Trump names former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan acting Secretary of Defense - Polidicks

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/patrick-shanahan-trump-new-defense-secretary-pick/ President Trump began his presidency surrounding himself with military generals in key Cabinet posts. But his pick for acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, 46, is a sharp departure from that mold. Mr. Trump announced on Twitter Sunday that Shanahan, his deputy defense secretary, would replace James Mattis as of Jan. 1. "Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing," Trump said. "He will be great!" Shanahan came to the defense department in 2017 after a three-decades-long career working at aerospace giant Boeing Co. He most recently worked as senior vice president of supply chain and operations, and previously worked as senior vice president of commercial airplane programs, according to DOD. His background is in mechanical engineering, with two advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his work in the administration, he has advocated for Mr. Trump's effort to create a sixth military branch, known as the "Space Force." Mattis, in contrast, is a retired Marine general. When Mr. Trump became president, he touted Mattis, as well as General John Kelly, as an important military presence in his inner circle. Kelly, his original homeland security secretary who later became Mr. Trump's chief of staff, is also leaving at the end of the year. As acting defense secretary, Shanahan will not need to be confirmed by the Senate. Shanahan was confirmed as deputy defense secretary in 2017, though former Sen. John McCain at the time threatened to block his appointment over his lack of Defense Department experience. He's kicking Mattis out two months early.

At least he didn't appoint some bum off the street, I suppose.

Not going to lie, as dumb as the Space Force is, it'd be a windfall for aerospace contractors like Boeing so his advocacy could be a result of that rather than strictly Trump bootlicking. At least I hope that's the case.

That is still not okay.

boeing does not want to build a space force. They already have enough on their plate with the dreamchaser and the next 7X7 plane as well as getting all their existing lines sold.

Yeah it sure would a windfall if a major businessman in the aerospace industry were to suddenly find himself in charge of the bidding.

I would imagine the potential windfall and trump bootlicking feeds one into the other both ways.

That's not a windfall, that's blatant cronyism and corruption. How are people so willfully fucking blind to this? As for the post, remember the last time we had a big industry executive as Secretary of Defense?

A conservative doormat, pretty typical. The space force meme is more propoganda bullshit, expect Boeing to get more contracts while SpaceX faces more investigations.

I'm not so sure - the government is currently in partial shutdown because Trump wants a literal wall built between the US and Mexico. I am certain that Trump is sincere about making a literal, real "space force" as part of the military.

The "space force" is just going to merge operations current operations such as the NRO under its branch. Its just so dumb farm hicks can say "YEAH WE SPACE FORCE NOW SON", its about as sincere as making Mexico pay for the wall.

aren't enough skilled workers to facilitate it so the "space force" is going to be put on the backburner and never going to see the light of day for at least the next 30 years accounting for the time to design, build and test any aircraft built and the bureaucracy of registering it and keeping it secret. This would most likely end up a money vacuum that sees no results. Secondly boeing is already "in deep" so to speak with the U.S. government and has been ever since WW2 so this would change nothing.

He chose a Boeing guy because Military-Industrial complex, I would imagine.

This, it wouldn't be a bad shout to let Trump have his second term just to see which other names pop up on the staffing list so we can make a note of who to investigate first when the public hammer comes down. If it ever comes down.

But someone our Secretary of Defense being a member of the Military Industrial complex is the most terrifying prospect of this presidency. It's like my worst fears for this country have been realised. May god help us all.

The founder of Blackwater is a Trump adviser and the brother of Betsy Devos

The only faith I've ever had in this presidency has been "maybe it won't be that bad" and "maybe because he's incompetent he won't do anything", and even with htat, it took this fucking long to utterly shatter my resolve of this presidency to the point where talking about it throws me into a depressed fit. What the hell has happened to this country...

Is the swamp drained yet?

Honest to god is not the first time so don't freak out too too much.

He turned the swamp into a landfill

Still doesn't make it easier to swallow when Secretary of Defense and his friends directly profit everytime the country drops a missile on someone. It's the same with Theresa May's husband being a big exec of that arms company. If doctors and scientists can't have conflicts of interest when writing papers, people in these kinds of positions shouldn't either. It's fucking ridiculous and good for nobody but the company in question.

Wake up every morning. Read the news. Country is getting buttfucked to hell and back. Want to kill myself. Try to find a reason not to. Want to believe we're not in the absolute worst case scenario. Share my thoughts. Get dogpiled by a community I love and trust. Want to kill myself. Is this just all it is? Do I have to choose between hating every fucking moment of my life or being hated by it? Of course this isn't fucking okay. It's never okay. Nothing is ever okay and it's never going to be okay again. Our lives are fucked, the lives of our children are fucked, we're all going to die fucking stupid meaningless deaths at the hands of people too evil or too stupid or too insecure to just let us live a peaceful life. People want me to die. People want you to die. They're going to cheer and clap their hands when they see our corpses on the fucking pavement because they can't tolerate people who disagree with their slavish devotion to the infant toddler they put in power because they're willing to sacrifice everything to get rid of us. This whole situation is so fucked up beyond all belief and recognition that for a brief moment I wanted to believe that things would at least just be a little better if someone was a corrupt corporate crony self-invested in his own industry than an inhuman monster throwing their support behind a fascist regime. I don't give a shit about this guy either way. He has no business being where he is. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for my sake, not his. I fucking hate this just as much if not more than everyone fucking here. I hate feeling powerless and I hate that I can't change anything. I hate that I have to try to find bullshit retarded silver linings in the worst possible shit just to trick myself into thinking it's not all completely meaningless and that I'm not just here to bear witness to the end of the fucking world. Sometimes I just want to believe one good thing will come. Sometimes I see the optimism of the people around me and I want to believe in it too. I see people at the aerospace company I work for get excited talking about the Space Force, and how it's going to mean good things for us. I know it's stupid. They know it's stupid. It's all fucking stupid. But at least it's a little fucking neat. There's a little bit of infantile bullshit excitement I can glean from the idea that we get a chance to see a little bit of sci-fi in our lives. It's just something, anything to hold onto. I don't agree with it, I don't think it's okay, but it's at least not reprehensible fascist bigoted bullshit.. It's something I can humor a conversation about. It's something I can engage people with and pretend their enthusiasm for the fucking monster is just misplaced based on this one thing. It helps me to see people as humans again. Stupid, self-important, short-sighted, and ignorant... but human. That's what I wanted to try to see in this guy. I wasn't wanting to try to justify his appointment. I'm just so tired of seeing monsters everywhere. Please understand me. I'm sorry.

