Nuclear War! Trump's a Mad Man! OMG We're All Gonna Die!

No doubt you've seen the headlines by now, or heard the news that Trump boasted North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," and North Korea's threat to nuke Guam. The usual anonymous sources are claiming that North Korea has far more sophisticated nukes then we used to believe. Well to those crisis mongers, all I can say is Chill the Fu#k Out.

North Korea has a history of failed nuclear and missile tests. They have had only two or three successful ballistics missile tests depending on who one talks to. Yet now out of the blue we are told they have an arsenal of 60 nukes and also the technology to put one on a ballistic missile accurate enough to strike US territories. Does anyone feel as if we're being lied to about all this, because I certainly do.

North Korea has only conducted five nuclear weapons tests in total since 2006. None of these tests demonstrated that they have the capability to put a nuclear device of any kind on a ballistic missile capable of accurately hitting a target such as Guam. Yet just yesterday CIA mouthpiece, The Washington Post, disclosed that US intelligence, specifically the Defense Intelligence Agency, now believes the Koreans are capable of producing intercontinental missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads on them.

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.

The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.

Note that last sentence in the second paragraph above: "Some independent experts think the number is much smaller." That's a classic propaganda tactic. Make a brief disclaimer that a small number of other "experts" disagree with you, but do not name them. After the harrowing info that the DIA supposedly revealed in its analysis, it makes these experts seem insignificant and likely ill informed. After all, how could they know everything that the DIA knows, right? And that is the only information included in the article that presents any opinion opposing US intelligence. So we have the appearance of "fair and balanced" reporting, when in fact this is a completely one-sided psy-ops piece designed to scare the shit out of people.

The Post reveals later on in its report that the reporters have not seen the DIA analysis, only had an excerpt of it read to them. However, this analysis was "verified" by two anonymous "US Officials." Later on we're told North Korea is conducting it's own "Manhattan Project" that is outpacing past expectations of their technical abilities. The Post report even quotes a guy who is pushing a book on the North Korean nuclear threat, a "think tank" scholar and former Clinton official named Robert Litwak. A few other people who all agree we have underestimated the North Korean threat until now are also named and cited. No one is quoted directly who disagrees with these speculations about the Korean nuclear program. Only individuals who have stated that North Korea is on the verge of blowing the USA sky high with the nukes are named and quoted by the reporters.

I lived through the Cuban Missile crisis. Do you know why we had a Cuban missile crisis? Because the US intelligence services had inflated the threat of Russia's ICBM program. Indeed, at the time, Russia had no missiles that could reach America, which was why they put intermediate range missiles in Cuba in the first place, as a means to gain leverage over the US, which had a far more advanced and sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile force, as well as better bombers and submarine delivery systems. JFK, who ran for President on the position that there was a "missile gap" in favor of the Soviet Union was shocked when he assumed office to discover that all the intelligence leaked to the public about Russia's nuclear capabilities was flat out wrong.

So don't get too excited or concerned about this ginned up crisis. I don't know what the US intelligence community has been telling Trump, but I can only assume they have exaggerated North Korea's capabilities to bring about a military confrontation with this small little nation. And of course the mainstream media is running with it because "fear sells" and that goes double when the fear is one of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Or has anyone forgot how we were all duped by the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq war? I haven't and that's why I am highly skeptical of the claims being anonymously leaked to the press once again about another highly dangerous WMD threat posed by another economically disadvantaged third world country.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Sorry, I had my translation helmet activated.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Something else seems to be coming through now...

"People think we're going to start a nuclear war with Russia. We'd better make them think Trump is going to start a nuclear war, so they stop focusing on us. But not with Russia; we want people to think War With Russia Is Good (tm). How 'bout North Korea? Nobody likes them."

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

Lots of Hillary dems shouting "see, we told you!" And conveniently ignoring the fact that their favourite pols are eating the propaganda up with a spoon.

