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Military Refuses to Participate in Trump's Parade, Citing Bone Spurs |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Wednesday, 07 February 2018 15:13 |
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Borowitz writes: "The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump's request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating."
President Trump. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty)
Military Refuses to Participate in Trump's Parade, Citing Bone Spurs
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
07 February 18
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 he Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump’s request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating.
Harland Dorrinson, a Pentagon spokesman, said that, within an hour of Trump’s request, more than a hundred thousand military personnel complained that they were suffering from acute cases of bone spurs that would make marching in such a parade a painful ordeal.
“In the history of the U.S. military, we have never experienced a bone-spur epidemic of this magnitude,” the spokesman said. “Regrettably, however, we have no choice but to issue thousands of deferments.”
A statement from the bone-spur sufferers said that they would continue to valiantly serve their country around the world in a non-marching capacity, and offered an alternative to their participation in Trump’s proposed pageant.
“President Trump is welcome to march in the parade all by himself if he would finally like to enlist,” the statement read.
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Russia Hasn't Disposed of 34 Tons of Plutonium. It's Our Fault. |
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Wednesday, 07 February 2018 14:49 |
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Lyons writes: "Somewhere in Russia, 34 tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium - enough material to make about 10,000 weapons - are awaiting disposal."
Anti-nuclear protest. (photo: Getty)
Russia Hasn't Disposed of 34 Tons of Plutonium. It's Our Fault.
By Peter Lyons, Politico
07 February 18
 omewhere in Russia, 34 tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium—enough material to make about 10,000 weapons—are awaiting disposal. Moscow was supposed to start destroying this stockpile, but has yet to begin, leaving a huge threat lurking in an unknown location. If even a tiny fraction of this material fell into terrorists’ hands, they could threaten nuclear terrorism around the world.
Yet, the plutonium’s continued existence isn’t Russia’s fault. It’s ours.
In 1998, Russia and the United States agreed that each would dispose of 34 tons of surplus plutonium, a major step toward nuclear nonproliferation. But in the years since, due to mistaken policy decisions, the U.S. hasn’t begun destroying its own stockpile—and that process isn’t going to start anytime soon. In turn, Russia hasn’t complied either while they wait for us, leading to the current stalemate.
The good news is that Russia still intends to uphold the deal—but only if the U.S. finds a credible way to dispose of its plutonium. On the current path, that may never happen. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have adopted a technique to dispose of our plutonium stockpile that Russia has already rejected, deeming it not credible.
Luckily, there is a third path, one that would provide significant economic benefits to the U.S. economy and one that Russia has already approved, ensuring that Moscow would finally dispose of its 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium. It’s time for the Trump administration to abandon the failed Obama-era approach and chart a new course, one that can comply with the deal signed 20 years ago.
I have decades of experience with this issue: I was science adviser to the late Sen. Pete Domenici, who authored the original legislation codifying the 1998 U.S.-Russia agreement, and then served as a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under President Barack Obama, I served as the Energy Department’s top nuclear energy official.
Under the original agreement, the United States agreed to dispose of its plutonium by building a facility to make mixed plutonium-uranium reactor fuel—known as MOX fuel—to use in our commercial reactors. At the time, this path made sense since we anticipated a “nuclear energy renaissance,” which promised a growing need for reactor fuel.
But in the past two decades, the MOX proposal has become much less likely to work. First, that “nuclear energy renaissance” never happened. In fact, reactors are closing in many countries and there is so much cheap uranium that some of the world’s most productive mines have closed. Second, the facility to convert the plutonium into MOX fuel—originally scheduled to start operating in 2016—is years behind schedule and well over budget; its current completion date is at least a decade away. And even if the fuel facility is completed, domestic utilities are not interested in burning MOX fuel in their reactors because uranium is so cheap—unless the government pays them. In other words, for the MOX proposal to work, the government would have to pay to build and maintain the facility—and then pay utilities to actually burn the MOX fuel. Not a great business model!
