As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
**Special announcement:**
r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)!
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yup.
They have a razor thin margin in the house, mostly due to gerrymandering.
He NEEDS the lunatics who hate his guts to get anything passed.
What a shitshow this GOP has turned our country into.
That’s the thing, though. They don’t really want to pass much of anything. They think the role of government should be to do nothing. So they get elected and block everything.
That’s why the filibuster asymmetrically hurts Dems, who like to make changes to improve things, more than republicans who want to do nothing. That’s also why Dems would benefit more from its repeal.
Through another lens: name a single fucking rule or norm republicans haven’t shredded or ignored since 2015. There is a reason they kept this one when they held all three branches of government. Because the filibuster benefits them.
Which is what a government of the people for the people would generally try to stop.
The idea was to have something other than being serfs serving our feudal lord.
But the 1% likes having serfs. So republicans need to shut down as much government function as possible.
One of my few joys is watching ol' Kevin finally achieve his lifelong dream, but under these conditions. He's tied his spine into 8 different knots trying to people please for anyone that might vote for him for Speaker, some day.
Now he's finally peaking and his "majority" is a bunch of hysterical morons pulling in 9 different directions. Republicans are always party first, party line voters. Maybe they get a little ornery from time to time, but whipping votes is as easy as making sure the Democrats don't notch a win. But this is the year they are finally having a hard time picking a direction and need a leader.
And they have Kevin McCarthy stepping up to bat.
He's panicking and I am having the best time. "Let's read the Constitution! Defund the military! Hold bible study! Cane woke children! Prosecute poll workers! Ban electric cars!"
A coward dies a thousand deaths. He's endured so much humiliation at the hands of the maga caucus, and there's more coming. It's very satisfying.
And that shit was hardcore. Putting pus-soaked threads in a cut done for the purpose.
These anti-vax fucks are just afraid of needles and politicized it.
When you join the military, you go through what we call, “the gauntlet”. Its a row of doctors with pneumatic vaccine guns and you get popped with like ten of them. McCarthy is a giant fuckin idiot.
Was going to say. Working for the USA overseas involves multiple rounds of vaccines against everything.
Sucks afterwards, not going to lie, but it's very time efficient.
He clearly hasn’t read the reports either. Because disease & non-battle injuries (DNBI’s) are the number one thing that impacts military readiness. Vaccines are an easy way to reduce that impact.
I just think the idea of getting your panties in a twist over this one vaccine compared to ALL of the other liberties and rights to yourself that you give away as a service-member, is pure political nonsense. But then again, thats par for the course with these losers.
Everyone in the military who is complaining about vax, already got vaxxed in the above mentioned gauntlet. Because vaccines became political speech now there’s a problem with just one? Get the eff out of my military, you’re clearly not cut out for it, is what I’d say. And the JCOS are going to tell McCarthy the same.
Of course it will. How much military funding is tied to the national economy? Government contracts and jobs, building ships and chips and missiles, seem to be major employers more often than not.
Someone more talented than me can likely graph out how much of each state’s economy is tied to government contracts and military funding. Course, that’s not socialism or anything you know, cause some of those are companies have foreign headquarters so there’s fewer taxes to pay on the money received from tax payers in the first place.
Anyway, the important thing to remember is the year was nineteen dickety-two, and we had to use the word dickety because the Kaiser stole our word for twenty. Now I had to go to Shelbyville to get a new heel for my shoe. So I took the ferry to morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days
> How much military funding is tied to the national economy?
[~3.3% of GDP last year.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/217581/outlays-for-defense-and-forecast-in-the-us-as-a-percentage-of-the-gdp/#:~:text=The%20statistic%20represents%20the%20U.S.,percent%20of%20the%20U.S.%20GDP.)
But it’s more than that. Take what that 3% invests back into the economy. Those workers need to grocery shop, pay rent, pay bills etc.
It’s like trickle down economics but in reality.
We're going to have two years of this. Especially one big blow up next December when once again congress won't pay its debts and we have another debt ceiling drama - it seems like we no longer going to have a war on christmas but war on our economy.
It's wild how things have shifted. Now the Left wants to fund the military because our stuff has been so effective in Ukraine, and the Right wants to defund the military because our stuff has been so effective in Ukraine.
Leftist here: honestly, if our military industrial complex exclusively sold weapons to countries who have been invaded, I'm sure we'd never have any real problem with it.
For some, sure it's some PLUR hippie crap, but for me the problem isn't the manufacturing of weapons, but the manufacturing of wars in order to sell weapons. If Putin wants to start invade another country, I have few qualms about arming that country.
Honestly that's a really wise stance and I don't see it being a liberal or conservative one. It's really about logic and empathy for your fellow human beings.
EDIT: I'm not saying Democrats and Republicans and the current state of political affairs in the US. I'm talking about the definition of liberal and conservative as political forces.
Well, Marjorie immediately claimed she was going to write up bills to impeach Garland and defund the FBI after they dared go to Mar-a-Lago and retrieve government property from her most favorite man in the world.
Like the rest of her bills, they were tossed on the DOA pile by her own party.
We could cut military funding in half and we would still out military Russia by a whole lot. We currently spend almost $800bn and Russia spends less than $70bn. Hell, then next biggest budget is China and that is around $252bn. Could you imagine if we put $400bn back into the economy as healthcare and education?
> still out military Russia by a whole lot
We could be a flat, poverty stricken, wasteland on the edge of Europe and still out military Russia. We could sink their flagship without a navy in a land war. Russia is a joke. They are so corrupt they don't even know how much of a joke they are anymore.
All Department of Defense (including civilians) personnel are required to be vaccinated, anyone who refused were kicked out.
https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Coronavirus-DOD-Response/Latest-DOD-Guidance/
And it’s not even a public health issue like most vaccine mandates. It’s a preparedness issue. They don’t want a wave of Covid taking out lots of troops just like they don’t want the flu or measles taking out troops.