I still say anybody who even jokes about dropping the bomb when they have the power to do so is the equivalent of a drunk man with a machine gun on a busy street. Yeah, maybe they won't indiscriminately massacre people, but that's not where the safe money is.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Like Reagan?
That was fun.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@detroitmechworks Just one more piece of their arsenal of lies. Make Shillary look like the sane one. All part of the plan. And ginning up the latest dose of FEAR and maybe Medicare for All goes quietly away? And that fight for 15, why, how can people worry about wages when Nuclear War is right around the corner? How selfish people are....s/

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

WaterLily's picture

@lizzyh7 @lizzyh7 I saw that exact same sentiment, except involving Colin Kaepernick, expressed just today by one of my reliably NeoCon friends. "Far more important things to worry about," he said.

Easy for that well off white 60-year-old male to say. I swear, he's on the talking-point distribution list.

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Bisbonian's picture

@lizzyh7 ; Trump is still trying to prove that he is worse than Hillary. It might be enough to convince a few people to vote for her the next time around... since he failed at his job the last time.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

conclude that he was in the midst of a war-mongering government and therefore should trust no one but his own kid brother. Bobby was also smart. Between the two of them, they sorted out a way of proceeding that avoided a confrontation, rather than precipitating something horrible.

Unlike Lloyd Bentsen, I did not serve with Jack Kennedy. I did not know Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was not a friend of mine. (Damn! Don't I wish!) Nonetheless, I know that Trump is no Jack Kennedy and Ivanka Trump is no Bobby Kennedy.

I get the uneasy feeling that, if anyone tells Trump that Kim Jong-un is making the POTUS look weak or look like a fool, or that Kim Jong-Un called Trump a poopyhead, Trump might do something I'd much rather he did not do.

During the Presidential Campaign

During the crisis

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@HenryAWallace

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Well, that was when people ran our government. And elected (albeit sometimes dirtily) people at that.

It's strange to remember that I grew up with those assumptions.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
I never attended nursery school. Could even start there. Pledging allegiance to the flag, struggling to sing an unsing-able song about the flag surviving a single battle in 1814 that doesn't mean a thing to anyone today, babbling about a democracy the Framers decided against. Disinformation and silence about American history, the nature of our country, wars, imperialism, etc. Our brains were scrambled into naive. patriotic omelettes from the off.

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snoopydawg's picture

right? I mean doesn't Gawd tell the ministers of his flock to teach love, forgiveness and turn the other cheek? If Gawd didn't say any of those things, then his Son did if I remember the New Testament right?
God Is Totally Cool With Nuking North Korea

A right-wing pastor who serves on Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board claims God has given the president “full power” to launch an attack on North Korea.

Robert Jeffress, head of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch, told CBN on Tuesday that a biblical passage in Romans allows rulers to use “whatever means necessary ― including war ― to stop evil.”

He said:

“In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un. I’m heartened to see that our president ― contrary to what we’ve seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors ― will not tolerate any threat against the American people.”

Well alrighty then, if Gawd is cool with nuking a million people because a snake oil minister said that he is, then I down with it too.

On a side note, isn't it funny how the Obama neoliberals now have more in common with John McCain?
We sure have come a long way from the days of opposing the wars in the Middle East, haven't we?
Sigh.

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@snoopydawg I've often wondered if McNasty...er, McCain was a few decades younger if he'd eventually switch parties. I think his natural clock will run out before he gets to that point, but if he had 10+ more years, I could see it.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@snoopydawg

homo sapiens began. Also evil. The can and do flourish side by side and one feeding the other.

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snoopydawg's picture

This guy is totally off his rocker!

The biblical passage Romans 13 gives the government authority to deal with evildoers, Jeffress said. "That gives the government to the authority to do whatever, whether it's assassination, capital punishment or evil punishment to quell the actions of evildoers like Kim Jong Un," he said.

