“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.”
Trump’s promise to behave is the same as:
If you let me back in the house I promise to stop hitting you, evidence presented in a murder trial.
If we have them why can't we use them." Trump was talked out of bombing Iran nuclear site, reports say:
In 2016, for example, Trump asked a foreign-policy expert three times why the US couldn't use nuclear weapons in combat, according to CNBC. Shortly after his election, he also egged on a nuclear-arms race, according to MSNBC. He also threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if the country attacked the US or its allies.
"In any other circumstance, I would have argued that the norm against using nuclear weapons is so strong there's no chance that a president would use a nuclear weapon," Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who studies nuclear arms control, told Business Insider. "At the end of the day, though, it's just a norm. And this president delights in smashing norms."
MORE at BUSINESS INSIDER:
"Shortly before 4 a.m. this morning, a reconvened Congress finally confirmed President-elect Biden’s presidential victory. And then President Trump issued this statement:
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.” But it is far from clear that Trump will stick by, or do what it takes to carry out, this pledge.
Talk of removing a president is easy. But getting rid of one is hard, as it should be in a constitutional republic with a well-established system for electing its leaders. Any decision to remove a president is also fraught with peril. This post reviews the basic law governing the questions about taking a president’s powers away.
MORE AT:
LAWFARE
Our nuclear deterrent is a strike first plan that allows a mistake immediately ramp up to full scale near automatic nuclear war.
"In the final third of the book, Ellsberg goes beyond his personal experiences to tackle the track record and philosophy of what he calls “bombing cities,” “burning cities” and “killing a nation” before concluding with the real driving force of this book, and why it’s so significant today: a close study of US “first-use” policy. Yes, no matter the president, from Truman and Ike to Obama and Trump, it has been American policy to launch a nuclear first-strike even if we have not yet been attacked.
It is Ellsberg’s belief that multiple presidents have used nuclear weapons in threatening other nations since Nagasaki. He presents a long list of such moments, and along with many, he is particularly worried about Trump’s recklessness toward North Korea. He recalls Trump asking an adviser about nuclear weapons, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” Trump also wondered if our allies, Japan and South Korea, should consider designing their own nukes.
But he also argues that accidental nuclear war is a real threat, and that the final decision to fire weapons may be delegated to subordinates in the US and Russia and probably in other nuclear nations. Vital information about all things nuclear, meanwhile, has been kept from the public for decades: “Like discussion of covert operations and assassination plots, nuclear war plans and threats are taboo for public discussion by the small minority of officials and consultants who know anything about them.” Few in Congress even know much about them.
This “systematic official secrecy, lying and obfuscation” guarantees that “most aspects of the US nuclear planning system and force readiness that became known to me half a century ago still exist today” and are “as prone to catastrophe as ever.” Ellsberg calls this “the hidden reality” he hopes to expose in his book — and in my view, he succeeds at that."
MORE AT:
Ellsberg, In Upcoming Book, Warns of Nuclear Dangers in the Era of Trump
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner Hardcover – December 5, 2017
ONE YEAR AGO, the U.S. government assassinated Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani by drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport. Is it possible that Donald Trump, now entering the final weeks of his presidency, might have further plans for Iran before he leaves office? Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins Ryan Grim to discuss.
Our idiot president says, "If we have them why can't we use them?"
There are current day Gen. Buck Turgidsons in the Pentagon:
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