TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

The General US Politics Thread

Go To

Nov 2023 Mod notice:


There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.

If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.

Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.

If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.


In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#249301: Jul 16th 2018 at 6:08:07 PM

[up]x5 A plus side of him not giving a shit is that he hasn't really made any changes to the mission there. We should be worried when he takes interest.

[up]x4 It's impossible to kill every single terrorist. Gen. Mc Chrystal famously had his "insurgent math", saying that if you have 20 insurgents and you kill 10 rather than having 10 left you now have 50. It is quite literally impossible defeat an insurgency with military might alone.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jul 16th 2018 at 6:08:23 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#249302: Jul 16th 2018 at 6:27:14 PM

Well, with negotiating with terrorists, the issue is largely that they usually don't want what they claim to want. You give terrorists a bit of what they claim to want, they'll usually move the goalposts and keep hurting you.

Leviticus 19:34
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#249303: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:17:48 PM

what's the alternative?

Let the government of Afghanistan noegtiate with them instead of insisting that the US knows better than the Afghan people?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249304: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:19:50 PM

Uh... Charles, the Taliban was a government that held control of Afghanistan the country. It was not, itself, a country.

As much as I would love for that to be the case, they control Northern Pakistan and a good chunk of Afghanistan.

It's now a terrorist organization and the US offering to "negotiate" with it is... rather presumptive and kind of disrespectful to the current Afghani government.

They're awful people but what, specifically, makes them a terrorist organization versus the remains of the Taliban government?

We're not the ones who have to live with these guys as our neighbors. Anything done without the government of Afghanistan is going to be bad. (An offer to facilitate or be involved is the more diplomatic way to phrase that kind of thing, I think.)

I think Trump negotiating with them is an incredibly stupid thing which will end horribly but Obama tried to negotiate an end to the Afghan war multiple times before the Taliban decided against it.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#249306: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:23:15 PM

Protestors, or his own staffers?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#249307: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:23:41 PM

[up]Pretty sure they're protestors. Though it would be incredibly satisfying to have a whole throng of staffers calling him 'traitor.'

Edited by kkhohoho on Jul 16th 2018 at 9:24:32 AM

BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#249308: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:27:10 PM

[up]Agreed. And a lot of people who worked at his businesses or on his buildings but weren't paid.

Edited by BearyScary on Jul 16th 2018 at 6:29:25 AM

Do not obey in advance.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#249309: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:28:15 PM

https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1018961456098828289?s=19

NEW: I can confirm that the US Congressman who allegedly met with Butina and Torshin in August 2015 in Moscow was Dana Rohrabacher. https://t.co/0Kw0xgDpym

https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1018961965639536640?s=19

Congressional records show that Rohrabacher and Paul Behrends were in Moscow in August 2015: https://t.co/kJF9eHBCnO

JBC31187 Since: Jan, 2015
#249310: Jul 16th 2018 at 7:54:02 PM

I don't know where we go from here. The Republicans had all the levers of power before Trump publicly announced his and their treason.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249311: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:07:37 PM

We have a trope for Trump now.

The Quisling.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#249312: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:16:03 PM

For those of us who can't keep our Russian agents straight, Rohrabacher - A Trump shill up there with Nunes - met with Mariia Butina. To quote the New York Times:

A Russian woman who tried to broker a secret meeting between Donald J. Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, during the 2016 presidential campaign was charged Monday and accused of working with Americans to carry out a secret Russian effort to influence American politics.

At the behest of a senior Russian government official, the woman, Mariia Butina, made connections through the National Rifle Association, religious organizations and the National Prayer Breakfast to try to steer the Republican Party toward more pro-Russia policies, court records show.

Torshin is mostly the same. Russian NRA-lover who is also a Putin crony.

tsstevens Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did from Reading tropes such as Righting Great Wrongs Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: She's holding a very large knife
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
#249313: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:19:09 PM

If Trump found Putin in bed with Ivanka which side would he get into?

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#249314: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:26:08 PM

Let's not go down that route.

Besides, Putin would be more likely to invite Trump to join an orgy with the Russian prostitutes he is so proud of.

Disgusted, but not surprised
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#249315: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:26:53 PM

Former Congressman and Tea Party pundit Joe Walsh has announced he will never vote for Trump.

