Trump Is the Next Stage of the Disease

As to your main points – agreed. But then like you I wrote these people off a long time ago, even so I hesitated to use the word “irredeemable”, not any more. I don’t think these people are capable of changing. They’re incapable of it because they’re either neo-lib to their core or they’re useful fools. Not until they die off is is there even the possibility of change.

At which point a principal reason why you write – that there should be decent ideas strewn around the place ready to be picked up and used – may come into play.

ah, the great mythical king solomon and his son rehoboam come to mind. kleptocrats by the account given in 1 kings 12.

I wonder why some people become almost rabid and foam at the mouth over Trump’s refusal to destroy his family business. I can understand the Clintonite losers doing this but Ian seems rational usually but now screams about impeachment which I thought was for actions taken by a president not for not acting the way others think he should. The Clintonites seem to want Trump to donate a pound of flesh to their cause but they are losers and losers don’t dictate what the winner does.

I could understand the conflict if Trump was a weapons or oil dealer but his businesses are mostly resort hotels and golf courses so what will the emoluments everyone seems to fear buy, a better tee-time?

I agree. This is an even more in your face kind of looting. Trump is doing away with the intermediary of the elites and placing rich predators directly into positions of power.

The amount of cognitive dissonance and self-deception required to think that Trump was ever going to be the savior of the middle and working class is staggering. Rich, entitled narcissists like him don’t think we even belong to the same species. Even as happens on both the left and the right, there will probably be about 25-30% of the electorate that will continue to support him regardless of the facts and how often and deeply he betrays them.

I agree too that Trump didn’t just happen, and that those who kept choosing the lesser evil and/or kept voting Democratic even as the party abandoned the New Deal, workers, and eventually the middle class for the banks and Wall Street bear the responsibility for Trump.

Peter, the response to you is in two parts. First, Article II, section 1 of the Constitution:

“The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”

If Trump’s companies profit from his being President, then he is receiving a a prohibited emolument from the United States.

Also Article II, section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Note that bribery is mentioned just after treason and before the often cited “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Holding for profit companies as President is a recipe for pay to play bribery. It is an even balder bribery scheme than the slicker nonprofit Clinton Foundation “charity” the Bill and Hillary were using.

The reason for concern over TrumpCo’s numerous properties in numerous countries is that TrumpCo will be conflicted all kinds of ways over these properties. TrumpCo will be tempted to use the properties as extortion-leverage against some governments, and will see other governments take the properties “hostage” to extort larger policy decisions from TrumpCo.

It seems like a real concern to me. I don’t know enough to imagine how TrumpCo might handle it.

I can imagine one TrumpCo property holdable-hostage right now. TrumpCo has asked the Irish government for permission to build a seawall to protect a coastal golf course against the rising sea. Meanwhile Trump pretends here in America to believe that the global isn’t warming and the sea isn’t rising and will not rise. The Irish government could use that sought-for permission to build a seawall as an extortion-leverage crowbar right there. The Irish govermnent will refuse TrumpCo permission to build the seawall until Trump visibly walks back ( and then shoots the legs off of) all attempts to collect names of climate scientists within US gov. agencies for persecution . . . all attempts to de-budget NASA’s earth science surveillance projects . . . all threats to remove America from the Paris Accords . . . and etc.

Not that the Irish government WOULD do this. But it could. IF! TrumpCo remains in possession of that golf course. If TrumpCo decides to sell that golf course for money to put into a blind trust, then Trump will continue denying the obvious fact of global warming till the cows come home and drown ( blub glub).

Does anybody know how much money Geo. Washington got for his Mt. Vernon plantation, incl. human chattel and livestock when he became President? Was it more than Jefferson got for Monticello? Thx.

https://jonathanturley.org/2016/11/23/trump-is-legally-correct-ethics-rules-do-not-apply-to-him/

Jonathan Turley is my preliminary go-to guy for constitutional issues with which I am not particularly conversant, the emolument clause being one of those. Above is his take on the current hand-wringing.

Bottom line, he points out that the President, Vice-President, Congressmen, and federal judges are STATUTORILY EXEMPT from the general ethics rules (BUT NOT Hillary Clinton as SOS, interestingly enough lol). He provides the relevant statutory language.

He also concludes that passing control of a family business to the children of that family is probably the best way of dealing with the emolument clause in specific.

It seems logically apparent to me that the current Establishment and left-wing worries about bribery are not something that can be ASSUMED in advance but would actually require some actual evidence of bribery or quid pro quo.

Dedicated Trump opponents continue to embarrass themselves, IMO.

Panties, meet twist lol.

Mostly brilliant insights except for emoluments (as per other commenter) and a couple of details…

«Kleptocracy is neoliberalism’s child»

Viceversa of course: kleptocracy has generate neoliberalism as its ideological cover. Same old. The USA have been “mostly” a predatory kleptocracy since its very founding; fortunately the vast natural riches of the lands and the ingenuity of that Veblen’s called “the engineers” in yankee-land have created actual prosperity. But looting has always been a core competence of the industrial-congressional complex, with epicentres like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, the nests of the “malefactors of great wealth”. Kleptocracy has been less prevalent in the “productive” areas, but the national tone has never been particularly far from it.

«poke people who didn’t and still don’t get it, because until enough people do, we will keep losing to kleptocrats (whose number includes both Clintons)»

The problem here is that the top kleptocrats have co-opted most of the affluent-middle class into the lowest rungs of the kleptocracy, mostly via upward-redistributing property speculation and bridging the gap between low taxes and high services by ballooning debt. Therefore kleptocracy is very popular with the upper 50% of the USA’s income who make most of the voters, because they think they are kleptocrats too and that benefits them. In the long run they are just asset-stripping themselves, not someone else as they hope.

