Bursting Damn. And Its Sole Cause.
GOP fundraiser Meg Whitman, a former Hewlett Packard executive, says she’ll endorse Hillary Clinton, arguing that Trump is “dangerous” and a “demagogue”:
“She revealed that Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had reached out to her in a phone call about a month ago, one of the first indications that Mrs. Clinton is aggressively courting Republican leaders.”
One imagines many more such discussions are underway between Clinton and other Republicans, and that other endorsements may follow. Dam bursting?
— Trump just said he has a secret plan to win. In reality, he has no strategy., Greg Sargent, Washington Post, this morning
Suffice it to say that I’m not the one who imagines many more such discussions are underway between Clinton and other Republicans, and that other endorsements may follow. And, slow as Clinton and her campaign are to pick up on what this election cycle is really about and what really is happening in, say, the Rust Belt, I’m betting that those many discussions indeed were underway but no longer are.
That is exactly the kind of thing that Bernie Sanders and his supporters had expected. And it is quintessential Hillary Clinton: oblivious, reflexively triangulating, inalterably stuck in a pre-mid 2000s political era, and telling people what they already know about Donald Trump.
Inalterably, that is, until last week—when Clinton suddenly, finally, recognized that the political tectonic plates have shifted. Or at least she appeared to, and I believe she did.
Presumably, Sargent’s surmise about many more discussions underway is out-of-date. Whitman didn’t endorse Clinton a month ago; she endorsed Clinton now, when it’s become undeniable that Trump is not sane.
Yes, there are likely to be many more such endorsements, but that is because it has become simply untenable for someone like Meg Whitman—and the others who will be coming forward—to remain silent in this circumstance. Trump is publicly descending into outright madness. They know now that he can’t win. And they are immensely relieved.
If Clinton thinks she needs to call anyone of that sort and secretly promise anything at all in order to entice an endorsement, she might consider why she thinks she needs that endorsement. Only a perpetually out-of-sync-with-the-moment candidate would think an endorsement of that sort prompted by a phone call could matter to the election outcome. And I think Clinton is no longer that.
What matters is not Whitman’s endorsement but that she gave it because Trump compelled her to give it, not because Clinton called her a month ago and asked for it. The dam is bursting, and it barely has anything to do with Clinton or whom she asks for an endorsement.
“…when it’s become undeniable that Trump is not sane.”
“Trump is publicly descending into outright madness.”
Trump is many ugly things, but the proposition he is clinically insane is “a bridge too far”.
“The dam is bursting, and it barely has anything to do with Clinton or whom she asks for an endorsement.”
That is true. The neocons and neoliberals have decided that nothing less than a total assault on Trump will do the job, and that’s exactly what they have arranged.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-raimondo-trump-media-bias-20160802-snap-story.html
Trump is just about everything everybody has said about him – excepting of course the “insane” business. That said, it remains he is not as risky a prospect as President Hillary.
The reason those neocons and neoliberals are so desperate for Hillary is that they desire more wars. More stuff like the TPP treaty.
Poking a nuclear Russia is NOT a good idea. Nor is handing our government over to Corporations.
Trump supports the TPP type mentality by supporting deregulated capital markets.Hence, he is lying. Everything Trump says is a twist.
Lets be clear though, Russia is why the Republican ‘elite’ will not back him. That was the final blow. His debts are partly what is driving him and have been since the Democrats wouldn’t say in 2008 they wouldn’t “help him” on him on those “issues”. Just my own source, it is bad, very bad for Donald. He basically hasn’t been “free” since the mid-90’s. Putin is basically pulling him like a string because of it and unlike pre-Putin Russia, he uses everything in his arsenal against the “west”.
The real question is though, have President “Billary” promised Trump a method of clearing his debt with Russia in turn “helping” them get elected?
Yeah, it is incredibly stupid politics to ask people to vote and support you instead of your opponent.
This is beyond tired.
Somehow in the world of BernieBros Clinton is supposed to ignore people who might vote for or support her.
Just simply incredible.
Zachary: there ought to be a name for certain sorts of insanity which do not quite justify the straitjacket and the tranquilizer gun, but nonetheless unsuit a person for almost all adult responsibilities.
