I am glad to see Velshi and a few others in the media looking at the big picture. I wish there was more of it.
"what digby sez..."
Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
This piece in the NY Times by a geriatrician is nicely done. As someone who is older and will be hitting those geriatric years sooner than I might like, the cruel ageist attitudes we’ve seen in recent days is more than a little bit depressing. I realize that Joe Biden is in the most high pressure difficult job in the world and we all have a perfect right to be concerned about his ability to handle it. (I only wish everyone was as concerned about his opponent’s obvious intellectual and character deficiencies.)
I think this is a sensitive analysis of what may be going on with Biden:
I’m a geriatrician, a physician whose specialty is the care of older adults. I watched the debate and saw what other viewers saw: a president valiantly trying to stand up for his record and for his nation but who seemed to have declined precipitously since the State of the Union address he gave only a few months earlier.
As a country, we are not having a complete or accurate discussion of age-related debility. I know no specifics — and won’t speculate here — about Mr. Biden’s clinical circumstances. But in the face of so much confused conjecture, I think it’s important to untangle some of the misunderstanding around what age-related decline may portend. Doing so requires understanding a well-characterized but underrecognized concept: clinical frailty.
As we age, everyone accumulates wear and tear, illness and stress. We can all expect to occasionally lose a night’s sleep, struggle with jet lag, catch a virus, trip and fall or experience side effects from medication. But for young and middle-aged people who are not chronically or seriously ill, these types of insults don’t usually change the way we function in the long term. This is not so for frail elders.
“Frailty” is not just a colloquial term; it’s a measurable clinical syndrome, first characterized by the geriatrician and public health expert Dr. Linda Fried, that describes a generalized decrease in physiological resilience to stress, injury and illness.
The field of geriatrics recognizes a number of conditions that are not diseases, per se, but signify how an aging body might become vulnerable, out of equilibrium and unable to overcome difficulty. These conditions result from the familiar hardships of age — declining vision and hearing, weakening muscles, brittle bones, brains that have suffered silent strokes, hardened arteries and the stress on hardworking organs that even a lifetime of healthy habits cannot entirely prevent.
Frailty is the most important, all-encompassing geriatric syndrome: It’s the framework we use to describe what others sometimes understand as the accumulating burdens of old age. Not everyone who is old is frail, and not everyone who is frail is old, but frailty is exceedingly common as people get older (it affects as many as a quarter of people who are over 85), and it often precedes serious debility and decline.
Much of the confusion surrounding Mr. Biden’s debate performance stems from his being described as having good days and bad days, rather than a more consistent level of functioning. These reports have been met with speculation and skepticism: Is he really ever doing all that well if, as reporting suggests, there have been multiple incidents of cognitive lapses that seem to be growing more frequent? Mustn’t this suggest some sort of cover-up about his condition?
Without knowing the specifics of the president’s health issues, I say: perhaps but not necessarily. A shifting ratio of good days and bad days is often how clinical frailty appears. The pattern of decline in frailty is a gradual dwindling of a person’s health, a line sloping slowly downward.
[…]
For frail elders, a gust of wind may be a cold or the side effects from taking cold medication. Or a bout of depression brought on by the grief and loss that is also an inherent feature of getting older or a stumble leading to a broken hip. Frailty can best be prevented and managed through assiduous self-care — exercise, sleep, a healthy diet to maintain one’s weight, careful management of medical conditions and ongoing, fulfilling relationships to stave off loneliness. But to a large extent, these are all harm-reduction efforts. Time marches forward, bodies decline, and the growing expectation that we might all live in perfect health until our 100th birthdays reflects a culture that overprizes longevity to the point of delusion.
Getting older often means accumulated wisdom, experience and even happiness, but it also means slowing down. Ours is a culture that greatly undervalues the potential contributions of older people who have so much to offer in terms of care, mentorship and experience and instead consistently portrays them as burdensome. To recognize that people are frail is not to think of them as no longer productive, dignified or wholly intact. It does not mean they are necessarily significantly cognitively impaired, nor does it mean they are imminently dying.
This does not answer the question of whether or not he can win the campaign which is the whole ballgame. In this era, most results are determined by party ID now with a few undecided voters who may or may not know or care about any of this so maybe it isn’t as important as we might think. One thing we do know is that every president ages in office due to the immense pressures of the job. Even the young ones look like they’ve been pummeled in a bar fight when it’s over.
