US Election: 2016

[Rifleman62]

My concern, as a non-voter in US elections, is who gets the nuclear codes

Your concerned? Nancy Pelosi, when she was the Speaker, would have had the codes if the Pres/VPres were struck down. That got me worried.

 

[mariomike]

Your concerned? Nancy Pelosi, when she was the Speaker, would have had the codes if the Pres/VPres were struck down. That got me worried.

"Everything will settle down nicely. Unless we have another war. Then none of us have to worry because we'll all be blown to bits the first day. So cheer up, huh?" 

Best Years of our Lives.

Nothing is impossible, but how likely is it that the Pres/VPres would both be "struck down" at the same time?

I'm thinking of JFK and LBJ both riding in open cars in Dallas. But, I doubt the Secret Service would let a Pres/VPres do that again?

 

[CountDC]

"I'm thinking of JFK and LBJ both riding in open cars in Dallas. But, I doubt the Secret Service would let a Pres/VPres do that again?

let's see once Trump is in.  I lean towards yes they would from reports of their warm and fuzzy with Clinton if she had got in.  I can see it now - oops, missed that one as I was too busy getting the luggage and making sure I stayed the proper distance away. ;D

 

[mariomike]

let's see once Trump is in.  I lean towards yes they would from reports of their warm and fuzzy with Clinton if she had got in.  I can see it now - oops, missed that one as I was too busy getting the luggage and making sure I stayed the proper distance away. ;D

I'm sure the Secret Service would never say it out loud. But, I am reminded of what the Dallas detective said to Lee Oswald. “Lee, if anybody shoots, I hope they're as good a shot as you are." 

I've read in this thread about checks and balances on the US President. That he is constrained by the constitution, the courts and the Congress from "going rogue".

As a Canadian, that's none of my business. But, who President Obama transfers the nuclear codes to is, I believe, a legitimate concern.

There are no checks and balances on the use of nuclear weapons. The president doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts.
The US is not committed to a doctrine of "no-first-use" of nuclear weapons either. He can strike first at an adversary, even if the US itself has not been attacked.

Which really isn't worth worrying about, because most of us probably won't be around to argue about who should / should have received the codes anyway! 

 

[Loachman]

I worry a lot less about him than I would have about crooked Hillary.

 

[mariomike]

I worry a lot less about him than I would have about crooked Hillary.

That's comforting.

For anyone interested,
https://www.google.ca/search?q=trump+nuclear+trust&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-CA:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&gfe_rd=cr&ei=PWdTWIalPMSC8Qe485MY&gws_rd=ssl

 

[The Bread Guy]

Not sure what Mr. Harper has to do with this discussion? Don't recall anyone calling him evil either.

Maybe not around these online parts, but there's a looooooot of hits out in Google-ville of "Stephen Harper"+evil if one looks.

Meanwhile, good questions, these:

• "If Donald Trump Is So Upset About Iraq WMD Lies, Why Would He Want to Hire John Bolton?"
• "John Bolton Was Wrong About Iraq WMDs But Says Trust him on Iran Nukes " (from last year)

In the interests of some semblance of balance, here's the Breitbart version of events ...

... The truth is that Bolton was frozen out of Iraq War planning. This criticism also ignores Bolton’s successful diplomacy as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security to pressure rogue states to comply with WMD treaties and his work as UN ambassador to take strong and meaningful action in the UN Security Council against WMD proliferation and terrorism.

The record shows John Bolton had little to do with promoting the Iraq war or war planning ...

Caveat lector ...

 

[tomahawk6]

I have always liked Bolton.He is competent and a straight shooter,unusual for a diplomat.

 

[mariomike]

Maybe not around these online parts, but there's a looooooot of hits out in Google-ville of "Stephen Harper"+evil if one looks.

Didn't have to look far. 
https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Aarmy.ca+%22evil+harper%22&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-CA:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&gfe_rd=cr&ei=PfBTWNTOIKmC8Qe9yL7wBQ&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:army.ca+evil+harper

 

[Kirkhill]

...

As a Canadian, that's none of my business. But, who President Obama transfers the nuclear codes to is, I believe, a legitimate concern.

...

Unless you are capable of, and willing to, pry the codes out of the hands of the US President then there is no point being concerned, is there?

 

[mariomike]

Unless you are capable of, and willing to, pry the codes out of the hands of the US President then there is no point being concerned, is there?

 

[Brad Sallows]

We went through this same sh!t with Reagan, who was supposedly going to bring about Armageddon on behalf of televangelists.

"The sky is falling" act has worn too thin to be taken seriously.  Birthers, 9/11 inside-jobbers, omigod-Trump-will-have-nukes : all members of the same club.

 

[mariomike]

We went through this same sh!t with Reagan,

Other than breaking Reagan's record of being the oldest president ever elected, are you comparing the two?
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-oldest-president-us-history-2016-11
Yes, I do believe the age of the person who will be holding America's nuclear code in 2017 and beyond is relevant.

I enjoy reading opinions expressed in Radio Chatter. 

I'm also influenced by what I read outside  of Radio Chatter,
https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=kK5UWNHiLcaC8QfLw4LgDA&gws_rd=ssl#q=trump+nuclear+trust

I think we can agree that if it does happen, most of us will be offline for a long, long time. Arguing about American politics will probably be the least of our problems. 

 

[Loachman]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443109/donald-trump-strongman-foreign-policy-follows-henry-kissinger&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTU5NTY0MjE4NjE1MTYyMTY1ODAyGjU2MjMxYTIzMjJhYzE4ZWQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNE2iUpesgDj9mzg7E03ENRCnOMECQ?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202016-12-16&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

Is Trump Pursuing a 'Kissinger-Inspired Strategy'?

by Michael Barone December 16, 2016 12:00 AM

His foreign policy seems to have more coherence than many realize.