Hold up dude. This sounds too serious and you're losing sight of things. Take a break from the politics for a while, this is literally nothing new, it's being going on for thousands of years and likely will go on for a thousand more, it's the game that is played. But it's not your game, you really don't need to be a part of it, or take it in until it's at your doorstep, it's not your responsibility, regardless of what others might tell you. You were born a human in your country, that does not mean you have the play by the rules of that country or the society, you don't need to vote, you don't need to participate in these conversations or these wars. Chill out, grab your fishing rod, go enjoy the view as the world continues on much as it has since the dawn of time. If it comes to you, and really, it hasn't yet, then deal with it then and try get past it. This is what is called overdosing on politics and it isn't good for anyone, while we are privileged at the moment not to partake, and some are forced into it, our time will come, as it did 80 years ago when young men were forced to fight other young men for older mens beliefs and politicking. But that's not our fight, not yet, and there's still plenty to live for, so grab a beer, smoke a joint, jack off to hentai, do whatever you wanna do until someone tries to take that away and THEN consider drastic actions, just don't take any right now, they aren't worth it, to them this is a tuesday, it should be to you too. Hope you're OK brother.

I'll be okay... I just needed to get that off my chest because I feel that one of the things that helps me cope with it all is being here and talking with everyone and knowing I'm not alone. I get scared when I accidentally say something that puts me at odds with you guys and it starts falling apart because this support structure is imperative. I want to take a break but it's hard. Not paying attention makes me even more nervous. I tend to still get glimpses because my community and workplace are political as fuck. Then I'm left to just stew on something that sounds like it could potentially be terrifying without knowing the details and the cycle repeats itself.

Hey man, Facepunch is harsh as shit when it comes to this subforum in general, you won't meet much harsher criticism for your opinions, but it never really goes to bullying and as long as you have good sources and can talk your opinions properly then the community accepts it and the collective stops being so harsh. Take it from a truther, trust me.

Yeah I agree. And I don't blame anyone for reacting appropriately to my own failure to communicate. Frankly I like that Facepunch has such a low tolerance for bullshit, as it keeps discussions honest and based in reality which is a rare luxury. I just took the atmosphere for granted and said something carelessly, then panicked at the scrutiny that followed because, like I said, I've made this place a bit of a sanctuary for myself. I spend my days feeling vulnerable or threatened by the political atmosphere and Facepunch feels safe and reaffirming. Now that I've calmed down a bit and had a chance to reflect on the events of tonight it occurs to me that this isn't a healthy way of coping with any of this and even if it causes me discomfort to do so I should definitely change this behavior and either find a way to empower myself in the political process or to reduce my focus on it. Ideally both, somehow. Anyway I'd like to apologize to everyone for derailing the thread with my initial post and the resultant outburst. I'm going to excuse myself now, but please don't be concerned, I'm not a danger to myself despite what I said earlier. I'll handle it better than that.

"President Trump began his presidency surrounding himself with military generals in key Cabinet posts. But his pick for acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, 46, is a sharp departure from that mold. Since said military generals proved to be less compliant than he would like them to be. They had too much loyalty to the actual country rather than him specifically.

The United States is not a sandbox for children to play around in to see if they've got sociopathic tendencies. This is the real world.

I wouldn't say FP's tolerance for bullshit is low. It definitely is lower than most if not all other forums and communities A bunch of threads end up getting sidetracked becoming a shitstorm, mainly anytime the likes of Boilrig post in Brexit threads and everyone starts rightly dogpiling his trolling. I'm really tired of that and tend to avoid them, I just want to discuss the topics and not the users that post about them

Or you know, kick out the the orange fraud that got elected because of unfair, outdated electoral systems running a hate campaign on the good two thirds of the country while installing is buddy corporate stooges while actively being funded and supported by one of the most aggressive agitators of current global actors while only looking to enrich himself on the cost and integrity of the highest office of the US while making the life of the people he is supposed to defend and represent in every way more miserable just by his sheer corruption, incompetence, intolerance and apathy. When that is done, get rid of the electoral college, get rid of first past the post by introducing ranked choice voting, start funding schools again so people learn critical argumentation skills and critical thinking again, banish every trace of religion from public office, slash the military budget in half and redistribute that into every other needed social and government program that is on monetary life support, fix healthcare, start appropriately taxing the rich and the massive corporations and not running the IRS on a shoestring budget, reverse Citizens united, make political donations transparent and hold politicians more accountable to conflicts of interest. When that is all done, you don't need to use the position of the Commander & Chief as a decoy to lure out a couple of white collar criminals where their successors are already there, ready to take the place of those that are caught, while operating under the extreme detriment of the common citizen. The long-lasting empathetic solution with positive side effects. Fix the causes and don't just fight the symptoms.