The good news is that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is keeping Trump from declaring war on Iran. The bad news is that he may not be able to do it for long.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

For weeks, Mattis had been resisting requests from the White House to provide military options for Iran. Now Trump made clear that he wanted the Pentagon to deliver a range of plans that included striking Iranian ballistic missile factories or hitting Iranian speedboats that routinely harassed U.S. Navy vessels. 

“Why can’t we sink them?” Trump would sometimes ask about the boats. 

National security adviser H.R. McMaster and his staff laid out the president’s request for Mattis in a conference call, but the defense secretary refused, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. At that point, McMaster took Mattis off speakerphone, cleared his staff from the room and continued the conversation. 

“It was clear that the call was not going well,” one official said. In the weeks that followed, the options never arrived. 

In his first year in the Pentagon, Mattis has been one of the least visible and most consequential members of Trump’s foreign policy team. In Situation Room meetings, he has established himself as a commanding voice, reining in discussions before they devolve into chaos. State Department ambassadors say they have spent more face-to-face time with him than they have their own boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. 

A foreign policy establishment that views Trump as erratic and unreliable uniformly praises Mattis.

The current opinion from White House sources is that Mattis in the one Trump cabinet member who is NOT afraid of him. 

The problem of course is that Trump sees himself as the master of all he surveys.

How long he is willing to accept the word "no" from Mattis remains to be seen.

He may eventually start to undermine and attack Mattis just like he has undermined and attacked Jeff Sessions, the FBI, and even his own staff members.

When that happens who draws the line in the sand that keeps him from attacking any country that he believes does not pay him the respect he feels he deserves?

While we are all focused on the latest Donald Trump scandals, the military quietly prepares for war with North Korea.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Across the military, officers and troops are quietly preparing for a war they hope will not come. 

At Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month, a mix of 48 Apache gunships and Chinook cargo helicopters took off in an exercise that practiced moving troops and equipment under live artillery fire to assault targets. Two days later, in the skies above Nevada, 119 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division parachuted out of C-17 military cargo planes under cover of darkness in an exercise that simulated a foreign invasion. 

Next month, at Army posts across the United States, more than 1,000 reserve soldiers will practice how to set up so-called mobilization centers that move military forces overseas in a hurry. And beginning next month with the Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, the Pentagon plans to send more Special Operations troops to the Korean Peninsula, an initial step toward what some officials said ultimately could be the formation of a Korea-based task force similar to the types that are fighting in Iraq and Syria. Others said the plan was strictly related to counterterrorism efforts. 

In the world of the American military, where contingency planning is a mantra drummed into the psyche of every officer, the moves are ostensibly part of standard Defense Department training and troop rotations. But the scope and timing of the exercises suggest a renewed focus on getting the country’s military prepared for what could be on the horizon with North Korea.

As I reported last month the Navy has deployed special radar hunting warplanes to South Korea, supposedly for military exercises, but that is probably just a thinly veiled excuse.

And of course the Trump Administration is trying to loosen those restrictions on the use of nukes.

All of this seems like it is headed for a disaster for which we are simply not prepared to deal.

No wonder I am drinking so much damn coffee.

Two South Carolina politicians want to erect a monument honoring African Americans who fought for the Confederacy. Problem is there weren't any.

Bill Chumley and Mike Burns, two Republicans lawmakers who clearly slept right through history class.

Courtesy of The State:  

Two South Carolina lawmakers want to erect a monument on the State House grounds to African-Americans who served the state as Confederate soldiers. But records show the state never accepted nor recognized armed African-American soldiers during the Civil War. 

“In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy,” said Walter Edgar, who for 32 years was director of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies and is author of “South Carolina: A History.” 

“In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer because they didn’t want armed persons of color,” he said. 

Pension records gleaned from the S.C. Department of History and Archives show no black Confederate soldiers received payment for combat service. And of the more than 300 blacks who did receive pensions after they were allowed in 1923, all served as body servants or cooks, the records show.

Confederate law prohibited blacks from bearing arms in the war, records show, until that edict was repealed in 1865 at the very end of the conflict.

Did you just slap your forehead in disbelief at how ignorant these two individuals are? Because I certainly did.  

