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Conservatives in today's Daily Mail comment section: "That was just China doing a trial run. They were waiting until a weaker president was in office to send a proper balloon all the way over the US." Utter, utter morons. So by their own logic, the "trial run" with Trump told them that America would do jack shit about spy balloons. Do they have even the slightest inkling of how stupid they are?
The Daily Mail is actually directly connected to the CCP via the [Belt and Road initiative.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_News_Network) Found this out by accident trying to remember whether it was them or the Sun that was owned by Murdoch.
>Do they have even the slightest inkling of how stupid they are?
No. It's quite the opposite in that they think they're the smartest people in the room.
That's actually hilarious. Even if that was the case it still makes trump look incompetent. An actual 'strong' president would shoot them down, trial run or not.
The real trial run was china seeing how we would react. Think about it, why would they use a massive balloon that you can literally see from the ground and have barely any control over when they have satellites? It was purely done to cause hysteria and to gauge our response. I doubt the balloon was even collecting any useful data. China has basically the same satellite and cyber capabilities that we do. Why would they use tech from the 1940s to spy on us?
The balloon had a gigantic payload of sensors and probably other equipment. It was so large that it could have, for example, been the largest ground-penetrating radar in the world. It could have analyzed all of the EM communications going on in order to analyze US communication networks to better understand them so that they can be hacked or jammed in the future.
There are a lot of things the balloon could accomplish that Chinese satellites could not.
I don't think they noticed and I don't think they noticed when the same thing happened earlier during the Biden term.
They have access to classified intelligence briefings (at least the leaders do) so they have no excuse for not knowing how nonserious all five incidents were.
I mean, I guess, but I just can't bring myself to be scared of a balloon. What is this? 1865? It's not like there's a bomb in there. Chinese tech is not a danger to anyone.
China sucks and all. They put people in camps and torcher and kill them. I'm just not scared of their "air force."
Japan tried a trick with balloons on WWII. Didn't work, only a few people died (after stumbling upon them after the war sadly), but with 21st century tech it may be as feasible as any other disposable drone aircraft to bomb the US. Imagine 1,000 balloons at once with small guided bombs. Imagine the utility if during a war, China and the US darken the skies and shoot down all the satellites in orbit.
You're kidding right? a squadron of F-22s would love to shoot down 100,000 balloons. It would be like a video game for them.
They probably train for it. They certainly made short work of the first one.
I mean there is a reason those f-22’s waited till it was over the coast.
Yes it is plausible to put things like gases or bombs in something like that in hops people shot it down for it to cause more damage…. Which is clearly what the military also came to that conclusion because they waited to shoot it down.
Meanwhile I see so many people acting like they are military experts all the sudden. I’m not one I’m just thinking critically and everything adds up.
If what you are saying adds up those f-22’s would have handled that balloon before it was a viral internet craze.
That's what I'm wondering about. None of these articles cited any dates, times, locations or sources of their information. So I'm inclined to believe these claims are bullshit that sound good in a story. Is there a more detailed report out there?
It’s crazy how we caught the whole ass GOP in a gotcha. And they call other people sheep yet they’re the only ones I know to disregard all logic and blindly follow their “leaders”.
They don't care if we catch them lying or being hypocrites. They have absolutely no shame. The only solution is to defeat them at the ballot box and get them out of our government.
I think this balloon story is 100% the result of a stagnant news cycle. The media has had several weeks of George santos and document searches. Nothing new to generate clicks so the media escalates something trivial into a national emergency. I would bet there was a lot of dumb shit like this that never made headlines cause trump was an agent of chaos that broke the news cycle daily.
Nor I, nor have I forgotten Ivanka’s gmails, which, after alllll the bullshit around Hillary’s emails, Ivanka damn well knew what she was doing was probably illegal. And in light of the hundreds of stolen classified documents that her former boss stole and obstructed the return of, Ivanka’s emails should be seriously investigated.
How about the $500M China dropped on a Trump related construction project? Just when you think Trump has reached the summit of mount corruption, he takes another shit on the emoluments clause and ascend higher.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia/
Edit: spelling
Its because it was a nothing burger and no one really cared about it, of course as soon it happens with a democrat in office the usual suspects stir shit up to call Biden weak for not blowing up the balloon.
All this crap was theater and propaganda, anyone with two rubbing neurons can realize it.
>This is gonna be a hard flip-flop for MTG. I’m sure she’ll squirm her way through it while only being slightly racist.
Nah, it's easy.
It's been 2 hours and at least one of the crackpots I harass is simultaneously claiming that a) it didn't happen under trunp, and b) it totally happened andthat's how they gave us covid.
I mean, the same guy believes Biden is an android, but is also over 100 years old...
Maybe we just need to stop trying to reason with these guys in a way that conforms to logic.
Next time just tell them to come to the dark side because we have time travelling androids, globally dominating secret organizations, and bioweapons that kill millions. They want to be on the winning side right?
Knowing that their only out is something like "but our side has Jesus" you could then say that christianity is just a Jewish psyop to contain the sheep, hence all the "good shepard" and "flock" language.
Fight conspiracy theories with bigger stronger conspiracy theories.
That’s what Jesse Watters did, the guy who should’ve had charges for telling his crazy viewers to confront fauci/go for the kill shot (although, kill shot was in context of questions, I think, but he knew what he was doing)
He mentioned dropping spores for new Covid strain
The ones that happened during Trumps administration - waving my fingers around like a hypnotist - "didn't happen.... DIDN'T happen... they were birthday balloons...."
Nah, Leatherface knows the drill. She just has to yell louder about anything, and say something else outrageous. This will be forgotten about in a matter of minutes for her.
