StrangeSox

Trump thanks Putin for kicking out US diplomats: 'We're trying to cut down our payroll' Whole interview was insane, per usual. Very glad this man has unilateral control of 6,000 nuclear weapons.

Shockingly, Republicans in Indiana are suppressing the vote in Democratic areas and expanding it in Republican areas http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2017/08...olls/435450001/

The Superfans were barely parody

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 10:19 AM) How many checks and balances are there with Trump doing risky military type stuff that could get us involved with a WW3? Zero, short of the military disobeying direct orders from the Commander in Chief. No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That’s by design. What if the president ordering a nuclear attack isn’t sane? An Air Force major lost his job for asking. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to elect* an insane, extremely fragile reality TV star who lashes out at even the smallest things and has zero impulse control to POTUS?

NEW POLL: Nearly half of Republicans would back postponing 2020 election if Trump proposed it The entire republican party is insane

Study: Trump actions trigger health premium hikes for 2018 https://www.apnews.com/cc6b335865e24a4b843d...ium=AP_Politics

https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnhudson/trump-h...o9k9#.jqZ8LNr5r

counterpoint: neoconservative foreign policy has failed spectacularly everywhere it has been tried, and there will always be loud and large constituencies insisting there is no more time to talk. There will always be strong forces encouraging leaders to bomb now. If you don't realize what you're actually doing and what you want the end result to be before you enter a country, all you are doing is causing mass death and suffering. I mean that paragraph without additional context could very easily come from an NRO article in late 2002 or early 2003. Or one written about Iranian negotiations.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 02:33 PM) There is no chain of command. He tells somebody to fire the nuke at Guam and they fire a nuke at Guam. He tells them to fire a nuke at mainland USA, they fire a nuke at USA. If they don't, bullet to the head. This is identical to the US command-and-control chain for nuclear weapons, except you'd be court martialed and sentenced to prison rather than summarily executed. I want to stress again that the subtext of that initial comment was that we already have a situation where a madman has unilateral and unquestionable control over thousands of nuclear weapons that he can order to be launched on a whim. The only thing to stop him would be a coup.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 02:14 PM) Well, they offered up a deal where they wouldn't and we accepted it and then we broke that deal first before they did, so "they were going to keep trying" remains only one possibility. Then we did another deal and they broke it with a satellite launch and then pulled out when criticized. There's definitely no guarantee an agreement would work.

FYI that is also the US's nuclear launch system. There are zero checks on the President's power and it is set up to be executed as quickly as possible. The people in the chain of command down to the guys turning the keys are screened to make sure they will follow orders without question and without hesitation given the gravity of their mission. A Navy fleet commander recently stated that he's willing and ready to launch his nukes on China if given the order by Trump. So that was really riffing on how precarious our nuclear situation is under normal scenarios let alone one where a madman wanna-be dictator who's mused about using nuclear weapons on multiple occasions and gets extremely angry and lashes out at the smallest perceived slights controls over 6,000 nuclear warheads. So yeah, I honestly do hope that the people in the DPRK's chain of command for launching nuclear weapons have more power than the people in the US's chain of command. That doesn't mean I think they do, just that I hope they do. e: for reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverythi...hats-by-design/

They are saying they will use them in retaliation, not as a first-strike. A couple years back Obama refused to commit the US to a no-nuclear-first-strike policy IIRC

It's a good thing that multiple people within the administration and Congress have to repeatedly say "oh just ignore the President," right?

Trump’s Threat to North Korea Was Improvised "Kelly will finally be the one who reigns in Trump!" Ron Howard narrator voice: "He Didn't" The "calming influence" generals he's surrounded himself with all want war War WAR.