Hoping to break this political and financial logjam, the Obama administration devised a new approach to get rid of its plutonium called “dilute and dispose.” Under this approach, the plutonium is blended with other waste and sent to a radioactive waste disposal facility, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico. “Dilute and dispose” renders a valuable resource totally worthless, but the Obama administration supported this option because it was cheaper than the MOX approach.
However, like the MOX proposal, this approach is unlikely to work. The biggest problem is that the WIPP doesn’t even have the capacity to complete its present mission and also dispose of the 34 tons of plutonium. Any new use of WIPP could crowd out other uses, potentially delaying the disposal of waste generated in the cleanup of former defense facilities. In addition, even if there was enough room, WIPP is not currently licensed to accept this additional material. Even worse, Russia already rejected this idea, both in the original negotiations and again last year, because it does not destroy the plutonium. In other words, even if the Trump administration successfully implemented the “dilute and dispose” option, Moscow likely wouldn’t dispose of its own 34 tons of plutonium.
Luckily, there’s another option. During the Obama administration, I argued vehemently that the dilute and dispose proposal was a poor choice and instead recommended disposing the plutonium as fuel in fast reactors, which effectively destroy the plutonium. I was overruled, but this idea remains the best chance to eliminate Russia’s dangerous stockpile of plutonium and realize other important national benefits.
Fast reactors are not new in the United States. In the 1950s, we built several fast reactors and demonstrated their impressive safety attributes, including proving that they could not melt down even with a complete loss of coolant. But through a combination of early safety issues and political decisions, the last fast reactor in the country shut down in 1993.
However, several U.S. companies—including TerraPower, which is funded by Bill Gates, General Atomics and General Electric—are exploring fast reactors because of their versatility and meltdown- proof operation; among other abilities, they can destroy nuclear waste, burn plutonium and generate electricity with higher efficiency than existing reactors. But the exploration process can take years, especially since any testing requires the use of existing Russian fast reactors. But if Washington financed a fast reactor to dispose of its plutonium stockpile, it would jump-start the development process by providing a fast reactor-testing platform in this country, a real benefit to many U.S. companies. Congress has recognized this opportunity as well, spending money in fiscal 2016 to develop a plan for an advanced reactor, such as a fast reactor.
Such a plan would also prevent the U.S. from falling behind on modern technologies as other nations, including France, Japan, China and India consider building their own fast reactors. At the very least, this proposal would ensure that the U.S. has enough operational experience with fast reactors to participate in global discussions on their safety and nonproliferation characteristics.
This plan has one downside: It would be more expensive than the dilute and dispose option since we’d have to build a new reactor. But unlike Obama’s plan, the fast reactor proposal would ensure that Russia disposes of its plutonium stockpile. In fact, Moscow intends to use its own fast reactors to destroy its plutonium. If we adopt a similar proposal, we would satisfy the original agreement, taking an important step toward nuclear nonproliferation and a safer world.
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Donald Trump Cracks the Seal on Talk of Treason |
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Wednesday, 07 February 2018 09:56 |
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Wilson writes: "One thing we've learned in the last two years is that no legal, moral, or cultural strictures bind Trump and that he is immune to the better angels of human nature."
Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron. (photo: Michel Euler/AP)
Donald Trump Cracks the Seal on Talk of Treason
By Rick Wilson, The Daily Beast
07 February 18
Trump might not be able to see where this very slippery slope leads, but the political arsonists around him do. Prepare to reap the whirlwind.
 ou may have noticed by now, but I’m not one to pull any punches on Donald Trump. As a conservative, I see him as a statist abomination, a plump, be-wattled authoritarian-wannabe man-baby with the intellectual horsepower of a toaster oven.
One thing we’ve learned in the last two years is that no legal, moral, or cultural strictures bind Trump and that he is immune to the better angels of human nature. The moral event horizon around him consumes the good in anyone who becomes one of his vassals. There is no better version of Trump, ever. He can only degrade and destroy everything he touches, but Monday was remarkable, even for him.