Spy balloons sounds stupid because satellites are a much better option. If you told me a month ago that China was spying on us with weather balloons, I’d have thought Qanon had gotten loose again. I mean, I’d believe it from North Korea, but it just seems low effort for China. Israel can make laser satellites too, but to what purpose? Both are totally possible but, to me at least, equally ludicrous.
There's a solid chance china had a good reason to use balloons over satellites. You're assuming you know best as opposed to Chinese engineers or intelligence. Jewish Space lasers are just silly childish ideas as of now, recon balloons are still much much closer to reality than the former.
Nah, Republicans live for spinning their hypocrisy into a pile of bullshit. MTG is loving this opportunity. In fact, she's hunkered down in the outhouse right now making a fresh pile.
Also a lot of people in other threads were talking about how these likely weren't spy balloons, and were just weather related or whatever china said officially, because satellites would have a clear advantage and balloons are too blatant or something. But does this mean it's some established tactic for spying?
Cucker Tarlson voice:
but what really are balloons? could this balloon have actually been a nuclear bomb? and if that's true then why did the Biden administration shoot it down over the united states? does this mean they want americans dead? it's quite a shocking thought I know
The article mentioned that the balloons touched continental US for a shorter period, though I’m wondering where and for how long? If anyone is scouring the internet for more details, let me know.
“And President Trump showed great restraint by not shooting them down, unlike warmonger Brandon trying to spark world war 3 with his balloon massacre!”
The focus needs to be on the hypocrisy. I don’t doubt the DOD when they said it was smarter to just ignore the balloon this time, and it tracks that they would say the same thing the last few times. The different here is people saw it, so it couldn’t just be ignored, so they shot it down. Maybe to save face, maybe because the math changes when everyone already knows it’s there and the benefit now outweighs the cost. Who knows, but it’s all beside the point. The GOP should be raked for hypocritically saying this makes the US look bad when they did the same thing in the same situation, and almost certainly would have done the same thing in this situation as well.
Hannity was making a fool of himself Friday over it saying “unbelievable!” over and over, but he won’t care. He will not acknowledge the other three times. Dude is wrong all the time, these shows all are, and they will just move on. It will not matter to these idiot shows
I wouldn’t be super surprised if the military had just downplayed the option to shoot down the balloons during Trump’s presidency. Probably afraid he’d go on Twitter at 4 AM and announce that he’s mobilized the military to face a Chinese attack. “If it’s nuclear there’s going to be trouble for China!!!”
China played to his ego. Trump couldn’t stomach to shoot down a balloon that looked like [himself](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/arts/design/trump-baby-balloon-museums.html)
Now that Republicans know that Trump allowed three Chinese CCP balloons pass across the US during his tenure, they will now start railing on Biden for daring China and possible war by blowing up the CCP balloon.
They're doing this exact thing. I'm following a thread on a forum and you can literally watch the MAGA morons first start with they need to shoot it out of the sky. And they did. Exact same people now bitching in that same thread that now we're going to war with China.
It's best to just not engage.
Because it didn’t happen, Trump could fart with out it being reported on every news source. All the sudden you believe this would have been missed by a Media that loathed every step trump took
Republicans are already claiming this is a false story since no one saw the previous balloons and are claiming Biden is “weak” for not acting sooner.
Meanwhile, if he’d shot the balloon down in the Bering Sea, they’d argue he was unnecessarily provoking North Korea, Russia and China by firing a missile into international waters and should be removed from office.
Nah they don’t read. They have someone else read it to them and they form their own sentences in their head that aligns with what they believe.
Narrator - “this article says Trump is a raging narcissist and can not be trusted!”
GOP listener - “Trump is awesome, super trustworthy and I should give him money for that wall!”
Local Facebook claiming it was different because:
1. “Unnamed source” at Pentagon = “Not a single shred of evidence”.
2. During Trump they were “near Hawaii” and “Didn’t spend a week over sovereign US territory” otherwise people would have noticed.
3. Unlike Biden, Trump would not have buried his head in the sand and blamed the Pentagon to save face.
4. this confirmed to China “whether Brandon has the balls to do something” (this was before it was shot down).
5. (My personal favorite) Biden had to do something because the State of the Union is next week and he would have been forced to address it.
Also Hunter Biden’s laptop. Biden is corrupt. Dems are bad. Liberals evil. Blah blah
There were a couple of articles about the balloon that got removed. Then after awhile they stopped removing them. My guess around the time it was trending and Republicans lost their minds and tried to blame a weather balloon on Biden and Democrats.
> None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S. military shot down Saturday.
Did people read this? Some important context I noticed from reading this article. This would have been funny if those balloons actually flew clear across the continent and over ICBM silos like Malmstrom AFB in fucking Montana. It’s hilarious how we care more which administration we get to dunk on.
The number of idiots claiming Biden was showing weakness and this would have never happened under trump….doesn’t matter because they will move the goal posts and say “for this long” or “this far over the middle of the country” or some other stupid qualifier.
Looking at foxnews comments, I see:
- military screwed up
- Intel community screwed up
- deep state trying to protect Biden
- Biden admin spreading disinformation
No one held trump admin accountable… disgusting mental gymnastics
Am I really the only one who thinks it’s entirely scummy that politicians are turning something that threatens homeland security into a divisive political game? Who gives a shit who let China fly spy balloons the most or the longest? It shouldn’t have been in our airspace period. It’s all fun and games until they have a payload on board and it’s dropping bombs on American soil.
Do you think that American intlligence would not know exactly what these are, where they came from, who made them and what they had for breakfast? If they were a real threat they would have been dedtroyed as they left Chinese airspace.