What is President-elect Donald Trump up to on foreign policy? It's a question with no clear answer. Some will dismiss his appointments and tweets as expressing no more than the impulses of an ignorant and undisciplined temperament - no more premeditated than the lunges of a rattlesnake.

Others may recall that similar things were said (by me, as well as many others) about his campaign strategy. But examination of the entrails of the election returns suggests that Trump was following a deliberate strategy based on shrewd insight when he risked antagonizing white college-educated voters in the process of appealing to non-college-educated whites.

Antagonizing college graduates cost him scads of popular votes - but zero electoral votes - in states such as California, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. But his appeal to non-college-educated whites in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Maine's 2nd Congressional District won him just enough popular votes to capture 100 electoral votes that had gone for President Barack Obama in 2012.

So maybe Trump knew what he was doing. It seems to me that like many rich men, he has original insights that, together with hard work and good luck, have made him successful, even while showing boundless ignorance or mindless delusion about other things.

So let's examine Trump's actions and comments on foreign policy so far in that light and in light of the speculations of historian and Henry Kissinger biographer Niall Ferguson, who, in an American Interest article last month, sketched out what a "Kissinger-inspired strategy" by Trump might look like.

Ferguson argued that Trump is pursuing what Kissinger's most admired American statesman, Theodore Roosevelt, also sought: "a world run by regional great powers with strong men in command, all of whom understand that any lasting international order must be based on the balance of power."

That seems in line with Trump's moves vis-à-vis China. He ostentatiously took a congratulatory call from Taiwan's president, and the first foreign leader to make a post-election visit to Trump Tower was Japan's Shinzo Abe. Both are signals that Trump will look askance at China's moves to establish sovereignty in the first island chain.

But then he tapped as ambassador to Beijing Iowa governor Terry Branstad, whose friendship with Xi Jinping goes back to the Chinese leader's visit to Iowa in 1985. Those moves look like a "good cop, bad cop" routine. Trump wants some changes in trade relations with China and limits on its probes in the South China Sea and will build up U.S. military forces. But there's room for acceptance of China as a great power.

Trump wants some changes in trade relations with China and limits on its probes in the South China Sea and will build up U.S. military forces. There's room for acceptance of Russia, too, as suggested by the secretary-of-state nomination of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, self-proclaimed friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin's. He may be opposed by Republican senators who, like Mitt Romney in 2012, see Russia as "our No. 1 geopolitical foe." But perhaps Trump favors Kissinger's proposal for a neutral and decentralized (i.e., dominated and partitioned) Ukraine, with an end to sanctions on Russia. Tillerson would be a good choice if that were your goal.

This would make the Baltic States and Poland understandably nervous, but they could take some comfort in Trump's reaffirmation of our NATO pledge to defend them and in the fact that Pentagon nominee James Mattis has gone out of his way to honor Estonia for its sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for the rest of Europe, Ferguson cited Kissinger's urging that it move "from bureaucratic introspection back to strategic responsibility." Finance ministers, stung by Trump's campaign criticisms, are ponying up more money to meet their NATO defense-spending commitments; German chancellor Angela Merkel is backing down from her disastrous decision to welcome 1 million "refugees."

Long-standing U.S. cheerleading for the European Union reached a crescendo when President Obama threatened that Britain would go to "the back of the queue" if it voted to leave the EU. Trump supported Brexit and has supported a U.S.–U.K. free-trade agreement. He obviously doesn't have much use for multinational talking shops.

In the Middle East, will Trump ditch the Iranian nuclear deal or police it aggressively? Will he bolster the tacit Sunni–Israeli alliance against the expansion of Iranian influence? Unclear, though Mattis and Tillerson could help with both.

Trump's moves and picks so far are not inconsistent with Ferguson's supposition that his strategy is to seek accommodations with regional powers led by strongmen, showing even less regard for and paying even less lip service to human rights than Obama. We'll see.

- Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interesting take, Loachman - thanks for sharing that.

... Pentagon nominee James Mattis has gone out of his way to honor Estonia for its sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

And if the carrot of "didn't our soliders' deaths make as much of a contribution as your soldiers' deaths?" doesn't work, there's always the stick of "black sites" in those parts of the world - it certainly would be interesting if more information about THAT got out ...

 

[Journeyman]

Is Trump Pursuing a 'Kissinger-Inspired Strategy'?

Very interesting article.  I still remain on the side of Trump "showing boundless ignorance or mindless delusion about other things," more so than "maybe Trump knew what he was doing," but maybe I'll plan for the world still turning after 20 January. 

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Other than breaking Reagan's record of being the oldest president ever elected, are you comparing the two?

No, I'm comparing the speculative fear-mongering.  Doom following a Republican presidency has been imminent for so long that I've managed to get through high school and nearly all the way to retirement while it progresses.

 

[mariomike]

Doom following a Republican presidency has been imminent for so long that I've managed to get through high school and nearly all the way to retirement while it progresses.

American, and Canadian, party politics aside, ( if that is possible on social media  )

Did you watch the debates? In case you missed this question about the Nuclear Triad,

Mr. Trumps response,
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/12/17/what-is-nuclear-triad-debate-sot.cnn

Republican Senator Rubio's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwImyOu6YBk

 

[Brad Sallows]

It looks to me like Trump either didn't understand the question or chose to waffle on and make some unrelated point.

How you get from there to fearing that he is going to order a nuclear launch - with or without understand means of delivery - is not shown.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

For something a little different, the latest SNL episode, starring Donald, Vladimir, and Rex.

Donald, Vladimir, and Rex celebrate Christmas