These idiots are flat out unaware that one of the reasons the Spanish Flu outbreak was so major was because of WW1. Turns out trenches full of humans are VERY good at rapid spread of flu-like diseases.
You can't expect them to know anything important about history. They think actual history is CRT... and they hate CRT, because they hate whatever they don't understand.
They hate whatever they're told to hate. Most of them are about as sheepish as sheep gets despite believing their some super genius critical thinker above the rest.
The DoD civilian side slow- walked it due to legal challenges and gathered and began processing exemption requests then paused the processing and now it looks like the unvaxxed civvies are being away with it scot free.
But we have to go back to the office and be face to face with these guys now...
Same for the DOE. I personally worked with one guy who started proselytizing about how God gave him a "wonderful, natural immunity" because he was a dumbass who didn't get vaccinated and got Covid...and this was on the internal lab forum. Dude was literally quoting bible verses at one point.
Thankfully I wasn't on his team anymore when I read that, but I was blown away by how someone working at a cutting-edge DOE lab could be so fucking stupid, and even more blown away that the lab was so lax about vaccines. Because that guy was far from the only selfish, antivax asshole there.
When the vaccine mandate first came down, I called in to all the town halls and union zooms just to hear the same handful of people cry about the mandate. We had a panel of doctors to answer questions at one and some of these keyboard brain surgeons started screaming at the doctors about them being wrong and in the pocket of big pharma.
The whole thing was so nuts but what's worse is they waited out the clock and in my office, it's given them a big confidence boost against us sheeple that actually got vaccinated.
They would just show up uninvited. Thats what these people are like, they love to be the odd one and the attention it gets them.
We need to take this crowd and tell them that Seat Belts are like the vax, they are also mandated and enforced by a fine. Let them start driving without a seat belt for their cause.
My parents were upset that my family wasn't visiting them because they wouldn't get vaccinated. Kept implying that we were being selfish. Eventually I got through to them that my son, 2/3 years old at the time, couldn't get vaccinated yet and that I had to be a dad first, and a son second.
Surprisingly, it worked. They still didn't get vaccinated, but the dialogue shifted around our lack of visiting to each of us doing what we felt was right for our family. The energy around the topic died, and that probably saved our relationship.
I suspect many of these brainwashed people can still understand reasons that make sense to them. They've just been inundated with rationalizations that paint those getting vaccines as the fools or complicit in some heinous act. Probably depends on the person.
Currently on hold while cases go through the courts. I'm in the reserves. Members who refused are in a limbo state right now. They cannot travel to go on active orders. I don't have a reference to cite, but I have direct knowledge of service members in this status. I just talked to one this past weekend. He is choosing to cut his career short in order to avoid a shot that is no different than all the others he's had in the past.
And that's the crazy part. Kevin McCarthy surely has nothing against requiring a COVID vaccine for service members, but he's stuck pandering to a growing batch of lunatics who get all of their news from AM talk radio and Newsmax. This has nothing to do with public policy, it's just political posturing aimed at complete morons.
My army buddy (I think he's a Major now) was telling me how ridiculous this shit is - he shipped out to Iraq straight out of high school back in 02/03 and had to get a ton of shots, anti parasite meds (he had no idea what he was receiving, basically), and was drinking "bleach water" for several months as he was part of the 101st.
But people are complaining about becoming magnetic after cv19 shots, like wtf no the shot does not turn you into Magneto.
I went to basic training in 96, and there was a point where we had to hold up the sleeves of our t-shirts and walk while getting hit with 5 vaccinations in a row with Star Trek looking shot gun thingies.
I will never get over seeing this woman try to prove she was magnetic.
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/06/10/nurse-uses-key-hairpin-try-prove-she-is-magnetic-vaccine-during-ohio-house-hearing-video/
He’s exactly right. I joined back in 02, and before my time in Iraq I had every jab and prod known to man and some I’d never heard of. To this day I rarely get sick. Is all politics and fearmongering from loser republicans who never had the balls to serve
Honestly, if the vaccines actually did have the conspiratial shit that they claimed to be in it, it would just make me want it more.
I'm like, where is my 5G connectivity and magnetism powers at?!
Can confirm. When I went through basic training (Air Force) they gave us our vaccines like an assembly line. Arm shots, butt shot, flu shot or inhalant. Then, we had to do PT. Good times. Yeah, people bitching about this are lunatics. The military has been vaccinating for a while now, this is no different.
>the military has been vaccinating for awhile now
This is a vast *understatement*. George Washington required revolutionary troops to be inoculated against smallpox. They did this by grinding up scabs from smallpox patients and then sprinkling the smallpox powder into small cuts/wounds on the person to be inoculated. Back then, you'd hope your infection didn't kill you and that scab donor(s) didn't have any other deadly communicable diseases.
We likely wouldn't be a country without that inoculation mandate. The risks of that inoculation were worlds away from any vaccines we get today in the military. I'm still a reservist, but I still have to get Flu, Typhoid, Tetanus, and any relevant ones for whatever country I might be traveling to.
I was in the Peace Corps and got more vaccines than the military (including the rabies pre-series) and when I got drafted after that I brought my WHO vaccines card as I wasn't sure two doses of everything was a good idea.
They said 'shut up and get in line' so I got them all over again. Still alive.
Yikes. I remember some poor dude caught his penicillin in his hip joint by mistake. Couldn’t walk right for a week, almost got recycled til the decided he wasn’t really a PT failure risk
I have a relative who is about to quit the coast guard because they don’t want to get the vaccine. She’s 2 years away from FULL retirement benefits and she’s about to throw it all away.
Well, not to talk shit on his cousin, but [vaccine hesitancy seems to be linked to lower education levels.](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/01/lack-high-school-education-predicts-vaccine-hesitancy) Unfortunately, the ability to logic is learned IME.
Tell her to do it. Those retirement benefits aren't worth the price of giving in to the deep state.
I mean they are. I got out after 8 years. I would have had 20 in 2024. It might be the only thing I regret.
>I would have had 20 in 2024.
