Friday, August 11, 2017

Donald Trump continues to hype a possible military response to North Korea, while North Korea does that same.


Those were Trump's early morning tweets today, though he also took a moment to suggest that Mitch McConnell might need to quit his job.

Yep Trump seems very committed to escalating this thing all out of proportion.

And North Korea seems totally down with that.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

In brief footage played during Shepard Smith Reporting, an unidentified spokesman blasted the U.S. President as “senile” on North Korean state media. 

“We cannot have a sound dialogue with a senile man who can’t think rationally,” the spokesman said. “And only absolute force can work on him. This is the judgment made by our soldiers of the strategic force.”

I hate it when I find myself somewhat agreeing with an unnamed North Korean spokesman. (Not about the absolute force part of course, but definitely with the senility part.)

But here's the thing, it is a strong possibility that both of these so-called "world leaders" are overreacting to hype.

Yesterday during the opening of her show Rachel Maddow made the point that the initial reporting on North Korea's ability to miniaturize an atomic warhead and place it in a missile was from a single source, that had been wrong about this very thing four years ago.

Here is Rachel discussing this very issue with a former CIA analyst and professor who specializes in North Korean relations. As you can see not only does this interview raise questions about the veracity of this recent reporting, but it also points out that Trump's reaction to it has been unnecessarily aggressive in response to the actual threat.

However now that Trump has reacted in this way, he has triggered a similar chest thumping response from North Korea and now we really ARE  facing a potential catastrophe.

When all of this first started to heat up at the beginning of this month I suggested that all of this might be nothing more than a distraction designed to pull our attention away from the Russian probes.

And that may very well be true. But the problem is that if more journalists like Rachel Maddow don't start raising that possibility and working to verify the sources suggesting that we are headed to World War 3 are accurate, we may well find ourselves actually IN World War 3.

As Bloomberg points out from the time that Trump gives the order it might only take five minutes before a nuclear armed missile is leveling the city of Pyongyang.

The question we have to continually ask ourselves is "How many people is Donald Trump willing to sacrifice in order to shut down the investigations into his possible collusion with Russia?"

I think we all know the answer, and it is terrifying.

19 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:07 PM

    Drill, No Drill...
    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/08/11/cover-avoid-bomb-flash-guam-issues-nuclear-guidelines.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:07 PM

    Rush Limbaugh: 'Wimpism And Wussism' Is Stopping US From Attacking North Korea

    http://crooksandliars.com/2017/08/rush-limbaugh-wimpism-and-wussism-stoping

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:23 PM

      "Rush Limbaugh calls North Korea a "zit on a pig" and we shouldn't be afraid to bomb them now."
      "that wussism and wimpism and pajama boyism has taken over. "

      http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/why-president-bushs-north-korea-failure-is-important-to-remember

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:02 PM

      Rush is just another repuglican drug addict and nothing more.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous12:34 PM

    NRA Host Says Prodding North Korea To Attack Sacramento Was A Joke
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nratv-spokesperson-sacramento-guam-north-korean-missiles

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's the excuse all right wing nut jobs give when they get too much push back from some deplorable thing they've spewed. "It was a joke." "It was sarcasm."

      Of course studies have shown these people have no sense of humor and cannot process and identify sarcasm.

      So, yeah. He was serious and only excused his statement when he got too much negative feedback.

      One has to wonder who it came from. I doubt anyone at the NRA though there was anything wrong with him suggesting that Sacramento be bombed. Except may it should have been New York City instead. Oh, wait. Trump tower is there. Never mind.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous12:56 PM

    The Fringe At The Wheel: Inside The Cernovich/McMaster Derp War
    _Earlier this month, The Atlantic reported on a memo written by a since-fired NSC staffer named Rich Higgins. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster fired Higgins in July over the memo. But Higgins’ dismissal was part of McMaster’s broader effort to assert control over an NSC which still has or had numerous staffers brought in by Mike Flynn. Yesterday Foreign Policy published the memo in its entirety along with new reporting about the context of the memo, its discovery and Higgins’ dismissal.
    _If you don’t waste your time on Twitter or haven’t closely followed the so-called alt-right, you may not know the name Mike Cernovich. His Wikipedia page describes him as “an American alt-right social media personality, writer, and conspiracy theorist”, which is not a bad description. He was a big promoter of the ‘pizzagate’ conspiracy theory which ended up almost getting people killed in DC last year.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-fringe-at-the-wheel-inside-the-cernovichmcmaster-derp-war

    "Catastrophic."
    https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/896087591274950656

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous1:09 PM

    It just sickens me that our brave men and women are wearing their camouflage uniforms, making last minute calls and videos to their loves at home while awaiting final orders to prove to the world that Donald Trump is somebody you do not want to mess with.

    AND WHAT UNIFORM IS DONALD TRUMP WEARING?