As for whether he can be president for 4 years, I am skeptical. But as Stuart Stevens said this morning on MSNBC, worrying about that is like worrying about your cholesterol in the middle of a knife fight. It’s all about who can win and that is not obvious at this point. (Everyone voting for him knows the chances that the VP will end up taking over are high and will factor that into their vote. )
All that aside, I think this does offer a reasonable explanation for what may be happening with him that suggests all the hysteria about a “cover up” and the nasty reporting that cruelly degrades him is off base. These things don’t happen all at once and it’s not clear that people would have been specifically aware that something tangible had changed until recently.
The question he and others have to decide is whether having “good days and bad days” or being frail enough that he gets thrown off balance from stress and minor illness will keep him from being more able than Harris or someone else to beat Donald Trump. That’s all that matters right now and I don’t know the answer.
The one thing I do know is that Biden may have good days and bad days but every day with Donald Trump in the White House will be a nightmare.
They were LIED too!
I vividly recall when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke, the media and certain self-righteous Democrats all screamed in unison that they were livid that Clinton had lied to them about having extramarital sex. “He lied to ME!,” they cried, as if that was the real crime he had committed. I would have thought that after Trump, who lies more easily than he breathes, they would realize that little conceit is ludicrous.
President Biden has lost more than broad Democratic support since his bad debate. He has bled credibility — with the media, lawmakers, top officials and even his own paid staff.
It’s not clear if — and how — Biden recovers it, top Democrats tell us.
[…]
Axios’ Alex Thompson, the most deeply sourced reporter on the Biden beat, has chronicled, day after day, the number of longtime staff and top Democratic officials who feel deeply angry and misled. These are the president’s fans, many on his payroll.
Lawmakers and top Democrats feel duped by Biden … his press office … his campaign co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg … his top aides. They all promised the president was sharper than ever.
The media might be Biden’s biggest problem of all. It is a fair conservative critique that many reporters ignored obvious signs of cognitive decline. Yes, there are exceptions: Axios, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
I’ll say. In fact, I think it’s his biggest problem.
Alex Thompson is acting like a teenage mean girl on social media and he isn’t the only one. Many otherwise straight reporters have completely lost their minds. The snark, the trolling, the sheer nastiness of their reporting online and on air is overwhelming.
But get a load of this from Axios, patting itself on the back:
But one tell: Rarely did other outlets follow our exclusive reporting on accommodations for Biden’s aging — shorter hours for public appearances, fewer improvisational or late-night moments, and the rise in handlers and devices to help avoid tripping and falling. Some reporters enabled the White House by piling on reporters on social media who questioned Biden’s lucidity.
Do you think they might have a teensy agenda right now? Nah…
Ask yourself: What turn of events would keep Democrats, media and voters from watching every public appearance for hints of decline? How could reporters ever trust Biden aides after they tried to shame reporters who dared point out the obvious changes? How do they reassure lawmakers who now see Biden’s age and White House denialism as their problem?
- A top Democrat and Biden backer, asked how the president gets credibility back, said: “Get out of the race.”
- “No one is going to take anything at face value, that’s for sure,” New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker told us.
It goes on to quote Thompson’s reporting saying that Biden’s staff is second guessing everything that’s ever happened, apparently deciding that the administration’s accomplishments are irrelevant.
And they are teeing up phase two of the freak-put: the so-called “cover up.” They’re not going to let this go. Thompson is the guy who said this:
They actually think that the sitting VP is going to come out and say the president is a doddering old fool? On what planet do they live? And let’s say she did that. They would immediately call her a grasping, ambitious harpy trying to push him out so she can be president. It’s absurd, but expect to hear more of it. They want her out too.
More whining:
Now, Biden supporters are blaming the media for the feeding frenzy. This might be the hardest thing to control. Hell has no fury like a press corps deceived. Reporters feel duped — and some probably embarrassed —and are scrambling to unearth new evidence of decline.
This is not journalism. It’s a vendetta, little better than the horrific rhetoric spewing from the mouth of Donald Trump.
“I Am Your Retribution!” sayeth the media….
We know what they did to Hillary Clinton in 2016. And we know what they did to Al Gore in 2000. Both of them actually won their races if we were a normal democracy but lost because of GOP machinations and the vagaries of the electoral college — all made possible by the vicious media coverage that led up to the election. They were an intrinsic factor in the result and the consequences have been catastrophic.
I wish I could say that it would all go away if Biden drops out. But it won’t. I think the psychology at work is “Lord of the Flies” and when they finally take down their target they will explain it simply as the target being weak and unworthy. They have made several attempts to do it to Trump but he won’t go down. So in our toxic political culture with its twisted media incentives they will content themselves with taking down Biden instead — and very possibly his successor if he drops out. (The “cover-up” dontcha know.)