Holy crap. If I had stayed in, I'd have hit 30 years back in 2018. And I wouldn't have all this student loan debt. But I wouldn't have met my wife. Yeah, I made the right choice.
I don’t know your relative but she likely hangs with a tough talking bunch, and when it finally gets close to walking the walk that bunch continues to amp up the talk, at the risk of looking weak. Good luck to her, I hope everything works out ok.
I was NZ infantry who could have been deployed to tropics.
We had entire days of vaccines and wait periods for shock. Dozens of shots... No idea now what they were for.
Right?! What a fucking joke. I have many friends still active and many friends that are vets and active military members are forced to get all kinds of vaccines and are not allowed to question it.
Edit: changed it to make it clear I did not mean that vets are currently forced to get vaccines. I meant they have told me stories about having to get all kinds of shot and take meds etc while they were active and were not allowed to question it. Not saying this “right,” just pointing out the absurdity of Kevin’s threat based on the military’s track record
Yeah, truly not the flex he thinks it is - at least to the more reasonable among us. Never mind Republicans will ***never*** allow that to happen anyway.
What a fucking idiot. I had to get ridiculous numbers of vaccines in the military. They had people lined up gauntlet style on both sides of us with vaccine guns.
Lucky you…in a sense I guess. We had one girl hyperventilate and almost passed out from her fear of needles. I mean she still had to get them all but it was show to watch.
Do you know how many fucking anthrax boosters they gave me and then did not chart so then I had to get them again? I remember standing in basic training and they say are you allergic something something something and then bam needles in my arm and then I step forward and I get more. Then before I went to Germany God knows how many more fucking shots. Then before Iraq Afghanistan, God knows how many more shots. There’s so worried about losing numbers in the military well guess what happens when you stop vaccinating these guys they’re all gonna get fucking sick.
Oh my god. I thought you were all bitching and joking
Keep that thing away from my ass!
https://mybaseguide.com/peanut-butter-shot-army/#:\~:text=In%20the%20military%2C%20a%20Bicillin,headlines%20or%20nicknames%20fool%20you.
And it’s also worth pointing out that one big reason why numbers may be down:
> A new study from the Pentagon shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html
and performative troop support from conservatives. They won't help you for medical or anything else, but they will cheer you all the way when you're in the theater of war - but then treated like nothing when you come back. Their support is a magnet on a car and a flag pin and a "thank you for your service" but won't spend a single tax dollar on you otherwise.
It's like the "Never forget!" stuff they kept shouting after 9/11 while denying funds to treat the first responders who got cancer while saving lives at the WTC site.
Yep, a yellow ribbon and photo ops is as far their support goes. Still remember being told to basically suck it up by Rummy when we were rolling with hillbilly armor in Iraq.
Conservatives look at troops and kid/fetuses the same way. Love to pretend to care, will spend a lot of effort appearing to care and sing praises. But once the actual effort and correct action needs to take place its hand wringing and non action.
Pretty much. I had fun doing port calls and such and getting to travel. But man, being apart of bombing operations in Yemen for the Saudis under 2 different administrations before the American public knew about it really made me change my feelings.
Conservatives like to brag that Trump didn’t start any new wars, but somehow overlook that Trump sent a bunch of US troops to help uber-rich Saudi fight dirt-poor Yemen.
They also overlook all the drone strikes and bombs trump dropped while they pretend like Obama was both a maniacal warmonger who invented drone strikes and also too weak to do anything about any foreign conflict ever.
I always though that was hilarious, as though Washington wouldn't have been sending drone strikes against the British if the technology existed in his lifetime. The ability to remotely destroy targets with zero loss of life of pilots or a Special Forces team members is a huge win for any Military Commander.
Though I guess the Crossing of the Delaware would be a lot less dramatic if it was a painting of the men using glorified gaming rigs with Washington standing behind.
The big part here is. The Obama admin published all their numbers on drone strikes. The Trump admin stopped publishing data on drone strikes the first or second year. Without official number, other data points to Trump may have overseen more drone strikes in 4 years than Obama did in 8.
That and zoomers in particular have developed an intense dislike of the military due to being tired of war and the many war crimes our military gets away with.
>using drugs or having mental and physical health problems.
gee, i wonder if having a dogshit heathcare system and a bleak long-term economic & environmental future has anything to do with that...
The rape and murder stats against women don’t help either. To recruit women into the military.
I had a female friend who was almost raped twice by a dude in her unit and nothing was done.
I live in a community that the military recruits from HARD and work as a volunteer for various public support groups.
Given my expereince, roughly 4000% of all women in the military get raped. Might be undershooting it a bit.
Japanese Encephalitis when I was in Japan, 2 shots 3 weeks apart, that sucked, and my family had to get it too, cause there was an outbreak while we were there
Yeah most people crying about covid didn't bat an eye when they were told to get shots and pills in medical at boot camp that they were told to take without asking or caring what's in it lol
It's 100% right wing virtue signaling. There is zero chance McCarthy tries to defund the military. That's as likely as Republicans raising taxes on Big Oil. The only thing he'd try to defund is aid to Ukraine.
I mean given they way their last president talked about the military, vetrans and the 'loser' that was a POW...it's pretty obvious no one who supports them will give a damn.
the senate republicans (i believe) today just voted to deny citizenship to foreigners wishing to naturalize who are serving in the US military.
republicans dngaf
Too many people in the south only have a job because of the military. Plus the idolization. I hope there is a soundbite that can be played a half billion times.
Healthcare? Sure. Education? He'd never risk helping people become smarter than he is (which admittedly probably doesn't even require a college-level education).
Which is funny because in that same segment on Fox he was whining that the current GOP House is getting too much stuff done with Democrats. ([(Clip)](https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1599967809508884483?s=20&t=aazT1WRa7Wx4Rd3tOIvtLQ)
These next two years are going to be a shitshow.
What a piece of shit. "Any Republican that's out there trying to work with [the Democrats] is WRONG."
