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Trump Budget Proposal Cuts Funding for Stars & Stripes

Somerville

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Is this yet another instance of Trump's dislike for independent media or is it really a matter of shifting the funds to "higher-priority issues”?

Esper defends stripping Stars and Stripes of all funding, says news organization is not a priority

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday defended the Pentagon’s effort to strip Stars and Stripes of all of its federal funding as part of its fiscal year 2021 budget request, telling reporters in Brussels that the independent news organization is not a priority.

“So, we trimmed the support for Stars and Stripes because we need to invest that money, as we did with many, many other programs, into higher-priority issues,” Esper said during a news conference at NATO headquarters. He listed space, nuclear programs, hypersonic missiles and “a variety of systems” as places the money — slightly more than $15.5 million — could be reinvested in the $705.4 billion Defense Department spending proposal.

Pentagon officials acknowledged Wednesday for the first time that the budget proposal completely cuts the subsidy that the department provides Stars and Stripes to print and distribute newspapers to troops deployed around the world, including remote and often-dangerous locations in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Veterans point to value of Stars and Stripes amid proposal to strip funding from news organization

15.5 million is 0.002 per cent of the proposed military funding.
 
Stars and Stripes had a point when soldiers couldn't access any news service in the world on their phones/computers. It doesn't any more.

The various "Times" of the services that report on military-specific news will still exist.
 
Trump doesn't cut the budget so he's a fat greedy pig spending too much. Trump cuts the budget and all these don't cut my tail first rats come crawling out. What's a type-A chief executive to do anyways?
 
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King Tangface needs that money for the rich.
 
Stars and Stripes had a point when soldiers couldn't access any news service in the world on their phones/computers. It doesn't any more.

The various "Times" of the services that report on military-specific news will still exist.

Large amounts of the world have poor internet and phone access, and military sites in the middle east can be scarce on internet, ie only highly restricted use of govt vsat's and satcoms. Granted someone pointed out in the other thread on this if you are on a base/fob/camp etc where internet access was not readily available, access to the physical magazine was also not likely available.

Places that lack ready internet often have poor logistics support and are not major bases, but small fobs and outposts there to serve the needs of the military for whatever reason they deemed. I was at a faily decent sized camp in afghanistan, we had no internet at first, then we got mwr tents set up with govt satellites, which had about 40 computers at slow speed for a few thousand soldiers. Later we got a contractor to set up personal internet, 45 a month unlimited data but man it was slow, fire up a facebook page by morning it may load by the end of the day, because the contractor used only a single satellite at first for all the users.

Later on the army forced the contractor to put up more satellites, still not blazing fast really more like 33k modem speed however it became useable, for gaming we just ran lan lines between tents as even if it had been 56k modem speeds it would have been too slow. Not sure how that internet it now as my old unit deployed there again without me as well as 2 deployments ther by aircav 615th, I would assume they would have improved things further since then, however point is the internet even in a large camp is a farcry from even the poorest internet here in the states.

edit- Oh and on phones, we had two cell providers there, roshan and I forget the other, they allowed talk and text but no data, it was pay as you go and charged by the minute/text. In 2010/11 cell phones in afghanistan were almost as expensive as they were in america in the 1980's, most people just chose to use mwr phones powered by vsats to call home instead of paying their outrageous prices.
 
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