The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Despite ‘Peace’ Talk, Trump Inched Closer To Armageddon In 2018

Despite ‘Peace’ Talk, Trump Inched Closer To Armageddon In 2018

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

 

Twelve months ago, Donald Trump rang in the new year by reminding the world that he could, at any moment, start a nuclear war just as easily as he sends a misguided tweet. It was only the second day of 2018 when Trump bragged about the size and power of his “nuclear button” compared to Kim Jong Un’s, raising the specter of an apocalyptic war.

Since then, Donald Trump’s personal relationship with the North Korean dictator has been transformed — but the threat of nuclear conflict has only grown, thanks to the failed foreign policy adventures of Trump and his war hawk advisers Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.

Trump’s dangerous bromance with Kim Jong Un

In 2018, Trump abandoned his earlier threats of “fire and fury” against the North Korean regime for handshakes and photo ops. Trump started blindly trusting Kim, even declaring, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” after his meeting with Kim in June.

While Trump did a victory lap, however, Kim’s government ramped up its production of nuclear weapons. Intelligence agencies believe North Korea is hiding at least 16 ballistic missile bases which could be used to launch ICBMs carrying nuclear bombs across the Pacific Ocean to hit targets virtually anywhere in the United States.

There has been no progress toward the disarmament Trump claims to have negotiated.

Yet Trump advisers like his new North Korean envoy, Stephen Biegun, keep repeating Trump’s lie (or delusion) that Kim promised to give up his nukes — even though the actual text of the agreement between the two men says no such thing.

Trump’s newfound bromance with Kim might seem less terrifying than his previous threats to “totally destroy” North Korea, but it could actually worsen the threat of a future war.

Trump cannot fake disarmament forever, and North Korea has now begun threatening to resume testing nuclear weapons if it does not get sanctions relief from the U.S.

If and when Trump’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea collapse, Trump may see war with his nuclear-armed opponent as the only alternative.

Trump is unlikely to be dissuaded from such a dangerous conflict by his radical new national security adviser, John Bolton, who joined the administration this spring. Bolton has argued that an American first strike against North Korea would be “perfectly legitimate.”

Walking away from a good deal in Iran

Since joining the White House, John Bolton also helped Donald Trump raise the odds of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East by trashing the Iranian Nuclear Deal.

Before the deal, Iran appeared to be on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons it could use to threaten, or even attack, Israel or American forces in the Middle East.

Unlike Trump’s fake nuclear deal with North Korea, this one was actually working. Trump walked away from it anyway.

Former CIA Director John Brennan called Trump’s decision both “foolish” and “dangerous.”

Not only does killing the deal raise the possibility that Iran will restart its quest for nuclear weapons, it also undermines the administration’s efforts to cut a real nuclear deal of its own with North Korea.

Meanwhile, Bolton and Trump have spent the second half of 2018 threatening Iran, further increasing the odds the Iranian regime will try to secure nuclear weapons to defend itself.

Courting disaster in Russia and beyond

Frighteningly, the Iranian Nuclear Deal is not even the only nuclear deal Trump and Bolton managed to tear up in 2018.

At Bolton’s direction, Trump also announced the United States would exit the landmark Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). The decades-old treaty, which banned nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, was designed to decrease the odds of a nuclear war breaking out in Europe.

By walking away from the INF, Trump has recklessly introduced the chance that both Russia and the U.S. could redeploy these weapons across Europe in 2019 and beyond.

And if all of that is not enough to keep you up way past midnight this New Year’s Eve, consider this: This year, the Trump administration quietly announced its intent to make it even easier for Donald Trump, possibly the most impulsive and unstable president in American history, to use nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review recommends the U.S. create a new class of “low-yield” nuclear weapons. The smaller nuclear weapons it proposes could be used in a wider range of conflicts than the current arsenal.

According to the Pentagon’s 2018 report, our existing nuclear bombs are too big and destructive to be used in a conflict against Russia or China without immediately triggering global nuclear war.

But that’s been the whole point of U.S. nuclear policy before Trump: Making the consequences of using nuclear weapons so terrible that no country would dare to use them in a first strike, or ever. It’s not actually a good thing to make it easier for a president to decide to use the most destructive weapons ever created.

Nobody actually knows how Russia or China would react to a “small” nuke landing at their doorstep. But it’s really not worth finding out.

Taken together, Trump’s 2018 foreign policy looks like it could kick off the type of destructive worldwide conflict that was unthinkable prior to his presidency.

That’s the bad news, but there is a silver lining: Democrats in the House are ready to put the brakes on Trump’s out-of-control nuclear policy when they take control next month. They plan to block funding for Trump’s so-called mini-nukes, and could even introduce reforms that would block any president from using nuclear weapons without congressional authorization.

Donald Trump spent 2018 making the world a more dangerous place. In 2019, Democrats have the chance to make it safe again.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

 

White House Hid Ivanka’s Use Of Private Email Account

White House Hid Ivanka’s Use Of Private Email Account

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

 

White House officials tried to hide details about Ivanka Trump’s troubling use of a private email account used for government business, according to a bombshell new report by The Washington Post.

