Kim Jong-nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say, via @nytimes https://t.co/PaRhiPF4DN
— Joshua H. Pollack (@Joshua_Pollack) February 24, 2017
My mind is still reeling at North Korea using VX — a chemical weapon so dangerous it’s considered a WMD — at a *major international airport*
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) February 24, 2017
A-B-C! One spoilt princeling with Chemical weapons, trumped by another with Atomic fantasies…
Exclusive – Trump wants to expand U.S. nuclear arsenal, make it 'top of the pack': Reuters interview https://t.co/X5gWainDAY
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) February 23, 2017
The current U.S. nuclear arsenal has the power to end human civilization, like, 30+ times over. https://t.co/HnUtQpDJIi
— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) February 23, 2017
Thanks for breaking the world, Repubs!
"Dad, what was the Trump admin like?"
"Remember the scared weird kid in 1st grade, who peed himself? Imagine you gave him all the weapons."
— Big Sharia Jeb Malmö (@Mobute) February 23, 2017
Suburban refugee
I know this is a minor quibble, but the NYT article is wrong on the Tokyo attack. That deranged apocalyptic cult used sarin, not VX.
Get your horrific weapons right, people!
infovore
@Suburban refugee: Their most famous attack was on the Tokyo subway, and there they used sarin. But they used VX in other attacks/assassinations.
TenguPhule
Speaking of nightmares, every night since the election I have kept having variations of the same dream.
A nuclear blast consuming everything in its path…..including me.
I usually wake up when the fireball hits.
Other times, I dream I’m melting from the radiation.
Or the buildings around me bury me under flaming rubble.
Anyone else experiencing something similar?
Amir Khalid
The US nuclear arsenal is far too big as it is. Its maintenance must cost more than necessary. It doesn’t need expanding, it needs shrinking. If you got rid of all but every 30th warhead, you’d be better off. (And if you got rid of the 30th warhead too, the planet would be a safer place.) This has been US policy for decades. How can Trump not know this?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TenguPhule:
I used to have frequent nuclear war dreams in the 80s (interspersed with tornado dreams), but in mine, I was a survivor after as all the leaves turned brown and the trees and plants died. I remember it as profound sadness, watching the vegetation go.
BlueDWarrior
@Amir Khalid: He probably doesn’t care. Maybe if we could destroy all surface life on Earth 50 times over, that will scare all of our enemies into compliance.
Suburban refugee
@infovore:
My bad. I checked and found a story of one attack with VX, and another with phosgene. They also attempted to manufacture firearms and made…..one rifle.
infovore
@Suburban refugee: They’re a marvelous example of ambitious malice tempered by incompetence.
liberal
Chemical weapons, pound for pound, are not more effective than high explosive.
Villago Delenda Est
Keep in mind that the tiny-fingered shitgibbon didn’t know what “The Triad” was during the GOP primary season. Hint: it’s at the center of nuclear weapons strategy.
liberal
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: you have tornado dreams too? Mine usually involve not knowing exactly where the damn thing is.
amk
how the chinese are playing the twitler toddler.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@liberal:
No, in my tornado dreams, I know exactly where it is – headed directly for me and then shredding whatever structure I’m in.
patrick II
@Amir Khalid:
Really?
Keith G
Yes, the Republicans deserve much scorn for their ongoing war again an America that actually, efficiently gets things done. And yes, the Democrats deserve a fair amount of blame for the current conditions we find ourselves in. My Democratic Party has been willfully obtuse for decades. And it’s clearly case is that a better Democratic Party and a better run campaign would have avoided our current mess. The chance for better campaign is gone for now, the question remains how do we get to be a better party.
Amir Khalid
@patrick II:
I mean, someone must have mentioned it in the transition briefings — oh wait, he just blew them off.
MattF
So, he wants his to be bigger than anyone else’s and demands to be on top.
patrick II
I haven’t been reading comments today, so this may have been addressed earlier, but:
Jenner saw Trump lie every day, but on the day he said he was going to protect LGBT rights Trump was telling the truth?
raven
NotMax
Reminded of the unforgettable opening scene (not for the faint of heart) of the TV series Now and Again. First 3 minutes shocking then, no less shocking now.
Gvg
@patrick II: you can know someone is lying but still use their promise to try to manipulate them into partially keeping the promise through their pride and the sense that everyone is watching them. The results are usually not really satisfactory but can be better than nothing. trump cares what people think and sometimes acts on it.
Jenner hasn’t impressed me with his brains but he might know this. No harm in trying. Won’t get my hopes up though.
