name of the bill. He dropped Senator McCain's name from it when referencing the bill...he's a child.
Was Senator McCain involved with writing the legislation? Did Senator McCain push more than normal for this particular legislation?
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Is their something in this bill Senator McCain hated/fought against?
Probably not. But when legislation has a person's name in the title, it's usually a major sponsor or champion of that legislation. You don't normally name legislation as a way of honoring or memorializing someone unless they were a victim of something that the legislation attempts to protect against.
Borrowing the entire defense budget (Score:5, Insightful)
President Donald Trump on Monday signed a $716 billion defense policy bill
For perspective please note that the defecit in 2017 was $665 billion [usgovernmentdebt.us]. So for all practical purpose we are borrowing the entire defense budget and in the process spending more money [pgpf.org] than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the UK, and Japan COMBINED. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure we could put a good chunk of that money to better use.
Re:Borrowing the entire defense budget (Score:4, Interesting)
Winston Churchill once demolished a Conservative defense budget, tearing it down to 1/10 its original size. He described his own budget, trimming the number of warships and other such provisions to a fraction of that for which the Conservatives had called.
Churchill's defense budget and his program funded thereby was sufficient to lose two-thirds of its ships and still destroy all of the European naval power, and then land troops and demolish their militaries. He called for a military which could demolish Europe three times over.
The United States wastes a lot of money in performing its functions, producing $2 of results for $5 of spending. Our military could provide greater defense with better technology at lower costs were the entirety of its programs not run by disorganized incompetents. The people doing the work are not specialized in managing the overall picture and, besides, are quite busy enough; and the people running the overall picture are bureaucrats who care little for fiscals, as it is Congress's problem to obtain the money.
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The United States wastes a lot of money in performing its functions, producing $2 of results for $5 of spending. Our military could provide greater defense with better technology at lower costs were the entirety of its programs not run by disorganized incompetents.
Don't mistake graft for incompetence. A better job could be done, but then it wouldn't produce half so much pork. The military is a jobs program among its other purposes. There is a highly persistent belief that it's better to spend money that way than on pure social programs, which is unfortunate but real.
Of course, the military has been having a harder and harder time finding recruits, so there is something to the lack of competence argument, but I don't believe it to be the driving factor. I think the pr
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The military is a jobs program among its other purposes.
If they want to create jobs, they can build a military twice as large for the same cost. They could also spend the money on schools, public transportation, roads, environmental cleanup, research, the like.
Re: Borrowing the entire defense budget (Score:2, Insightful)
They could also spend the money on schools, public transportation, roads, environmental cleanup, research, the like.
All of those would help, rather than exploit the poor. So that's a nope.
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Also don't forget that 5 of those 7 countries are our allies.
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We're borrowing the entire defense budget? That's terrible. We need to cut spending.
https://www.politifact.com/tru... [politifact.com]
Considering defense is barely 16% of Fed spending, and social programs (SS, medicare, etc) is around 57%, I think I know where we should really start cutting.
Re:Borrowing the entire defense budget (Score:5, Informative)
SS is self-sufficient. It is not adding to any deficit.
SS is being gutted to try and pay for that 16% of defense.
Stop passing around stupid information.
This is like if you had two businesses, one was a great success, the other failing slowly. As the failing business continues to fail, you start taking money from your successful business to help run things in your failing business.
Eventually your failing business brings them both down.
All because you were a greedy little fuck. (This is directed to the politicians who keep trying to take OUR money)
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No, SS is not self sufficient, that is a lie.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
SS is not people putting money away, and then getting that money. There's no "account" of what you've paid in. SS is a shell game where today's workers pay for today's retirees.
One doesn't need to deep-dive the numbers to see that the demographic bulge will have more retirees than workers by 2030. Further, when SS was implemented that retirement age was basically the cohort's life span...now with retirees drawing on SS commonly
Defense = jobs program (Score:2)
No, SS is not self sufficient, that is a lie.
As long as Congress continues to require the populace to pay enough in taxes to cover the obligations owed then it is self sustaining. There is no reasonable likelihood of this ceasing to be the case because people who collect social security rarely fail to vote and politicians who suggest cutting their benefits don't remain in office for long.
SS is not people putting money away, and then getting that money. There's no "account" of what you've paid in. SS is a shell game where today's workers pay for today's retirees.
Yes today's workers pay for the retirees. That is true. But unless you think that collectively today's retirees are going to forget to vote, no politician is going
Cut defense (Score:4, Informative)
Considering defense is barely 16% of Fed spending, and social programs (SS, medicare, etc) is around 57%, I think I know where we should really start cutting.
Yep, Defense.
Oh you meant we should take away health care from our elderly and poor to fund a needlessly oversized military? That's weapons grade stupid. Cutting military spending is the biggest no brainer ever. We could cut the deficit in half tomorrow and still spend more on our military than every other country on earth. Social security is self sustaining and does not affect the federal deficit. We need to cut defense spending to more reasonable levels and raise taxes to cover the rest. No this would not result in fiscal Armageddon. The only other option is to cut medicare and medicaid and cutting that would be stupid and hurt a lot of people needlessly. The rest of the federal budget is inconsequential as far as the deficit goes so any debate about the deficit that doesn't involve some combination of raising taxes, cutting the military and/or cutting medicare/medicaid is a waste of time.
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Hey, the DoD didn't even want all that money (Score:2)
They asked for only a fraction (albeit a high one) of what they got. For instance, the Navy asked for one ship (of some type), and got three. The Army asked for no more tanks, is getting a bunch, etc.
Spy tools? (Score:2)
So ZTE agreed to put backdoors in its modem and gave NSA DMA access?
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Nah, the backdoors were already there.
They just added another account (uncle_sam) to go alongside chairman_mao.
Nothing personal (Score:2)
Trumps seems to get played a lot . By his wife from Slovenia, smart beautiful from a tough part of the world. Played by Kim Jong Un. Played by Putin.
I'm saying this to point out that someone as obviously personality disordered as they were in the Apprentice is really easy to manipulate by people with really rough violent psychologically abusive tendencies. They exist on a sliding scale and simply put, Trump isn't as good as it because he is the enabler.
Putin is KGB trained to manipulate people psych
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perhaps Trumps greatest claim will be "well at least I didn't get us into another war!"
Yet. Wait until he gets serious about reelection in 2 years.
It also authorized green energy for US military (Score:2)
He may be (and is) a moron, but the defense authorization bill also fully funded dealing with the actual risk factors of global warming (a 2 foot rise in sea levels) for all military installations, and the conversion of military units to in-place green energy solar wind and battery systems to cut down on fossil fuel supply lines which are easy targets.
Greener, faster, more nimble, harder to stop.
Trump didn't read past the 4 panel manga they made for him on what was in the bill. He thought it said "Putin wil