Can you imagine Mr. Trump living down the street from you, with no more money than an ordinary American, but with his current worldview and behaviour?
As for dams bursting, chickens and before their hatched and so forth.
Do you understand how political coalitions are formed? It doesn’t sound like it.
To Noni Mausa
August 3, 2016 8:48 pm
I hope you haven’t gotten the impression I like Donald Trump. Or that I’ll vote for him. The man lost me when he endorsed torture. He compounded that when he said he would outsource the Supreme Court to the Heritage Foundation loons. But any chance of redeeming himself was lost with the selection of Pence as VP. We’ve had that dingleberry as governor here in Indiana, and the thought of Pence being one heartbeat from the Oval Office is at least as scary as President Hillary.
In 2016 I’m taking what some will consider to be the coward’s way out. Like in 2012, I’m not voting for either candidate. Yes, somebody else will select who gets to be President because both of them are too far over the edge of pure evil for me. We’re going to have a very bad time ahead of us, no matter what happens in November. Just as in 2012, I won’t be subconsciously in bed with “my” candidate because I voted for him as a “lesser evil”. Though I voted for Obama in 2008, after I’d learned what a worthless *** he was, never again. In Indiana Jill Stein won’t be on the ballot, so I’ll leave the top part of the Computer Voting Device empty, and can only hope the computer hackers won’t turn the empty spot to a vote for Hillary.
But I continue to contend that Trump, bad as he very obviously is, would not likely be as terrible has Hillary. That’s just an educated guess of mine, but that’s how I see it.
If Trump truly is a Manchurian Candidate for the Clintons, we might see much worse from him. Wikileaks probably has some awfully bad dirt on Hillary, and if the election gets close on that account, I’d expect to see Trump do whatever it takes to lose. Like – “This last mass gun slaughter was one too many. As President I will work to amend the Second Amendment to restrict gun ownership.” Whatever it takes.
Zachary,
“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Try not to talk. When you do, the world weeps.
Its hard to understand how someone who won re-election to the Senate with 70% of the vote and won the popular vote in the 2008 primaries can be describef accurately as a “perpetually-out-of-the-moment” candidate.
Zachary Taylor,
I used to live with a teacher. When a child misbehaved, she made a point of saying, “you’re not bad, you just did a bad thing.” Trump is a narcissist and a raging megalomaniac with a twisted psyche (who tells a mother to leave his event because her baby is crying?) but he isn’t insane: he acts insanely.
I read the article you referred to. The author goes to great lengths to explain how the media is in the tank for Hillary, has a liberal bias, etc., but only once mentions anything Trump himself has done or said – the direct request that Trump made that he hoped the Russians would hack (a crime) accounts and find the 30,000 emails — then dismisses it as simply a joke, a jest. Not only did I not find it funny, I found it a dangerous flirtation with a violation of the Logan act forbidding “unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S.” The Russians have already interfered with the electoral process in this country, which is unheard of, dangerous, insulting and outrageous; the fact that a major-party candidate would invite a more thorough-going interference is beyond belief – completely unprecedented.
Trump repeatedly does and says things(then typically denies the next day he did or said them) that lead rational and responsible people to scratch their heads and ask themselves, “is this guy insane?” I can give you a dozen of examples in a half hour. To take just two: I deplore McCain’s politics, but the torture he endured for 5 years cannot be described as anything less than heroic; Trump calls him a loser for having been captured. Trump is given a Purple Heart by a supporter and says, “I always wanted one of these;” Trump took 5 deferments during Vietnam War. He isn’t insane; he acts insanely.
Joe Scarborough, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, said yesterday that “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them.” Do you think that is acting sanely? Do you think that is not reckless irresponsibility? And Scarborough cannot be dismissed as having a “liberal bias.”
The GOP is reportedly setting up a plan for “an informal intervention,” which in this case is not for alcoholism or drug abuse but Trump’s political insanity. Do they have a liberal bias?
We all have the obligation, as he is potentially the next President of the US, to take him at his word and to presume that as he acts, so shall he govern. Trump is not insane; he acts insanely.
Meg Whitman is not the kind of person you want endorsing you if you’re pretending to have a progressive agenda.