B Bartlett’s mentions appositely the “Two Santas” strategy discussed by J Wanniski with Cheney and Rumsfeld (and Laffer…):

economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/the-origin-of-modern-republican-fiscal-policy/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-04/laffer-curve-napkin-doodle-launched-supply-side-economics

Grover Norquist:

«And then, our job as conservatives is to wake up every day and say how do we make more of us and fewer of them. And the left’s position is the same. I passed out a series of trends here; I’d be very interested in whether people think I’m missing stuff. I would suggest the biggest trend is the number of people who own shares of stock directly. We’ve gone from 17 percent of Americans owning stock to up over 50 percent of households. According to Mark Penn, two-thirds of voters in 2002, 2004, somebody who owns at least $5,000 worth of stock is 18 percent more Republican and less Democratic. African-American, no stock, 6 percent Republican; $5,000 worth of stock, 20 percent Republican. Every demographic group gets better with share ownership. Rich, poor, all colors, all genders, with the exception of women who earn more than $75,000 a year, who are already thoroughly Republican and don’t get any better.» «The growth of the investor class–those 70 per cent of voters who own stock and are more opposed to taxes and regulations on business as a result — is strengthening the conservative movement.
More gun owners, fewer labor union members, more homeschoolers, more property owners and a dwindling number of FDR-era Democrats all strengthen the conservative movement versus the Democrats.»

@RC

It would be pleasant if these people could bank their righteous preening rage for the Christmas Season, they’re frightening the children. The true believers and now the closet TB’s are out of sorts and reduced to lashing out at convenient targets as you recently experienced.

These conspiracy theory loops never really end and as one issue is explained or corrected another pops up to continue the loop always bringing up new misinformation or fantasy to prove the discredited earlier claims. Putin stole the election will persist while Donald tore up the emoluments clause will be shouted by the foaming mouth losers just as long as the Nader caused Gore, the other Clintonite, to lose his election nonsense.

The difference this time is that their madness and rage is burning too brightly and intensely while people who can still think clearly and maturely are stepping back from this self destructive flame-out or we can hope so.

And we are back to comparing shit sandwiches, Trump vs the Clintons. I opposed both, but it is downright hilarious the specious arguments given to defend Trump’s corruption vs that of the Clinton’s. It shows that the Democrats aren’t the only ones to engage in tribal politics.

I did not support Bush. When I first came to the blogosphere, we spent a good deal of time marveling at the 26% or so of the American people who even at the end of his term still supported him regardless of the sheer volume and severity of his mistakes and screwups. We called them MFMs. They were totally impervious to evidence, reason, and argument. But then Obama got elected. I did not support him either. But many of the very people who slammed the Bush MFMs morphed into the Obama version of the same. And now with Trump, and he’s not even in office yet, we are seeing the rise of the third iteration of this phenomenon.

@ Ian

I guess I’m a ‘fool’ who is wondering just how you would propose that Trump can reasonably resolve his ethical situation without me having to give him the benefit of the doubt. Can you offer anything better than Turley did in the link I provided above, i.e., let his children run the family business?

It pains me to even ask you this, as you have done such good analysis on so much else, and I absolutely believe you analyze with total intellectual integrity, but we all get some things wrong some of the time, and while I would love to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, I don’t think your apparent take that we should give the opposite (?) of the benefit of the doubt to Trump is the best one. (Note that I also think worrying about room rental being paid to his business as a quid pro quo is a little silly (petty?) in this context.)

@ Hugh

We are where we are–what good does it do to just blindly assume the very worst? I’m a big believer in the wisdom of being cynical and skeptical in these ‘interesting times’ we are doomed to live through, but overdoing it can sometimes blind us to the potential of getting a better-than-anticipated result. At the same time, I must agree with your perception that the incorrigibly wrong-headed will always be with us. (h/t Jesus Christ lol)

Take cheer from the known truth that opinions are like assholes, and most stink. It’s just nature’s way.

@ Peter

Very good last few comments from you, IMO, I think we must honor ALL the plausible hypotheses we can think of until we have some actual data sufficient to guide us in deciding which ones to eliminate and which one or ones can be intelligently adopted.

As to my personal detractors here, was there ever a freethinker anywhere that did not have to endure abuse for the crime of straying from somebody else’s preferred path? Comes with the territory, and I don’t mind at all as long as I get to respond with the mockery they deserve. Laughter is the best medicine for some afflictions. 🙂

As a point of reference, the Obamas were millionaires when they entered the White House (mostly from his book sales). There’s little doubt they will be handsomely provided for in retirement from public office.

The Clintons, on the other hand, entered the White House with far lower income and far fewer resources.

They’ve done pretty well financially since 2001.

GWB was doing well when he entered the White House, with income of not quite a million dollars in 2000. He seems to have managed well enough since.

As for Trump, who knows? Pick any number you want.

Realitychecker: he should liquidate and sell his asssets. Just like the Clinton Foundation should have been shut down had she won.

As Ian just pointed out, a good metric for Trump outrage is what would be the reaction if Clinton did, said, or proposed it. So if Clinton had won and Chelsea was selling access to her mother, what would you say? If Chelsea was going to manage the family foundation and businesses, but kept showing up at meetings her mother was having with various corporate leaders who might potentially benefit the family enterprises, what would be your reaction? If Clinton had businesses with international connections and decided she was going to keep her stake in them despite the appearance of either steering policy to benefit them or garner special treatment from foreign countries with regard to them, would you be cool with that?

A few short weeks ago, people here were saying that they preferred Trump because he was less likely to start a nuclear war. Now Trump out of the blue wants to push a nuclear arms race, despite Obama and the Democrats’ program to completely revamp our nuclear forces. Trump’s statement was as reckless as it was unnecessary. So again, how would you feel if Clinton had done this? Any doubts about Trump?