Monday’s simpering, prissy, self-indulgent performance in Ohio was just another raree-show with our Kentucky Fried Nero fiddling while the stock market burned. Then came the moment where he broke another seal, and cracked another seam in the foundation of our Republic.
That was when Trump, in his typical sneering, sniggling, purse-lipped way said of the Democrats watching his State of the Union speech: “They were like death. And un-American. Un-American. Somebody said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”
Even for Trump, on an endless quest to define American decency down, this was a new low. His followers and congressional cheering section will love it, of course. A few Republicans in Congress may furrow a brow or intone some anodyne statement like, “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but...”
Trump lacks the mental capacity to see where this very slippery slope leads, but the political arsonists around him do. With that, prepare to reap the whirlwind.
Our Founders viewed treason as the most severe crime against the Republic. Treason was an act without shades of gray, without gradiations, without rationalization. It is the one crime we punish by stripping those found guilty of it of their citizenship, or even their lives.
Trump on Monday decided he would be the arbiter of what constitutes treason in America. He’s mainstreamed the t-word.
Well, then: If you’re looking for someone who is betraying this nation, look for a person who would deliberately and systematically wreck the institutions that guarantee the separation of powers and the accountability of the Executive and Legislative Branches. Look for a person who would suborn the rule of law to protect himself, his family, and his cronies from justice.
If you’re looking for someone in the act of betraying the glorious vision of our Founders and our Constitution, look no further than the vulgar, prancing, reality-show clown who holds the presidency.
Look no further than the man who swore to uphold the Constitution and obey the laws of this land, yet ignores them, and attacks those who would carry them out.
We have had presidents in living memory who failed, who strayed from the righteous path, who were venal or paranoid or who fell victim to their lusts and weaknesses. But none came so close to treason as this president.
We can remember men of both parties who no one could even imagine betraying this nation to a hostile foreign power. Not this man. We don’t need to imagine it. We can see it.
Set aside the abundant evidence of Trump’s campaign connections to the Russians, and his long history of business relationships with people such as Felix Sater, Aras Agalarov, Tevfik Arif, and a host of others tied to Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy. Ignore for a moment that Robert Mueller has arrested four senior Trump advisers and is stacking other officials like cordwood.
Just look at his post-election behavior toward Russia, because if we’re going to play tag-the-traitor, let’s get to it. Trump’s abject, boot-licking obedience to Russia and Putin speaks for itself.
If it is treason you seek, look no further than a man who gladly allows Russia’s continued attacks on our democracy, our Republic, and our institutions. Putin’s implacable hostility, aggression, and desire to divide and disrupt this nation are not in question by anyone except Trump and his most slavish sycophants. Putin’s desire to weaken our standing, diminish our power, and to harm our interests in the world is stated Russian policy, not speculations in the fevered minds of Never Trumpers.
When Congress sent Trump veto-proof legislation demanding he impose sanctions on Russia, Comrade Don waited until the last second to impose, well, nothing. When Putin arrested campaign opponent Alexei Navalny on phony charges, Vlad’s errand boy in the Oval Office remained silent.
For some reason, this president seems determined to demonstrate that he will do anything, at any time, to please the Russian authoritarian. He will tear down the United States government around him to hide from accountability. He will wreck alliances, compromise intelligence sources, and endanger our troops to please Putin. There’s a word for that.
There is always a reckoning for treason. There is always a moment where justice and history strip away the excuses and rationalizations, and the betrayer is held to account.
One thing Donald Trump should have considered before launching Monday’s attack was just how vulnerable he is to the same accusation, and that reckoning.
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Trump's Desire for a Military Parade Reveals Him as a Would-Be Despot |
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Wednesday, 07 February 2018 09:54 |
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Freedland writes: "If the president insists on flexing his muscles on the streets, the opposition should have an alternative parade to mock his strongman tactics."
Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron. (photo: Michel Euler/AP)
ALSO SEE: Trump Wants Pentagon to Stage
Military Parade Down Pennsylvania Avenue
Trump's Desire for a Military Parade Reveals Him as a Would-Be Despot
By Jonathan Freedland, Guardian UK
07 February 18
If the president insists on flexing his muscles on the streets, the opposition should have an alternative parade to mock his strongman tactics
he genius of Donald Trump, it has long been observed, is to turn subtext into text. What was hinted at or hidden is, with him, brought shamelessly to the surface.
So it is with his latest scheme, his instruction to the top brass of the US armed forces to lay on a military parade in the nation’s capital, perhaps on 4 July. He’d been nagging the generals about this for a while but, according to the Washington Post, he gave the order at a meeting at the Pentagon last month.
No need for us to deconstruct the motive behind this instruction. It came after Trump was the guest at France’s Bastille Day parade, where he stood at Emmanuel Macron’s side and watched tanks, gun trucks and column after column of starchly uniformed soldiers. “We’re going to have to try and top it,” Trump said afterwards. (The actual order to military chiefs was phrased in the language of a spoiled child: “I want a parade like the one in France.”)
By his own admission, then, Trump is engaged in a familiar, mine’s-bigger-than-yours, macho competition, with military hardware his chosen measure. Recall the equally uncoded tweet directed at Kim Jong-un last month, when the US president urged someone to tell the North Korean dictator that Trump’s “nuclear button” is a “much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
Opponents can react to this in one of two ways. Mockery is the obvious response, seeing in Trump’s desire to display US tanks and rocket launchers on Pennsylvania Avenue the same transparent insecurity as the mid-life crisis neighbour who suddenly turns up with a Ferrari in the driveway.
Or we can be more sober, and regard this as just the latest and potentially most spectacular demonstration of Trump’s authoritarian instincts. Just as he has repeatedly expressed admiration for strongmen in the Vladimir Putin mode, just as he regards the machinery of the state as his personal staff – casually referring to “my justice department” or “my generals” – and just as this week he suggested that those who refuse to applaud him are “treasonous”, so this is yet more proof that Trump’s instincts are those of the autocrat. Little wonder that he wants to take the salute at the kind of military display more associated with Moscow or Pyongyang than Washington DC.
The trouble with both those responses, however, is that they fail to take account of the fact that many millions of Americans might well like such a show. While progressives might complain about the banana republic militarism, while fiscal conservatives will worry about the huge cost of diverting all that kit to the capital and while the city itself frets about the damage 70-tonne tanks are liable to do to its roads, a large chunk of US society will want to rise to its feet and applaud.
That would be true of any event involving the military, whose place in American national life is now all but sacred. Fox News, the Republicans and the conservative media-industrial complex will waste no time in saying the parade is a celebration of the troops – and therefore any critic is really criticising “the young men and women who heroically defend America’s freedom and put themselves in harm’s way”, or words to that effect.
It means opponents will have to be canny. A counter-demonstration could easily be cast as unpatriotic, hostile to those in uniform, rather than to the commander-in-chief (who, of course, dodged military service himself, later claiming his battle to avoid contracting a sexually transmitted disease despite intense promiscuity was his “personal Vietnam”). But there is an opening here nonetheless.
If Trump wants to show his strength on the streets, the opposition can do the same. Perhaps it could organise an alternative parade, whose theme is mockery of the would-be despot. And given the neurotic insecurity we know propels this man, I have an idea for the central display. While the armoured cars rumble down Pennsylvania Avenue and fighter jets fly over the Washington Monument, the rival procession could feature a giant effigy of Donald J Trump – with tiny, tiny hands.
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am writing you about an issue of grave consequence that affects the lives of millions of Americans and greatly impacts our democracy - namely the continued federal prohibition on marijuana and the need for reform of our criminal justice system.
