Doanld Trump Speaking to Himself on Foreign Policy

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because

I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things."

(Donald Trump on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in early March 2016

when asked who he talks with consistently about foreign policy)

Now that President Donald Trump's handpicked National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn has been forced to resign, Trump can go back to speaking with himself about national security and foreign policy. Or he can just call the Russians directly, instead of having Flynn do it for him. You see, there's no way Michale Flynn, a 33-year veteran of the Army, calls the Russians without direction from his so-to-be Commander-in-Chief. And the "soon-to-be" qualifier matters, too. Donald Trump was not the president, nor Flynn his National Security Advisor, when these talks took place. Therefore, the talks were a violation of the Logan Act, which states, in part:

"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Whether or not prosecutors take action under the act, the law was broken, and if it can be shown that Donald Trump directed that Flynn contact the Russians to reassure them that President Obama's sanctions would be revoked once Trump was in office, then Trump is guilty of a gross misdemeanor and should be impeached. Furthermore, if it can be shown that Trump and/or his campaign staff colluded with the Russians on their interference in the 2016 Election, then we have a constitutional crisis of unparalleled dimensions.

Climate Change is Top Threat according to the Commander of US Forces Pacific

Reposted from Climate Science Watch

According to the Commander of U.S. Forces Pacific (PACOM), significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about."

Admiral Samuel Locklear had a meeting the other day with national security experts at Tufts and Harvard.  After this session, he met with a reporter who asked him asked what the top security threat was in the Pacific Ocean.  Rather than highlighting Chinese ballistic missiles, the new Chinese Navy aircraft carrier, North Korean nuclear weapons, or other traditional military threats, Admiral Locklear looked to a larger definition of national security.

Locklear commented that “People are surprised sometimes” that he highlights climate change — despite an ability to discuss a wide-range of threats, from cyber-war to the North Koreans.  However, it is the risks — from natural disasters to long-term sea-level rise threats to Pacific nations that has his deepest attention.

“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

Climate Change merits national security — military — attention for very pragmatic reasons. The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

And, Admiral Locklear is now — almost certainly with Joint Chiefs of Staff and Office of Secretary of Defense knowledge and support — taking this up seriously with other nations.

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

BANGLADESH (Nov. 24, 2007) An aerial view of damage to villages and infrastructure following Cyclone Sidr,

which swept into southern Bangladesh Nov. 15. The amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), as well as

elements of Amphibious Squadron 8 and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Special Operations

Capable (SOC) arrived off the coast of Bangladesh Nov. 23 to support ongoing disaster relief operations.

The Pacific region has seen some of the largest multi-national disaster relief operations.  Operation Sea Angel in 1991, following a devastating typhoon on Bangladesh, involved numerous military forces — including the Chinese Navy. Similarly, many nations used military forces to respond across the Indian Ocean to the disastrous December 2004 Aceh Tsunami.  Admiral Locklear is looking to the reality of mounting seas, more damaging severe weather, and looking to other climate impacts — and is working to set the stage for the region’s military forces to work together more effectively in responding to climate disruption driven disasters.

This interview is not an isolated comment by Admiral Locklear but an indication of increasing concern about and focus on climate change.  In December 2012, he raised climate change in a speech to the Asia Society. From this speech highlighting the importance and complexity of the Pacific region.  His first example of a non-region specific complicating issue: this complexity is magnified by a wide, diverse group of challenges…challenges that can significantly stress the security environment…. – Climate change – where increasingly severe weather patterns and rising sea levels will threaten our peoples and even threaten the loss of entire nations…and of course the inevitable earthquakes and tsunamis will continue to challenge all of us in a very unpredictable way as our planet ages. Just as today our friends and partners in the Philippines are dealing with the challenges of the most recent super typhoon.

Admiral Locklear spoke a month ago to the U.S. Indonesia Society. In the speech, he linked climate change to the military, the need for resiliency and the ability for coping with mounting disaster relief requirements. As Indonesia’s capabilities grow, the Indonesian military should also build on its tradition of contributing forces to U.N. peacekeeping operations…yet another area where the Indonesian and American militaries  can collaborate more closely to increase the level of interoperability between our forces.

While resilience in the security environment is traditionally understood as the ability to recover from a crisis, using the term in the context of national security expands its meaning to include crisis prevention.

With large populations vulnerable to the effects of climate change and natural disasters, both our nations have a significant interest in improving our ability to quickly respond and mitigate the ongoing risk these threats bring.