The one place where I disagree with Ian is over the issue of blind trusts. I have always thought these were fig leaves. Trump owns and has interests in a lot real estate around the world. You can put his holdings into a blind trust, but he still will know what is where and what could be hurt or benefited by his actions. These holdings can not easily be liquidated, but even if they were, this would just push the conflicts of interest to a different level. Most of the money would go into stocks, since bonds and PE are both in a rough patch, so Trump would have an interest in keeping the stock market pumped. About the only way I know for Trump to limit his business conflicts would be to liquidate his assets and buy Treasuries. Ain’t going to happen even if it were possible. But you can see how far he is from this, and I mean really, really far.

@ Ian

I can clearly see you are not partisan, and neither am I. I’m just questioning the analysis, in good faith, because I think the issues involved are extremely complex from a legal standpoint. I also recognize the ethical analysis may be quite different from the legal one, but neither you nor I will ever be entirely satisfied with the ethics of anybody who has made it to the top of the mountain.

But staying in a hotel and paying the going rate is not a quid pro quo as to other favors; it is just an equal exchange transaction which is complete in itself. Also, as Jim points out and I was already thinking about, if Trump’s businesses are incorporated, then they are indeed to be treated as separate individual persons under the law; I am sure we both agree that this aspect of corporate personhood is ridiculous (plus it stems from mere dictum in the 1870 Southern Pacific case, and no rationale for it has ever been articulated that I’ve been able to find); nevertheless, that is current law. I have to think that Trump could just not accept foreign officials as guests; there are plenty of other hotels they could stay at.

Also, Clinton’s situation as SOS is not comparable, as she was clearly subject to the same federal ethics law that a President is specifically exempted from (per the statutes cited in the Turley link I provided). And your proposal that Trump should just sell all his businesses kind of proves too much, i.e., a private citizen with no assets can serve as President and get rich afterwards like Clinton did and Obama will, but a rich man has to give up everything he’s built up in his life to render that same service? That should bother a reasonable person, I think. As to the blind trust, this is not a stock portfolio we are talking about, which any competent market man could manage reasonably well. This is a real estate-plus-conglomerate that is unique to the point that finding an appropriate person to run it without waste would be very difficult. Must he get a leading competitor to run it?

Like I said, extremely complex situation to analyze. I know that many people cheat in complex
situations because it is easy to get away with, and that sucks, but having the Trump kids run the business, as Turley suggests, does not seem to me to run any risks greater than the ones we always have to tolerate.

So, I don’t think any emphatic certainty based on simple distrust is really justified on these facts. (Just a fool’s opinion lol, it could change as we learn more, I suppose.)

@Hugh,

If Trump wants to start a nuclear arms race, he is late to the party. Obama has already started it. Here is an article about that.
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/obamas-new-rationale-for-1-trillion-nuclear-program-augurs-a-new-arms-race-with-russia/

So Trump hasn’t “started a nuclear arms race out of the blue”. Obama has already gotten it started. If Trump ratifies it then he is as low and evil as Obama himself, no doubt.

But if he still wants to re-normalize relations with Russia, then my reason for voting for Trump to lower the chances of nuclear war with Russia specifically ( and I have always stated Russia speCIFICally in MYYYY comments) remains just as strong as before. It is nuclear war with Russia speCIFICally that would threaten all life on earth. Nuclear war with China would only threaten all life in America and China, which is bad for America and China. But not for everybody else.

And yet, in leaked audio Clinton suggested she was going to reverse those plans. Somehow I doubt you’d be as charitable in your opinion, rc, had Clinton tweeted what Trump tweeeted.

mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/us/politics/hillary-clinton-obama-nuclear-policy.html?referer=https://www.google.com/

“The last thing we need,” she told the audience, “are sophisticated cruise missiles that are nuclear armed.”

At the fund-raiser, Mr. Weber asked Mrs. Clinton about the modernization push and whether she, as president, would cancel the cruise missile, which he called a “particularly destabilizing, dangerous type of nuclear weapon.”

“I certainly would be inclined to do that,” she answered. “The last thing we need are sophisticated cruise missiles that are nuclear-armed.”

Mrs. Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India. “This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable,” she told the audience.

“Do we have to do any of it?” Mrs. Clinton asked. “If we have to do some of it, how much do we have to do? That’s going to be a tough question, so I will look to people like you and Bill Perry to help me answer that question.”

Mr. Obama has said he wants to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American strategy, and his aides have hinted he may believe the modernization program needs reconsideration. But he seems to have left that to his successor, and the cruise missile Mrs. Clinton spoke about so disparagingly remains in the Pentagon budget.

As long as nuclear annihilation only threatens the Yellow Peril and the Brown Menace, what’s to worry, right?

Ian was a bit blithe a while back by suggesting that China “only” has some hundreds of nuclear weapons at its disposal while the USofA has many, many thousands, thus implying that by force of numbers alone, the US could/would destroy China and annihilate the bulk of the Chinese population (yay?) while the paltry Chinese arsenal might not even be used due to who knows why.

If the Chinese are definitionally Bad Guys — as they are in the neo-LibCon perspective shared by the current and incoming power players — then of course forcing their submission or wiping them out is the forward path. There is no other. It was long ago laid out in those New American Century documents as well as others.

There’s apparently a disagreement over timing and priorities. That’s all. The Russian Federation’s demise is set to the side for now — perhaps — but it is still on the neo-LibCon hit list. Don’t fool yourselves.

The idea that only the US and China would suffer were there a nuclear exchange between them is crackpot and absurd. Anybody who thinks otherwise has no idea what kind of consequences would result from use of nuclear weapons. None.