NotMax
@NotMax
Sigh. Forgot the linky.
Aimai
@Keith G: oh jesus?Here we go again! Wilfully obtuse? Fuck you.
Kay
Well, that actually is her job. She doesn’t have a whole lot of power to force schools to do anything. It’s about 90% persuasion/consent/voluntary adoption. There are about 15,000 public school districts and 100,000 schools. Each district has an appointed or elected board. They have their own governance and jurisdictions. There’s nothing else quite like public schools in the US- universal, public, but locally governed.
The people she’s supposed to persuade already loathe her. Which will make her ineffective.
The belligerence of the far Right is effective only if they can match their authoritarian tendencies with raw power. Force. She just doesn’t have that much.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: I have a suggestion. We wait a year, and then tell him that due to his leadership and foresight we now have the biggestest bestest nuclear arsenal ever since the beginning of time, and to show the world we are going to put it up on the refrigerator door with a little magnet so that all can see it and be overawed by it’s true magnificence.
Keith G
@Aimai: That’s some solid argumentation you got there.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
You can’t deny his amazing powers of observation.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
One nice thing about the Trump Family running the executive branch of the United States is the executive branch doesn’t have that much discretionary funding to spend. The Trump’s have to get the money from Congress. It’s not like their shady, underground financing deals either. They have to account for it. Add and subtract. I bet he was mad when he found that out- that Congress funds. I’m not sure he knows yet.
NeenerNeener
@Amir Khalid: He’s was also predicting a 2nd Supreme Court position opening up for SCROTUS to fill this year.
What does he know that we don’t?
Kropadope
@NeenerNeener:
A whole lot of lines from the Bible (more fire and brimstone, less love your neighbor) and not much else.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Right next to the set of marks on the kitchen doorway that show how big he’s gotten. Good boy!
Russ
More nukes and Donald Trump
Boy! What a way to start the day
XTPD
@Gvg: Her brains.
@Aimai: It’s been ~16 hours and the LGM Greenwald thread hasn’t even hit 200 comments. Sad!
Peale
@raven: there isn’t anything for them to even filibuster at the moment.
Lurking Canadian
@MattF: Yeah, it’s as simple as that. He’s sick of all those jokes about how men with small hands also have small nuclear arsenals. He’s going to have a yuge nuclear arsenal. The biggest.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I loathe her
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid:
But see, Amir, you’re a knowledgeable, thinking person.
The question answers itself.
MJS
@patrick II: As a Republican, Jenner has no ability to understand an issue unless it personally happens to her. So she probably was well aware that Trump does nothing but lie, it’s just that this was the first lie to impact her.
efgoldman
@raven:
Well, since he spent three months on his knees licking Tangerine Torquemada’s little, tiny balls, he couldn’t actually see or hear the world.
efgoldman
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know where the WH kitchen is, let alone the fridge.
Paul in KY
@TenguPhule: Not yet, but after reading your comment, maybe tonight…
Hope you & I can dream about something different, like losing your car when you’ve just discovered you’re naked in that class you can never seem to get to.
Paul in KY
@patrick II: She’s never been the sharpest tool in the drawer…
Paul in KY
@raven: I don’t think he’s ‘serious’. He knows the shitstorm they manufactured back in 2009 for Pres. Obama was worse, but he’s doing his ‘marketeering for lamos’ & he has the knack of being able to tell any lie with a straight face.
gvg
@NeenerNeener: He knows that several Supreme’s are really old and in poor health. Everybody knows that. I thought Ginsberg should have retired as soon as Obama was elected. Others disagreed, but this is why I thought that.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
Even if he was briefed about “nuclear”, it wasn’t about him personally so he didn’t listen or understand what was said. They need to couch his briefings in personal terms so that he pays attention.
low-tech cyclist
What strikes me is that he seems to be clueless that his BFF Putin is the only leader who has anywhere near as many nukes as we have*, that superiority over Russia would be the only reason to build more nukes, and that consequently Russia would be the nation that would take the most offense if we unilaterally built more nukes.
Not to mention the fact that our relative nuclear weapons stockpiles are governed by a sequence of arms control treaties.