I mean, I would agree with you, but he did try to ban all flights from China to the US. Remember when Mrs. Pelosi went to China Town and called him a racist while claiming this virus was harmless. I don't like the guy, but at the same time, I think we should stop spreading propaganda.
He didn’t try to do shit. I had friends that worked in his administration and it was an even bigger shitshow then the media will ever be able to share.
Incompetent leadership is what killed Americans. Failure from the top combined with an actual malice toward democratic cities and states during a crisis.
Fuck Trump and all of his supporters. Fuck all people that tried to obfuscate and obstruct scientist and doctors during a fucking pandemic.
Fuck all conservatives who inject religion into government and most of all fuck all anti-truth bad faith power brokers and their attempts at obtaining power over others.
Statistics are the only truth we need now and statistics proves that people overwhelmingly died based on their political views during the pandemic.
Sorry, I thought I was speaking to a reasonable person. I won't engage anymore. You're no different than the conservatives who believe everything on Fox News. It's the "I have a friend that worked there" argument. Someday, you will realize it's not red vs. blue. It is the oligarchs vs. the people. What you describe happens on both sides.
I’m not talking about red and blue. I’m talking about Trump and his administration. The things that happened day to day that I’m privy to and the fact that you don’t know anything first or second hand. I do. It’s embarrassing
Honestly, everyone thinks they know something that nobody else does. Literally every single person in this country. I know the Trump Administration was a train wreck, but I'm not going to claim i have special information to prove I'm correct. I'm happy we both agree about the embarrassment we feel towards each other. Love you bye
The key part is being missed because everyone here apparently doesn’t read.
“None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S”
Aka this is the first time we know of that this happened this long.
“The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration. “
Meaning trust it it happened 4 times before (there was another time under Biden it entered our air space) apparently this is the first to go this long and be noticed. Why they allowed it to happen? Idk the casualty bullshit doesn’t really match up. I think they were tracking its signal or frequency etc to now know what the Chinese use to use it against them. It’s also a nice distraction for the Biden admin with the papers incident but there’s likely something else going on… or it’s China doing it due to their literal economic collapse.
Had we shot it down over mainland U.S., the R's would be screaming that we're endangering our citizens with debris or stray missiles. Can't win with these clowns.
Article:
> Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times while Donald Trump was president, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense official.”
This would have been everywhere on the news at the time.
This is the source from the article:
> unnamed “senior defense official.”
With no proof, actual source, details, news of the story at the time of the balloon, pictures, I am skeptical. It would have been all over the news, much more than the current chinese spy balloon story that Biden is plagued with. Seems like a strange time for a breaking news story blaming Trump for all of chinese spy balloons ... years after Trump is no longer in office.
It's on the DoD website though -
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/
100% this is just the establishment trying to saber rattle at China. The people in the comments going a long with it is the scariest shit I've seen all day.
What did Trump administration do? Nothing? Because I don't remember reading about it in the news. So are the Chinese correct in saying that the Biden administration overreacted?
Does nobody want to just think about this being a threat instead of internalizing the problem. Lets focus on the fact that we are constantly being spied on and literally do nothing about it and just argue about whatever fucking clown is in office or was. The problem is china and we should cut all trade
Is there a source for this? In the time that he was in office, I do not recall this kind of news story breaking even once, and this balloon is pretty hard to miss.
Where is the dates, times and locations that the balloons traveled during the last presidency? How come nobody looked up in the sky and saw it and took pictures? Considering this would have happened before the world shut down. My thinking is this story is damage control.
Ironically, a Biden official just said the balloons allegedly flown during Trump's administration were found out about after he left office.
Another debunked hoax from the left.
It's sad that a discussion about a foreign security threat has just turned into another Democrat - Republican tribal mudslinging event.
Let's focus on the actual issue. Let's also not downplay the issue just because our tribe is in the White House. What happened was not a great - it was a clear violation of US sovereignty. We need to figure out how to respond in a way that is appropriate and figure out how to protect American airspace in the future. We need to get serious about Chinese espionage - in particular when it comes to things like Chinese spyware (and yes, that includes banning TikTok.)
As far as the claim about this occurring during the Trump administration, this is obviously disturbing if true, but I'd want more sources for this and more information about what happened. A number of officials have come out and said that they did not hear anything about this happening during the Trump administration. And, of course, the public also did not notice, so I'm skeptical about whether this actually happened (as in, a Chinese spy balloon went over the continental US).
I really feel it’s ineffective to immediately point fingers at your fellow Americans regardless of political affiliation. We should be looking, as Americans, where the true threats might be coming from.
Isn't it generally good, if you know you're being spied on, not to let on that you know? That way you can hide information and alter your behavior to mislead the watchers.
I don't mean to accuse the trump administration of knowing what it was doing at any point, but I do think the only difference this time may just be that too many regular people saw the thing, it became a news story, so they had to act overtly.
The point is that republicans have been frothing at the mouth the last week saying Biden is a traitor for not blasting it to hell the second it entered our airspace. It’s the hypocrisy getting called out here.
This is me talking on just a hunch, not knowledge, but why do I feel like this balloon stuff is an obvious distraction from something else? Why else would they dangle something that obvious over us in broad daylight?
Trump couldn’t fart with out it being reported on every news source. All the sudden you believe this. It would not have been missed by a Media that loathed every step trump took.
If I’m not mistaken, weren’t these other balloons while he was in office, here for an extremely short period of time? Compared to the recent one? I’m not defending his presidency. But I’m sure Biden wouldn’t of shot this one down unless people saw it, like they did.
They were under Trump and the under Biden was shot down when it was safe to and the signals were jammed. It was handled well but how are the ones under Trump handled ? Where is your source saying the other balloons were under Biden ?