Primary and immediate effects would be in China and the US. Secondary effects (primarily from nuclear fallout and release of radioactive materials) would severely affect the Koreas, Japan, Canada and Northern Europe (something about prevailing winds, ocean currents and so forth), with other areas nearby China suffering as well. Tertiary effects would be global and almost instantaneous primarily from severing of economic ties and the collapse of “free” trade between the workshop-China and the rest of the world, as well as the elimination of Chinese and US influence in the developing world. The devastating environmental consequences would follow closely in train. As if we didn’t already have plenty of those.

Thus the likelihood of a nuclear exchange between the US and China is slim to none, but talking it up as a negotiating tactic is almost a given. Negotiating what? A better deal for the US? Or how about this: a better deal for the US kleptocracy and for their Chinese counterparts. Russia doesn’t have the kind of economic clout that China does, and their oligarchs are somewhat less troublesome to ours than China’s are or potentially could be, and besides… the Chinese are different ya know? They don’t think like us, they don’t act like us, they don’t live like us. They’re not like us. Not really. But wealth is a great leveler, isn’t it? Different as they may be, the growing number of Chinese billionaires have more in common with their US and European and global counterparts than not. The club may be a restricted and exclusionary one, and yet…

The greater risk of nuclear war, I believe, is in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East where Chaos is already the standard socio-political model. Both Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons and threaten periodically to use them, whereas — so far as we know — only Israel in the Middle East has nukes. On the other hand, allied nuclear powers are quite capable of inserting themselves into ongoing and potential conflicts in the region. They’re doing so now. Nothing at all would stop them from doing so in the future.

Mr. Trump seems intent on precipitating armed conflict with Iran and exterminating that shadowy Muslim rebel force called by various names at various times and places. A proxy war using nuclear weapons between Israel and Iran seems more likely every day, regardless of US interests or wishes. Mr. Trump would not be able to control it even if he wanted to. As for those Muslim rebels, since they are nearly everywhere in the Middle East and spreading through the Western World like a cancer, their extermination would require what, exactly?

It’s insanity no matter how you view it.

@Hugh and others

Falling into the trap of responding to sound-bites and the Clintonite media’s interpretation just leads to more unfounded accusations and confusion.

Trump made a boilerplate statement on US strength and capabilities in a nuclear world not long after Putin made a similar statement and they were both mostly for local consumption.

The story that followed this is where things get interesting and is a basis for understanding what may happen in the future. Putin sent a letter on this subject to Trump on 12/15 and Trump said it was a nice letter. In it Putin called for cooperation on this issue and expressed a desire to avoid our countries taking a diverging path on future nuclear weapons development. Trump seems to agree so the hysteria about a new nuclear arms race may be overblown. The future will not be decided by the Clintonite media or squawking magpies but by the people responsible for these negotiations and decisions.

It appears that some of our wisest and usually most balanced and nuanced comrades here, having been honest and accurate in describing our electoral choices as “shit sandwiches” during the whole election cycle, are now re-orienting themselves to focus on attacking the shit sandwich that actually got elected.

I always respect the function of criticizing those in power who deserve the criticism, but I must say, unless they are ready to urge an immediate violent revolution, it seems a bit pointless to be so vociferous against the shit sandwich we actually have to live with before he even gets to generate results we might or might not like or find some merit in.

It is a guarantee that, as we have a Republican President with a Republican Congress, we will get some things we don’t like. I think we will also get some things we like, but at best it will be only a mixed bag of results according to our lights. A mixed bag is good enough as a next development, considering our other option, IMO. (Keeping it real, and not indulging fantasy or wish fulfillment desires.)

We are going to need to be more nuanced and discerning in our analyses this time around than ever before, if we are to live up to the standards we usually aim for. Most of the population will stay lost in their respective hysterias, we here have an obligation to try and be the sane ones, IMO.

I think it will be helpful, as we move forward, to remember that the shit sandwich we chose was the only shit sandwich who even PROMISED to shake things up, to shake up what we all agree was a hopelessly corrupt and rigged duopoly system that was or should have been unacceptable to all thinking folks.

There WILL be some shaking up of that carefully crafted corrupt system, we are already seeing that, and who knows what good will come out of that, but it seems obvious to me that if you want to get rid of something gargantuan and entrenched, you first must hope to see some crumbling around the edges. As that crumbling weakens the entrenched system, greater possibilities come into being.

I will be watching and monitoring that crumbling around the edges.

@ Ché Pasa, good observations, but believe in or not, many of our rulers (can’t say about Mr. T), think that there are such things as ‘survivable limited nuclear strikes’. And yes, i write periodically on Kashimir (and Jammu) the unacknowledged elephant in the room. Now Congress just passed a bill in which it actually said that modi/india was given “major defense partner” or something similar following ash carter’s many visits w/ his counterpart in india cutting the deal/s.

the status reportedly gives India the right to buy advanced weapons and weapons systems in the same way that NATO members and a few others can. why? the pivot to china, of course, and the supremacy of the US in the south china sea. warships and planes are already using bases in india.

and fwiw: ‘Obama pledged to reduce nuclear arsenal, then came this weapon’, july 2015

“Later, when nuclear explosives are added at the federal Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, the bomb will have a maximum explosive force equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT – more than three times more powerful than the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, 70 years ago this August that killed more than 130,000 people.
The U.S. government doesn’t consider the B61-12 to be new – simply an upgrade of an existing weapon. But some contend that it is far more than that.

Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists in Washington, is resolute that the bomb violates a 2010 Obama administration pledge not to produce nuclear weapons with new military capabilities.
“We do not have a nuclear guided bomb in our arsenal today,” Kristensen said. “It is a new weapon.”

http://bit.ly/1O3MGBO

I read somewhere that China believes a Nuclear war to be more survivable then the USA does. China has large mountain ranges with many storage facilities for this survival. It has a multiple size of population to regrow from and culture and society that would allow it to sacrifice. China seems to not completely believe that nuclear war is MAD.