It's looking like this event is pushing away even those who aren't in the cult of Trump.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
JBC31187 Since: Jan, 2015
#249316: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:29:37 PM

Eh, once again, the Republicans need to put up or shut up.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249317: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:30:50 PM

Man, I don't care if it cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Putin got a deal with Trump.

He managed to defeat the United States in the Second Cold War without firing a shot.

He learned well from us.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#249318: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:35:24 PM

Man, I don't care if it cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Putin got a deal with Trump.
... What deal?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#249319: Jul 16th 2018 at 8:38:29 PM

Charles is saying Putin got way more than his money's worth when he helped get Trump elected. He got a sweet deal.

Edited by Parable on Jul 16th 2018 at 8:38:17 AM

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#249320: Jul 16th 2018 at 9:03:06 PM

[up]x8 didn't The NY Times call him "Putin's favorite Congressman" as well?

Also

Edited by megaeliz on Jul 16th 2018 at 12:04:45 PM

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#249321: Jul 16th 2018 at 9:21:15 PM

Heck, the Republican House Majority Leader even said he thinks Rohrabacher is on Putin's payroll.

tsstevens Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did from Reading tropes such as Righting Great Wrongs Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: She's holding a very large knife
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
#249322: Jul 16th 2018 at 10:01:51 PM

It's official, having bent the knee to Putin Trump has gone full Soviet.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#249323: Jul 16th 2018 at 11:14:38 PM

Mmm, as long as the IC and military operate relatively independently you can survive. Although the damage to the political system and prestige will last a long time.

Edited by TerminusEst on Jul 16th 2018 at 11:16:36 AM

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#249324: Jul 17th 2018 at 12:40:43 AM

Over a year later, we learn back in March 2017 two security experts for the Department of Energy were supposed to keep a eye out on some plutonium and cesium while returning the radioactive materials from a non-profit lab to the Idaho National Lab, but they left them in their vehicle while staying at a hotel in a high crime area in San Antonio where it got stolen after their vehicle was broken into.

And the kicker? The federal government declined to say where the missing radioactive materials went to or if they've been recovered.

    Article 
Two security experts from the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio, Texas, in March 2017 with a sensitive mission: to retrieve dangerous nuclear materials from a nonprofit research lab there.

Their task, according to documents and interviews, was to ensure that the radioactive materials did not fall into the wrong hands on the way back to Idaho, where the government maintains a stockpile of nuclear explosive materials for the military and others.

To ensure they got the right items, the specialists from Idaho brought radiation detectors and small samples of dangerous materials to calibrate them: specifically, a plastic-covered disk of plutonium, a material that can be used to fuel nuclear weapons, and another of cesium, a highly radioactive isotope that could potentially be used in a so-called "dirty" radioactive bomb.

But when they stopped at a Marriott hotel just off Highway 410, in a high-crime neighborhood filled with temp agencies and ranch homes, they left those sensors on the back seat of their rented Ford Expedition. When they awoke the next morning, the window had been smashed and the special valises holding these sensors and nuclear materials had vanished.

More than a year later, state and federal officials don't know where the plutonium – one of the most valuable and dangerous substances on earth – is. Nor has the cesium been recovered.

No public announcement of the March 21 incident has been made by either the San Antonio police or by the FBI, which the police consulted by telephone. When asked, officials at the lab and in San Antonio declined to say exactly how much plutonium and cesium were missing. But Idaho lab spokeswoman Sarah Neumann said the plutonium in particular wasn't enough to be fashioned into a nuclear bomb.

It is nonetheless now part of a much larger amount of plutonium that over the years has gone quietly missing from stockpiles owned by the U.S. military, often without any public notice.

The administration also touted the strength of its tracking of such materials, which it said would "ensure timely detection and investigation of anomalies, and deter insider theft/diversion." It further boasted about its transparency, explaining that it "has published studies and reviews of nuclear security incidents, including lessons learned and corrective actions taken."

President Donald Trump, speaking to a military audience at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, on Aug. 21, 2017, parroted the Obama administration's refrain that "we must prevent nuclear weapons and materials from coming into the hands of terrorists and being used against us, or anywhere in the world for that matter."

The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released in February, similarly emphasized the threat posed by nuclear terrorism, and asserted that "preventing the illicit acquisition of a nuclear weapon, nuclear materials, or related technology and expertise by a violent extremist organization is a significant U.S. national security priority."