Yes I am sure the line was quite long for black folks anxious to join the army fighting to preserve slavery, because damn they loved them some slavery.

This is why education is so damn important.

It helps to prevent the creation of more ignorant Republicans.

Donald Trump is now identified as the top nuclear threat in the world.

For the first time in 35 years of analysis, I must list the United States as the greatest nuclear threat in the world. https://t.co/lyhfXb2CfP

— Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) December 28, 2017

Courtesy of Defense One: 

The greatest nuclear danger does not come from a foreign threat or a terrorist group but from our own president. The Washington Post, reporting on how intelligence briefings are shaped so as not to upset President Trump, concludes that “the personal insecurities of the president have impaired the government’s response to a national security threat.” Many fear that the president’s mental condition is itself a national security threat. This is, like so much of the past year, unprecedented. 

Concern over the president’s mental stability and his sole, unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons caused the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this year to hold the first hearings on nuclear command and control in over 40 years. Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., fearing that Trump was leading the nation “on the path to World War III,” convened the hearing. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., voiced his deep fear at the session: “We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with U.S. national security interests.” 

Once an order is given, no one could stop it. Mullen, when asked if a general could refuse Trump’s order, said, “Any senior military officer always approaches it from the standpoint of we’re not going to follow an illegal order. That said, the president is in a position to give a legal order to use those weapons. And the likelihood that given that order that it would be carried out I think would be pretty high.” 

Most experts agree. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper worries that if Trump, “in a fit of pique” decides to launch a nuclear strike, “there’s actually very little to stop him. The whole system is built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.” Senators and House Members have introduced legislation to change the decision process and policy. 

The fear of a mad, nuclear-armed president haunts those outside the United States as well. “While the global community may trust that no responsible head of state would ever order another nuclear attack, we have no guarantees that it will not happen,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, warned during the prize ceremony this month. “Despite international legal commitments, irresponsible leaders can come to power in any nuclear-armed state and become embroiled in serious military conflicts that veer out of control.” 

Great job there deplorables, great job. 

We are no longer the world's policeman.

We are the world's number one potential terrorist bomber.

Vladimir Putin tells Russian businesses to prepare for war. Uh oh.

Courtesy of The Independent:  

Russian business should be prepared to switch to production to military needs at any time, said Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The Russian president was speaking at a conference of military leaders in Sochi. 

“The ability of our economy to increase military production and services at a given time is one of the most important aspects of military security,” Mr Putin said. “To this end, all strategic, and simply large-scale enterprise should be ready, regardless of ownership.” 

A day earlier, the president had spoken of a need to catch up and overtake the West in military technology. “Our army and navy need to have the very best equipment — better than foreign equivalents,” he said. “If we want to win, we have to be better.”

When the clear outcome of a war between the US and Russia is mutual destruction, it is hard to understand what winning or being "better" might entail. 

Since it is obvious to everybody that Russia has nothing to fear from America as long as Putin's puppet Donald Trump is in office, it seems to me that this directive is the result of Putin thinking that he may not stay in office that much longer.

However the idea that we would remove Trump and then immediately start a war with Russia seems more than a little ridiculous, even though by interfering in our election Russia essentially launched a first strike.

So is Putin simply saber rattling here for the benefit of his constituents, or is he literally considering a military engagement with the US?

The US is now preparing to put nuclear bombers on 24 hour alert. This has not been done since the cold war.

Courtesy of Defense One:

The U.S. Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour ready alert, a status not seen since the Cold War ended in 1991. 

That means the long-dormant concrete pads at the ends of this base’s 11,000-foot runway — dubbed the “Christmas tree” for their angular markings — could once again find several B-52s parked on them, laden with nuclear weapons and set to take off at a moment’s notice. 

“This is yet one more step in ensuring that we’re prepared,” Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview during his six-day tour of Barksdale and other U.S. Air Force bases that support the nuclear mission. “I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward.”

Yes the global situation exacerbated by our dear leader's back and forth chest pounding with a certain North Korean dictator.

And perhaps this is really no reason to become overly concerned, but then you add this to the mix.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

President Donald Trump amended an executive order on Friday to allow the Defense Department to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots in order to address the Air Force's shortage of qualified fliers. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly requested the move, and he now has "additional authorities to recall retired aviation officers," Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross said in a statement.