He said that many pacifist Christians will cite Romans 12, which says, "Do not repay evil for evil," but Jeffress says that the passage is referring to Christians, not to the government.

I suppose that this is how Obama was able to clarify to himself when he found out that he was "good at killing" when his drones continued to kill civilians during his terrorist whack a mole hunts. But then what do I know? It must be hard work keeping a country safe from the terrorist that it created in the first place.
Sigh, again.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@snoopydawg You will plainly see that Romans 12 has a subsection 1 (a)11 paragraph e, which clearly states that government shall be excluded from Romans 12 and that the pertinent section of the NAAB is indeed Romans 13, subsection 1(a) paragraph a. And death to the unbelievers (and who says radical jihadists are the only ones with such sentiments?)

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Alligator Ed

snoopy, you must get a copy of the New American Annotated Bible

Is that the one where the entire seventh chapter of Matthew has been deleted?

Wink

On a more serious note, The New American Bible is the current Roman Catholic translation into modern American English. If you want to read certain books (Maccabees, Tobit, etc.) in reasonable American English, it's pretty much the only game in town.

And, needless to say, it emphatically does NOT support nuclear war with North Korea!

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Alligator Ed's picture

@thanatokephaloides Didn't god talk to Mike Huckabee--or was it Ted Cruz? Or maybe Hillary, who will now preach the gospel, expurgated version, from pulpits (warning: she will need assistance in climbing the three steps to the pulpit--thank god for Depends! Hallelujah! Can I hear an Amen? No, guess not.

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WaterLily's picture

@Alligator Ed Thanks for the laugh. I almost did a spit-take, but controlled myself before losing any valuable "grape juice."

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snoopydawg's picture

@Alligator Ed
down here to address what the Old Testament got wrong, then people are supposed to stop picking and choosing from the part of it to justify their actions and start believing what the New Testament says instead. Especially the part where His Son said "love one another" and "turn the other cheek".

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@snoopydawg

That New Testament would have been provided when the oligarchs of the time realized that primitive and bloodthirsty societies weren't sustainable and decided to try civilization and cooperation instead?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg Wait a minute..but why doesn't Kim Jong Un, who is the government in North Korea, have the right to do whatever he wants too? How could he be an "evildoer?"

Not only an evil, noxious, web of beliefs, but one that doesn't even hold together.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
depends on what religion one is.
Bush said that Gawd told him to invade Iraq and many of Christians were okay with that.
In fact, one Domonistic Christian was hired to help with the war and made buco bucks from all the warring.

But people aren't willing to give Mohamed's Gawd the same benefit of doubt. They don't think that anyone whose country was invaded by the Christians should be allowed to fight back against them and they are called terrorists and insurgents while the Christian soldiers are called heroes, especially if they die doing Gawd's bidding.

This is where it gets tricky. How are we supposed to know which Gawd is the real deal and the other Gawd isn't because He tells his followers to kill the innocents, including women and children?
This is easy because when our citizens are killed by Mohamed's Gawd they are called Victims, but when they are killed by Bush's Gawd, they are called Collateral Damage.

I think it would make more sense to stop the killing and negotiate for the resources that the corporations want, and if that doesn't work, then the people who say that Gawd told them to invade other people's land, they should have to be at the front. No exceptions.

So yeah, you are right that Kim's Gawd could be telling him to keep trying to build nuclear weapons just in case our Gawd tells him to use nukes on North Korea.
This really gets complicated when there are so many Gawds, except they are supposed to be the same one.

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riverlover's picture

@snoopydawg You can vote by multiple choice. I only give 2/5.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg I don't even know what religion Kim is.

Whoa-oh. Just looked it up. He's an atheist in an atheist country (probably something to do with Communism.) Bad bad bad! No wonder he's an evildoer.

It's so much easier to be an evildoer when you're neither Christian nor Jewish.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
I can't begin to imagine how this changes the Game of Gawds. Hopefully someone smarter than me can figure this out.
Nice catch.