@Tom

Pardon me, but that’s horse hockey.

1) Russian ABM capabilities have never been demonstrated (nor, really, has anyone else’s). We know our missile defense system doesn’t work some $40 billion later, and there’s hardly any evidence theirs does either.

2) The assumption that the Russians target missiles instead of population and industrial centers is dubious. For starters, the accuracy of their missiles is most likely worse than the US, though really, anyone’s stated accuracy is probably a complete fiction given to a number of technical factors. To bet that your missiles have the accuracy to destroy missiles in hardened silos is a fool’s wager.

The Russians may be actually more sensible than their starry-eyed Western war theorist counterparts and simply limit their targets they *know* they can wipe out–Western cities and industry–rather than engage in Strange-lovian mental fantasies that “if we take out their hardened ICBMs, and leave them only with weapons that can engage in city-destroying exchanges, then they’ll throw in the towel and give up!” This is the rationale behind the very calculations you present, and no sane person would make that supposition.

In fact, back in 1962 during the Cuban missile crises, when the US had a decided superiority in all nuclear weapons, such a first strike was discussed…and the projection was that it would be successful, obliterating the Soviet Union completely with the US losing “only” a few million dead and a handful of major cities. When those present were told this, they sure didn’t embrace this prospect as a “victory”. Instead, everyone was aghast.

3) The US/NATO has much greater missile reliability and preparedness than the Russians. The Russians cite a figure of 92 % reliability, but their tests, like some of ours, has a history of being carefully prepared and choreographed events which do not reflect reality (to quip one analyst, “if their developers and testers lie like ours, then we’ve got nothing to worry about”). Some Western estimates say more like one-third would just sit there as “duds” if you pressed the “fire” button (the newer Bulava missile has failed in 40 % of its tests!).

Look at the preparation needed and perform to launch even a single rocket into space, and then think of winging that on the fly with hundreds or thousands of missiles, all at once.

4) Russia has much more concentrated population centers and industrial centers than the US, and thus is *more* vulnerable and *less* survivable than that of the US, despite the alarmist cries to the contrary (hint: the head of Civil Defense has traditionally been a post in the Russian military where you dump off commanders you want to shelve).

5) Too-many analyses tend to always picture these evaluations as purely a US-versus-Russia matchup. The Russians don’t perceive it that way; they include all their possible enemies, including NATO bloc countries and even China. By that metric, they are outnumbered in virtually every conceivable category, both conventional and nuclear, and they know it.

For that reason, if nuclear war comes, it will be the West, not Russia, who is more likely to push the trigger. The Russians either know or suspect all the above to be true; it’s our side that is more wont to spout this propaganda.

@ WD

Indeed, quite a few of the Overclass and their political and military servants have long believed not only in the survivability but the desirability of nuclear warfare. Not far up the road from our place is Jeffrey Epstein’s bolt hole for when everything goes to shit, and you can bet he expects to survive along with whoever else he shelters in his bunkers. Many of his ilk have made similar preparations.

In reality, too many of that sort will survive whatever calamity comes our way. In the end, not many of the rest of us will.

It’s wise not to focus too much on the sabre rattling over Russia or China. There are greater risks of nuclear holocaust than war with either of them. Those other risks grow as the Chaos spreads. There’s not a lot we, the Rabble, can do about it. At least not directly.

And here by now some of us thought there ought to be some more swords into plowshares. But I guess not. Not in our lifetimes.

Merry Christmas.

@ Peter: given that:

“Kristensen’s organization was formed in 1945 by nuclear scientists who wanted to prevent nuclear war. And it’s not the maximum force of the B61-12 that worries him the most on that front.

Instead, he says he fears that the bomb’s greater accuracy, coupled with the way its explosive force can be reduced electronically through a dial-a-yield system accessed by a hatch on the bomb’s body, increases the risk that a president might consider it tame enough for a future conflict…. and that this is a new bomb, of course he’s saying that it breaks obama’s ‘pledge’. additionally, i can’t see why you’d think that these would replace the bigger, more badass bombs equipped w/ joint direct attack munitions’ kits. wiki said that they weren’t all that accurate in any even (ooops), not just add to the arsenal.

i can sorta see why you see the precision guidance system as a red herring, or maybe even their destructive capabilities, but to me, yes: ban the bomb. less destruction/better guidance a plus? guess i just can’t see it that way, but i guess ‘who doesn’t survive limited nuclear strikes’ isn’t a question that US patriots are supposed to ask, is it? but hey; on the other hand, it’s small enough for slim pickens to ride all the way down, eh?

ha; i just read this a.m. that israel says it will consider signing the non-proliferation treaty in…five years. but why did i think the trillions for ‘upgrades’ had something to do w/ dismantling the dangerous old ones in faulty silos? i can’t really remember.

@ Ché Pasa: just fancy building a ‘survivable’ bolthole (yeah, backyard versions were plentiful post-bay-of-pigs) and coming out when one believed it would be ‘safe’ to? i keep coming back to the old ‘wooden ships’ song: ‘can ya tell me please, who…won the war’? who’s going to try those purple berries first? will epstein have sheltered a taster?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7FNyckr7w

merry holidays to you and miz, as well. not too merry around here, but we’ll give it a go, anyway. might make some eggnog in a minute…just cuz ya can add brandy. (smile)

@WD

I understand why people such as Hans are fearful of anything nuclear weapons related because they are targets but his Mad Man president scenario is contrived BS. These bombs also have a dial that allows the weapons master to fry the electronics in the bomb as a counter to such or any other possible crazy scenario. These B-61’s are already accurate bunker-busters and improving that accuracy just means that those people sitting in those bunkers are being encouraged to behave themselves.