Now once again this is being described as no big deal, and apparently we are simply lacking the number of qualified pilots that we are supposed to have on hand.

But then there is also this:  

Executive order 13223 declared a temporary state of emergency after the September 11 attacks and allowed the president to call up the National Guard, hire and fire officers, and delay retirements. It has been renewed by every president since, including Trump, but under the previous version only 25 retired officers could to be called back to active duty. Trump's amendment expands that authority.

Yes, expands it from 25 to 1,000, that does not seem to be a simple over correction.

Okay, I think now would be the appropriate time to become concerned. 

Donald Trump wanted to increase America's nuclear arsenal tenfold.

Why can't I blow stuff up? I'm the president.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

President Donald Trump said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation’s highest ranking national security leaders, according to three officials who were in the room. 

Trump’s comments, the officials said, came in response to a briefing slide he was shown that charted the steady reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons since the late 1960s. Trump indicated he wanted a bigger stockpile, not the bottom position on that downward-sloping curve. 

According to the officials present, Trump’s advisers, among them the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were surprised. Officials briefly explained the legal and practical impediments to a nuclear buildup and how the current military posture is stronger than it was at the height of the build-up. In interviews, they told NBC News that no such expansion is planned.

The July 20 meeting was described as a lengthy and sometimes tense review of worldwide U.S. forces and operations. It was soon after the meeting broke up that officials who remained behind heard Tillerson say that Trump is a “moron.”

H-o-l-y shit!

You combine this knowledge with the knowledge that Trump is itching to attack North Korea, and you have the stuff of absolute nightmares.

This is why you do not elect a crazy person to be president of the United States.

The people who helped elect Donald Trump should be considered traitors to their country and treated as such.

Ignorance can no longer be used as an excuse.

They KNEW who he was, and they cast a vote to put him in the most powerful position on the planet anyhow.

Defense Secretary Mattis tells military leaders to prepare for war.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday urged military leaders "to be ready" with military options for President Donald Trump to deal with North Korea should diplomacy fail -- after Trump reprimanded his top brass last week for not providing him contingency plans quickly enough. 

"Right now it is a diplomatically led, economic sanctions-buttressed effort to try to turn North Korea off this path,” Mattis said following a speech at the annual convention of the Association of the United States Army in Washington. “Now, what does the future hold? Neither you nor I can say, so there’s one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is we have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed.”

On Thursday, Trump told Mattis and his top generals in a White House meeting that he wanted military options at a “much faster pace.” The president subsequently suggested to reporters that “maybe it’s the calm before the storm," sparking widespread speculation that the cryptic reference was to Korea war plans. 

Before Mattis' remarks Monday, Trump tweeted, “Our country has been unsuccessfully dealing with North Korea for 25 years, giving billions of dollars & getting nothing. Policy didn't work!”

I am at the point right now where I am just assuming that Trump is going to attack North Korea.

In some ways I think he feels he has no other choice.

He understands NOTHING about diplomacy, and does not care about the long term affects of anything that he does.

What's more he desperately needs to shut down this Russia investigation, and since he cannot fire Robert Mueller without making things worse, he has to do something huge to pull attention away from it and insulate himself from further investigations.

Just ask yourself, which Republicans are going to support trying to remove the president while he is in the middle of conducting a brand new war?

North Korean Foreign Minister says Trump has declared war on his country. Well gee, that's helpful.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

North Korea's foreign minister said Monday that President Donald Trump has "declared war" on his country and that Kim Jong Un's regime would consider shooting down American bombers. 

"Since the U.S. declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down the U.S. bombers even when they are not yet inside the airspace border of our country," Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters in New York.

"Last weekend, Trump claimed that our leadership wouldn't be around much longer and he declared a war on our country," he added. "Even the fact that this comes from someone who is currently holding the seat of the U.S. presidency is clearly a declaration of war."

Jesus Christ!

You know I totally agree that North Korea is a bad actor and deserves to be dealt with harshly.

But there are a lot of far more effective ways to do that then to force them into a corner where they feel they have no choice but to use military force to prove they are not intimidated.

This Kim Jong Un is clearly extremely insecure about his hold on his country and his actual power in the world.