She is fundamentally on the side of business over anything like workers rights, environmental concerns, she in favor of forms of immigration reform that are primarily aimed at benefiting business over labor.
Like HIllary, she had a long and tight history with Goldman Sachs. She’s not even known in business for her acumen. She had some major acquisition failures particularly Skype when she was at eBay (you can argue the company had grown beyond her capacity, this happens). HP was a disaster by all reckoning, but it’s also generally true that women and minorities are more likely to become CEOs of companies that are in trouble (men can always go somewhere else, and decline the worst roles).
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/66/7e/7f/667e7f60ad8d91db88366912f411fb64.jpg
JG,
Explain how Whitman endorsing Clinton has anything whatsoever to do with the DP platform.
Zack Smith I’m with you bro, do not give up the fight against the neocons. Meg Whitman, Michael Bloomberg and many others like them are the oligarchs in their little corporate castles that have betrayed America. HRC and now the DNC, main stream news media and large corporations have flipped and become the main mail carriers of the oligarchs billionaires club. Trump is the outsider now who is being demonized by the elites of the oligarchs. They do not want any change in any meaningful way and are determined to try to undermine and destroy Trump by any means… Scandal after scandal after scandal with a life time of with HRC do you think that the American people would see trough the smoke, mirrors and deception.The American public is very gullible and mis informed today due to the oligarchs determination to stay in control of greed, profit and power…The greatest driving force-mission of Wall St. today is profit above anything and the rule of law is dead. This is what and why they need HRC to be their next president at any cost….
The endorsements of Whitman, Bloomberg, neo-cons, etc. are not endorsements of Clinton but endorsements for the movement to keep Trump out of the White House. They are not pro-HRC, they are anti-Trump. In any other election year and against any other sane Republican candidate they would be opposed to Clinton. In this election year, with Trump running for President of the United States, the hostility toward HRC on this page never takes into account what a Trump victory would look like. It is as if they see Trump as some benign player “who will “change” when he gets in office. While the criticism of HRC are right, the support for Trump as President is either wishful thinking, a delusion or a hallucination. It’s like criticizing your left hand while your right hand holds a dagger to your throat.
BoE cutting rates down to 0.25%. Does this push the US to follow?
The movement to keep Trump out of the white house is an invention of the media . As is the movement to put Hillary in the white house.
Joe Scarborough, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, said yesterday: “I want to be very careful here. Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump, and three times Trump asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times, he asked, at one point, ‘If we have them, we can’t we use them?’… Three times, in an hour briefing, ‘Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?’”
Is he kidding? Is that a jest or a joke? Or is that one more example of his reckless, dangerous, ignorant irresponsibility. For those who support Trump, it as if they live in an ahistorical bubble whose minds have been befogged by the endless stream-of-consciousness bullshit that flows from his reptilian brain. Day after day, “he’s kidding, he can’t be serious, the liberal media is out to get him, he’ll learn, he’ll change.” It’s as if they’ve never heard of the utter devastation of the two World Wars in the 20th century – 100 million dead, mostly civilians — as if they think that all history has stopped, that we have reached some level of advancement where “that’ll never happen again.” It’s as if they’ve never contemplated what a global thermonuclear war means for all humanity, never heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Now we have a Presidential candidate who asks, “if we have them, why can’t we use them?” The naïve ignorance of those who blindly support this soulless, megalomaniacal creep is repulsive. Do I want to see him defeated? No, I want to see his political guts stomped out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/03/i-have-a-few-questions-for-morning-joe/
Even the neocon Washington Post is getting a little worried about the extent of the DUMP ON TRUMP crusade. As Robert Parry reports in his current essay “The Danger of Excessive Trump Bashing” the momentum of a successful campaign will have serious consequences.
“The grave danger from this media behavior is that it will empower the neocons and liberal hawks already nesting inside Hillary Clinton’s campaign to prepare for a new series of geopolitical provocations once Clinton takes office.”
Source: Consortium News site.