The survivability notion is another contrived fear tactic that somehow someone with these illusions will take control and drop the big one. Individuals and groups would survive but western industrial civilization would fall and these insane survivors would probably be locked out of any bolt-holes if the unlikely war happened. Theirs would be the first genes sane people would want to chlorinate from the gene pool.

@Mal

Taking petty shots at Trump just makes you look petulant. Trump’s campaign victories have shown everyone, twice, that the advantages of Big Money/ Citizens United can be countered although it still requires a lot of money.

The sweet thing about this victory is that the MSM was denied over $500,000,000 in revenues for political ads that Trump showed were unnecessary to win the election. That loss along with the humiliation of their Red Queen explains why we are seeing the MSM displaying the same petulance as their losses mount.

@Mal

The fact that you rely on politico for information or believe what Moonves might say to the rubes just shows your laughing is based more on hysteria than humor.

To everyone who is crying about Trump I ask, would you rather have the whore hillary? Trump isn’t in office yet, not for about a month, and all of you losers are crying and moaning already. We are getting rid of someone like all of you losers voted for, were getting rid of the biggest loser in history, a warmonger like the whore you voted for. I’m not for any war but if the people in this country during the second world war were like you losers we would have lost the war.

@Mal

I think Trump used the same kind of fundraising plan for his campaign as Sanders did seeking many smaller donations directly from individuals and it worked. I don’t think it’s legal to use campaign funds for the inauguration.

Sanders doesn’t appear to be financially corrupt but he is as crooked as any other politician perhaps more so after seeing the charade he put on to support the Red Queen and bring the disenchanted back to the fold. He is still acting like some kind of Clintonite attack dog but he is firmly in the loser/quisling category. Just another unproductive politician who barks loudly but produces little.

You can’t be so slow to not have noticed that your link/quote was from nine months before the election and was a happy faced projection about an uncertain future. See if anyone has asked Moonves about this lately and you will probably see a grumpy face mumbling something about Deplorables.

I’m looking forward to the New Year where no one will care to talk about a humiliated, powerless, two time loser Red Queen.

@ Mallam

Which of your FAVORITE PRESIDENTS DID NOT ACCEPT CORPORATE DONATIONS for their inaugaration, genius?

Sorry for the inadvertent dupe–pick one lol.

@ Mallam

So, then, are you saying that Obama was your favorite President?

@Mallam,

Speaking of getting conned . . . if we get more of the same Cold War 2.0 with Russia, and if Trump adopts the Clintonite “Assad Must Go” Prime Directive for Middle East Policy, and if
we get the same sort of cosmetically-changed TTIP, TTP, etc. that the Clintonites planned to impose upon us, then I too will come back on here and admit how conned I was.

The problem isn’t so much that Trump is corrupt (he is) as that he is of the corrupter class — as are most of those he is assembling to run the country on his behalf.

Those who know what sort of business practices he’s engaged in may or may not shake their heads at his elevation, but from what little the rest of us know about it, we should bringing the whole rotten affair to a screeching halt.

His businesses — casinos, high end real estate development, entertainment, licensing, etc. — are notorious for their barely concealed corruption up and down the line. This is no mystery. Nor is it any mystery that Trump has a habit of stiffing workers and contractors, using the courts to quash contract disputes, paying off some plaintiffs while squeezing every dime and then some out of others, and orchestrating chaos as a means to his own ends. This is not business as usual. It is a particular kind of business practice that is widely employed by members of his class but is generally — and deliberately — unavailable to the working stiffs or anyone else caught in his vise.

He’s learned from some of the masters, like Roy Cohn and others — including crime family heirs with whom he attended New York Military Academy in his youth.

As corruptible as most of our political class is and long has been, they can at times serve as intermediaries between the demands of the corrupting class and the needs and interests of the People.

Screaming about the Clintons’ corruption while ignoring who has been doing the corrupting and to what end (hello), and particularly while ignoring Trump’s own corrupting and destructive efforts, is one of the many examples of just how off the rails crazy our politics has become. Debating who is more corrupt is nonsense.

The political system and governance are themselves so deeply and irredeemably corrupt that they cannot be reformed or saved by political means. It won’t happen.

What you get with Trump is direct rule by the corrupting class. If indirect rule by the corrupted class has been so very awful (it has been) what makes you think that direct rule by the corrupting class will be any better ? (it won’t be).

In what way is chaos better than a rickety and fragile order? How is threating to exterminate the Heathen Chinee and/or the Persian Horde somehow less bloody and death dealing than brinkmanship toward the (formerly) Red Menace in Moscow? It’s simply choosing different targets, not changing the ingrained aggressive and hostile approach toward real, potential, or fictional rivals.

How does the end of the Republic result in a better outcome for the people of the United States and the world?

Just what is it that makes anyone believe that putting plutocrats and their cronies in charge of the US government is somehow preferable to a long-enduring but faulty and anachronistic republic?

The governing class and the interests they serve are irredeemably corrupt which means to me that the Republic cannot be saved in its current form; putting one faction of the corrupters in direct control of the government in order to serve their personal interest in power and money is intrinsically destabilizing with unpredictable but likely catastrophic results.

In the end, the grievances we argue over now will be forgotten.

Hahahaha:

Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.

While campaign donors are often tapped to fill comfy diplomatic posts across the globe, the extent to which donors are stocking Trump’s administration is unparalleled in modern presidential history, due in part to the Supreme Court decisions that loosened restrictions on campaign contributions, according to three longtime campaign experts.

Shorter Peter: “shut up shut up shut up! Trump isn’t corrupt!”

You’re like the people living on the Florida coasts who refuse to acknowledge rising seas — until you’re drowning.

@ Mallam

What is your point, sir? Exactly what is your point?

That Trump is not Saint Trump? You think anyone thought he was?