From December 2016 throughout last year, Ivanka sent hundreds of emails to government officials potentially in violation of the Presidential Records Act. Her use of the account under a personal domain created by her and husband Jared Kushner caused concern throughout the White House, according to the report.

However, when Politico first revealed the private Ivanka-Jared domain last year, White House officials let Kushner take the fall. Coverage at the time focused on Kushner’s use of the private account to conduct government business without being archived, and the original report stated there was “no indication” Ivanka used the account for government business.

The White House insisted that Kushner’s use of the account was limited and claimed fewer than one hundred emails were ever sent from Kushner’s account.

While Democrats in Congress demanded that Kushner immediately preserve those emails, White House officials intentionally remained silent about Ivanka’s own rampant misuse of the family domain.

“She was the worst offender in the White House,” a former government official told The Washington Post.

The White House moved quietly to end Ivanka’s use of the private account in September 2017 and to meet the requirements of the Presidential Records Act without attracting any attention. As part of the process, Ivanka’s personal attorney reviewed the emails and allegedly passed along ones pertaining to government business to the White House Counsel’s Office.

However, The White House Counsel’s Office was never granted access to the account — meaning Ivanka and her team personally decided what material would be preserved, according to Washington Post reporter James Hohmann. It seems the Trump family and complicit White House staffers hoped that would be the end of it.

Now with the secret out, the White House is in damage control mode.

A spokesperson for Ivanka’s ethics counsel claims the whole thing was just a big, innocent misunderstanding and that Ivanka had not been given proper “guidance” on emails and federal record keeping.

“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” the spokesperson said.

In other words, Ivanka used a private email address to conduct government business despite having an official government email and despite her father just wrapping up a campaign that made his opponent’s use of a private email address its defining issue.

This, of course, raises many important concerns and questions — perhaps the most pressing of which is, when will Trump start calling to “lock her up”?

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

 

Nuke Treaty Blowup Is Trump’s Latest Gift To Putin

Nuke Treaty Blowup Is Trump’s Latest Gift To Putin

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.

By Bernie Dennler III

 

 

Donald Trump told reporters this weekend that the United States will “terminate” the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a landmark arms control agreement with Russia that has helped keep global peace since the Cold War.

The U.S.-Russia treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, forced both countries to scrap all of their nuclear missiles that had a short enough range (500 to 5,500 km) to be launched in a surprise nuclear strike without early warning.

Trump justified the move by accusing Russia of having violated the agreement, and said they’ve “been violating it for years.” Indeed, U.S. and NATO officials have long criticized Russia for testing a cruise missile that they say violates the treaty.

But experts say that withdrawing from the INF isn’t the solution to that problem. In fact, they warn, leaving the INF benefits Russia and Russia only.

Michael Carpenter, former foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden, said Trump “will be handing Vladimir Putin a gift” if he follows through with withdrawing from the treaty.

“Our allies will be furious, while the only party that stands to benefit is Russia,” he said.

It seems strange on the surface for Trump to harshly criticize Putin over this issue, given his long-standing bromance with the Russian dictator.

But leaving the deal allows Trump to give Putin a significant victory. Now Russia can continue developing its treaty-violating weapons — while the U.S. gets all the diplomatic blowback for exiting the deal.

“It’s important to remember that Russia bears full responsibility for violating the INF Treaty in the first place, but this ill-considered move will make it look like the US is to blame,” Carpenter said.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) also blasted Trump’s shocking decision.

“If President Trump withdraws from INF first so Russia can justify its noncompliance, he is betraying NATO and Europe to do Putin’s bidding,” Sen. Markey said.

Already, the Russian government says it would be forced to “take measures” in response. That could involve openly deploying missiles banned under the INF. (Until now, Russia has denied it is violating the treaty.)

Meanwhile, Russian officials are placing blame for the INF’s demise squarely on the U.S., despite the fact that Russia was the first to violate the treaty.

“The decision is in line with the U.S. course to quit international agreements,” a Russian Foreign Ministry source told state media.

Trump’s decision fits conveniently into the Russian narrative that the U.S. is an untrustworthy global leader, especially on the heels of Trump’s withdrawals from other international agreements like the Paris Climate Accord, the Iranian Nuclear Deal, and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The ability to openly deploy short-range nuclear missiles is good news for the Kremlin and leaves the U.S. with few options to counter Russia unless other countries agree to house the controversial weapons — which would make those countries bigger targets in a nuclear strike.

“[I]t is unlikely the United States could persuade NATO, Japan, or South Korea to deploy” short-range nuclear missiles in their territory, said Steven Pifer, a non-proliferation expert at the Brookings Institute.

Trump claims exiting the deal will encourage Russia to return to compliance, but it would be a drastic step to take without holding any other summits or negotiations with Russia on the issue.

It’s possible Trump could have raised the issue of Russia’s noncompliance at his summit with Putin in Helsinki this summer — but we have no way of knowing that, because Trump refuses to disclose what they talked about.

We do know, however, that the Kremlin claims it is prepared to execute the “international security” agreements reached by Trump and Putin at that meeting.

But what those agreements are, and whether they have anything to do with Trump’s dangerous and destabilizing exit from the INF, remains a mystery.

Published with permission of The American Independent.