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@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

...I think it would make more sense to stop the killing and negotiate for the resources that the corporations want, and if that doesn't work, then the people who say that Gawd told them to invade other people's land, they should have to be at the front. No exceptions. ...

I suppose that 'Thou shalt not steal' was excised along with 'Thou shalt not kill' which I've seen described as a mistranslation of ''Thou shalt not murder'?

Edited because I cleverly used bolding instead of block-quoting. Going to get that 2nd coffee started...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

...He said that many pacifist Christians will cite Romans 12, which says, "Do not repay evil for evil," but Jeffress says that the passage is referring to Christians, not to the government. ...

So, he's saying that the government cannot contain any Christians, enjoined by the Christian god to not repay evil for evil,

in which case, they also do not have that 'exemption from the Christian god' to fall back on

should the Christian equivalent of 'Sharia law' be (edit: ever) claimed legal in America?

Edited to remove a misleading comma and to add, regarding:

... It must be hard work keeping a country safe from the terrorist that it created in the first place. ...

Doubly hard, since it seems that the FBI typically has to convince what appear too-often to be mentally handicapped/psychologically vulnerable people to 'become terrorists' and supply them with weapons to 'catch them with' in order to have any 'terrorist arrests' in America, something they've been doing for years.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventin...

How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists' - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook

The feds have seized an Orwellian power - the power to decide which ideas are dangerous, regardless of the genuine threat they pose.

By Rick Perlstein
May 15, 2012

https://www.rt.com/usa/fbi-terror-report-plot-365-899/

FBI organizes almost all terror plots in the US
Published time: 22 Aug, 2011 21:02
Edited time: 9 Sep, 2011 11:34

...The FBI has in recent years used trained informants not just to snitch on suspected terrorists, but to set them up from the get-go. A recent report put together by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley analyses some striking statistics about the role of FBI informants in terrorism cases that the Bureau has targeted in the decade since the September 11 attacks.

The report reveals that the FBI regularly infiltrates communities where they suspect terrorist-minded individuals to be engaging with others. Regardless of their intentions, agents are sent in to converse within the community, find suspects that could potentially carry out “lone wolf” attacks and then, more or less, encourage them to do so. By providing weaponry, funds and a plan, FBI-directed agents will encourage otherwise-unwilling participants to plot out terrorist attacks, only to bust them before any events fully materialize.

Additionally, one former high-level FBI officials speaking to Mother Jones says that, for every informant officially employed by the bureau, up to three unofficial agents are working undercover.

The FBI has used those informants to set-up and thus shut-down several of the more high profile would-be attacks in recent years. The report reveals that the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York City subway plot, the attempt to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and dozens more were all orchestrated by FBI agents. In fact, reads the report, only three of the more well-known terror plots of the last decade weren’t orchestrated by FBI-involved agents. ...

That they know of...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

snoopydawg's picture

@Ellen North
With so many Gawds in the picture it is very difficult to determine which Gawd is right or wrong.
Therefore, I think that people should follow these two Commandants that people keep overlooking so that they can do whatever the voices in their heads tell them to do.

'Thou shalt not steal' and 'Thou shalt not kill'

I strongly agree with Detroitmechworks' sigline:

I don't Blame Christians. I Blame Stupid. Which Sadly, is a much more popular religion these days.

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@snoopydawg

And as usual, I couldn't agree more with you.

Good people use what they have to do good or, rather, what they perceive as doing good, and the reverse seems even more true - or at least noticeable.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cassiodorus's picture

The fact that a reality-TV star is in the White House just makes it extra fun for them.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus And with a full on moron in the White House the bombast and stupidity are guarandamnteed to bring in lots of clicks too!