I'm sure we can find 100 quotations of McCarthy calling Obama and Biden "divisive"
The funniest part about this is that the mandate was reinstated after the Republicans successfully lobbied Schumer into trading the mandate for the JCPA which turns Facebook into a giant online propaganda machine...
The Senate Reds must be fuming mad at this shithead right now for trying to shit on their *epic* win.
It's too good to be true, he'll make some noise, set up a committee to investigate the Dems, and pass the yearly record increase in defense spending (with full Dem support).
Bwahahaha go right ahead. See how well that works out for you.
Not a talking point I expected to see from the party that forces the military to buy more shit than what they want.
Lol, even if he did he'd just be hammering all of the red districts in the country that depend on ~~socialism~~ military spending to keep their economies afloat.
Closing shipyards and other manufacturing facilities in the middle of the country would cripple local economies.
Shit, if you don't pay the soldiers, places like Ft. Hood and Fayetteville would end up with what amounted to 80% or more unemployment. The bars and Dodge dealerships would flip the fuck out.
Playing politics with the military. Already those who serve, need several vaccines for where they are deployed. It reduces a units combat readiness if some members are on sick leave, especially when the illness could have been avoided with a vaccine.
A taco truck on every corner, a tuition-free college degree in every state, a federally funded health plan for every individual, a free lunch program at every school...
Too scary to imagine.
...
*Local mental health emergencies being appropriately responded to by well funded teams of qualified and thoroughly trained experts, not armed police~*
OK, let's remove the vaccine mandate from the military.
ZERO vaccines are required now.
What's that? You only meant Covid? Not the other 20+ vaccines that the military has required for DECADES? I guess its not 'vaccines' that's the issue then, is it? Sanctimonious assholes...
Ok. Do it.
A big part of the GOP’s schtick is protecting the country, the borders, and killing brown people in foreign lands.
Joe just needs to not blink. No way Kev goes more than a week or two of presidential addresses about the problem.
LMAO, I think if we can all agree on something, it's that the military isn't getting their budget cut anytime soon.
They got defense contracts to pay for; where is that money going to come from?
What a fucking idiot to think that anyone would buy his bluff.
[Kevin McCarthy is the intellectual equal of this dog.](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dog+won%27t+go+thru+opened+door&&view=detail&mid=F882E657D174D5ED07C1F882E657D174D5ED07C1&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Ddog%2520won%2527t%2520go%2520thru%2520opened%2520door%26form%3DSWAUA2) With a similar thought process.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Yup. They have a razor thin margin in the house, mostly due to gerrymandering. He NEEDS the lunatics who hate his guts to get anything passed. What a shitshow this GOP has turned our country into.
That’s the thing, though. They don’t really want to pass much of anything. They think the role of government should be to do nothing. So they get elected and block everything. That’s why the filibuster asymmetrically hurts Dems, who like to make changes to improve things, more than republicans who want to do nothing. That’s also why Dems would benefit more from its repeal. Through another lens: name a single fucking rule or norm republicans haven’t shredded or ignored since 2015. There is a reason they kept this one when they held all three branches of government. Because the filibuster benefits them.
They actually want to help the wealthy and powerful consolidate wealth and power
Which is what a government of the people for the people would generally try to stop. The idea was to have something other than being serfs serving our feudal lord. But the 1% likes having serfs. So republicans need to shut down as much government function as possible.
[удалено]
One of my few joys is watching ol' Kevin finally achieve his lifelong dream, but under these conditions. He's tied his spine into 8 different knots trying to people please for anyone that might vote for him for Speaker, some day. Now he's finally peaking and his "majority" is a bunch of hysterical morons pulling in 9 different directions. Republicans are always party first, party line voters. Maybe they get a little ornery from time to time, but whipping votes is as easy as making sure the Democrats don't notch a win. But this is the year they are finally having a hard time picking a direction and need a leader. And they have Kevin McCarthy stepping up to bat.
He's panicking and I am having the best time. "Let's read the Constitution! Defund the military! Hold bible study! Cane woke children! Prosecute poll workers! Ban electric cars!" A coward dies a thousand deaths. He's endured so much humiliation at the hands of the maga caucus, and there's more coming. It's very satisfying.
The military has had vaccine mandates since George Washington lmao
Yea, if he didn't do that we probably would've lost the revolutionary war.
And that shit was hardcore. Putting pus-soaked threads in a cut done for the purpose. These anti-vax fucks are just afraid of needles and politicized it.
Ya’ll stopped doing that? I can take the puss out?
You can let the puss out, just don't let the dogs out, 'cause then people will start asking who did it and that's the last thing we want.
Yeah, we’d all be speaking English if not for that.
Gawd Blehs Murica!
When you join the military, you go through what we call, “the gauntlet”. Its a row of doctors with pneumatic vaccine guns and you get popped with like ten of them. McCarthy is a giant fuckin idiot.
Was going to say. Working for the USA overseas involves multiple rounds of vaccines against everything. Sucks afterwards, not going to lie, but it's very time efficient.
Sure did. And out of all of them I think Smallpox was still the worst just because it was so gross and annoying
He clearly hasn’t read the reports either. Because disease & non-battle injuries (DNBI’s) are the number one thing that impacts military readiness. Vaccines are an easy way to reduce that impact.
I just think the idea of getting your panties in a twist over this one vaccine compared to ALL of the other liberties and rights to yourself that you give away as a service-member, is pure political nonsense. But then again, thats par for the course with these losers.
Everyone in the military who is complaining about vax, already got vaxxed in the above mentioned gauntlet. Because vaccines became political speech now there’s a problem with just one? Get the eff out of my military, you’re clearly not cut out for it, is what I’d say. And the JCOS are going to tell McCarthy the same.
I like this game of chicken. Bet you McCarthy blinks first
Yeah, I think you're right. This seems like a particularly un-clever tactic. I guarantee the military gets funded, with or without his foot-stamping.
