Seriously, how the fuck do you know? This is a guy who has far less self-control than any President in my lifetime, who has the impulses of an aggrieved child, and he’s surrounded himself with other nutcases - Stephen Miller, John Bolton, his own family.
I would say it’s the other way around. You are refusing to admit to the least bit of uncertainty or doubt on this question, without any basis for your certainty.
And you are calling me out, not for saying it’s likely that Trump would drop a nuke on someone, but for saying it’s extremely unlikely but not to be ruled out.
I think you’re putting a lot of faith - yes, faith - in the rationality of Trump and his advisers.
I think copy-pasta is a great descriptor for what was posted, although it may not meet the oh-so-official strict definition provided by knowyourmeme.com.
Trump himself has been in for almost two years, but given the high level of turnover in his administration, I’d say that the statement “we have a new administration coming in” will remain true for his entire Presidency.
The “Presidential administration” is the President together with the set of people that he appoints to high-level positions. That set of people is changing very frequently, including at least one change in the immediate future. It won’t be a new President, but it will be a new Presidential administration.
I concur. We refer to “the Carter Administration” in the singular, not the plural, even though there were quite a number of high-level personnel changes during his Presidency. (How can we forget the time he fired nearly half his Cabinet shortly after the infamous ‘malaise’ speech?)
The thread regarding the departure of Mattis on The_Donald reddit (which anyone who wants to have a read on the general pulse of Trump’s base should browse from time to time) has more deleted comments than I have EVER seen on a thread there. It’s teeming with the red dots indicating a deleted comment, and the sub-comments have also been deleted. This is a sign to me that there is some major dissatisfaction even among his most hardcore supporters.
I don’t consider myself “among his most hardcore supporters”, but I’m not far from the closest thing the SDMB has to one, and I was disappointed to hear he was resigning. I think very highly of Mattis.
He’s come out against the most recent version of post-Cold War reduction, New START. That treaty expires in 2021 so there’s a threat of the long trend of dismantling nuclear weapons ending.
I haven’t seen anything specific from Bolton on first strikes. Because of the importance of strategic signaling, it’s not an area that those in defense positions tend to talk loosely about. Formally, you can say that he supports first use under the conditions set forth in the Nuclear Posture Review published earlier this year. That’s US policy. The US has never had a “no first use” policy.
It’s complicated. Putin seemed to drastically change their old policy two months ago. Long standing Russian doctrine included escalating to deescalate. That was generally seen as including things like threatening or using limited nuclear strikes if a conventional situation turned against them. In October he made a statement that they would only use them if nuclear missiles were already inbound. If true that’s a huge change. Putin’s never seems to feel constrained by the truth, though.
I haven’t followed up since seeing it shortly after coverage of that announcement.
In a normal Administration, I’d probably not be too keen on Mattis. But in this one, the fact that he’s basically sane and responsible undoubtedly puts him head and shoulders above whoever takes over his responsibilities.
No. It’s never been 0%. It wasn’t 0% under Obama or Bush or Clinton or Bush or Reagan either.
The USA built a genocide machine and there’s always a chance that it will be used. That’s why it exists. The sole reason we have Minuteman missiles is so they can be launched at a moment’s notice based on scant information (unlike other nuclear weapons, land-based missiles have to be used or lost in the first minutes of a conflict).
You’re correct, apparently Trump appointed him acting AG under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act which designates three classes of people who may serve as acting officials:
[ul]
[li]By default, “the first assistant to the office” [/li][li]The President may direct a person currently serving in a different Senate-confirmed position to serve as acting officer[/li][li]The President can select a senior “officer or employee” of the same executive agency[/li][/ul]
Apparently Whitaker fell under the third category as Sessions Chief of Staff.
But just think about the possibilities here! He can slide over any other Senate-confirmed official to Acting Secretary of Defense. How about Wilbur Ross ? Betsy DeVos? Ryan Zinke’s still around for a couple more weeks, right? We’re talking some quality individuals to put in charge of the most powerful military the world has ever known!