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Song of the lark's picture

looking forward to being raptured along with president Pence. Now I'm supposed end a piece of smoking charcoal. I hate that trump

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Song of the lark

I was so looking forward to being raptured along with president Pence. Now I'm supposed end a piece of smoking charcoal. I hate that trump

Tom Lehrer thinks we should take comfort in that last bit of total equality for everyone:

[video:https://youtu.be/TIoBrob3bjI]

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides Thanks for that vid. I will share it.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

snoopydawg's picture

@Song of the lark
I nominate this for ToP comment! Smile

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Big Al's picture

country? The issue isn't what North Korea can do, it's what our government and those who control it can do. That should have everyone concerned, especially when the propaganda hits the fan.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@Big Al
We are not human beings but only collateral damage. We are not of concern.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Big Al Agreed also, too. Propaganda got us into several wars in my life time. I read or listen to it as much as I can stand so I won't be surprised when shit hits the fan.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@Big Al
is reaching one of its highest peaks ever, approaching those of the Iraq and the Vietnam War eras. Now we've got both Russia and North Korea to be terrified of. These two "evil regimes" have chased poor Bashar Assad, and even ISIS right off the front pages.

It's amazing how smoothly American media can shift their fear-mongering focus from one scary threat to the next. You'd think people might catch on to the trick one of these days. It has certainly been played often enough.

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native

@native

On the plus side, more Americans probably know or are learning which government really is a hazard to itself and others...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

snoopydawg's picture

@Ellen North
I realize that DK is only a small segment of our population, but look at how easily they were sold on this Russian propaganda scheme. I wonder how many of them would have believed this if it was Trump making this claim that Russia interfered with the election and that was the reason why he lost to Herheinous.

I'm pretty sure that most of them would say that he is just being a sore loser.
But since it was Herheinous that lost to Trump of all people, they can't accept that she lost because of who and what she is. And that is why they have swallowed the Russian propaganda. It lets them blame others instead of Herheinous.

The other question that they should be asking, is why Obama didn't do anything about it while his agencies found out about it? The only thing I have heard him say about this was that he didn't want to look like he was giving Herheinous an excuse if she lost.

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@native
that the gains made by our military in cooperation with the Russians and the Kurdish SDF in Syria, combined with the VIPS intelligence report that there was no hacking of the DNC emails, suddenly resulted in the fact that North Korea could reach Guam with a missile. I have long suspected that North Korea is a CIA black site, and I am more aware of that possibility as this soap opera plays out. We have to have a nuclear armed ENEMY in order to have a nuclear weapons industry. And Russia can't be that enemy if we are succeeding in a war along with their military and if their government didn't hack Hillary Clinton's campaign.

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@Linda Wood
very much being portrayed as an enemy, in spite of the lack of solid evidence. Who needs solid evidence, when you can convince the public without it? Anti-Putinism has been a long-term project, pre-dating the current (Dem-inspired) media frenzy.

I don't know about North Korea. I don't see any CIA footprints there, though that doesn't mean there aren't any.

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native

EdMass's picture

Shillary and Podesta and Rhodes said so.

It's not Pyongyang. It's Moscow. It's Beijing. It's Tehran, It's Mogadishu. It's Canada!

Yeah, that's it, Canada!

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

@EdMass
was supposedly actually a can of Genesee beer. The story I heard was that it happened in a bar in Syracuse, NY, in 1974 and the lucky drinker was underage. Of course, it could have been just a high school kid claiming to be the protagonist of an urban myth.

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On to Biden since 1973

EdMass's picture

@doh1304 I was in Big Bend National Park back when you could wade across the Rio to get to Boquillas in Mexico and visit the Cantinas.

Ordered a Tecate in a can. In the can? A 2 inch long dead roach.

Good times.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

@EdMass who knew beer had protein? Almost don't need pretzels for that. yuchh

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@EdMass

The Canadian government is already controlled by US (and European) 'interests', the Koch brothers being one notable example. TBTB probably won't invade/bomb us until we manage to get an actual Canadian government in. If ever. (Personally, I'd rather be invaded/bombed than give in/up, though.)