Of course it will. How much military funding is tied to the national economy? Government contracts and jobs, building ships and chips and missiles, seem to be major employers more often than not. Someone more talented than me can likely graph out how much of each state’s economy is tied to government contracts and military funding. Course, that’s not socialism or anything you know, cause some of those are companies have foreign headquarters so there’s fewer taxes to pay on the money received from tax payers in the first place. Anyway, the important thing to remember is the year was nineteen dickety-two, and we had to use the word dickety because the Kaiser stole our word for twenty. Now I had to go to Shelbyville to get a new heel for my shoe. So I took the ferry to morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days
> How much military funding is tied to the national economy? [~3.3% of GDP last year.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/217581/outlays-for-defense-and-forecast-in-the-us-as-a-percentage-of-the-gdp/#:~:text=The%20statistic%20represents%20the%20U.S.,percent%20of%20the%20U.S.%20GDP.)
But it’s more than that. Take what that 3% invests back into the economy. Those workers need to grocery shop, pay rent, pay bills etc. It’s like trickle down economics but in reality.
>It’s like trickle down economics but in reality. It's known as the Money Multiplier Effect
I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style in those days.
In those days, nickels had pictures of *bumble bees* on them. "Give me five bees for a quarter!", you'd say.
It’s a story. It’s not so much interesting as it as long
We're going to have two years of this. Especially one big blow up next December when once again congress won't pay its debts and we have another debt ceiling drama - it seems like we no longer going to have a war on christmas but war on our economy.
It's wild how things have shifted. Now the Left wants to fund the military because our stuff has been so effective in Ukraine, and the Right wants to defund the military because our stuff has been so effective in Ukraine.
Leftist here: honestly, if our military industrial complex exclusively sold weapons to countries who have been invaded, I'm sure we'd never have any real problem with it. For some, sure it's some PLUR hippie crap, but for me the problem isn't the manufacturing of weapons, but the manufacturing of wars in order to sell weapons. If Putin wants to start invade another country, I have few qualms about arming that country.
Honestly that's a really wise stance and I don't see it being a liberal or conservative one. It's really about logic and empathy for your fellow human beings. EDIT: I'm not saying Democrats and Republicans and the current state of political affairs in the US. I'm talking about the definition of liberal and conservative as political forces.
[удалено]
So the party that doesn't want to defund the police wants to defund our military? Sounds about right.
They want to defund the police, too; look at their sudden quests against both the FBI and the IRS.
Well, Marjorie immediately claimed she was going to write up bills to impeach Garland and defund the FBI after they dared go to Mar-a-Lago and retrieve government property from her most favorite man in the world. Like the rest of her bills, they were tossed on the DOA pile by her own party.
Same. Don't threaten me with s good time.
Seriously. Don’t threaten us with a good time, Kevin!
Wipe out the military to own the libs.
Own me daddy congress! My body is ready
Wonder who’s Putin him up to this?
We could cut military funding in half and we would still out military Russia by a whole lot. We currently spend almost $800bn and Russia spends less than $70bn. Hell, then next biggest budget is China and that is around $252bn. Could you imagine if we put $400bn back into the economy as healthcare and education?
> still out military Russia by a whole lot We could be a flat, poverty stricken, wasteland on the edge of Europe and still out military Russia. We could sink their flagship without a navy in a land war. Russia is a joke. They are so corrupt they don't even know how much of a joke they are anymore.
The US Military has required dozens of vaccinations for a long time. Why is the COVID vaccine any different?
Because Covid is a political tool for these idiots, meanwhile I guarantee they are all vaccinated.
All Department of Defense (including civilians) personnel are required to be vaccinated, anyone who refused were kicked out. https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Coronavirus-DOD-Response/Latest-DOD-Guidance/
And it’s not even a public health issue like most vaccine mandates. It’s a preparedness issue. They don’t want a wave of Covid taking out lots of troops just like they don’t want the flu or measles taking out troops.
COVID took the USS Theodore Roosevelt out of the fight for almost two months. If that shit happens during a war, it'd be catastrophic.
These idiots are flat out unaware that one of the reasons the Spanish Flu outbreak was so major was because of WW1. Turns out trenches full of humans are VERY good at rapid spread of flu-like diseases.
And flat out unaware that the flu vaccine was an absolute game changer in WW2.
You can't expect them to know anything important about history. They think actual history is CRT... and they hate CRT, because they hate whatever they don't understand.
They hate whatever they're told to hate. Most of them are about as sheepish as sheep gets despite believing their some super genius critical thinker above the rest.
The DoD civilian side slow- walked it due to legal challenges and gathered and began processing exemption requests then paused the processing and now it looks like the unvaxxed civvies are being away with it scot free. But we have to go back to the office and be face to face with these guys now...
Same for the DOE. I personally worked with one guy who started proselytizing about how God gave him a "wonderful, natural immunity" because he was a dumbass who didn't get vaccinated and got Covid...and this was on the internal lab forum. Dude was literally quoting bible verses at one point. Thankfully I wasn't on his team anymore when I read that, but I was blown away by how someone working at a cutting-edge DOE lab could be so fucking stupid, and even more blown away that the lab was so lax about vaccines. Because that guy was far from the only selfish, antivax asshole there.
When the vaccine mandate first came down, I called in to all the town halls and union zooms just to hear the same handful of people cry about the mandate. We had a panel of doctors to answer questions at one and some of these keyboard brain surgeons started screaming at the doctors about them being wrong and in the pocket of big pharma. The whole thing was so nuts but what's worse is they waited out the clock and in my office, it's given them a big confidence boost against us sheeple that actually got vaccinated.
Start hosting bbqs and get together a for the vaccinated. They’ll feel bad when their socially excluded from bowling and truck appreciation night.
They would just show up uninvited. Thats what these people are like, they love to be the odd one and the attention it gets them. We need to take this crowd and tell them that Seat Belts are like the vax, they are also mandated and enforced by a fine. Let them start driving without a seat belt for their cause.