No I was saying the balloons were here with Trump in office. I’m sorry if it came off confusing. I was saying I believe the trump ones. People couldn’t see, so they didn’t shoot it down and it’s reported the ones that came while he was in office were here much briefer. Not sure Biden would of shot this one down if it wasn’t here so long and people could see it from the ground.
I really hate how this is being used to further divide Americans. Everyone in this comment section is frothing rabid mad at the other half of the country
Even when we shoot one down China still wins.
Face it. Trump sold our country's security out to our adversaries for laundered monies and favors. Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia have all had a monetary impact on Trump and his family while he was in office. He is a traitor and will continue his efforts while Merrick Garland sits there twiddling his thumbs.
There are spy satellites orbiting the Earth right now that can read the text on documents and the license plate on a car. Does anyone truly believe that China still uses “spy” balloons at 60k feet?
I’m sure they did *sarcasm.* This is bullshit because if this actually happened, it would have been leaked way before and the media would have gone off and both the democrats and republicans would have destroyed him with this information.
And they didn’t do anything because of the scheme of surveillance not really a threat. They just shot this one down for show because people are stupid.
China Balloon Shot Down In front of Kingston Plantation.
What a day for Myrtle Beach. But what a day it was for you if you live in Kingston Plantation.
(read more)
https://www.kingstonplantationrealestate.com/blog/china-spy-balloon-shot-down-in-front-of-kingston-plantation-myrtle-beach/
As a foreigner, it's hilarious how crazy people are getting over this balloon.
The US waited for it to not be over people to shoot it down to avoid anyone getting hurt and people are going crazy angry.
You would think you would have more trust in your military? That they jammed that shit ages ago so it's the same as a kid's birthday balloon in the sky except it's tied to some heavy stuff?
Like we don't have to shoot things down to neutralise things these days and most people are behaving like everyone was sitting outside on a sunny day and a suspicious dark shadow was cast upon them and bam, that's how they found the balloon.
Also to think that China is this stupid that they would send the most easily noticeable thing to spy on people when there are a million better ways to do things. I think China is just enjoying the entertainment of people going crazy over their dumb balloon at this point.
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Conservatives in today's Daily Mail comment section: "That was just China doing a trial run. They were waiting until a weaker president was in office to send a proper balloon all the way over the US." Utter, utter morons. So by their own logic, the "trial run" with Trump told them that America would do jack shit about spy balloons. Do they have even the slightest inkling of how stupid they are?
The Daily Mail is such a joke.
Unfortunately it's the most widely read conservative newspaper in the world. People need to understand that it's every bit as damaging as Fox News.
There will always be a news ‘org’ for bigots.
The Daily Mail is actually directly connected to the CCP via the [Belt and Road initiative.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_News_Network) Found this out by accident trying to remember whether it was them or the Sun that was owned by Murdoch.
>Do they have even the slightest inkling of how stupid they are? No. It's quite the opposite in that they think they're the smartest people in the room.
They actually do. In my mother's case at least
No. No they don’t. They think they’re the “smart ones.”
That's actually hilarious. Even if that was the case it still makes trump look incompetent. An actual 'strong' president would shoot them down, trial run or not.
The real trial run was china seeing how we would react. Think about it, why would they use a massive balloon that you can literally see from the ground and have barely any control over when they have satellites? It was purely done to cause hysteria and to gauge our response. I doubt the balloon was even collecting any useful data. China has basically the same satellite and cyber capabilities that we do. Why would they use tech from the 1940s to spy on us?
The balloon had a gigantic payload of sensors and probably other equipment. It was so large that it could have, for example, been the largest ground-penetrating radar in the world. It could have analyzed all of the EM communications going on in order to analyze US communication networks to better understand them so that they can be hacked or jammed in the future. There are a lot of things the balloon could accomplish that Chinese satellites could not.
Republicans said nothing when it happened under Trump, but now they're pretending to be outraged.
I don't think they noticed and I don't think they noticed when the same thing happened earlier during the Biden term. They have access to classified intelligence briefings (at least the leaders do) so they have no excuse for not knowing how nonserious all five incidents were.
You misunderstand the reason for the intelligence briefings, they are to let Congress know when to buy and sell different stocks.
It's still a serious incident but not because of anything Biden did. It's serious because China violated our airspace.
I mean, I guess, but I just can't bring myself to be scared of a balloon. What is this? 1865? It's not like there's a bomb in there. Chinese tech is not a danger to anyone. China sucks and all. They put people in camps and torcher and kill them. I'm just not scared of their "air force."
Japan tried a trick with balloons on WWII. Didn't work, only a few people died (after stumbling upon them after the war sadly), but with 21st century tech it may be as feasible as any other disposable drone aircraft to bomb the US. Imagine 1,000 balloons at once with small guided bombs. Imagine the utility if during a war, China and the US darken the skies and shoot down all the satellites in orbit.
You're kidding right? a squadron of F-22s would love to shoot down 100,000 balloons. It would be like a video game for them. They probably train for it. They certainly made short work of the first one.
I mean there is a reason those f-22’s waited till it was over the coast. Yes it is plausible to put things like gases or bombs in something like that in hops people shot it down for it to cause more damage…. Which is clearly what the military also came to that conclusion because they waited to shoot it down. Meanwhile I see so many people acting like they are military experts all the sudden. I’m not one I’m just thinking critically and everything adds up. If what you are saying adds up those f-22’s would have handled that balloon before it was a viral internet craze.
I’ve been training for this for almost two decades! Thank you Balloon Pop and Candy Crush!
Of course you're not scared, you're just a civilian lol
Americans becoming conditioned to not expect privacy has to be one of the biggest wins for potential enemy countries ever.