Sen. Ron Johnson is speculating that McCain's brain tumor made him vote no

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 11:00 AM) Sweden, Australia and Britain were in on the fix too? Potentially being wrong doesn't mean there was a "fix." Either way, the case is clearly disputed and it wouldn't form the grounds for restarting the Korean War.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 10:55 AM) They've attacked SK recently in 2010, killing 46 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking And we/the international community didn't respond, or couldn't, because we/the international community allowed them to develop the bomb. Not exactly a clear-cut case and it wouldn't be the first time the US seriously misattributed the sinking of a ship. further: This wasn't a case of obvious and overt aggression on the part of NK, and it definitely wasn't the first move in an offensive actions.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 10:05 AM) I haven't read the ENTIRE thread so I don't know if the answer is in there somewhere but here's my question... Does anyone know what North Korea ultimately WANTS? Do they want to rule the world? Cuz that ain't happening. Do they want to be accepted as a major power? Cuz that ain't happening either. Or do they just want the entire Korean peninsula? Cuz that ain't happening either. I think it's to run their own little fiefdom with no outside interference

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 09:12 AM) What he hasn't done in all of this is actually invade another country. He antagonizes. He retains power by antagonizing. North Korea is only relevant through using its military as a threat, if it did not it would be a forgotten country. In the leadup to pre-emptive wars, it is always this increasing hysteria of danger. North Korea, as an antagonizing, militaristic state, was always going to be on the shortlist for regime change from global powers. It got a bomb, and it got it to make it legitimate and prevent regime change. The idea that NK would send an atomic bomb to the US as an offensive measure is greater now than it was a week ago, but still incredibly unlikely. It depends on building up the madness of NK so high that they would judge the annihalation of their entire country as an acceptable cost in order to just get one big swing at the US. But North Korea has had just as much contempt for South Korea as the US, which is an understatement. And ahs been capable of launching a nuclear attack for years. The bluster toward them has been consistent and unending. Military buildup, miltary flybys, naval movements to frighten. But despite all that, nothing. If they invaded SK they would be met with the forces of too many countries to count, and CHina would likely come down on them in an effort to ensure that it does not lose it to western influence. North Korea is not holding us hostage. They are not and cannot stop the US from doing anything the US wants to do in foreign policy with the possible exception of *invading and changing regimes* in North Korea. They aren't that strong. Pakistan meanwhile holds nukes, and could start a global war with india on the regular or lose those nukes to terrorism it funds. Why are we not frothing with fear there? Russia/China. These are legitimate militarys and countries with nuclear weapons to fear because they could legitimately destroy US ability to act globally and even actually take land from US. North Korea is just another libya. A country that seems on a collision course to kill millions of americans and then 30 years later you look back and realize they were nowhere near the existential threat they seemed. But there is one way to vastly increase the likelihood of a North Korea attack, and that's to actually invade them, which is one of the main reasons they got the bomb to begin with. Something to keep in mind that right now is the lead-up to the annual US-SK joint exercises in the region, which always leads to NK saber-rattling. It's just that now there's an equally incompetent, stupid, and egotistical man on the other side. Oh and re: Pakistan/India, our gutted state department recently decided to recognize disputed Kashmir territories as explicitly Indian territories. I'm sure that will go over well with Pakistan and the assistance we need from them in combating some Islamic groups.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 08:48 AM) Bulls***. Bush got NK to the table with the regional players for 5 years worth of talks, culminating in NK agreeing to halt its nuclear weapons program and shut down their facilities and normalize relations with Japan and the US. And it was Obama who ruined the agreement by condemning their "satellite" launch in 2009. I know you can't blame Obama for anything, so fine, we'll call it NK reneging on their agreement, something they continue to do because they have no desire whatsoever to end their military progression. But keep dreaming guys. Maybe this time it'll work! This is also not quite accurate, by the way. NK was already at the table and part of the NPT prior to the "Axis of Evil" stupidity. North Korea didn't take kindly to being called part of the Axis of Evil and then seeing one of the other two countries on that list invaded. They and Iran both believe or believed that a nuclear deterrent was the only guarantee from US intervention. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 09:06 AM) I'll answer my question here. NK - 0 USA - 39 countries (although some of them were twice and three times, not sure how to count that) Does that count CIA-backed coups like Iran, Nicaragua and Chile?

FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid on the Mana Fort https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi...m=.42a354da87b2