Originally Posted By: craigd
Originally Posted By: L. Brown
....Very good points....

....as it turned out in my state (living in Iowa at the time), Trump didn't need my vote (nor, for that matter, the votes of any of us who went 3rd party)--nor would they have helped Hillary if she'd received all of them.

Actually Larry, as it turns out, you handed hill-n-the-socialists their 'we won the popular vote' mantra, didn't you. Are you sure it was such a good point about the military being involved in the teeny weeny shutdown? It seems the biggest thing that was affected by the shutdown was talking points, eh?


Since I didn't vote for Hillary, how could I have "handed" her anything? What I did--sometimes I guess it's necessary to explain the obvious--is cast a vote AGAINST both Hillary and Trump. If Trump needed my vote (and a whole bunch of other votes) to win the popular vote, that's his problem, not mine. Or the Republican Party's problem . . . because had they nominated any of several other candidates who ran in the primary, they would have gotten my vote. W didn't win the popular vote on his first try either . . . but he did the next time. Trump likewise has a chance to do better. Maybe what he really needed was more help from the Russians. smile

As Tut pointed out, the Coast Guard being part of the shutdown may very well have exacerbated an already very serious illegal drug problem in this country.

Sometimes decisions like that have unintended consequences. Back in the late 70's, money for training the Army Reserve was in short supply. (Those were still the Carter years, before Reagan got us back on track spending more money on defense--and putting a lot more pressure on our Commie adversaries, eventually bringing about the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the "Evil Empire".) Anyhow, our commanding general looked at our little Military Intelligence unit. We were full strength and all of us were fully trained and qualified. Therefore, instead of sending us to DC for our annual active duty (in support of the Army's Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center), the general said "You guys will do your Annual Training at home station." We prepared to comply with the order. At which point ITAC said: "No, general. We need them HERE. For one thing, they can't access Top Secret information back there. We will write the check." After that, we never had any problems receiving funding from our Army Reserve higher HQ. Kinda sent the message that we were "essential".

Last edited by L. Brown; 02/10/19 09:58 AM.