In so many respects, the media serves Trump’s main argument: “I am a strongman.” They respect that as much as any Trump voter.
They are servants of the cult.
*Just to be clear, I’m not sure if Biden will drop out and I have no idea if that’s the best way to go. I don’t think anyone can know that. I’m willing to let this play out for a bit to see how Biden, the people (through the polls) and Democratic officials assess the damage and decide a way forward. But I deeply resent this media game which has caused massive damage over the past 25 years and helped bring us to this place today. And they have never reckoned with their roles in it.
That’s just for starters.
Trump says that he doesn’t know the people involved or anything about it but he doesn’t agree with it. He’s not bright.
I do believe he doesn’t know — or care — about many of the policies in that document. He has a very narrow focus on trade, immigration and fucking over his enemies and rewarding his friends. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t perfectly find with his henchmen carrying out the rest of it. He only cares about himself and since he won’t be running again (whether because he observes the constitution or repeals it) anything they want to do is fine with him.
By the way:
I don’t even know if that’s real, but I do know that it could be.
2024 is about more than presidential candidates
As David Roberts (Dr. Volts) stated plainly on Friday, “This election is not a choice between two individuals, it’s a choice between worldviews, between futures. Do we want to continue down the path to multiethnic democracy or do we want to impose a white patriarchal Christian autocracy?”
While Democratic Party elites tear their hair out over Joe Biden’s debate performance and pretty uneventful interview with George Stephanopoulos broadcast Friday night, the Biden-Harris comms team is hammering Donald Trump on social media over Project 2025. (See below.)
Why and why now? Because Trump is doing his best Sgt. Schultz and running away from Project 2025. Don’t you let him.
Project 2025, the published 900-page plan for turning America into a fascist theocracy, is drawing more negative attention than, in their hubris, the Heritage Foundation and its Christian nationalist partners may have anticipated.
What is Trump’s internal polling showing him about ublic reaction?
Look, it’s been a tough week. As a famous movie cop once said, right now you’ve gotta ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?”
No? Then here are some articles for you to spread around and some social media posts to re-whatever. It’s a fine Saturday here and your local Democratic candidates would love to have your help stopping fascism.
Project 2025 sounds like the return of McCarthyism
Trump Denies Knowing About Project 2025, His Allies’ Sweeping Plan to Transform the US Government
Donald Trump Allies’ Project 2025 Comments Resurface after He Denies Role
Trump tries to distance himself from Project 2025 plan
Project 2025: The Trump presidency wish list, explained
Trump seeks to distance himself from pro-Trump Project 2025
Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution
So here are just a few @BidenHQ tweets from Friday tying Project 2025 around Trump’s neck like an albatross. You’ll also find them at bidenharrishq on Threads. No reason you cannot also repost them to Bluesky, Mastodon and Facebook.
The press is doing to Biden what it did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, as Roberts explained yesterday. Don’t sit around feeling victimized by it. Get busy.
A-a-a-a-nd. If you are still not convinced just where the Trump-Heritage Christian nationalist movement means to take this country — do to you — in 2025, Robert Reich offers a few details, But even those don’t convey just how insane this movement is.
This Republican is running for governor in North Carolina: “Some folks need killing. It’s time for somebody to say it… It’s a matter of necessity”
Update: Yes, Mark Robinson means you! And so does Stephen Miller.
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It’s demotivating
The spectacle of Democrats, hair afire, publicly second-guessing themselves to the nth degree over whether Joe Biden’s candidacy might demotivate voters is demotivating to me. I don’t want to vote for us when we act like this, and I’m a convention delegate. I wrote the other day that I haven’t heard this much magical thinking from the left since the last New Age convention I covered.
This thread by David Roberts, a.k.a. Dr. Volts, expresses a lot of that same frustration:
I haven’t written much about politics since the debate, mainly because I’m so overwhelmed by disgust & contempt toward this country’s media & commentariat that it has rendered me inarticulate with rage. Twitter probably doesn’t need more rage. I do just wanna make one point tho.
To be clear up front: I don’t give one tiny hot fuck who the Dem nominee is. I truly don’t. Biden’s fine. Harris is fine. A warm puddle of vomit is fine. *There is no conceivable resolution to the nomination fight that could change the basic calculus of this race.*
Preventing a fascist takeover of the US is my top priority–as a journalist, as a voter, as a human. If it isn’t yours too, you should feel bad about yourself. If you haven’t made the stakes of this election clear to everyone within the sound of your voice, you should feel bad.
