CURRENT EVENTS

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“… Trump’s words may mean nothing. The submarines that carry America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent routinely move around the world’s oceans. Each carries up to 20 nuclear warheads, on missiles with a range of more than 4,000 miles, and so almost anywhere can be an “appropriate region.” And Trump may not even have issued such orders; normally, the Pentagon and the White House do not discuss the movements of America’s ballistic-missile submarines.

Medvedev is a man with little actual power in Russia, but he has become Russia’s top internet troll, regularly threatening America and its allies. No one takes him seriously, even in his own country. He and Trump have been trading public insults on social media for months, with Trump telling Medvedev to “watch his words” and Medvedev—nicknamed “Little Dima” in Russia due to his diminutive stature—warning Trump to remember Russia’s “Dead Hand,” a supposed doomsday system that could launch all of Russia’s nuclear weapons even if Moscow were destroyed and the Kremlin leadership killed.

The problem is not that Trump is going to spark a nuclear crisis with a post about two submarines—at least not this time. The much more worrisome issue is that the president of the United States thinks it is acceptable to use ballistic-missile submarines like toys, objects to be waved around when he wants to distract the public or deflect from bad news, or merely because some Russian official has annoyed him.…”
 
nycfan said:


“… Trump’s words may mean nothing. The submarines that carry America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent routinely move around the world’s oceans. Each carries up to 20 nuclear warheads, on missiles with a range of more than 4,000 miles, and so almost anywhere can be an “appropriate region.” And Trump may not even have issued such orders; normally, the Pentagon and the White House do not discuss the movements of America’s ballistic-missile submarines.

Medvedev is a man with little actual power in Russia, but he has become Russia’s top internet troll, regularly threatening America and its allies. No one takes him seriously, even in his own country. He and Trump have been trading public insults on social media for months, with Trump telling Medvedev to “watch his words” and Medvedev—nicknamed “Little Dima” in Russia due to his diminutive stature—warning Trump to remember Russia’s “Dead Hand,” a supposed doomsday system that could launch all of Russia’s nuclear weapons even if Moscow were destroyed and the Kremlin leadership killed.

The problem is not that Trump is going to spark a nuclear crisis with a post about two submarines—at least not this time. The much more worrisome issue is that the president of the United States thinks it is acceptable to use ballistic-missile submarines like toys, objects to be waved around when he wants to distract the public or deflect from bad news, or merely because some Russian official has annoyed him.…”
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“…
But such threats serve two purposes.

First, they help Trump maintain the fiction that he wants to be tough on Russia, that he is willing to impose consequences on Moscow for its behavior, and that he’s not about to take any guff from anyone in the Kremlin. He takes plenty of guff, of course, from Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he seems to genuinely fear. Trump has never aimed such invective at Putin, and using Medvedev as a surrogate helps Trump thump his chest without any danger of getting into a real fight with someone who scares him.

More important, Trump knows that a foreign-policy crisis, and anything involving nuclear weapons, is an instant distraction from other news. The media will always zero in on such moments, because it is, in fact, news when the most powerful man on Earth starts talking about nuclear weapons. (And here I am, writing about it as well.) Trump has had a terrible week: He’s dug a deeper hole for himself on the Jeffrey Epstein issue, the economy is headed in the wrong direction, and his approval rating is cratering. Using the implied threat of nuclear war to pick a fight with one of Red Square’s most juvenile and odious figures is a convenient distraction.

Nuclear-missile submarines are not toys. No one understood this better than Trump’s predecessors, the 11 presidents who have been the only other people in American history with the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. … Trump, however, has now discarded all of these red lines. He has initiated a new era in which the chief executive can use threats regarding the most powerful weapons on Earth to salve his ego and improve his political fortunes. Once upon a time, America was governed by serious people. No longer.…”
 
nycfan said:


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I'm well aware that it will cost money, but I do hope that the next Democrat to become POTUS (whenever that is) will have whatever crap Trump has put up removed and the Rose Garden restored to full glory. Most Presidents have loved having it over the years - there had been one at the WH for many decades, but John F. Kennedy came up with the idea for the modern, expanded version of it, and to some extent it's his legacy - and whatever destruction Trump causes (like his $200 million ballroom) needs to be gone when he's out of office like a bad dream. Since his first term it's clear that one goal of Trump has been to eliminate every legacy of Obama, now it appears he's going after JFK's legacies (Rose Garden & The Kennedy Center) as well.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
I'm well aware that it will cost money, but I do hope that the next Democrat to become POTUS (whenever that is) will have whatever crap Trump has put up removed and the Rose Garden restored to full glory. Most Presidents have loved having it over the years - there had been one at the WH for many decades, but John F. Kennedy came up with the idea for the modern, expanded version of it, and to some extent it's his legacy - and whatever destruction Trump causes (like his $200 million ballroom) needs to be gone when he's out of office like a bad dream. Since his first term it's clear that one goal of Trump has been to eliminate every legacy of Obama, now it appears he's going after JFK's legacies (Rose Garden & The Kennedy Center) as well.
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Air Force 1 paint scheme too.
 
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