It is as foolish for Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from Hitler’s excesses.
From a piece in yesterday’s Guardian by a 94 year old veteran of the WW II RAF warning that this summer feels like the summer of 1939
A NYT article describes the origin of the new missiles that North Korea is using to threaten the United States: a Ukrainian missile plant that for years produced engines for the Soviet Union’s most powerful ICBMs. The plant has fallen on hard times since the Russians stopped using their missile engine in 2006 and switched to an indigenous Russian design. In fact, they have been reduced to making trolley cars and are near bankruptcy. The once massive missile engine plant is the original source of the modified engines that the North Koreans have been using since last fall to power their suddenly revitalized missile program, but it appears that the engines they are using were part of a stockpile that the Russians had left over from their use in the SS series of ICBMs.
The conclusion: the Russians, either a criminal gang or Putin’s government, gave the North Koreans the engines to power their new ICBMs. Why? Putin is interested in weakening the US and distracting us from the threat that Russia poses to our security. A cheap way of doing that would be to build up the North Korean threat by jump-starting their ICBM program. Or is that just paranoia… to paraphrase Thomas Pynchon, author of “Gravity’s Rainbow”: Proverbs for Paranoids #1: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there’s not somebody after you.
Comment of the Day: Something is Happening
Always, always remember that there is only one undeniable fact:
something is happening.
Everything else is a theory about that something.
From an article about Elon Musk and his theory that we are in a simulation in the Guardian.
Quote of the Day: Kim Goads Don the Con
“We consider the U.S. no more than a lump which we can beat to a jelly any time.”
North Korean taunt reported by the New York Times on Friday (August 11, 2017)
gemli
is a trusted commenter Boston 20 hours ago
It’s possible that the hypersensitivity we see surrounding race, gender, ethnicity, political leanings and all of the other silos of identity are due to one underlying cause: there is a sense that progress has stopped.
Various groups are feeling pushback after decades of slow advancement. White Power is surging, legislators are passing bathroom bills to thwart transgender rights, abortion rights are under attack, a Supreme Court nomination was hijacked by Republicans, and a man with a possibly racist past was nominated for Attorney General. When Elizabeth Warren protested, she was told to sit down and shut up.
We have a president who invited white supremacists to sit at his right hand, and who has the cultural sensitivity of turn-of-the-century robber baron. As I write this, people are dying in Charlottesville as white nationalists assert power.
Nobody wants to listen politely to right-wing zealots speaking at their commencement, or thoughtfully consider what Betsy DeVos has planned for public education in this country. The Civil War ended a century and a half ago, and people are still having to remind us that black lives matter.
The Twentieth Century was a time of increasing rights for people of color, women, gays and lesbians, the poor and the sick. Salaries were rising and infrastructure was booming.
Conservatives are fed up with all of that, and they’ve let us know they’re not going to take it anymore.
Some don’t choose to listen politely to their plans.
I like this picture so I’m going to use it to head all my posts.
The new EPA administrator and former attorney general of Oklahoma, who used to get his jollies suing the EPA, now is implementing his plant to dismantle the agency and abnegate its mission of protecting our environment. Here’s a quote from a NYT article about his “secret” and paranoid mission:
Mr. Pruitt, according to the employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs, often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security.
A former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career suing the E.P.A., and whose LinkedIn profile still describes him as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” Mr. Pruitt has made it clear that he sees his mission to be dismantling the agency’s policies — and even portions of the institution itself.
But as he works to roll back regulations, close offices and eliminate staff at the agency charged with protecting the nation’s environment and public health, Mr. Pruitt is taking extraordinary measures to conceal his actions, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former agency employees.
Why would a man insist that employees leave their cell phones behind and take no notes, as the NYT states elsewhere in the article? Because he is paranoid about leaks. Why would he leave his own office to make important phone calls? Because he is paranoid that the employees of his office are against him and out to leak details of his plans.
Do we really need an EPA administrator who plans to dismantle the EPA? Or who is so paranoid that he won’t make important phone calls from his office?
Billy the Dog says:
Comment of the Day: Don the Con is Desperate
James
San Clemente, CA 14 hours ago
On the same day that Donald Trump threatened nonspecific military action against North Korea, and contended that his despicable comments denigrating U.S. diplomats and local employees in Russia was just “sarcasm,” the President opened a new front in his rhetorical war on the world, saying that he would “not exclude” military action against Venezuela. I’m getting the feeling that all these impromptu press conferences the President has been giving lately all have the same purpose. He’s feeling the hot breath of Special Counsel Robert Mueller on his neck, and he is casting around for an issue to distract the press from the fact that the walls are closing in on his administration. All this flailing is understandable, given that the President has no actual skills other than those appropriate to a snake-oil salesman, but we are getting close to the point where one of Trump’s ill-considered remarks could actually start a war. This is political malpractice on an epic scale, and raises the following question: when will the Congress, the remaining adults in the Executive branch, and the American people themselves decide that they have had enough and must now begin the process of removing this travesty of a President? The clock is ticking, and Trump’s folly grows.
A Modest Proposal on North Korea
- Offer, in secret through the Chinese, to begin negotiations without preconditions, one-on-one, between North Korea and the US. If they ignore the offer, make another offer in public.
- Remind the public that at present, North Korea and the US are still technically at war, and what exists is a 50+ year truce, not a peace treaty.
- Make secret, one-on-one negotiations with the North Koreans through a plenipotentary (authorized to make any deal at once) ambassador.
- Continue sanctions and a military cordon around North Korea until they agree to give up their nuclear weapons per the UN’s resolutions.
- Rinse and repeat.
(Note that the Chinese have declared that, if North Korea attacks the US or South Korea first, the US will have a free hand and China will “remain neutral.” But that, if the US tries to unseat Kim or attacks first, China will defend North Korea. It seems obvious that, with that Chinese statement, we have little to fear from the North Koreans; if they attack us, we can annihilate them and China will stand by and do nothing.)
Quote of the Day: Don’t Spook the Herd
“We are playing right into Kim Jong-Un’s hands,” General Thurman said. “That is what he wants. He wants to be on the world scene.”
“I really would want to tamp down this rhetoric, maintain armistice conditions, keep the force ready and,” he said, “not get the herd spooked.”
Jon K
New York, NY 1 hour ago
I don’t think anyone likes the idea of a war with North Korea (if they attacked Seoul the death toll would potentially reach the hundreds of thousands), but do you want to fight this war now, or 20 years down the road when their military is 5x as strong and more technologically advanced?
Kim Jung Un is a wicked man whose regime has committed countless crimes against humanity. Do you think his threats will end if we simply allow him to develop his military unabated? Do you think he will play fairly if we allow him a seat at the “big boy table”? Do you think he is happy with the current sanctions imposed on his country? Do you think he is happy that a US-backed South Korea borders his country?
He knows he is currently outgunned, and that is why he’s doing nothing more than running his mouth, but the moment feels he his military could actually win a war against South Korea, he will invade no doubt about it. That is what we are looking at 20 years down the road.
It’s a sad, sad situation that should have been dealt with 15 years ago… and since it wasn’t, a lot more people are going to die when this comes to a head…
Phyliss Dalmatian
Wichita, Kansas 50 minutes ago
We are now counting on North Korea to behave in a rational fashion, because OUR Dear Leader cannot. Think about that. Seriously.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 