But I’m not gonna rant. [breathes deeply] Just gonna make my one point, which is this: the idea that that the process of jettisoning Biden & choosing someone else will go well — will be *allowed* to go well — is a deeply deranged fantasy.
The idea that Dems will do this & will end up feeling unified, that Harris will come out popular, that “the dynamics of the race will shift,” all of that … fucking deranged. Deranged in such a perfectly characteristic Dem way.
“This person/policy/slogan/approach has been irredeemably slimed by Republicans & a hostile media — let’s throw it overboard!” That’s the Dem way. Always with this starry-eyed hope that they can reset, start over, get it right this time.
Just as one example — other people have aggregated these — there have been “calls” for every Dem nominee of the last 30 years to step aside. Dems practically delight in abandoning their own people, policies, & principles in response to bad-faith pressure. They f’ing love it.
But, as I’ve been saying for, oh, 20 years now, the situation is structural. The current situation is an outcome of a particular incentive structure & that structure will remain exactly the same if Harris takes over the ticket.
For centrists, journalists, pundits, *even Dem electeds*, the way you prove you are a Reasonable, Serious Person in DC is by shitting on Dems. For the left, the way you prove you are a true radical is by shitting on Dems. For the right … well, obviously.
Everyone’s professional incentives are to shit on Dems. Dwelling on Trump & his fascist movement — however justified by the objective facts — just doesn’t bring that juice, doesn’t get the clicks & the high-fives, doesn’t feel brave & iconoclastic. It’s just … no fun.
So, say Biden stepped aside in favor of Harris tomorrow. How long until the vapid gossips we call political reporters find something wrong with her, some alleged flaw they just have to write 192 stories about? How long until the hopped-up mediocrities we call pundits …
…find some “counter-intuitive” reason that the new Dem ticket is flawed after all? How long until the irredentist left gets over the temporary thrill of its new Harris memes & remembers that she’s a cop & turns on her? How long before the ambient racism & misogyny in the US…
I already have a tee shirt design: Cop Or Criminal? | Choose Wisely
… lead center-leftists to conclude that, sure, they’d support a black woman, just not *this* black woman? In other words: how long before everyone reverts to their comfortable, familiar identity & narratives?
(Behind the scenes here at Hullabaloo, we predicted the appearance of “but not this Black woman” a week ago.)
Bolding below mine.
About 30 f’ing seconds, is my guess.
Dems uniting, feeling good, telling a clear story, receiving credit for their accomplishments–all of that is *impossible* in the current environment. It won’t be allowed. Dems can punch themselves in the face all they want, abandon whoever they want, apologize all they want…
… they simply will not be allowed to turn the page & start fresh, because everyone’s incentives remain the same. If they did that, elites, including media elites, would have no choice but to openly & frankly grapple with Trump & what he represents & they *don’t want to*.
Everyone feels comfortable shitting on Dems — it’s just a cozy professional space. You get to feel brave & independent (just like all the replacement-level pundits around you) with zero risk.
Yes, it’s abysmal, contemptible cowardice on a genuinely embarrassing scale …
… but it is what it is & we should have no illusions that it will change with a change in the top of the ticket.
As @whstancil has been trying to tell you people (good god how he tries), the information environment is thoroughly corrupted.
For some reason, left pundits are pathologically averse to acknowledging that fact. And so they grasp at these straws — if we could just get rid of Biden, we could have a reasonable conversation! Yeah, sure. You absurd summer children.
This election is not a choice between two individuals, it’s a choice between worldviews, between futures. Do we want to continue down the path to multiethnic democracy or do we want to impose a white patriarchal Christian autocracy?
At stake is the entire federal civil service. The machinery of state built since WWII. Freedom & dignity for millions. Yes, democracy itself. That’s not an exaggeration. Yet this country’s elites have utterly failed to convey those stakes to the populace. A *grotesque* failure.
You can not look at this extraordinary media freakout this last week and not psychologize, not see all kinds of displacement. They can’t or won’t be serious about Trump & so they are fucking *giddy* at having permission to scold Dems again. Their safe place.
Anyway, my point is just: none of this will change if Harris replaces Biden at the top of the ticket. The idea that the media — with these soulless careerist court gossips in charge — will allow it is just fantasy. They *need* Dems in disarray & so they will engineer it.