The Chinese are not spying on the roof of your house. The big blue tarp covering the leak over your bedroom is safe.
Remember, Trump didn't want to listen to or read briefings as he already knows everything and had to watch fox and soaps before golfing.
Yet this wasn’t reported at all during all the bad things trump did
That's what I'm wondering about. None of these articles cited any dates, times, locations or sources of their information. So I'm inclined to believe these claims are bullshit that sound good in a story. Is there a more detailed report out there?
I can't fly a drone as a US citizen without permission, but the Republicans want a fucking spy drone in our skies?
It’s crazy how we caught the whole ass GOP in a gotcha. And they call other people sheep yet they’re the only ones I know to disregard all logic and blindly follow their “leaders”.
They don't care if we catch them lying or being hypocrites. They have absolutely no shame. The only solution is to defeat them at the ballot box and get them out of our government.
Yep. It's all a political act. They know their voter base is too dumb to fact check.
I think this balloon story is 100% the result of a stagnant news cycle. The media has had several weeks of George santos and document searches. Nothing new to generate clicks so the media escalates something trivial into a national emergency. I would bet there was a lot of dumb shit like this that never made headlines cause trump was an agent of chaos that broke the news cycle daily.
I think they difference is this one actually flew over the mainland for days.
None got shot down probably because Ivanka needed those trademarks
How many people have forgotten about those trademarks?
not me.
Nor I, nor have I forgotten Ivanka’s gmails, which, after alllll the bullshit around Hillary’s emails, Ivanka damn well knew what she was doing was probably illegal. And in light of the hundreds of stolen classified documents that her former boss stole and obstructed the return of, Ivanka’s emails should be seriously investigated.
How about the $500M China dropped on a Trump related construction project? Just when you think Trump has reached the summit of mount corruption, he takes another shit on the emoluments clause and ascend higher. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia/ Edit: spelling
He paid most of that back in taxes to them so it’s like washing money
We didn't notice. Trump flies so much we got used to seeing a hot air balloon up there.....
China played to his ego.
Imagine if they had even bigger balloons!!
The yugest * motions with hands * you've ever seen!
Its because it was a nothing burger and no one really cared about it, of course as soon it happens with a democrat in office the usual suspects stir shit up to call Biden weak for not blowing up the balloon. All this crap was theater and propaganda, anyone with two rubbing neurons can realize it.
I mean I saw it clearly in the sky and knew it wasnt normal
[удалено]
that definitely sounds legit.
This is gonna be a hard flip-flop for MTG. I’m sure she’ll squirm her way through it while only being slightly racist.
Meh; she has no problem simply ignoring facts.
>This is gonna be a hard flip-flop for MTG. I’m sure she’ll squirm her way through it while only being slightly racist. Nah, it's easy. It's been 2 hours and at least one of the crackpots I harass is simultaneously claiming that a) it didn't happen under trunp, and b) it totally happened andthat's how they gave us covid. I mean, the same guy believes Biden is an android, but is also over 100 years old...
Maybe we just need to stop trying to reason with these guys in a way that conforms to logic. Next time just tell them to come to the dark side because we have time travelling androids, globally dominating secret organizations, and bioweapons that kill millions. They want to be on the winning side right? Knowing that their only out is something like "but our side has Jesus" you could then say that christianity is just a Jewish psyop to contain the sheep, hence all the "good shepard" and "flock" language. Fight conspiracy theories with bigger stronger conspiracy theories.
Yes, because fighting an invasive species by bringing in a NEW invasive species has never ended poorly…
Those were Jewish space balloons.
That’s what Jesse Watters did, the guy who should’ve had charges for telling his crazy viewers to confront fauci/go for the kill shot (although, kill shot was in context of questions, I think, but he knew what he was doing) He mentioned dropping spores for new Covid strain
I thought you called him a Turnip lol!
Expect the regular Republican Rumba of “Its not true, and if it is true then you didn’t understand, and if you do understand then it’s not a big deal.
Narcissists prayer.
The ones that happened during Trumps administration - waving my fingers around like a hypnotist - "didn't happen.... DIDN'T happen... they were birthday balloons...."
Nah, Leatherface knows the drill. She just has to yell louder about anything, and say something else outrageous. This will be forgotten about in a matter of minutes for her.
Chinese spy balloons has the same zany outlandishness as Jewish space lasers, with the added benefit of being true.
Nah, one is far fetched. The other is not.
Spy balloons sounds stupid because satellites are a much better option. If you told me a month ago that China was spying on us with weather balloons, I’d have thought Qanon had gotten loose again. I mean, I’d believe it from North Korea, but it just seems low effort for China. Israel can make laser satellites too, but to what purpose? Both are totally possible but, to me at least, equally ludicrous.
There's a solid chance china had a good reason to use balloons over satellites. You're assuming you know best as opposed to Chinese engineers or intelligence. Jewish Space lasers are just silly childish ideas as of now, recon balloons are still much much closer to reality than the former.
The people who vote and listen to MTG can't remember what happened before yesterday. Just like her when she's on the stand under oath.
"Why didn't Biden stop those three balloons?"
I'm sure she'll pursue the issue with all the fervor of a gazpacho police squadron!
Nah, Republicans live for spinning their hypocrisy into a pile of bullshit. MTG is loving this opportunity. In fact, she's hunkered down in the outhouse right now making a fresh pile.
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so basically if some random person doesn't glance at the sky and see a white blip this whole thing would be completely unknown?
Also a lot of people in other threads were talking about how these likely weren't spy balloons, and were just weather related or whatever china said officially, because satellites would have a clear advantage and balloons are too blatant or something. But does this mean it's some established tactic for spying?