Trump did not win because people thought he would be pure as the driven snow in all his actions. He won because he was NOT CLINTON, NOT the SAME ESTABLISHMENT that has been pissing on the working class for decades.

Remember when people criticizing Obama were admonished by Dem loyalists for expecting “sparkle ponies and unicorns”?

Well, the Trump people were more street-savvy, they probably expected to get a candidate who had some flaws, but they felt that Trump was the only one on the menu who looked like an outsider and who was even talking about doing anything the working class wants and needs to see done. And they saw how every Establishment element hated him.

So, you just continue to be ‘surprised’/’disappointed’ that he chooses people who helped him get elected, rather than rely on only the same old Establishment/insider types he specifically ran against and who opposed him every step of the way until he crushed them electorally.

I imagine that he knows he could be appointing guys like you, but figures you could not be trusted to be loyal.

I am not aware of any betrayal of anyone or anything on Sanders’ part. He said right at the start that if he did not get the DemParty nomination, he would support whoEVer did. Meaning . . . including Clinton. That’s exactly what he promised and thats exactly what he did. So where is the betrayal?

@ Hugh

Gee, this is really getting tiresome.

Those you decry say, “Wait and see what he does, we like some of the things he promised to do, he isn’t even in office yet, and our other choice was unacceptable.”

You (and others) say, “How stupid you are to say you want to wait and see what he does, I’m telling you right now he will break ALL his promises and do nothing for the people who voted for him.”

So, what is the cost of waiting and seeing?

Or, what is it that you, in your certainty, would urge that we should be doing right now, before Trump actually has a chance to do something bad?

Should we start shooting now? Sign another petition? What, exactly, should we do right now if we were to follow your lead?

Hugh, I have so much respect for you, I really hope it’s not about protecting the record so you can claim later that you were the first one who “told us so.”

I don’t think that many here who supported Trump did so without knowing they were going for the long shot. I certainly knew it. But with Clinton, there was no shot. So I took the long shot.

It’s not accurate, IMO, for you to portray long-shot takers as blind cultish dupes for waiting and seeing. I would find your attitude more justifiable if you in fact had some great idea of what we could do right now that would make a real difference, rather than waiting to see some actual results from President Trump.

Do you have any such great idea? If you do, please share it with us.

@Hugh,

The oftener you repeat yourself, the boringer you get.

Hugh
December 27, 2016
It just makes you simps or seriously un-serious about really changing anything.

Change? Mercy, are you mad?
You’re talking to a nation of sheep; shorn of all critical thinking skills.
We all know who ran for office; the deplorable’s in all their glory.
It really didn’t matter who won; Usian’s lost regardless.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
I have to seriously question your own grasp on the reality of just where you live and under what government you function.
I live under a military junta and find it far less fear inspiring than what I fled almost 14 years ago. And by the way; this is the second coup in that time. In the sycophantic U.S., a coup is automatically condemned and ridiculed/sanctioned. More ignorance and western propaganda to demonize a foreign government NOT under U.S. control.
S.E. Asia in general is drifting quickly away from U.S. hegemon; thank the gods.
In-between coups, under “democratically” (cough) elected governments, was a lot of violence; but long periods of peace (social) under those regimes (coups) and my immediate family and myself suffered no loss of freedom, period.
IMO, most Usian’s have no concept of the true meaning of freedom. Mostly because they’ve lost most of theirs.
I will offer; in a world turned upside down (the west) it’s very difficult to maintain an accurate understanding of one’s true position.

@ Hugh

So, we are back to “organizing,” meaning playing within the election system we agree is hopeless?

Say it ain’t so. Don’t you realize yet that the left can’t even organize the toilet paper in an outhouse? That it has no ideas beyond magical thinking?

With all due respect, if that is the best idea/action plan you have as justification for not giving Trump a chance to show what he is really about (Note: You seem to have forgotten that he knows how to say “You’re fired” if he doesn’t like what his appointees do), then I think a reasonable person should just sit back and watch for the next six months, and see what happens.

Taking shots based on raw speculation at the only figure on the field who is not ALREADY FUCKING US doesn’t seem smart to me. It’s almost like you are trying on the sheepdog role with your current posture.

Time to reconsider, perhaps?

Back in the land of the walking dead the remaining defeated Clintonite forces in the WH and Congress are trying desperately to lay some IED’s to derail the Trump/Putin peace train. Besides some dirty cyber tricks aimed at Russia the sanctions they want require real evidence of real damage to our election system which they really can’t produce.

The other reason for this rush to at least get this nonsense before Congress was admitted in the report. The Clintonites already see another crushing defeat coming in 2018 and because this BS almost worked, at least in their own tiny minds, having this excuse handy and on the record is just their warped minds preplanning for their dismal future. .

@Hugh
It seems by now you would be tiring of your own arrogant projecting as are others here. I don’t recall seeing many if any comments here validating, whatever that means, Trump or the system. Acknowledging his accomplishments, killing the TPP and saving some jobs for Christmas are just comments on events with no projection of things to come although they could be.

You seem to be assuming the role of the Mad Preacher on his soapbox claiming special knowledge about the future and warning the ignorant heathens of their imminent disappointment and doom.

In fact the only people facing imminent disappointment and doom are the Clintonites and the dreamers and failures of the liberal left. Trump’s supporters have a huge victory to celebrate and they seem to have a president that wants to represent them, but time will tell.

Those Trump supporters along with the many people who despised the Red Queen and all she represented have much to celebrate this New Year. None of us will be required to view her snout in the banksters trough or listen to a word she may have to say, ever again.

I think what really frightens people such as yourself and other liberals is that Trump might be somewhat successful and actually try to represent the people who brought him to power. Liberals were so traumatized by Obama’s near total and immediate betrayal and the Red Queens humiliation that they can’t help but want others to feel as badly as they do.

EDIT: Supposed to end with, “Later on, who knows?”