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

what bothers me more than the exaggeration of the threat is the lack of understanding of the effect of nuclear weapons. I feel like the younger generations (plural, younger than 60) don't seem to understand at all what nuclear weapons do.

Here's what's on my San Francisco Chronicle front page today. Part of it describes lying on the ground face down and then getting into a windowless room.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Can-SF-plan-for-surviving-a-N...

Can SF plan for surviving a North Korean nuclear strike?

… Duck-and-cover drills and backyard fallout shelters are unlikely to come back in vogue. But the possibility that North Korea could drop a nuclear bomb on the Bay Area or other West Coast urban center — capabilities that Kim Jung Un’s regime is thought to be close to achieving — raises questions about how those who survive an attack would survive the aftermath.

… The blast from a nuclear missile like the one North Korea is believed to be close to possessing would create a fireball a mile in diameter, with temperatures as hot as the sun’s surface and winds greater than a hurricane’s force, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Radioactive fallout would be scattered over hundreds of miles.

Think of it as an earthquake times 1,000. County offices of emergency services typically have recovery plans for earthquakes or other natural disasters, but a nuclear attack would cause unique horrors.

Hospitals that remained standing would be overwhelmed with initial survivors and, later, people with radiation poisoning. Bridges and other freeway infrastructure would be damaged or destroyed, making getting into or out of the Bay Area all but impossible. The economy would grind to a halt.

“The survivors would envy the dead,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. “The best thing to do would be to not make it. It’s gruesome.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates federal responses to natural disasters, has a sample plan that local governments can use to draw up their own day-after survival blueprints for a nuclear attack. The document, created in October 2016, includes guidelines on reducing radiation exposure, sheltering in place and planning for long-term relocation...

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@Linda Wood and I both agree, we're hoping to be at ground zero. I do not chide her on voting for that idiot and she knows my views very well and agrees with most of them. I've "converted" her, so to speak, on many issues, LOL. And she DOES listen to them! She and her husband are on land in Arkansas and they also have guns, of course. We both agree, and damnit hope if we have to that we CAN do it, if the blast doesn't get us we'll take care of it ourselves. Course, I don't have a gun. Yet.

Her husband used to work for electric utilities. I'm sure he knows what happens to the grid with an EMP. Lose the grid and all hell breaks loose, rapidly. Very depressing few days it's been.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

snoopydawg's picture

@lizzyh7
after an EMP went off and all the problems that created for just one town out of millions.
Then there's the movie On the Beach from decades ago which is still popular.

The chances of our country deciding to use a nuclear weapon is just as close as it was during the Cuban missile crisis. If not closer because of who's in charge of it.

One Russian submarine was given orders to launch one and they would have. Fortunately, one officer disobeyed the order.
Sorry, I can't find the article on this.

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@snoopydawg I don't remember where I saw it either. I'm thinking about downloading "On the Beach" to my Kindle. Not sure yet if I really want to read that but I most likely will.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

snoopydawg's picture

@lizzyh7
and if you have to pick one book, I recommend One second after.
I have listened to it more than 3 times, it's that good. And with my memory problems, sometimes it's like reading books for the first time. Smile

I will try to find the article on the Russian submarine officer.

ETA Are you able to access your online library and download books to your kindle? I have downloaded close to 100 audio books from mine and transfer them to my iPod.
I can keep a book for 3 weeks and read it on my iPad through my kindle app.
You need to get the overdrive app to be able to read them on your kindle.
Besides, since it's an older book, Amazon might be selling it for a low price.

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@snoopydawg soon. I think it's vintage 2009 maybe? I am so tech challenged it really is pathetic. And I work for a tech company, but I'm finance, not technical. I don't even have an I-Pod, LOL! I do have about 150 books on there though, and I loathe the thought of putting them on the cloud. No thanks, bad enough they're not paper and go down with the grid, I don't need any more tracking of what I read than I already get with Amazon. Hate being a slave to them but love my Kindle.