That is something that could be used against him by an real leader with a strategic mind.

Unfortunately for us we also have a leader who is extremely insecure about his hold on his country and his actual power in the world.

And that does not bode well for a peaceful resolution to this situation.

P.S. Later Trump operatives came out to say they are NOT declaring war on North Korea, but the problem is that North Korea is listening to what Donald Trump says, not his operatives.

Actor Morgan Freeman challenges Donald Trump to come out and admit that we are under attack by Russia.

For generations, ppl have fought to protect democracy. Now it’s our turn. Watch Morgan Freeman explain Russia’s plot to undermine the U.S. pic.twitter.com/t65wckbmxS

— Investigate Russia (@InvestigateRU) September 19, 2017

Morgan Freeman has played Colonels, Generals, the Director of Intelligence, Presidents, and even God, so I definitely trust his opinion above that of a guy who just played himself a bunch of times in movies and TV.

And of course he is right.

We WERE indeed attacked in 2016, and since that attack actually caused more damage to the fabric of our Democracy than any conventional explosive device or military attack, then yes it is safe to say that it was an act of war.

However we all know that Donald Trump will NEVER declare that to be true, because he does not serve our interests.

He serves the interests of another.

And we need to remind the American people of that every single chance that we get, until even they can no longer deny the truth of it.

P.S. On an interesting side note I found this video over on YouTube, and when I visited it only had two comments, both from men with Russian sounding names, one declaring that Freeman was hired by the "deep state" and the other saying that he was "officially insane."

You cannot make this stuff up folks.
 

And now for something completely different. The History of the World: Every Year.

This is why I now say that we are all Africans.

Because that is literally where we ALL came from.

I just watched this and let it wash over me.

My only complaint is that it all moves so fast after we get into the CE, though I appreciate how it all fades to black after 2016.

You know, when the Anti-Christ was elected.

Now that he is president Donald Trump goes all in for endless war in Afghanistan.

And in closing I would just like to point out that it's more of the same.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

President Trump put forward on Monday a long-awaited strategy for resolving the nearly 16-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, but he declined to specify either the number of troops that would be committed, or the conditions by which he would judge the success of their mission there. 

In a nationally televised prime-time speech to troops at Fort Myer, Va., Mr. Trump said there would be no “blank check” for the American engagement in Afghanistan. But in announcing his plan, Mr. Trump deepened American involvement in a military mission that has bedeviled his predecessors and that he once called futile. 

“My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts,” Mr. Trump said. “But all my life, I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.”

Gee, no shit Sherlock.

By saying that there will be no troop numbers provided to the media, and no timelines made public, Trump is essentially working to remove any tools that can be used to hold him accountable for failure.

Of course that is a little late since continuing the war itself is already a measurable failure.

We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we go in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2013

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

To the wall that Mexico is not going to pay for and the Iran nuclear deal that hasn’t been torn up, to China still not being labeled a currency manipulator and an embassy in Israel still not being moved to Jerusalem, President Donald Trump can now add the Afghanistan war still not ending. 

Seven months into his presidency, not only is he not withdrawing from what he had called a “terrible mistake” during his campaign, he is reportedly approving thousands of more troops, along with an open-ended commitment to remain.

It can be argued that opposition to the wars is what separated Trump from his fellow Republican candidates in the primaries, in fact he even used it to portray Hillary as a war hawk in the general. 

With this speech about staying in Afghanistan, and removing any metrics to gauge success or failure, Trump is essentially committing to sending an unknown number of American soldiers into combat, to achieve an unspecified goal, for an undetermined number of years. 

THAT is exactly what the American people DON'T want.

Donald Trump lied to virtually everybody about what he was going to do as president, and now that he is failing to keep ANY of his promises one has to wonder if that small but rabid group of Trump supporters will finally start to turn on him. 

There is a new drone with a gun on it. Oh, that can't be good.

Courtesy of BBC: 

A US technology firm has developed a drone that is able to aim and fire at enemies while flying in mid-air. 

The Tikad drone, developed by Duke Robotics, is armed with a machine-gun and a grenade launcher. 

The gun can be fired only by remote control, and is designed to reduce military casualties by cutting the number of ground troops required. 

But campaigners warn that in the wrong hands, it will make it easier to kill innocent people. 