All I wanted for Christmas was an edit feature lol.

@ Peter

Read it, bookmarked it. Food for thought, even if my background in psychology makes me want to instinctively recoil from the jargon lol.

Bottom line: still leaves us searching for the undiscovered magic way to change how people think, so as to change how they act. The framings are interesting, but can you imagine getting the common man to digest that whole article lol? The road from theory to effective practice can be a long and arduous and disappointing one, as you well know.

Thanks for the reference.

@realitychecker,

We will just have to accept that we disagree on the Sanders events. Everyone smart enough to know “something” knew that he was always a work-within-the-system person. His leftishness is fairly material and pragmatic and may be influenced by the Popular Front and multi-group Coalition approaches from the Great Depression era.

Anyone who thought they would exploit Sanders to build up their own publicity-hounding political preening societies . . . such as the Green Party graciously offering to offer him a space at the center of its Tar Pit . . . deserve every bit of the disappointment they feel. Let them wallow in it and keep wallowing.

Whatever else Bernie’s Run did or didn’t accomplish, it catalyzed the coming together and mutual co-discovery of eachother by several million people. They are now free to stay in touch with eachother and form various theory-action groups to do this or that and see what works. With or withOUT Bernie’s permission. And also Bernie’s Run demonstrated that enough multiple millions of $27-apiece-donors can assemble just as much weaponizable money as the conventional Big Donor Racketeers.

As to Bernie being a standing joke “around Washington” , well . . . which Washington? Whose Washington? Was all of Vermont too stupid to get the joke? Or do the Bernie-voting Vermonters know something that the “he was always a standing joke around Washington” don’t know?

@ different clue

You have all my sympathies, and I was also hoping Bernie would win the nomination and be the real thing, despite also being aware that others were warning all along that he would prove to be a classic sheepdog.

I can’t reconcile his post-nomination behavior with his campaign rhetoric. I just can’t.

@ different clue

Bernie promised radical change. I think we need radical change. I doubt that Bernie folks on social media will bring about radical change, though I would hope they do.

But there is no point in trying to justify Bernie’s craven personal behavior. He did not fight the primary hard enough, he acquiesced to having the nomination stolen from him, and he gleefully sucked the clit of the hellbitch who stole the nomination from him and represented the opposite of everything he said he stood for.

In the final analysis, just another god with clay feet. Not a worthy hero to worship. Maybe nobody is? Maybe we all need to fight our own fight?

@ Peter

Radical was his attack on trade deals. Radical was his reliance on small donations. Radical was his focus against the 1%. Radical was his constant use of the word ‘revolution,” even though he did not appear to mean violent revolution.

Radical compared to the usual pap.

Can we trust anyone to be our leaders anymore? I question whether any truly radical leader can arise and survive in present day America. Individual revolutionaries could probably be more effective.

No easy escape from our present predicament. We slept too long, we let the bad guys get too entrenched. This ain’t Hollywood. 🙁

@RC

You’re doing with the word/idea radical what I did with the word/idea revolution maybe even more so. There was nothing in Bernie’s rhetoric that was radical if you think that radical in economic terms is to strike at the root of capitalism. All he offered were reforms and remedies for the ills of capitalism but no attack on the underlying disease, social democracy is not socialism.

The disgruntled Clintonites and pseudo-leftists in the Berners ranks were viewing their reality from the extreme center of Clintonism which made their reform platform appear to resemble something radical but that’s just a warped perspective.

By the way, another thought occurs to me off and on. One wonders if Sanders was quietly threatened with assassanition of his wife and/ or daughters by “wet work messengers” from the Clintonite Group. Given the utter moral and ethical turpitude with which the Clintonites have always operated, and given their connections to the Intel Industrial Complex; should the suspicion be dismissed out of hand?

In other words:

I wonder if
somebody put
a horse’s head
in Bernie’s bed?

@realitychecker,

When I first read your comment I found the language so shocking I thought to myself . . .
” I can’t believe what came out of his fingers. Does he touch himself with those fingers?”

But now that I have returned for another flyby, I see that you have cleaned up the language. That is good. I have always tried to express my rage and hatred in gender-neutral and sexless terms, myself.

As to social media, it is not a matter of faith or not-faith. We see the valuable uses people are making of social media to put before the eyeballs of thousands the questionable behavior of certain police officers in certain situations, for example. Of course there is the cerebro-neuronal addictogenicity of digital device engagement . . . including for social media. Perhaps the people who are cerebro-neurochemically addicted to constant social media device engagement . . . are expressing their addiction as faith in social media.

@ different clue

“When I first read your comment I found the language so shocking I thought to myself . . .
” I can’t believe what came out of his fingers. Does he touch himself with those fingers?””

Amigo, any time you find my choice of language scandalous to your eyes and mind, you may rest assured that my purpose in using that language was to very deliberately express my fundamental belief that it is ridiculous to give too much power to mere words.

They are just words. Please save your ‘shocked’ moments for something real.

And, as to your quoted query, no, I have a girlfriend lol.

@ different clue

Words have only the power you let them have. If your mind functions, they have little power over you, but you have much power over them.

Respect your own personal power, and don’t be silly about surrendering it. The PC bullshit was never about empowering you; quite the opposite.

Resist mindfuckery. I can see you are smart enough to do it.

@ different clue

“Leftist Purity Ponyism”

Oh, is that what we are calling total blatant betrayal of all one’s principled positions, and endorsement of the person who embodies everything one ran against, these days?

Mindfuckery is bad, but mindfucking oneself is sad. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, amigo.

They only abuse you because they love you so much.

@ different clue

Well, the bell does not ring for you alone, fortunately.

I have faith that you will hear it eventually. A few more disappointments should be sufficient to open your ears.

After that, you may even hop. 🙂