*We and the Russians have about 7000 warheads each, China, France, and Britain are way down in the 200-300 range, and India, Pakistan, and Israel have ~100 each, give or take.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid:
Trump thinks with a TV turned to Fox News.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@raven:
You were one of them calling down the whirlwind Teddy, you fucking troll.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
My god, how must it go…
Briefer “Look at this way Mr President Britan, France and China all only have 200 underage models that their leaders can fuck, but you Mr President, have 7,000 underage models ready to suck your dick, so you see Mr President, the US nuclear arsenal is awesome. Further more, may of our missiles are MRVs, which you should view as your daughter, as a fashion model”
hovercraft
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The scary thing is that, you description is probably not that exaggerated ;-(
Weaselone
@raven:
1. Ted’s incorrect regarding the “bat-crap” liberal base. Most of the liberal base is fairly moderate. That’s why the Democrats have remained the party that keeps the government working and actually functions as a loyal opposition when out of power. The loony toon liberals are always crazy and protesting.Trump’s election pissed off the moderate base of the party, the group that supports a functional government and is generally willing to settle for incremental improvements. At the very minimum, the Democratic politicians have to channel their base, but I suspect a good portion of the politicians are themselves quite angry.
liberal
@Aimai: says the idiot who claimed voting for the Iraq AUMF was A-OK.
Gelfling 545
@Amir Khalid: this is how:
Donald Trump “You know what Uranium does? Lots of things, nuclear and like lots of things.”
Ian G.
@Weaselone:
The loony tunes liberals aren’t even Democrats. They’re Stein supporters who bleat word salads about “neoliberals” and Monsanto.
Ian G.
@MJS:
That’s every Republican. Until their son comes out of the closet, they want to ban gay marriage. Until their favorite hunting grounds are decimated by oil wells, they’re “pro-energy”. Until their daughter in law born with some rare genetic disorder can’t get health insurance, they’re pro “freedom in the healthcare market”.
If these people cared about what happened to others in the abstract, they wouldn’t be Republicans.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Come on Amir, Trump has demonstrated over and over that he is a businessman ignorant of basic business practices – stuff I learned at a state university taking a BS in computer science at the business school. How can we expect him not to be totally ignorant of nuclear weapons policy in the real world?
I read Herman Kahn’s works on how they used game theory to establish Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD! the world’s best geopolitical acronym!) as a universal military strike policy to keep the nuclear powers from starting a war which would end life on Earth while I was in the Navy. Then I learned game theory in B school management classes 10 years later, going to school on the GI Bill.
Trump claims to have fancy degrees but learned nothing. He knows nothing about military strategic thought or US policy, he didn’t even know what a START treaty with the Russians is. Putin may have woke up to what he’s done when Trump didn’t know what he was being asked about on the first phone call with the other side!
When we say “We Are So Fucked!” we are not kidding. Trump has appointed nazis into the highest strategic levels of the US government, along with religious fanatics who believe in the rapture, and plan to cause Armaggedon to bring the rapture before they die and miss the chance to see it with their living eyes, before their eyes melt in their skulls.
Those are the only members of his administration who want to keep the Jews alive, and them only because in their off-shoot religion the Jews are necessary to build the Third Temple in Jerusalem, a necessary requirement for their rapture to occur. Book of Revelations, almost certainly not really part of the “real” gospels, I don’t remember how it got stuffed into the list of accepted books, but reads like bad LSD trip from beginning to end. And it is the core of modern evangelical Christianity in America.
Pope Frank wouldn’t have anything to do with these folks, and he seems really ecumenical, ready to accept all Christians and monotheistic believers as members of the one true church. But these bandits aren’t even close to real Christianity. They really believe that Jesus wants them to be rich and selfish. And use atom bombs to get closer to Him! We are one legislative coup away from having a President who really believes this. Mike Dence, er, Pence. The VP.
WASF…
liberal
@J R in WV:
I once read a really interesting essay on the web (sadly, didn’t record the link) that argued that they’re not at all Christian but some weird Old Testament cult (and I’m not referring to Judaism), in terms of what they stress as important.
J R in WV
@Paul in KY:
I don’t dream about Armaggedon, neither nuclear nor tornadic. I lie there thinking about it so that I can’t fall asleep. What would we need to turn the cellar into a fallout shelter? Air tight door, filtered ventilation for O2 to breathe, plenty of water and food, radiation detector, 3 walls are underground, front wall needs to be thicker, stack sandbags? Stack concrete block? camp toilet, a seat with a bag you can seal. How can you heat the food? or just eat canned food cold?
Hard to fall asleep with those thoughts running around inside your head!
I got pills from my Dr that kind of help, but I’m trying to stop using them every night. First night I got quite a bit of sleep. Second night fewer hours asleep, but maybe better rested after 5 good hours.