The Tikad drone, available for private sale at an undisclosed price, has won a security innovation award from the US Department of Defense, and there is interest from several military forces around the world, including Israel, reports Defense One.

You know this would concern me if Barack Obama were still in the White House, but with Donald Trump in the Oval Office this is nothing less than terrifying. 

I have seen both the Terminator movies and the Robocop films so clearly I am an expert on this kind of thing.

Spoiler alert, things go really, really, really bad.

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

Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017

#USAF B-1B Lancer #bombers on Guam stand ready to fulfill USFK’s #FightTonight mission if called upon to do so https://t.co/O3oVeFrNrG pic.twitter.com/IAm2qLwcWY

— U.S. Pacific Command (@PacificCommand) August 11, 2017

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.

Well Sarah Palin seems very excited about the prospect of war with China.

The ghostwritten post on Palin's website links to this article on the conservative Daily Caller:  

The U.S. Navy challenged China’s vast claims to the South China Sea on Thursday, Navy officials revealed. 

The U.S. Navy conducted the third freedom-of-navigation operation under President Donald Trump in the South China Sea on Thursday. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John McCain (DDG-56) sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Island chain, according to Fox News. 

A Navy P-8 reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft reportedly flew nearby.

Now these intermittent challenges to other countries by each other's military are fairly common, as demonstrated here in Alaska by Russian jets entering our air defense zone repeatedly over the last forty years or so.

Typically there is a little chest pounding, some diplomatic reminders of boundaries and sovereignty and everybody goes about their business.

But things are a little different right now.

For one thing we have an unhinged commander-in-chief who is not only comparing penis size with North Korea, but also bitching that China is not helping to keep them under control.

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

You know, when you are trying to convince another country to aid you with a potentially dangerous adversary it does not seem to be in your best interests to troll them with your military.

Apparently it is Donald Trump's goal during his stay in the White House to alienate every country he possibly can before leaving office.

Except for Russia of course, because THEY are Donald Trump's only true friend.

That is why they gifted him with an election victory.

The build up to war with North Korea has begun.

Courtesy of Vox: 

“There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself,” Graham told the Today show’s Matt Lauer. “He’s not going to allow — President Trump — the ability of this madman [Kim Jong Un] to have a missile that could hit America. “If there’s going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there,” Graham continued. 

“If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die over here — and he’s told me that to my face.” 

Graham’s press office confirmed that the senator was, in fact, reciting the details of a conversation he had with the president. According to Graham, the president “doesn’t want a war” — but would be willing to start one that would kill millions of people in the region if it came down to it. 

Graham went even further later in the interview, saying war between the United States and North Korea was “inevitable” under this president unless North Korea stops testing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). These missiles, Graham says, are an unacceptable threat to the American homeland — so Trump would go to war to stop them.

I actually believe that the talk of North Korea's ability to send a missile far enough to hit any city or state in America is overblown.

In a very short amount of time we have gone from mocking North Korea's efforts to build a working missile, to fear mongering about potentially being blown up in our sleep.

All of this feels far too similar to the selling of the Iraq War to me, and I am not buying it.

And the cost of this war could be catastrophic:

While all war game scenarios show the US winning a military confrontation, that victory could come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly in South Korea where millions of innocent people -- and nearly 30,000 US troops -- are already in range of North Korea's current missile capabilities. 

And that is not even considering the possibility that China may come to the aid of their longtime friend and ally. 

But none of that will matter to Trump, because keep in mind that this presidency is coming apart at the seams, and the ONLY thing that will distract the public from talk of investigations into Russian collusion, is the start of a new war.

This is what Republicans do, this is what they ALWAYS do, and yet people keep voting for them.

POS!

I like to say that I received the MOH from @georgewbush #hestheman #repect #honor #ownit #ownthedash #throwbackfriday #hesmyhero

A post shared by Dakota Meyer (@dakotameyer0317) on May 5, 2017 at 11:33am PDT

Ungrateful POS is actually more descriptive.

President  Obama is the man who put the Medal of Honor around Dakota Meyer's unworthy neck, and this is how he thanks him.

George W. Bush was the man who started these unnecessary wars and sent thousands of American soldiers to their deaths based on a lie and an overreaction.