The US is right on the precipice of falling into bona fide fascism & *the vast majority of the voting public doesn’t even know it*. That speaks to a deeply diseased information environment. Until Dems do something about that, all their self-flagellation will buy them nothing.
And so:
If you do nothing else today, stop obsessing about Biden losing and start busting your ass to save this your own life. Be the hero of your own story for a change. Tell your neighbors about Project 2025. Warn everyone that the same people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 have drafted plans for a fascist takeover of the United States NEXT YEAR if Trump wins.
Find your local Democratic headquarters and ask how you can help. Knock some doors. Flood social media. If you’re on Twitter, retweet Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ). They’ve got a full-court press going to call out Trump’s involvement with Project 2025. He’s trying to run away from it. They’re doing the same on Threads. Spread the news.
Post by @bidenharrishqView on Threads
Play some offense.
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Critters get hot too
A PSA for pet owners:
Practice basic summer safety
NEVER LEAVE YOUR PETS IN A PARKED CAR
Not even for a minute! Not even with the car running and air conditioner on. On a warm day, temperatures inside a vehicle can rise rapidly to dangerous levels. On an 85-degree day, for example, the temperature inside a car with the windows opened slightly can reach 102 degrees within 10 minutes. After 30 minutes, the temperature will reach 120 degrees. Your pet may suffer irreversible organ damage or die. Learn how to help a pet left inside a hot car by taking action or calling for help. Local law enforcement can follow this handy guide [PDF] on how to proceed.
Print our hot car flyer and spread the lifesaving word. Download the PDF
Watch the humidity
“High humidity amplifies the negative impact of high temperature on your pet—and in combination, these factors magnify the danger zone,” says Dr. Barbara Hodges, DVM, MBA, of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. “When animals pant, moisture from their lungs evaporates and helps reduce their body heat. But high humidity conditions hamper that process and their ability to cool themselves, and their body temperature can skyrocket—rapidly—to dangerous, or even lethal, levels.”
Taking a dog’s temperature will quickly tell you if there is a serious problem. Dogs’ temperatures should not reach over 104 degrees. If your dog’s temperature does, follow the instructions below for treating heat stroke.
Pet Cooling Items on Amazon.com
Limit exercise on hot days
Take care when exercising your pet. Adjust intensity and duration of exercise in accordance with the temperature. On very hot days, limit exercise to early morning or evening hours, and be especially careful with pets with white-colored ears, who are more susceptible to skin cancer, and short-nosed pets, who typically have difficulty breathing. Asphalt gets very hot and can burn your pet’s paws, so walk your dog on the grass if possible. Always carry water with you to keep your dog from dehydrating.
Don’t rely on a fan
Pets respond differently to heat than humans do. (Dogs, for instance, sweat primarily through their feet.) And fans don’t cool off pets as effectively as they do people.
Provide ample shade and water
Any time your pet is outside, make sure they have protection from heat and sun and plenty of fresh, cold water. In heat waves, add ice to water when possible. Tree shade and tarps are ideal because they don’t obstruct air flow. A doghouse does not provide relief from heat—in fact, it makes it worse.
Cool your pet inside and out
Whip up a batch of quick and easy DIY pupsicles for dogs. And always provide water, whether your pets are inside or out with you.
Keep your pet from overheating indoors or out with a cooling body wrap, vest or mat. Soak these products in cool water, and they’ll stay cool (but usually dry) for up to three days. If your dog doesn’t find baths stressful, see if they enjoy a cooling soak.
Watch for signs of heatstroke
Extreme temperatures can cause heatstroke. Some signs of heatstroke are heavy panting, glazed eyes, a rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, excessive thirst, lethargy, fever, dizziness, lack of coordination, profuse salivation, vomiting, a deep red or purple tongue, seizure and unconsciousness.
Animals are at particular risk for heat stroke if they are very old, very young, overweight, not conditioned to prolonged exercise, or have heart or respiratory disease. Some breeds of dogs—like boxers, pugs, shih tzus and other dogs and cats with short muzzles—will have a much harder time breathing in extreme heat.
How to treat a pet suffering from heatstroke
Move your pet into the shade or an air-conditioned area. Apply ice packs or cold towels to their head, neck and chest or run cool (not cold) water over them. Let them drink small amounts of cool water or lick ice cubes. Take them directly to a veterinarian.
Prepare for power outages
Before a summer storm takes out the power in your home, create a disaster plan to keep your pets safe from heat stroke and other temperature-related trouble.