    IVORY WHITE PANTS WHATEVER ELSE AN ELITIST COWARD WEARS ON THE GOLF COURSE.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:04 PM

      Well rest assured there will NEVER be a Trump serving in our military.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:59 AM

      We'll really have to worry if Trump dons a fake general's uniform complete with a battery of fake shiny medals.
      Beaglemom

      Delete
  6. Anonymous2:05 PM

    I take little comfort from reports that Tillerson or anyone is attempting diplomacy. Trump consistently sends conflicting and disturbing messages undermining to making a liar of his own people including his legal team. I hope there are people to prevent Trump from impulsive actions.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Trump thinks his fire and fury wasn't tough ENOUGH. So he's doubled down.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-north-korea-threat_us_598ca7fce4b08a2472731826?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

    "“Frankly, the people who were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn’t tough enough,” he said at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to a White House pool report. “They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years, and it’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries.

    Trump would not comment on what’s tougher than “fire and fury.” He argued the U.S. has the support of others when it comes to responding to threats from North Korea.

    “We’re backed 100 percent by our military, we’re backed by everybody and we’re backed by many other leaders,” he said."

    But is he? Seems he's entrenching a dangerous precedent in that he is being ignored by his own people.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-agency-directives-ignored_us_598b7888e4b0d793738c6a35?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

    "As President Donald Trump entered his second 100 days in office, he described an example of his common-sense leadership: New U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, he decreed, would not use high-tech electromagnetic catapults that only “Albert Einstein” could understand, but would go back to old-fashioned steam power.

    “You’re going to goddamned steam,” he told Time magazine.

    So what did the Navy do with this plain-spoken directive from the commander-in-chief?

    Absolutely nothing.

    When Trump visited Norfolk, Virginia, some weeks later to commission the new supercarrier Gerald Ford, she was outfitted with high-tech electromagnetic catapults to launch planes off the deck. So will every other new carrier in that class. In fact, the Navy didn’t even bother asking for a study to explore the costs of retrofitting the Gerald Ford to use steam.

    It seemed less an act of defiance than an assumption that Trump couldn’t possibly be serious about ordering an expensive and time-consuming redesign of a major weapons system with very little background knowledge ― and in the context of a media interview.

    “They ignored it,” Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said with a laugh. “The United States federal government is now just shrugging at and ignoring some of his statements.”

    It’s a shrug that is becoming more common in the Trump presidency. Agency heads and lower-level bureaucrats appear to have concluded that the combination of Trump’s impulsive nature and short attention span means that the president’s sometimes random commands can – and should – be safely ignored.

    “His attention span is so short that what he said one hour, he doesn’t even remember the next hour,” Brinkley said.

    That “ignore-what-he-says” attitude may become particularly important as the U.S. deals with a nuclear-armed North Korea. Just hours after Trump’s ad-libbed “fire and fury” statement on Tuesday appeared to escalate the conflict, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave far more measured remarks to reporters traveling with him."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:12 PM

      This is exactly what you spent months campaigning for online. "Bern it to the ground" was your answer Don't act shocked about it now. And don't even bother to respond with your usual "fuck you" because you caused this as much as trump.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:58 AM

      Anon at 3:12 pm. Who are you addressing with your comment? It's not clear. Gryphen supported Hillary Clinton in the last campaign as did most of the commenters here.
      Beaglemom

      Delete
    3. 3:12

      Excuse me.

      I NEVER campaigned for "Bern it to the ground" and NEVER supported Trump.

      You fucking asshole.

      I voted for Bernie in the primaries and I voted for HILLARY in the election.

      I suggest you stop painting all those that were Hillary bootlickers with the same Putin brush. Try vomiting up that Russian propaganda and pouring a little soup in your ears. Perhaps it will clean your brains out.

      And Hillary was a flawed candidate. The most qualified but still flawed. And the Democratic campaign made mistakes. Mistakes that cost them the election.

      Oh, and FUCK YOU!

      Delete
  8. Anonymous3:38 PM

    Will the so called president bone spur send his 2 sons 1 son outlaw and 2 daughters to war as an example of honor?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous4:23 PM

    Trump threatens Venezuela with 'military option'
    Nikki Haley looks pained. https://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20170811&t=2&i=1196779185&r=LYNXMPED7A1LT&w=1280

    http://www.mcclatchy-wires.com/incoming/u5jy8s/picture166817702/alternates/FREE_1140/Trump_North_Korea_70417.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  10. And now it's Venezuela.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-venezuela-military_us_598e317ee4b0909642971b4f?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

    North Korea. China, Venezuela.

    Trump is just itching for a fight.

    Does anyone question that his stubby little fingers are itching to launch a nuke?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous6:32 AM

    Trump Gleefully Recalls the ‘Beautiful Chocolate Cake’ He Ate While Bombing Syria

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/trump-ate-beautiful-chocolate-cake-while-bombing-syria.html

    ReplyDelete

Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.