What would you rather have someone holding a dagger to your throat to do what is right or someone cutting of your head to forcing you to do what is wrong? I agree Trump is no Truman but in the scale of things I think the Trump blusters always needs tempered… If HRC gets elected we are doomed to the past proven failed policies of socialism that won’t be very democratic and will require huuuuge tax increases.. There will be new wars of greater magnitude and social unrest as we will quickly approach $22T in national debt and will forever be paying the whole national GDP out put just to pay the interest. Nobody will be working as everything will have to be free…Trump is still our best hope for freedom, world peace and prosperity in America as we know it and like today…Make no mistake about your children’s and country’s future…
Bronco,
To say the movement to stop Trump is a creation of the media is about as simple-minded as you can get, as if everything Trump does or says hasn’t contributed to the movement at all. Your support for Trump is so absolute and blind as to blithely disregard the fact that we now have a Presidential candidate asking “if we have nuclear weapons why can’t we use them?” I can’t think of anything more absurd and, sorry to say, utterly stupid.
William Ryan,
You constantly mount up your history and insist on what is right and wrong. Brother, you should be preacher rather than mess around in politics. When you walk in your house at the end of the day and find someone with a dagger at your wife’s throat, she better hope that you don’t stop to ask about the rightness or wrongness of breaking the guy’s arm. Not even a preacher would be troubled in that instance. Your principles and constant references to what is right or wrong are profoundly admirable. Your search for them among politicians, though, is misplaced, to see the least. But worst of all, your failure to recognize that, for Trump, it’s not that the sun rises or sets around him — he is the Sun — is a fatal delusion that will be a catastrophe to the constitutional order we live by.
William,
Do you realize that our most prosperous period came on the heels of the period when our debt to GDP ratio was at an all time high?
RayLaPan-Love,
And when unions were at their strongest. And when the government invested heavily in public spending programs like the GI Bill and home loans for vets.
Larry Summers recently called for an infrastructure spending program of $1 trillion over 10 years. If anyone seriously wants to stimulate the economy, raise the minimum wage and give folks work — not to mention improving the utterly sorry state of the infrastructure itself.
Ms57,
Yes, and thanks for the help. I am a little lazy sometimes, but anyone who has seen how slowly I type readily understands. But then too, sometimes the simple works best.
Ray LaPan-Love,
Brother, don’t worry, when it comes to laziness I’ve got you beat hands down. I just wish there was a prize for it — it would be like fixing the lottery so I win.
MS 57 I don’t know why you would think I’m a trump supporter , I voted for Sanders in the primary.
You know that thing Team Hillary rigged ? And the media has been deflecting attention from with all its might?
Half the things attributed to Trump were spun from whole cloth and printed as fact. That Joe Sarbourough’s sisters ex roomates cousin(apologies to Dark Helmet) thought she heard Trump ask about nukes doesn’t impress me much .
Of course nukes are meant to be used , otherwise we wasted a lot of money on the 20,000 ++++ that we bought during the last 70 years.
I find “Khan gambit” using Democratic conventions podium to be a well prepared trap.
While the fact that Trump got into in (and this is plain vanilla swift boating, so any normal politicians would sense the danger immediately) does not characterize him well, the shame IMHO is on neocons who created this trap.
BTW endorsement by Whitman is nothing to be proud of. She is a regular neoliberal. So what would you expect? That’s simply silly not to expect that some/most of them will not cross the party line. Neocons like Kagan were the first, now neoliberals follow the suit. The same is even more true about Bloomberg (with his media empire being essentially propaganda arm of GS)
I think Trump demonstrated courage by opposing well oiled with money propaganda machine of neocons.
In their zeal to discredit Trump some MSM became pretty disingenuous and that might have the opposite effect, if “Khan gambit” is overplayed:
From http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-how-trump-supporters-are-pushing-back-1470079021-htmlstory.html
=== Quote ===
While many Republicans have rebuked Donald Trump for attacking Khizr Khan and his wife — who lost their U.S. Army captain son, Humayun, in the war in Iraq — some of Trump’s allies are rallying to his side and, in the process, attacking Khan.
Trump’s longtime ally, political consultant Roger Stone, who has a long history as a controversialist, set the pattern on Twitter Sunday night by linking to an article that accused Khan, an immigration lawyer from Virginia, of being an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, an inflammatory and unproved charge.