Even setting aside his grotesque character, flagrant criminality and rank stupidity, Trump’s mind is also slipping precipitously. And that combination is a thousand times worse than Biden could ever do. It would be nice if the media could keep some perspective on all this. But since Trump is impervious to criticism because he’s a sociopath, they’ve decided to turn their ire on Biden instead. It’s so much more pleasant to have the right patting you on the back than issuing death threats.
Trump’s nuclear policy is all spelled out in a new conservative manifesto by Project 2025, a coalition of over 100 far-right groups led by the Heritage Foundation, which is widely seen as the template for a possible Trump 2.0 administration. If readers of the Bulletin have heard of Project 2025, chances are that they did not go through its 900-page book “Mandate for Leadership.” They should. This policy agenda, dubbed the “Conservative Promise,” is a blueprint for the most dramatic take-over and transformation of the US democracy in history.
The Project 2025 coalition members are staffed by over 200 former officials of the first Trump administration. These sophisticated Trump-movement MAGA operatives now know how to work the levers of government and have learned from what they see as their main mistake during Trump’s first term: leaving the “deep state” intact. These conservatives proudly served Donald Trump through his administration and attempted insurrection. They are now ready to help him complete the job and their plan is here for everyone willing to see.
“Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State,” writes Paul Dans, a former chief of staff of the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration and now the director of Project 2025, in his foreword to the report. Russ Vought, the chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump and now the president of the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America, agrees: “We have to be thinking mechanically about how to take these institutions over.” Vought vows to be “ready on Day One of the next transition,” adding, “Whatever is necessary to seize control of the administrative state is really our task.”
In the nuclear realm, “seizing control” would mean implementing the most dramatic build up of nuclear weapons since the start of the Reagan administration, some four decades ago. If this hawkish political coalition gets its way in November, the scope, pace, and cost of US nuclear weapons programs would increase all at once. Their plan, which seeks to significantly increase budgets and deployments of nuclear weapons and related programs and destroy the remaining arms control agreements, would dramatically increase the risks of nuclear confrontation as a result.
Nuclear proposals. The nuclear proposals are a key part of the Project 2025 coalition’s recommendations to reshape the Defense Department. This chapter is led by Christopher Miller, a former US Army special forces colonel who served as Trump’s last defense secretary. As Michael Hirsch reports in Politico, the agenda “is far more ambitious than anything Ronald Reagan dreamed up.” (In 1980, President Reagan ordered a massive nuclear buildup, which scholars now consider to have greatly escalated the Cold War.)
In condensed and translated form, Project 2025 proposes that a second Trump administration:
- Prioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs.
- Accelerate the development and production of all nuclear weapons programs.
- Reject any congressional efforts to find more cost-effective alternatives to current plans.
- Increase funding for the development and production of new and modernized nuclear warheads, including the B61-12, W80-4, W87-1 Mod, and W88 Alt 370.
- Develop a new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, even though neither the administration nor the Navy has requested such a weapon, and the Navy has not fielded this type of weapon since they were retired by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
- Increase the number of nuclear weapons above current treaty limits and program goals, including buying more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) than currently planned.
- Expand the capabilities of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons production complex, including vastly increasing budgets, shedding non-nuclear weapons programs at the national laboratories (such as those devoted to the climate crisis) and accelerating production of the plutonium pits that are the cores of nuclear weapons.
- Prepare to test new nuclear weapons, even though the United States has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that prohibits such tests and has not tested a full-scale nuclear device since 1992.
- Reject current arms control treaties that the coalition considers being “contrary to the goal of bolstering nuclear deterrence” and “prepare to compete in order to secure US interests should arms control efforts continue to fail.”
- Dramatically expand the current national missile defense programs, including deploying as-yet-unproven directed energy and space-based weapons, or as the report puts it: “Abandon the existing policy of not defending the homeland against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles.”
- Invest in a sweeping, untested “cruise missile defense of the homeland.”
- Accelerate all missile defense programs, national and regional.
These proposals would add unnecessary new weapons to an already expansive nuclear arsenal. If implemented, these new and expanded programs would accelerate the nuclear arms race the United States is already engaged in and encourage the expansion—or initiation—of new nuclear weapons programs in other nations around the globe.
He is, of course, all in on this. Because he knows about nuclear weapons. His uncle taught at MIT and he has the same genes. From 1986. (Trump hasn’t had a new idea in almost 40 years.)
Trump's eagerness to surrender to Russia is nothing new.
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) July 4, 2024
Even amidst total collapse of the USSR, Trump wanted to "negotiate", bowing to Moscow rather than just beating the bastards, which we did and can do again.
1986
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