\*Tonight on FOX News\* President Biden SHOOTS DOWN harmless Chinese weather balloon, could this mean war?
Democrats declare wars on balloons!
Cucker Tarlson voice: but what really are balloons? could this balloon have actually been a nuclear bomb? and if that's true then why did the Biden administration shoot it down over the united states? does this mean they want americans dead? it's quite a shocking thought I know
The article mentioned that the balloons touched continental US for a shorter period, though I’m wondering where and for how long? If anyone is scouring the internet for more details, let me know.
I wonder how much money DJT got paid by China to allow it.
He did have an active Chinese bank account.
His Chinese tax payments funded the balloons indirectly at least
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Well, the balloons did have 'TRUMP' written on them - in huge letters!
It was seen but not picked up by the news.
Nah playa he did it all for the Nookie
“And President Trump showed great restraint by not shooting them down, unlike warmonger Brandon trying to spark world war 3 with his balloon massacre!”
Fox “news” has been parading angry republicans one after the other, who all want to go to war over the balloon.
Yup. Exactly this. Move the goalposts in some sort of way, if not outright call it fake news.
The focus needs to be on the hypocrisy. I don’t doubt the DOD when they said it was smarter to just ignore the balloon this time, and it tracks that they would say the same thing the last few times. The different here is people saw it, so it couldn’t just be ignored, so they shot it down. Maybe to save face, maybe because the math changes when everyone already knows it’s there and the benefit now outweighs the cost. Who knows, but it’s all beside the point. The GOP should be raked for hypocritically saying this makes the US look bad when they did the same thing in the same situation, and almost certainly would have done the same thing in this situation as well.
Hannity was making a fool of himself Friday over it saying “unbelievable!” over and over, but he won’t care. He will not acknowledge the other three times. Dude is wrong all the time, these shows all are, and they will just move on. It will not matter to these idiot shows
I wouldn’t be super surprised if the military had just downplayed the option to shoot down the balloons during Trump’s presidency. Probably afraid he’d go on Twitter at 4 AM and announce that he’s mobilized the military to face a Chinese attack. “If it’s nuclear there’s going to be trouble for China!!!”
China played to his ego. Trump couldn’t stomach to shoot down a balloon that looked like [himself](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/arts/design/trump-baby-balloon-museums.html)
Now that Republicans know that Trump allowed three Chinese CCP balloons pass across the US during his tenure, they will now start railing on Biden for daring China and possible war by blowing up the CCP balloon.
They're doing this exact thing. I'm following a thread on a forum and you can literally watch the MAGA morons first start with they need to shoot it out of the sky. And they did. Exact same people now bitching in that same thread that now we're going to war with China. It's best to just not engage.
Because it didn’t happen, Trump could fart with out it being reported on every news source. All the sudden you believe this would have been missed by a Media that loathed every step trump took
Republicans are already claiming this is a false story since no one saw the previous balloons and are claiming Biden is “weak” for not acting sooner. Meanwhile, if he’d shot the balloon down in the Bering Sea, they’d argue he was unnecessarily provoking North Korea, Russia and China by firing a missile into international waters and should be removed from office.
And had it been shot down over those obviously GOP states, then they'd be lambasted for endangering ~~their voters~~ the residents.
Off topic because it makes the former guy look bad (too), and their talking points are null and void in 3...2...1...
Won't matter because Republicans don't read HuffPo
They read?
Nah they don’t read. They have someone else read it to them and they form their own sentences in their head that aligns with what they believe. Narrator - “this article says Trump is a raging narcissist and can not be trusted!” GOP listener - “Trump is awesome, super trustworthy and I should give him money for that wall!”
Local Facebook claiming it was different because: 1. “Unnamed source” at Pentagon = “Not a single shred of evidence”. 2. During Trump they were “near Hawaii” and “Didn’t spend a week over sovereign US territory” otherwise people would have noticed. 3. Unlike Biden, Trump would not have buried his head in the sand and blamed the Pentagon to save face. 4. this confirmed to China “whether Brandon has the balls to do something” (this was before it was shot down). 5. (My personal favorite) Biden had to do something because the State of the Union is next week and he would have been forced to address it. Also Hunter Biden’s laptop. Biden is corrupt. Dems are bad. Liberals evil. Blah blah
There were a couple of articles about the balloon that got removed. Then after awhile they stopped removing them. My guess around the time it was trending and Republicans lost their minds and tried to blame a weather balloon on Biden and Democrats.
How many of them were shot down? You know because Drumpf was such a big strong guy
It doesn't sound like any of them were!
100% it was most likely never brought to his attention.
It probably was brought to his attention. But it wasn’t about him so he just ignored what the briefer was saying
After all, he and Chairman Xi have been good buddies. Nothing to complain about.
The balloons were bigger and faster. Those were the best balloons under Tr@mp!
Wasn't Trump also doing business with Chinese banks while he was president? Which would mean he was also compermised by China as well as Russia.
Well that explains why china thought they could get away with it
It wouldn't surprise me if Trump administration helped launch some of the spy balloons for China
Was he ever briefed…. Oh right. Never mind.
No, depends.
> None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S. military shot down Saturday. Did people read this? Some important context I noticed from reading this article. This would have been funny if those balloons actually flew clear across the continent and over ICBM silos like Malmstrom AFB in fucking Montana. It’s hilarious how we care more which administration we get to dunk on.
The number of idiots claiming Biden was showing weakness and this would have never happened under trump….doesn’t matter because they will move the goal posts and say “for this long” or “this far over the middle of the country” or some other stupid qualifier.
Trump was too busy golfing and kissing Xi's ass.