I'll look for One Second After. Do you remember the TV movie The Day After? I still remember that movie and felt like it made an impression then with people realizing a bit that a nuclear war as survivable is not so. At least, who would want to?

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@Linda Wood raises questions?
Gets my vote for understatement of the year.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp posting ain't always as clean as one would like

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Strife Delivery's picture

@Linda Wood

“The survivors would envy the dead,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. “The best thing to do would be to not make it. It’s gruesome.”

When I went to Japan a few years ago, I made sure to take in every single thing I could at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I know how light the bombings are discussed here in America and I knew more about the horrors. But actually seeing it in person--hearing the personal stories, seeing the pictures of people, seeing the melted pieces--that is something I believe every single American needs to see.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Strife Delivery
to see what happened through the eyes of the Japanese in order to understand what it would have been like to live after the bombing.

I have been reading this article about how out of touch Americans are to the reality of people in other countries and how American exceptionalism has skewed our world view.

Unlearning the myth of American innocence

I can't recommend this article enough.

ETA: Americans should also have to see the pictures of what our military is doing to people in war zones.
They have used white phosphorus in numerous countries, along with other banned biological weapons.
We should also have to see the bodies that our bombs do to the Collateral civilians, when our government blows the number of people who were killed.

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@snoopydawg beautiful, ya know? Seeing them take off, all fire and fury, well, who wants to see them land and all that dirt and stuff? s/

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@Linda Wood

... Here's what's on my San Francisco Chronicle front page today. Part of it describes lying on the ground face down and then getting into a windowless room.

It's an automatic political response; give the victims something useless to do and the impression that it's potentially helpful, so that they'll stay out of the faces of those who might be expected to do something and die quietly, well out of the way of Those Who Matter. Covers just about anything, doesn't it?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

WoodsDweller's picture

that this is simple misdirection. Look over here at my lovely assistant while I stuff a rabbit into this hat and silk scarves up my sleeves.
What are they directing our attention away from? Are they simply trying to pump up El Trumpo's sagging poll numbers? Give the people something to obsess over during the August recess instead of reminding them about the failure to repeal Obamacare? Tax cuts? Who knows?

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

@WoodsDweller
is the stock and trade of both Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. They both specialize in bombast and braggadocio, in order to project a fearsome front to the world. However I doubt that either one of them is crazy enough to actually "push the button"... simply because to do so would be politically, if not literally suicidal. And I don't see either man as being that.

On the other hand, even coming as close to the edge as they have come, is terribly reckless and irresponsible behavior. They are playing a deadly game of brinkmanship, where a single misstep by either of them could make it could all go boom.

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native

WoodsDweller's picture

... Huffpost reports:

Trump Probably Made Up That ‘Fire And Fury’ Quote On His Own
“Don’t read too much into it.”

Just drunk grandpa Trumpo yelling at clouds world leaders again.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

riverlover's picture

@WoodsDweller He's delusional. And still thieving from us as is his family. Tick, tick. Pence would be another Atwood novel. Hard choices.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

ZimInSeattle's picture

FOR ONCE, Donald Trump has a point. “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,” he told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, according to the transcript from their bizarre phone conversation that was leaked to The Intercept in May.

The madman the U.S president was referring to, of course, was North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The madman the rest of us should be worried about, however, is Trump himself, who — lest we forget — has the sole, exclusive and unrestricted power to launch almost 1,000 nuclear warheads in a matter of minutes, should he so wish.

Most nonproliferation experts — as well as former President Jimmy Carterand a number of former Pentagon and State Department officials, both Republican and Democrat — agree that the brutal and murderous Kim, for all his bluster, is not irrational or suicidal, but bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership — which, as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry observed on Fox News in April, may be “ruthless and … reckless” but “they are not crazy.”