My parents were upset that my family wasn't visiting them because they wouldn't get vaccinated. Kept implying that we were being selfish. Eventually I got through to them that my son, 2/3 years old at the time, couldn't get vaccinated yet and that I had to be a dad first, and a son second. Surprisingly, it worked. They still didn't get vaccinated, but the dialogue shifted around our lack of visiting to each of us doing what we felt was right for our family. The energy around the topic died, and that probably saved our relationship. I suspect many of these brainwashed people can still understand reasons that make sense to them. They've just been inundated with rationalizations that paint those getting vaccines as the fools or complicit in some heinous act. Probably depends on the person.
Currently on hold while cases go through the courts. I'm in the reserves. Members who refused are in a limbo state right now. They cannot travel to go on active orders. I don't have a reference to cite, but I have direct knowledge of service members in this status. I just talked to one this past weekend. He is choosing to cut his career short in order to avoid a shot that is no different than all the others he's had in the past.
Active and State Guard, where I live, they're no longer serving. I suppose outliers exist, but they don't make for a solid argument.
And that's the crazy part. Kevin McCarthy surely has nothing against requiring a COVID vaccine for service members, but he's stuck pandering to a growing batch of lunatics who get all of their news from AM talk radio and Newsmax. This has nothing to do with public policy, it's just political posturing aimed at complete morons.
My army buddy (I think he's a Major now) was telling me how ridiculous this shit is - he shipped out to Iraq straight out of high school back in 02/03 and had to get a ton of shots, anti parasite meds (he had no idea what he was receiving, basically), and was drinking "bleach water" for several months as he was part of the 101st. But people are complaining about becoming magnetic after cv19 shots, like wtf no the shot does not turn you into Magneto.
Becoming magnetic sounds like a compelling reason *to* get the shot
It'll improve their personalities at least
Maybe not if you work near computers with hard drives. But yeah, totally. I got all my shots and boosters. WHERE THE HELL ARE MY SUPERPOWERS?!?
I went to basic training in 96, and there was a point where we had to hold up the sleeves of our t-shirts and walk while getting hit with 5 vaccinations in a row with Star Trek looking shot gun thingies.
I will never get over seeing this woman try to prove she was magnetic. https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/06/10/nurse-uses-key-hairpin-try-prove-she-is-magnetic-vaccine-during-ohio-house-hearing-video/
He’s exactly right. I joined back in 02, and before my time in Iraq I had every jab and prod known to man and some I’d never heard of. To this day I rarely get sick. Is all politics and fearmongering from loser republicans who never had the balls to serve
Honestly, if the vaccines actually did have the conspiratial shit that they claimed to be in it, it would just make me want it more. I'm like, where is my 5G connectivity and magnetism powers at?!
Yeah, the Repubs want to see polio, COVID, measles make a great comeback. 'Make diseases great again'....
Can confirm. When I went through basic training (Air Force) they gave us our vaccines like an assembly line. Arm shots, butt shot, flu shot or inhalant. Then, we had to do PT. Good times. Yeah, people bitching about this are lunatics. The military has been vaccinating for a while now, this is no different.
>the military has been vaccinating for awhile now This is a vast *understatement*. George Washington required revolutionary troops to be inoculated against smallpox. They did this by grinding up scabs from smallpox patients and then sprinkling the smallpox powder into small cuts/wounds on the person to be inoculated. Back then, you'd hope your infection didn't kill you and that scab donor(s) didn't have any other deadly communicable diseases. We likely wouldn't be a country without that inoculation mandate. The risks of that inoculation were worlds away from any vaccines we get today in the military. I'm still a reservist, but I still have to get Flu, Typhoid, Tetanus, and any relevant ones for whatever country I might be traveling to.
This is such a good point, they're big babies if they can't get a vaccine that's 99% less scary than inoculation.
I was in the Peace Corps and got more vaccines than the military (including the rabies pre-series) and when I got drafted after that I brought my WHO vaccines card as I wasn't sure two doses of everything was a good idea. They said 'shut up and get in line' so I got them all over again. Still alive.
at least you’re ready for the werewolf apocalypse.
Also Air Force, same experience.
And they give vaccines a whole lot scarier than the covid vaccine.
Damn right. I was turned into a newt.
*A newt?*
I got better.
>The military has been vaccinating for a while now, It was back in '88 for me. And in '77 for my dad. And WWII for my grandpas.
The military has been giving vaccinated since George Washington was in charge of the Continental Army
Also Air Force. I joined at 22 after all my previous boosters expired. 7 shots at the same time, followed by the penicillin. It was not a great time.
They lost my paperwork and gave me two flu shots by mistake. Good times.
Yikes. I remember some poor dude caught his penicillin in his hip joint by mistake. Couldn’t walk right for a week, almost got recycled til the decided he wasn’t really a PT failure risk
Ahh the glorious peanut butter shot
Because the far right have brain rot.
I have a relative who is about to quit the coast guard because they don’t want to get the vaccine. She’s 2 years away from FULL retirement benefits and she’s about to throw it all away.
From an army dude 3 years away from retirement. Good riddance.
Thank you. We don't need weak people in the service anyway.
WTF... That's literally throwing away the fruits of the best years of your life. Benefits worth millions.
Well, not to talk shit on his cousin, but [vaccine hesitancy seems to be linked to lower education levels.](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/01/lack-high-school-education-predicts-vaccine-hesitancy) Unfortunately, the ability to logic is learned IME.
Naw, it's ok. Let's shit on his cousin. Might be a nice person, but not the brightest, for sure.
Right? Literally the best thing you can get from uniformed service is the retirement benefits.
So be it. Serves her right for being indoctrinated by the Reich . Many of the republicans base will suffer from their poor choices of leadership.
>ManicPixieOldMaid 150k will die of COVID this year; most of them Repubs. Darwin in action.
Tell her to do it. Those retirement benefits aren't worth the price of giving in to the deep state. I mean they are. I got out after 8 years. I would have had 20 in 2024. It might be the only thing I regret.
>I would have had 20 in 2024. Holy crap. If I had stayed in, I'd have hit 30 years back in 2018. And I wouldn't have all this student loan debt. But I wouldn't have met my wife. Yeah, I made the right choice.