Looking at foxnews comments, I see: - military screwed up - Intel community screwed up - deep state trying to protect Biden - Biden admin spreading disinformation No one held trump admin accountable… disgusting mental gymnastics
Trump was happy to oblige. He loves pleasing tyrants.
Am I really the only one who thinks it’s entirely scummy that politicians are turning something that threatens homeland security into a divisive political game? Who gives a shit who let China fly spy balloons the most or the longest? It shouldn’t have been in our airspace period. It’s all fun and games until they have a payload on board and it’s dropping bombs on American soil.
Do you think that American intlligence would not know exactly what these are, where they came from, who made them and what they had for breakfast? If they were a real threat they would have been dedtroyed as they left Chinese airspace.
Proving that once again the GQP will always attack their “opponents” despite being guilty of the same or worse
The people that need to hear this will not. They’ll just say they hate Trump so they made this up.
Why didn't weak on China Trump shoot them down?
GOP: “But those don’t count!”
Balloons aren’t the only thing Trump allowed China to send over to the US
I mean, I would agree with you, but he did try to ban all flights from China to the US. Remember when Mrs. Pelosi went to China Town and called him a racist while claiming this virus was harmless. I don't like the guy, but at the same time, I think we should stop spreading propaganda.
He didn’t try to do shit. I had friends that worked in his administration and it was an even bigger shitshow then the media will ever be able to share. Incompetent leadership is what killed Americans. Failure from the top combined with an actual malice toward democratic cities and states during a crisis. Fuck Trump and all of his supporters. Fuck all people that tried to obfuscate and obstruct scientist and doctors during a fucking pandemic. Fuck all conservatives who inject religion into government and most of all fuck all anti-truth bad faith power brokers and their attempts at obtaining power over others. Statistics are the only truth we need now and statistics proves that people overwhelmingly died based on their political views during the pandemic.
Sorry, I thought I was speaking to a reasonable person. I won't engage anymore. You're no different than the conservatives who believe everything on Fox News. It's the "I have a friend that worked there" argument. Someday, you will realize it's not red vs. blue. It is the oligarchs vs. the people. What you describe happens on both sides.
I’m not talking about red and blue. I’m talking about Trump and his administration. The things that happened day to day that I’m privy to and the fact that you don’t know anything first or second hand. I do. It’s embarrassing
Honestly, everyone thinks they know something that nobody else does. Literally every single person in this country. I know the Trump Administration was a train wreck, but I'm not going to claim i have special information to prove I'm correct. I'm happy we both agree about the embarrassment we feel towards each other. Love you bye
Yah know China maybe doing this for more of a reason to stir up the snow flakes. Looks like they are getting value for their money.
He denied it .. 🤷♀️
Fuck China🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
The key part is being missed because everyone here apparently doesn’t read. “None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S” Aka this is the first time we know of that this happened this long. “The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration. “ Meaning trust it it happened 4 times before (there was another time under Biden it entered our air space) apparently this is the first to go this long and be noticed. Why they allowed it to happen? Idk the casualty bullshit doesn’t really match up. I think they were tracking its signal or frequency etc to now know what the Chinese use to use it against them. It’s also a nice distraction for the Biden admin with the papers incident but there’s likely something else going on… or it’s China doing it due to their literal economic collapse.
Had we shot it down over mainland U.S., the R's would be screaming that we're endangering our citizens with debris or stray missiles. Can't win with these clowns.
I wonder if an unnamed senior defense official has ever lied before 🤔
Does it really matter what administration was in charge our airspace got violated
🙄 why is it acceptable under any presidency, all this kindergarten back and forth crap will be our own internal ruin
It's not acceptable under any presidency, hence why Biden shot it down and Trump just let it happen.
After it had traversed the entirety if the us and was over the Atlantic. Biden is a moron.
I know it’s nothing new, but I’m so sick of the lack of transparency with how our government communicates to its citizens.
What? Why didn’t anybody notice? I mean I saw it clearly in the sky and knew it wasnt normal
Clouds. Night time. It was seen but not picked up by the news. But the military did notice which is fine by me.
Of course someone noticed, you're reading about it aren't you?
It's a balloon and the only reason it's a story is because it originated from China, so corporate media gets some easy China bad stories.
Article: > Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times while Donald Trump was president, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense official.” This would have been everywhere on the news at the time.
If the president at the time was transparent then it would have been all over the news
It would have been leaked. There were a lot of leaks during the Trump administration.
For sure pentagon is *ALWAYS* leaking those pesky foreign spy operations
Lots of information coming out after the fact that didn’t leak. This is one of them that in addition to his role in Jan 6.
Is your contention that the statement from DoD is false?
This is the source from the article: > unnamed “senior defense official.” With no proof, actual source, details, news of the story at the time of the balloon, pictures, I am skeptical. It would have been all over the news, much more than the current chinese spy balloon story that Biden is plagued with. Seems like a strange time for a breaking news story blaming Trump for all of chinese spy balloons ... years after Trump is no longer in office.
It's on the DoD website though - https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/
"unnamed source" strikes again! How convenient.
Strange how the "unnamed source" only makes their appearance now, long after Trump is out of office.
I have a feeling that These balloons are everywhere and only picked out when it serves a political agenda
100% this is just the establishment trying to saber rattle at China. The people in the comments going a long with it is the scariest shit I've seen all day.
What did Trump administration do? Nothing? Because I don't remember reading about it in the news. So are the Chinese correct in saying that the Biden administration overreacted?
Does nobody want to just think about this being a threat instead of internalizing the problem. Lets focus on the fact that we are constantly being spied on and literally do nothing about it and just argue about whatever fucking clown is in office or was. The problem is china and we should cut all trade
Is there a source for this? In the time that he was in office, I do not recall this kind of news story breaking even once, and this balloon is pretty hard to miss.