It’s still February, and our daffodils are in bloom, like 6 weeks early. Pretty today, going to be 80, and no leaves on the trees, so our solar heat uptake will be astronomical – may have to turn on the A/C in February.
lollipopguild
@liberal: They worship money, power, gold bars, unborn babies and guns.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: Projection, projection, projection. It’s all these motherfuckers do, except steal candy from babies.
J R in WV
@liberal:
No, says the thinking person who realizes that one vote for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force out of 535 is .001869 parts of the whole vote – not very important when we all knew the vast majority would pass it, by a final tally of 373-156, more than 2 to 1, using the total in both houses of congress.
Hillary’s vote was less than 0.2% of the votes cast for Dog’s sake!! Just admit that you have fallen for the Republican kool-aide, have drunk deeply, and hate her for being a Clinton, for being a woman who became a great lawyer and used her wits to defend disabled kids, for not staying home and making cookies, for being white trash from Arkansas! You just hate her, and every fake reason the Rs made up about her is a reason you are stupid enough to use against her. Thanks so much!
Her vote for the Iraqi war was wrong, but her error was joined by most everyone else. We were all lied to, we fought a war against the wrong country, because W Bush needed to show everyone that his military sex organ was bigger than his dad H W Bush’s was.
We should have laid the Saudis down, that’s who attacked us. But no, I will never forget seeing President W Bush KISS Prince Bandar at the ranch in TX, and then hold hands with him walking up to the ranch house.
liberal
@lollipopguild: Yeah, of course, but this was a more direct inquiry into the religious aspect, not just the politico-religious stuff.
J R in WV
IN moderation for a geo-political rant, somehow!
Hell , there’s a penis word in it…. and editing the bad word out didn’t save it from moderation….damm it!
Miss Bianca
@Aimai: You know what…I am so fucking sick of white douchebros who sit around bitching about and Monday-morning-quarterbacking the Democratic Party, and pulling this “when are they going to change to meet MY standards” bullshit. We see guys like that on this yere blog, who do all this posturing about how bad the Democratic Party SUX, and are so full of…useful advice…about what the Democrats ought to be doing, but somehow never provide any evidence that *they* are out there doing the heavy lifting of helping to change the party themselves – either by running for elected office or volunteering for party office or doing any sort of social organizing at all. No, no, “Democrats” have to do it all, while “liberal” douchebros get to sit on their asses and wait for it, and bitch about how defective everyone else’s efforts are. White male privilege is a hell of a drug. Way more toxic to the body politic than weed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
Yes, I mean if you think of Trump as your crazy uncle, what he does suddenly makes sense.
leeleeFL
@raven: Ah, yes. Convenient the amnesia is. Of course, always and forever, Cruz is full of shit. Are we amazed?
Also, too: Trump knows Amir. He is looking to f–k the entire world. He will start at home, of course. Democrats, Liberals, Blacks and Browns unaware of their places, poors (of course), media outlets that may tell the truth now. Then the Bigger World. To accomplish all that f–cking, one needs the biggest d–k. The bestest one.
amk
@Keith G: you are a moron.
Stan
@liberal:
Oh nonsense. First of all,, ‘effective’ depends on what you’re trying to accomplish, so such a blanket statement could never be correct. And second, sorry, there are chemical weapons for which a few pounds could kill many thousands of people. No HE can do that.
TenguPhule
@liberal:
They are for causing panic and terror.
Decontamination and antidote requirements tend to do that.
Also, they kill slower.
chopper
@Miss Bianca:
preach.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Oh, come on now. We ALL know that IF ONLY Hillary had run a BETTER campaign, and IF ONLY she had not allowed her private server to be hacked, and IF ONLY she had adopted 105 percent of Bernie’s platform “positions,” and IF ONLY she had used Obama’s time machine to go back and change her AUMF vote, and IF ONLY she had given a hand job to every “economically anxious” white voter, and IF ONLY she hadn’t murdered poor Vince Foster with her bare hands, and IF ONLY she hadn’t loudly proclaimed her fealty to every billionaire (except Soros, that Commie!) in the country, especially the Mercers, then she would have received something like 250 million votes.
But those damn Demon-rats, being in the pocket of Goldman Sachs, well, that blew that all to hell. Or something.
Let that be a lesson to you.
Villago Delenda Est
@J R in WV: Once you’re in the filter for using a naughty word, you can’t self-correct. One of the many flaws of FYWP.
Miss Bianca
@SFAW: I think I might need to print this out and post it on my wall.
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: You should watch that show about the ‘planners’. Might get some good tips. Here’s my good tip: Don’t let anyone know you have made these shelters/prep supplies, etc.