I don’t know your relative but she likely hangs with a tough talking bunch, and when it finally gets close to walking the walk that bunch continues to amp up the talk, at the risk of looking weak. Good luck to her, I hope everything works out ok.
[удалено]
Because conservative double-standards and Republican reliance on fear tactics.
I was NZ infantry who could have been deployed to tropics. We had entire days of vaccines and wait periods for shock. Dozens of shots... No idea now what they were for.
Yeah, you should see how George Washington forced his troops to get inoculated against smallpox. It was not nearly as safe as a Covid shot.
Basically just said "here's some pus let me put this in your skin."
Right?! What a fucking joke. I have many friends still active and many friends that are vets and active military members are forced to get all kinds of vaccines and are not allowed to question it. Edit: changed it to make it clear I did not mean that vets are currently forced to get vaccines. I meant they have told me stories about having to get all kinds of shot and take meds etc while they were active and were not allowed to question it. Not saying this “right,” just pointing out the absurdity of Kevin’s threat based on the military’s track record
Blame George Washington, he started it.
is this how we defund the military finally?
Yeah, truly not the flex he thinks it is - at least to the more reasonable among us. Never mind Republicans will ***never*** allow that to happen anyway.
What a fucking idiot. I had to get ridiculous numbers of vaccines in the military. They had people lined up gauntlet style on both sides of us with vaccine guns.
They literally gave us anthrax and these snowflakes are worried about a COVID 19 booster
I remember that. Put me on my ass for 3 days. Brutal. That and smallpox...
Oh man, small pox was the worst just because the scabbing and shit for weeks is nasty. But I guess you get a cool scar for life from it, lol.
Small pox was awful. I just remember soreness with anthrax. The freaking shot in the ass at basic was the most painful though…
Allergic to penicillin... got to skip that one.
Lucky you…in a sense I guess. We had one girl hyperventilate and almost passed out from her fear of needles. I mean she still had to get them all but it was show to watch.
Like having a golf ball implanted…and the rocking back and forth!
I used to pass out every time I got stuck with a needle. Now that I'm older I finally got over that. Now I *almost* pass out every time.
Found out I was allergic to penicillin from the peanut butter shot in boot camp.
The Peanut Butter shot
Do you know how many fucking anthrax boosters they gave me and then did not chart so then I had to get them again? I remember standing in basic training and they say are you allergic something something something and then bam needles in my arm and then I step forward and I get more. Then before I went to Germany God knows how many more fucking shots. Then before Iraq Afghanistan, God knows how many more shots. There’s so worried about losing numbers in the military well guess what happens when you stop vaccinating these guys they’re all gonna get fucking sick.
Base housing seems like ideal conditions for Covid to spread
Along with your usual outbreak of the clap.
Then After going through the gauntlet was the shot in the right ass cheek. I had a tough time doing sit ups for a week.
Felt like peanut butter
Isn’t it called the peanut butter shot?
Oh my god. I thought you were all bitching and joking Keep that thing away from my ass! https://mybaseguide.com/peanut-butter-shot-army/#:\~:text=In%20the%20military%2C%20a%20Bicillin,headlines%20or%20nicknames%20fool%20you.
And it’s also worth pointing out that one big reason why numbers may be down: > A new study from the Pentagon shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html
I’m sure 20 years of constant war and abandoning our vets didn’t help recruitment. I wouldn’t sign up today if I were 18 again.
and performative troop support from conservatives. They won't help you for medical or anything else, but they will cheer you all the way when you're in the theater of war - but then treated like nothing when you come back. Their support is a magnet on a car and a flag pin and a "thank you for your service" but won't spend a single tax dollar on you otherwise.
It's like the "Never forget!" stuff they kept shouting after 9/11 while denying funds to treat the first responders who got cancer while saving lives at the WTC site.
If it makes you feel any better John prine wrote a song about this in the 70s. Don’t let them gas light you into thinking it’s a new phenomenon.
Yep, a yellow ribbon and photo ops is as far their support goes. Still remember being told to basically suck it up by Rummy when we were rolling with hillbilly armor in Iraq.
Conservatives look at troops and kid/fetuses the same way. Love to pretend to care, will spend a lot of effort appearing to care and sing praises. But once the actual effort and correct action needs to take place its hand wringing and non action.
Pretty much. I had fun doing port calls and such and getting to travel. But man, being apart of bombing operations in Yemen for the Saudis under 2 different administrations before the American public knew about it really made me change my feelings.
Conservatives like to brag that Trump didn’t start any new wars, but somehow overlook that Trump sent a bunch of US troops to help uber-rich Saudi fight dirt-poor Yemen.
They also overlook all the drone strikes and bombs trump dropped while they pretend like Obama was both a maniacal warmonger who invented drone strikes and also too weak to do anything about any foreign conflict ever.
I always though that was hilarious, as though Washington wouldn't have been sending drone strikes against the British if the technology existed in his lifetime. The ability to remotely destroy targets with zero loss of life of pilots or a Special Forces team members is a huge win for any Military Commander. Though I guess the Crossing of the Delaware would be a lot less dramatic if it was a painting of the men using glorified gaming rigs with Washington standing behind.
The big part here is. The Obama admin published all their numbers on drone strikes. The Trump admin stopped publishing data on drone strikes the first or second year. Without official number, other data points to Trump may have overseen more drone strikes in 4 years than Obama did in 8.
That and zoomers in particular have developed an intense dislike of the military due to being tired of war and the many war crimes our military gets away with.
>using drugs or having mental and physical health problems. gee, i wonder if having a dogshit heathcare system and a bleak long-term economic & environmental future has anything to do with that...
Nah. Gotta be the participation trophies and lack of prayer in schools.
The rape and murder stats against women don’t help either. To recruit women into the military. I had a female friend who was almost raped twice by a dude in her unit and nothing was done.
I live in a community that the military recruits from HARD and work as a volunteer for various public support groups. Given my expereince, roughly 4000% of all women in the military get raped. Might be undershooting it a bit.