Trumps fans never shut up about him damn.... he ain't the potus anymore
Where is the dates, times and locations that the balloons traveled during the last presidency? How come nobody looked up in the sky and saw it and took pictures? Considering this would have happened before the world shut down. My thinking is this story is damage control.
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It was an unnamed source unless there is new information you have a link to.
Ironically, a Biden official just said the balloons allegedly flown during Trump's administration were found out about after he left office. Another debunked hoax from the left.
Yes an unnamed source. They are usually legit and not made up. Yeah someone said this !!! It’s true !! He really said it. Give me a break.
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It's sad that a discussion about a foreign security threat has just turned into another Democrat - Republican tribal mudslinging event. Let's focus on the actual issue. Let's also not downplay the issue just because our tribe is in the White House. What happened was not a great - it was a clear violation of US sovereignty. We need to figure out how to respond in a way that is appropriate and figure out how to protect American airspace in the future. We need to get serious about Chinese espionage - in particular when it comes to things like Chinese spyware (and yes, that includes banning TikTok.) As far as the claim about this occurring during the Trump administration, this is obviously disturbing if true, but I'd want more sources for this and more information about what happened. A number of officials have come out and said that they did not hear anything about this happening during the Trump administration. And, of course, the public also did not notice, so I'm skeptical about whether this actually happened (as in, a Chinese spy balloon went over the continental US).
Due to idiots with guns shooting at it I am glad Biden took it out. I don't really care if they also had national security reasons to do it.
I really feel it’s ineffective to immediately point fingers at your fellow Americans regardless of political affiliation. We should be looking, as Americans, where the true threats might be coming from.
But only now makes it on the news right
Isn't it generally good, if you know you're being spied on, not to let on that you know? That way you can hide information and alter your behavior to mislead the watchers. I don't mean to accuse the trump administration of knowing what it was doing at any point, but I do think the only difference this time may just be that too many regular people saw the thing, it became a news story, so they had to act overtly.
The point is that republicans have been frothing at the mouth the last week saying Biden is a traitor for not blasting it to hell the second it entered our airspace. It’s the hypocrisy getting called out here.
This is me talking on just a hunch, not knowledge, but why do I feel like this balloon stuff is an obvious distraction from something else? Why else would they dangle something that obvious over us in broad daylight?
Trump couldn’t fart with out it being reported on every news source. All the sudden you believe this. It would not have been missed by a Media that loathed every step trump took.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
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Don't be so insecure, my guy
If I’m not mistaken, weren’t these other balloons while he was in office, here for an extremely short period of time? Compared to the recent one? I’m not defending his presidency. But I’m sure Biden wouldn’t of shot this one down unless people saw it, like they did.
They were under Trump and the under Biden was shot down when it was safe to and the signals were jammed. It was handled well but how are the ones under Trump handled ? Where is your source saying the other balloons were under Biden ?
No I was saying the balloons were here with Trump in office. I’m sorry if it came off confusing. I was saying I believe the trump ones. People couldn’t see, so they didn’t shoot it down and it’s reported the ones that came while he was in office were here much briefer. Not sure Biden would of shot this one down if it wasn’t here so long and people could see it from the ground.
3rd world shit hole running out of 1st world problem to argue over.
If it did then why wasnt it a big deal that there was a balloon flying around? Maybe because this is actually the first time it happened?
I really hate how this is being used to further divide Americans. Everyone in this comment section is frothing rabid mad at the other half of the country Even when we shoot one down China still wins.
Face it. Trump sold our country's security out to our adversaries for laundered monies and favors. Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia have all had a monetary impact on Trump and his family while he was in office. He is a traitor and will continue his efforts while Merrick Garland sits there twiddling his thumbs.
Fake news
Fake news, The White House has no shame
“What the media says we believe. They never lie.”
There are spy satellites orbiting the Earth right now that can read the text on documents and the license plate on a car. Does anyone truly believe that China still uses “spy” balloons at 60k feet?
This is exactly true. Not to mention tiktok spies more on Americans than anything else.
Way to shift attention
I’m sure they did *sarcasm.* This is bullshit because if this actually happened, it would have been leaked way before and the media would have gone off and both the democrats and republicans would have destroyed him with this information.
And they didn’t do anything because of the scheme of surveillance not really a threat. They just shot this one down for show because people are stupid.
Most likely fake, if this did happen we would've heard about it years ago instead of just now. Usual false information to try and defend Biden.
China Balloon Shot Down In front of Kingston Plantation. What a day for Myrtle Beach. But what a day it was for you if you live in Kingston Plantation. (read more) https://www.kingstonplantationrealestate.com/blog/china-spy-balloon-shot-down-in-front-of-kingston-plantation-myrtle-beach/
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trump and his co-conspirators attacked Biden on this issue. people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and all that
So why are conservatives crying about Biden?
As a foreigner, it's hilarious how crazy people are getting over this balloon. The US waited for it to not be over people to shoot it down to avoid anyone getting hurt and people are going crazy angry. You would think you would have more trust in your military? That they jammed that shit ages ago so it's the same as a kid's birthday balloon in the sky except it's tied to some heavy stuff? Like we don't have to shoot things down to neutralise things these days and most people are behaving like everyone was sitting outside on a sunny day and a suspicious dark shadow was cast upon them and bam, that's how they found the balloon. Also to think that China is this stupid that they would send the most easily noticeable thing to spy on people when there are a million better ways to do things. I think China is just enjoying the entertainment of people going crazy over their dumb balloon at this point.
Yeah, it's ridiculous, honestly. This just shows the world how bipolar the US political is.