Here is what else you can expect to hear from some of Trump’s backers as the controversy builds:
—Hillary Clinton, they say, is not being called out adequately for contradicting Pat Smith, another Gold Star mother, whose son Sean was one of the Americans killed in the attack in 2012 on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Smith blames Clinton for misrepresenting the cause of the attack that took her son’s death, and ultimately for the death itself.
—Khan, they note, once worked for a law firm that represented Saudi Arabia, which has donated to the Clinton Foundation.
—They argue that because Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, she should be called to account for the death of Humayun Khan, who died 12 years ago in a suicide bomb attack. Trump supported the Iraq war at the time, although he now claims to have opposed it.
—The Khans, some Trump supporters say, opened themselves to criticism by taking the stage at a political event, thus politicizing their son’s death.
Bronco,
The only comment you made is “The movement to keep Trump out of the white house is an invention of the media. As is the movement to put Hillary in the white house.”
If that isn’t an argument to put Trump in the White House and keep Hillary out, what is it?
I’m quite sure you didn’t vote for Bernie. No true Bernie supporter would go on to say that “half the things attributed to Trump were spun from whole cloth and printed as fact.” No true Bernie supported would spend half their post defending Trump. And no sane person would argue for using nuclear weapons.
You’re nothing but a Breitbarter — which rhymes with intellectual farter. You’re helicoptering in to pages like this in hopes of swaying people to support Trump. Unfortunately, you have landed on a page where people actually think. You are a perfect Trump representative: a liar who argues for the use of nuclear weapons. Congratulations. This is the person you are.
Ms 57
You are accusing me of being a pro? Half the posts in this thread are from you , if anything your giant walls of text full sprinkled with buzzwords are a better indication of that than my one or 2 sentences. And you are referencing Brietbart, you are already down to cut and paste recycling comments from the last election? Get some rest at this rate you will never last until November .
The Harvard Republican Club announced that for the first time in 128 years it will not be endorsing the Republican:
The club told members and alumni Thursday that it won’t support Trump. It said in a statement that Trump is “a threat to the survival of the Republic” and lacks the temperament and character necessary to be president. The organization said Trump’s platform would endanger Americans’ security both at home and abroad, and his views are not consistent with conservative principles. It also said Trump’s mocking and belittling of various groups and people is both bad politics and “absurdly cruel.” The club urged Republican Party leaders to renounce their support of Trump.
Mike Morrell, former head of the CIA, announced he will vote for Clinton. Of particular interest is this:
“The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them.
That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.
Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.
In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
Bronco,
I am not accusing you of being a pro; you’re far too ham-handed and simple-minded to be a pro.
In fact, I’m not accusing you of being anything. I am stating flatly that you are a heartless, mindless dunce enthralled by an ignorant, egotistical moron.
ham-handed , simple-minded, heartless,mindless dunce and then back to our regularly scheduled “oh no Russia Bad” dog whistle for the base.
punch the hippies, punch the ruskies , lather rinse and repeat
I like hippies.
“Of course nukes are meant to be used…”
“Of course nukes are meant to be used…” You’re no hippie.
You’re a heartless, mindless dunce enthralled by an ignorant, egotistical moron.
I’ve got far more productive things to do with my time than deal with the likes of you — I could be picking the wax out of my ears.
It’s inevitable that eventually nukes will be used again unless there is worldwide disarmament.
The longer the world goes without them being used, the more likely it is that they will be used.
To J.Goodwin August 5, 2016 10:38 am:
The one and only episode of nuclear weapons being used in war was a rather special one. First, the enemy didn’t have them, and there was absolutely no deterrence available. Second, the political and geopolitical situation of the time almost forced their use against Japan.
It’s sort of a moot question about worldwide disarmament because it just isn’t going to happen unless Aliens From Arcturus come and do the deed. Since 1949 the fact that potential enemies have nukes of their own has drastically curbed the urge to go to general war. Every single combat action of the US since WW2 has been some sort of “police action” or “intervention” without a declaration of war. Only a few times were nukes even considered.
If you want to worry about nuclear war, consider the major upgrade of US nukes done by Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Bush Daddy. Making those nukes much more easy to use was done for some reason. Combine that with the NATO moves against Russia and the future doesn’t look promising.