We learned how local communities prepare themselves for the inevitable disruptions are critical to the region’s efforts to maintain peace, security and prosperity. This means working on disaster response alone is no longer the answer for the types of scenarios that we face. Disaster risk reduction through mitigation, planning, and recovery that starts at the community level is required if we are to create more resilient societies. Private businesses and communities must look within and beyond their current capabilities to ensure that they are prepared to handle what may occur as a result of some catastrophe.

Admiral Locklear as a strong voice on climate change issues might surprise some.  Consider, for example, the range of Combatant Commander formal statements to Congress as to the discussion of climate change.  Writ large, not much there — and Admiral Locklear is no exception in that list.  Admiral Locklear has mentioned climate change before, such as commenting that it would be a stress factor in Europe (where he commanded Operation Odyssey Dawn, the attack on Qaddafi’s Libya during the Arab Spring).  That Admiral Locklear is putting climate change on the top of the long-term security challenge seems to be new — to be news.

That a four-star flag officer is publicly stating that climate change dominates the long-term strategic discussions in his command matters. It matters for the substance of discussion with other nations and for what this might portend for the highest levels of the U.S. military. (Sadly, there are reasons to expect the (older) uniformed military to be strongly climate denial — having a 4-star speak different can impact this.) It perhaps is most important because the military is a path toward serious cultural change as to a broader acceptance of the basic reality of climate change.  Who ‘listens’ when someone in uniform speaks?  For me, the military is one of the key institutions for changing Americans perspectives on clean energy and climate change.

While Rome Burns

While Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives "wile" away their time by shutting down the government and threatening to blow up the global economy by refusing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, the issues and activities that the federal government is required to manage continue apace. We all know that the shutdown has put thousands of people out of work, had devastating effects on veterans, hurt business, and stunted the recovery. But what many people seem not to realize, is that America's ability to effectively combat threats to national security has been degraded. The longer the shutdown goes on, the greater the risk that something will blow up in our face, figuratively or literally.

There are both domestic and foreign threats to consider. Iran, for example, under its new president, Hassan Rouhani, has launched a charm offensive to waylay fears over its nuclear program. Do we believe the program is strictly for peaceful purposes? No way. Do we know how close Iran is to realizing their ambition to create a nuclear weapons development capability? We have a close approximation. Is there a chance we can, through an coalition of foreign powers with similar concerns and interests, persuade Iran to accept limits on its nuclear developments? Yes; not a good chance, but worth a shot. How are we doing on the latter initiative? Not worth a damn. We're shut down.

North Korean scientists are thought to have attained the ability to build uranium-based nuclear bombs on their own, cutting the need for imports that had been one of the few ways outsiders could monitor the country's secretive atomic work. How are we doing tracking on the Hermit Kingdom's nuclear weapons and delivery systems? Who knows. We're shut down.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told Congress this week that the partial federal government shutdown has forced the furlough of some 70 percent of employees throughout the intelligence community. Intelligence agencies are focusing on the biggest threats: counter terrorism and nuclear nonproliferation. So some other issues, such as detecting and defending against cyberattacks and keeping an eye on ballistic missile launches around the world, have to fall by the wayside. Why? We're shut down.

The Department of Homeland Security has promised to stay on the job protecting Americans from foreign and domestic terrorists, but the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers run by DHS have shuttered training operations for federal agents. The closure of these services could delay when newer employees with the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection and Capitol Police can go on the job. Meanwhile, FBI activities are suspended for longer-term types of investigations of crimes that don't involve an immediate threat. Training and other support functions have been slashed. Hopefully, terrorists will do the right thing and take a break while Republicans continue their hissy fit over not winning the 2012 presidential election and insist on keeping the government shut down.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the nation's 100 commercial nuclear power plants, is set to furlough 3,600 employees on Thursday after depleting funds amid the government shutdown. The shutdown will disable non-emergency licensing of nuclear reactors, emergency exercises, and the inspection of nuclear materials and waste licensees. What will the impact be? Well, as Condoleezza Rice might say, let's hope it's not a mushroom cloud floating over some unfortunate city while FEMA is shut down.

The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they could handle recalls and high-risk foodborne outbreaks, but they are less likely to discover them because most of the people who investigate outbreaks have been furloughed. Routine food safety inspections conducted by FDA are suspended, so most food manufacturers won't have to worry about periodic visits from government inspectors to make sure their facilities are clean. U.S. food inspections abroad have also been halted.

I've always thought that America's leaky food inspection system presents terrorists a great target to create death and destruction. Americans would be well advised to either stop eating, or march on the Capital and tell the stupid-fuck House Republicans, "ENOUGH, ALREADY!!"

Stop this fucking SHUT DOWN!!!