Got that? Kim is bad, not mad.

The same cannot be said of The Donald. Think I’m being unfair? In February, a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wrote to the New York Times “that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” In April, another group of mental health experts told a conference at Yale University’s School of Medicine that Trump was “paranoid” and “delusional” and referred to the president’s “dangerous mental illness.”

More: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/the-madman-with-nuclear-weapons-is-donald-trump-not-kim-jong-un/

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

@ZimInSeattle @ZimInSeattle

... Most nonproliferation experts — as well as former President Jimmy Carterand a number of former Pentagon and State Department officials, both Republican and Democrat — agree that the brutal and murderous Kim, for all his bluster, is not irrational or suicidal, but bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership — which, as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry observed on Fox News in April, may be “ruthless and … reckless” but “they are not crazy.” ...

Would '...Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry ...' like to explain what's '...“ruthless and … reckless”...' about the leader of another country being '...bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership ...'?

The purpose of having a nuclear defense is that this is supposed to act as a deterrent to other nuclear-armed countries wishing to bully/invade/yet again flatten a previously victimized country and its people, only more so and with radiation and the strong potential for global dimming killing off life on the planet as other allied/targeted countries also finally strike back at the murderous bully - although it only seems to deter the at least somewhat sane and even vaguely informed of the pathologically greedy and power-hungry warmongers.

The Psychopaths That Be might survive for some time, isolated in their luxury bunkers with the electrical power grid fried and no internet communications, although power supplies might be a problem, but they'll wind up just as miserably dead as the rest of us, whatever delusions they may hold about buying/creating their own reality - and making it somehow real. There are no 'exceptional' exceptions made for the wealthiest with the power grid down, when the oxygen (edit: producers) globally die off across the dark and radioactive globe and their hoarded money becomes worthless for those trapped in their bunkers within the hell they've made of Earth.

Schadenfreud - where would we be without it?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

magiamma's picture

SQUIRREL...

In the meantime, Extinction Event Gains Momentum
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/08/the-extinction-event-gains-momen...

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

snoopydawg's picture

@magiamma
and TPTB thinks they are going to ride this out in their bunkers. I doubt that they will ever get out of their bunkers if this happens. Unless the plankton are able to regenerate somehow.
Thanks for the link to the article.

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have ICBMs capable of reaching the US in 1962. They were big, primitive, liquid fueled monstrosities. They were fueled as part of preparations for launch. A sniper with a rifle could have destroyed one. The time they could remain on alert was limited because their gyroscopes would burn out. The US could have taken out most of the missiles in a first strike with the solid fueled, always ready, Minuteman system. (They could have turned western Europe into a radioactive wasteland in response.)

The Soviets used their early successes in putting satellites in orbit to inflate the number of ICBMs they had. Khrushchev said they were rolling off assembly lines like sausages. The US had put up its first generation spy satellite. An American quietly gave his Soviet counterpart the number of ICBMs they had actually deployed. If we could count them, it meant we could target them. This uncomfortable situation is likely to have been a significant factor in the decision to place medium and intermediate missiles in Cuba.

Robert McNamara was terrified by arguments made by some in the military that we'd never have a better chance to prevail. Following the crisis, he devoted tremendous effort to get the Soviets to put their missiles underground, which they did.

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@FuturePassed
was an advocate for establishing nuclear parity? I'd never heard that before.

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native

@native
McNamara was an advocate of Mutual Assured Destruction. The logic is that if each side can destroy the other no matter which strikes first and they both know it, neither side is likely to strike. Unfortunately, there are advocates on both sides for nuclear war fighting capability. In such an environment the side that strikes first has a huge advantage assuming the nuclear war can be stopped short of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Under MAD parity is not really a relevant concept. Once you can destroy the other side even if struck first additional capability is just "bouncing the rubble." With plans for nuclear war fighting there is no logical stopping place in the buildup because each side is trying to get an advantage.

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