I don’t understand how “the fact that potential enemies have nukes of their own has drastically curbed the urge to go to general war,” yet a major upgrade of US nukes suddenly becomes an invitation to go to war. Putin himself has said that the Russians are not idly standing by
but working to improve their own arsenal as well.
I don’t understand how “the NATO moves against Russia” are an evil while the Russian moves against Ukraine and into the Crimea are never mentioned in the same breath.
During the Cold War the US didn’t have weapons right on the USSR border. There was a huge buffer zone of Eastern European nations between the Communists and the Capitalists. These days the wondrous defenses against rogue Iranian and North Korean ICBMs put both offensive and defensive stuff sit squarely on the Russian border. The Russians know that the launchers for the ‘defensive’ missiles can easily be swapped out with cruise missiles carrying whatever warheads the neocons see fit to put on them. Also, assuming the ‘defensive’ missiles ever get to be worth a pewter ****, their second strike weapons would be decimated in the event of a US first strike.
Russia would be governed by morons if they DID NOT upgrade their arsenals, for they’re looking at national destruction if they falter. The very worst case is when your own nukes are rendered useless by maneuvers of your enemy. That’s what NATO is arranging for both China and Russia.
Russian moves against Ukraine? No wonder you want Hillary so badly!
BTW, the Russians were in Crimea all along. With the US coup by our Good Nazis, Russia stood to lose its rented naval base in Crimea. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except for NATO taking it over. They stopped that gambit cold in its tracks by finally allowing what the citizens of Crimea have wanted for years – rejoining Russia.
At some point the Russians are going to have to smash some of those new and threatening installations NATO is throwing up around them. They’ll do it with conventional weapons, but heaven help us if some warmongering loon is in the Oval Office. Watching fine grey dust fall on the window sill hearing the geiger counter sing will be among the last things I do on this earth.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/us-presses-start-key-third-world-war/ri14413
During the Cold War neither the US nor the USSR had weapons on their borders, nor needed them. Warheads were carried by land, sea and air, as they are now. If you don’t think the USSR would have defended an attack on East Germany, you’re dreaming. That huge buffer zone you reference wasn’t a buffer at all when two military blocs were conducting a cold war. That huge buffer zone didn’t matter much in ’48-’49 when the Soviets themselves blocked access to West Berlin. And I don’t remember any risings by nationals against NATO; I do remember risings by nationals who wanted to cast off the “protection” of the Soviets.
The “wondrous defenses” were not put there for no reason. The nation-states where they are placed have requested they be put there. They are not afraid of NATO; they asked for those defenses to be placed on their sovereign territory because they fear further aggression by the Russians.
The very notion, made again and again by you, that there is the remotest possibility of a first strike by NATO is not just absurd, not just Russian propaganda, but pure fantasy. Do you think NATO believes they have any chance of survival at all in a nuclear exchange with Russia?
It appears you have missed the “Russian moves” against Ukraine. It was in all the papers. To deny Russian involvement in Ukraine is to defy Putin’s own words:
“We need to quickly begin substantive and meaningful negotiations and not only on technical questions, but on questions of the political organization of society and statehood for southeastern Ukraine,” Mr. Putin told Russian television.
“Do you think NATO believes they have any chance of survival at all in a nuclear exchange with Russia?”
Yes.
One reason some strategists believe China is taking over the South China Sea is to provide protection for their ‘boomers’ – nuclear missile subs. The land bases are no longer secure against a US first strike.
However, they’re working with Russia to partly remedy the former issue by means of a joint missile defense.
I doubt that Russia would allow China access to S-500 technology except for a watered-down version. Possibly something like they did with India in the supersonic cruise missile project. (BraMos)
http://www.amtvmedia.com/will-russia-and-china-build-an-sco-based-joint-missile-defense-system/
Let’s just be very clear:
At the Republican debate in December 2015, it was Trump – not Obama, not Clinton, but Trump himself — who said: “With nuclear, the power, the devastation is very important to me.” He emphasized that “nuclear changes the whole ballgame,” implying that “the power is so massive” that the US can maintain its security without having to forward deploy its military.
In an interview with the NYT editorial board in April 2016, it was Trump who claimed that the U.S. “may very well be better off” if allied countries, like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, developed nuclear weapons.