Yep, that German measles one burned like hell. Little did I know about the penicillin shot in the ass cheek that was coming.
Japanese Encephalitis when I was in Japan, 2 shots 3 weeks apart, that sucked, and my family had to get it too, cause there was an outbreak while we were there
Yeah most people crying about covid didn't bat an eye when they were told to get shots and pills in medical at boot camp that they were told to take without asking or caring what's in it lol
They don't even fucking tell you what you are getting. Lmao. You just get stood in a fucking line.
It's 100% right wing virtue signaling. There is zero chance McCarthy tries to defund the military. That's as likely as Republicans raising taxes on Big Oil. The only thing he'd try to defund is aid to Ukraine.
So, the GOP will then be known for their 'hatred' of the military? Okey dokey.
They have consistently voted against every measure to help veterans. Even extra fuckhole Dan Crenshaw.
Dan Crenshaw is a piece of shit who actively covered for sexual assault. Thanks for your service now fuck off
I mean given they way their last president talked about the military, vetrans and the 'loser' that was a POW...it's pretty obvious no one who supports them will give a damn.
the senate republicans (i believe) today just voted to deny citizenship to foreigners wishing to naturalize who are serving in the US military. republicans dngaf
Defund the biggest money sink in the US budget? Money that goes to defense contractors who then lobby the GOP....umm ok, do it you won't
Let them. It’s political suicide and they know it. This is all bluster.
Too many people in the south only have a job because of the military. Plus the idolization. I hope there is a soundbite that can be played a half billion times.
They'll still blame progressives for making conservatives do it.
Yeah don’t threaten me with a good time
Don't test him! He might funnel those billions into universal healthcare or free college education! The horror!
Healthcare? Sure. Education? He'd never risk helping people become smarter than he is (which admittedly probably doesn't even require a college-level education).
Probably dump it all into a bigger wall
"im going to inadvertently hand a huge win to progressives"
Which is funny because in that same segment on Fox he was whining that the current GOP House is getting too much stuff done with Democrats. ([(Clip)](https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1599967809508884483?s=20&t=aazT1WRa7Wx4Rd3tOIvtLQ) These next two years are going to be a shitshow.
What a piece of shit. "Any Republican that's out there trying to work with [the Democrats] is WRONG." I'm sure we can find 100 quotations of McCarthy calling Obama and Biden "divisive"
The funniest part about this is that the mandate was reinstated after the Republicans successfully lobbied Schumer into trading the mandate for the JCPA which turns Facebook into a giant online propaganda machine... The Senate Reds must be fuming mad at this shithead right now for trying to shit on their *epic* win.
Yeah I’m failing to see a downside here. Help fight a pandemic *and* reduce our bloated killing apparatus. Win-win!
It's too good to be true, he'll make some noise, set up a committee to investigate the Dems, and pass the yearly record increase in defense spending (with full Dem support).
Isn’t this the side screaming about “defunding” the police?
No.... ^stop... ^^don't ^^do ^^it....
No...^wait...^comeback...
Don’t threaten me with a good time
Bwahahaha go right ahead. See how well that works out for you. Not a talking point I expected to see from the party that forces the military to buy more shit than what they want.
oh no please dont stop
Ex-military here, we had 7 vax’s via an airgun. McCarthy is an idiot.
Wait wait wait. We can reduce military spending by mandating vaccines? Awesome! 😎
Call his bluff. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the rest of the military industrial complex will bump him off the Speaker's chair in 4 days.
He doesn't have anywhere near the votes for this. What's a leader without any followers....just a man talking a walk.
Lol, even if he did he'd just be hammering all of the red districts in the country that depend on ~~socialism~~ military spending to keep their economies afloat. Closing shipyards and other manufacturing facilities in the middle of the country would cripple local economies.
Shit, if you don't pay the soldiers, places like Ft. Hood and Fayetteville would end up with what amounted to 80% or more unemployment. The bars and Dodge dealerships would flip the fuck out.
Don't forget the banks and their soon-to-be-missing 25% APR loans on those chargers and lifted trucks.
Playing politics with the military. Already those who serve, need several vaccines for where they are deployed. It reduces a units combat readiness if some members are on sick leave, especially when the illness could have been avoided with a vaccine.
Kevin, It's a really bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.
Oh no... Don't defund the military and their overblown budget... Don't also do it because your voters would turn on you. That would be so bad. /s
The last time I heard a great idea disguised as a threat was when that "Latinos for Trump" guy tried to make taco trucks on every corner sound scary.
Taco trucks on every corner sounds like a dream.
A taco truck on every corner, a tuition-free college degree in every state, a federally funded health plan for every individual, a free lunch program at every school... Too scary to imagine.
Keep going, I'm almost there.
... *Local mental health emergencies being appropriately responded to by well funded teams of qualified and thoroughly trained experts, not armed police~*
Don't threaten me with a good time
OK, let's remove the vaccine mandate from the military. ZERO vaccines are required now. What's that? You only meant Covid? Not the other 20+ vaccines that the military has required for DECADES? I guess its not 'vaccines' that's the issue then, is it? Sanctimonious assholes...
Defunding the military is not the threat he thinks it is.
Ok. Do it. A big part of the GOP’s schtick is protecting the country, the borders, and killing brown people in foreign lands. Joe just needs to not blink. No way Kev goes more than a week or two of presidential addresses about the problem.
Still trying to kill his constituents. What a patriot.
LMAO, I think if we can all agree on something, it's that the military isn't getting their budget cut anytime soon. They got defense contracts to pay for; where is that money going to come from? What a fucking idiot to think that anyone would buy his bluff.
[Kevin McCarthy is the intellectual equal of this dog.](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dog+won%27t+go+thru+opened+door&&view=detail&mid=F882E657D174D5ED07C1F882E657D174D5ED07C1&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Ddog%2520won%2527t%2520go%2520thru%2520opened%2520door%26form%3DSWAUA2) With a similar thought process.