President Obama on the other hand worked tirelessly to bring these wars to an end and bring American fighting men and women back home to their families. The only reason he was not more successful is because the Republicans, who Meyer seems to identify with, sabotaged his efforts.

Fuck this guy!

Donald Trump is so reckless that he is even scaring the Pope.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Pope Francis said Saturday he worries that rising tensions between the United States and North Korea could lead to a wide military conflict that would wipe out a "large part of humanity." 

He called for renewed diplomacy using third-party intermediaries and for the United Nations to take a lead role in de-escalating tensions. 

The Pope, while returning to Italy from Egypt, took several questions from reporters and one asked him what he would say to world leaders at this critical moment. 

Francis said in Italian that the situation "has heated up too much. I always appeal for a solution through diplomatic means." 

The pontiff, who has spoken of a "piecemeal third world war" for several years, said increased conflict would be devastating. 

"It's piecemeal but the pieces are getting larger, and are concentrated in places which were already hot," Pope Francis said. "Today a wider war would destroy, I won't say half of humanity, but a large part of humanity and culture. It would be terrible. I don't think humanity today could bear it."

You know when a guy who firmly believes in an afterlife, and that he absolutely has a reserved parking place in that afterlife, expresses great concern about the possibility of a war, I think he deserves our attention.

And the Pontiff is right, Trump's ignorance and lack of preparedness for the job of president puts the entire world at risk.

If I were working for the FBI, I would be working around the clock to prove Trump's ties to Russia and get him removed from office before it is simply too late.

So how's that war with North Korea coming along?

Go ahead make a move, I dare you.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Monday of turning the Korean Peninsula into "the world's biggest hotspot" and creating "a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment." 

Kim In Ryong told a news conference that "if the U.S. dares opt for a military action," North Korea "is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S." 

He said the Trump administration's deployment of the Carl Vinson nuclear carrier task group to waters off the Korean Peninsula again "proves the U.S. reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase of its scenario." 

Kim stressed that U.S.-South Korean military exercises being staged now are the largest-ever "aggressive war drill" aimed at his country, formally the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 

"The prevailing grave situation proves once again that the DPRK was entirely just when it increased in every way its military capabilities for self-defense and pre-emptive attack with a nuclear force as a pivot," he said.

Yep rising paranoia, highly agitated saber rattling, and the overwhelming fear of losing face in front of one's people, the very recipe for a disaster.

So has Trump's careless posturing had any positive impact in curbing North Korea's missile testing?

Courtesy of the BBC: 

North Korea will continue to test missiles, a senior official has told the BBC in Pyongyang, despite international condemnation and growing military tensions with the US. 

"We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis," Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol told the BBC's John Sudworth. 

He said that an "all-out war" would result if the US took military action.

So that would be a "No" then.

And how are the Chinese and Russians handling all of this?

Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune:

China and Russia have dispatched intelligence-gathering vessels from their navies to chase the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is heading toward waters near the Korean Peninsula, multiple sources of the Japanese government revealed to The Yomiuri Shimbun. 

It appears that both countries aim to probe the movements of the United States, which is showing a stance of not excluding military action against North Korea. The Self-Defense Forces are strengthening warning and surveillance activities in the waters and airspace around the area, according to the sources. 

Yes but surely the American people are feeling safer having such an aggressive commander-in-chief in charge of our security, right?

Courtesy of Fox News: 

As tensions with North Korea mount, Hawaii lawmakers anxiously are dusting off the state’s emergency plans in preparation for the possibility – however remote – of an attack on the islands. 

The plans were last revisited in the 1980s. But the Hawaii House Public Safety Committee on Thursday formally called for the state’s defense agency to repair their hundreds of Cold War-era fallout shelters and restock them with medical supplies, food and water. 

"They haven't been updated since 1985," Rep. Matt LoPresti, a Democrat who serves as vice chair of that committee, told Hawaii News Now. “I was 11 years old when they were last updated. Many of the buildings that are on the fallout shelter list don't exist anymore.”

So the North Koreans are agitated, the Chinese and Russians are on high alert, and the American citizens of Hawaii are in fear for their very lives.

Yep, we're fucked. 

It's like Donald Trump was warning us about his presidency as far back as 2013.