In a televised town hall on MSNBC in March ’16, it was Trump who said he wouldn’t rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe, saying, “I’m not going to take it off the table.” This followed an interview the week before with Bloomberg Politics, where he hinted at the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic State.
And just this week, Joe Scarborough said: “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump, and three times Trump asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times, he asked, at one point, ‘If we have them, we can’t we use them?’… Three times, in an hour briefing, ‘Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?’”
Yet you want to argue that it is NATO or Obama or Clinton that is threatening to use nuclear weapons in an unprovoked first strike.
I challenge you to find even one comment uttered by Clinton or Obama or NATO that nuclear proliferation is a good idea or that they seriously ask themselves, “if we have them, why can’t we use them?”
If you have a modicum of intellectual honesty, take up the challenge — without your typical ad hominem attacks which are a very poor substitute for an argument. Otherwise, stop with the absurd, baseless conspiratorial whispering about how the West’s “making those nukes much more easy to use was done for some reason.”
Hillary 2008: “George Stephanopoulos: “Senator Clinton, would you [extend our deterrent to Israel]?”
Hillary Clinton: “Well, in fact … I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.”
Massive Retaliation has always had the meaning of a ‘massive’ nuclear attack.
Hillary 2016: “MR. CUOMO: Iran: some language recently. You said if Iran were to strike Israel, there would be a massive retaliation. Scary words. Does massive retaliation mean you’d go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is that what that’s supposed to suggest?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, the question was if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that.
Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.
That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.”
The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second part of her statement, forgetting “nuclear” and reverting to the 2008 declaration. Worse, she says that even if they don’t have nukes quite yet, an attack on Holy Israel means it’s “glow-in-the-dark” time in Iran.
It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That’s the way the Madeleine Albright ***** – the one who has declared that any woman who doesn’t vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it when speaking of 500,000 dead Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/04/iran-a24.html
https://votesmart.org/public-statement/335164/abc-good-morning-america-transcript#.V6UUn5Ma3ow
But move on – it’s the insane Trump who can’t be trusted with nukes.
Don’t even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted to Israel. When she was in the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative Republicans. Nobody at all is talking about Hillary’s religion. If she is one of the Rapture types, her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance to force God to get off the pot and start with the Second Coming.
Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
Hi Zachary,
> Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is “confused”. Which means that she does not have “normal” level of situational awareness.
For some specialties like airplane pilots this is a death sentence. Unfortunately, if elected, she can take the country with her.
While the USSR existed, as bad as it was for people within its borders, it was a blessing the people of the USA, as it kept the elite in check and frightful to behave in “natural, greedy and delusional “Masters of the Universe” way”.
After the dissolution of the USSR and the “triumphal march” of neoliberalism, the US elite by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation.
If you read what Hillary utters like “no fly zone” in Syria and other similar staff, to me this this looks like a sign of madness, plain and simple. No reasonable political should go of the cliff like that, if stakes are not extremely high.
And MSM try to sell her as a more reasonable politician then Trump. In reality she is like Kelvin absolute zero. You just can’t go lower. The only hope is that she is a puppet and it does not matter what she utters.
But if we take her statements about Syria and Russia at face value she is either dangerously ignorant or (more probably) is a female sociopath.
Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation, no boundaries.
So her arrogant and reckless behavior as for “getting rich quick” and with the private “bathroom” email server is a sign of more general and more dangerous tendency.
Neocons are still way too powerful. They dominate MSM and essentially dictate the agenda.
So we can only pray to God to spare us.
The ignorance that has invaded this site lately is almost incomprehensible.
My favorite(well, you know” is the insane idea that the “neocons” used the Khans to “trap” Trump int0 disrespecting the military while praising the military in some sort of George M. cohan production.
Um, guys?
The Khans were not at the convention to talk about the military. The fact that some people think they were is beyond belief and shows clearly that some people do need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
To likbez August 5, 2016 11:29 pm:
“She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is “confused”. Which means that she does not have “normal” level of situational awareness.”
At this moment I’m feeling very foolish, for I’d totally forgotten the state of Hillary’s health.
A really excellent comment.