But America's record of safeguarding such materials isn't sterling. Gaps between the amount of plutonium that nuclear weapons companies have produced and the amount that the government can actually locate occur frequently enough for officials to have created an acronym for it – MUF, meaning "material unaccounted for."

Just a cat or a brick

The gaps have shown up at multiple nodes in the production and deployment cycle for nuclear arms: at factories where plutonium and highly-enriched uranium have been made, at storage sites where the materials are held in reserve, at research centers where the materials are loaned for study, at waste sites where they are disposed, and during transit between many of these facilities.

Production of the bomb materials was so frantic during the Cold War that a total of roughly six tons of the material – enough to fuel hundreds of nuclear explosives – has been declared as MUF by the government, with most of it presumed to have been trapped in factory pipes, filters, and machines, or improperly logged in paperwork. (That figure, which dates from 2012, has not been publicly updated.)

Regarding transfers to academic researchers, government agencies, or commercial firms within the United States, the Energy Department's inspector general concluded in 2009 –the most recent public accounting – that at least a pound of plutonium and 45 pounds of highly-enriched uranium loaned from military stocks had been officially listed until 2004 as securely stored, when in fact it was missing.

As little as nine pounds of highly-enriched uranium (the weight of an average cat) or 7 pounds of plutonium (the weight of a brick) can produce a functioning nuclear warhead, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. So the missing amount in this category alone — the MUF stemming from loans to researchers from military stocks — is still enough to produce at least five nuclear bombs comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, experts say. Plutonium in any quantity is also highly carcinogenic.

"Considering the potential health risks associated with these materials and the potential for misuse should they fall into the wrong hands, the quantities written off were significant," the inspector general's report stated. It also said the Energy Department still "may be unable to detect lost or stolen material."

No independent probe of the department's capabilities has been conducted since then. When asked repeatedly whether the GAO conclusions were still valid, a spokesman for the department did not respond.

The details of how or why U.S. nuclear materials go missing from military stocks – or the quantity of such materials involved in individual incidents — are not disclosed by the government. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission annually publishes a tally of lost, missing or stolen radioactive material from civilian nuclear stocks (those typically used for oil and gas exploration, medical purposes, academic research and nuclear power).

In a Jan. 2018 report, for example, the NRC stated during the previous year, eight such items had gone missing and two had not been recovered. None were of the type or quantity useable in a nuclear weapon. Whenever additional material goes missing, the NRC discloses it publicly.

Sloppiness in transit

Ensuring appropriate protections are in place for military-related nuclear materials has ironically proven a lot harder than implementing tight security for civilian nuclear materials, said Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, who participated in the NTI study. "Politically and diplomatically, it's a lot more difficult," Pomper said. "We're not having significant conversations on this issue."

In the San Antonio incident, the San Antonio police were dumbfounded that the experts from Idaho did not take more precautions. They "should have never left a sensitive instrument like this unattended in a vehicle," said Carlos Ortiz, spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department.

'Nothing short of catastrophic': What officials didn't tell the public about toxic disasters post-Harvey

The personnel from Idaho National Laboratory whose gear was stolen were part of the Off-Site Radioactive Source Recovery Program based at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, with an annual budget of about $17 million. Overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the program has scooped up more than 38,000 bits of radioactive material loaned to research centers, hospitals and academic institutions since 1999 – averaging 70 such missions a year. No state has returned more borrowed nuclear materials than Texas, where the recovery program has collected 8,566 items.

Details of the incident were pieced together by the Center for Public Integrity from a police report obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request after a brief description of the incident appeared in an internal Energy Department report.

While the Idaho National Laboratory depicted the site of the theft – a Marriott hotel parking lot — in a report to the Energy Department as a secure spot with high walls on two sides, a clear line of sight to the hotel's front door, and patrolling guards, San Antonio police statistics show that theft was just one of 87 at the Marriott hotel or its parking lot in 2016 and 2017.

Ortiz said the department called an FBI liaison to a joint terrorism taskforce, who advised them to take as many fingerprints in the car as possible. But detectives found no useable prints, no worthwhile surveillance video of the crime, and no witnesses. A check of local pawn shops – to see if someone had tried to sell the sensors – turned up nothing.

One of the Idaho National Laboratory specialists told them, Ortiz said, "that it wasn't an important or dangerous amount" of plutonium. So they closed the investigation to avoid "chasing a ghost," Ortiz said.

Idaho National Laboratory spokeswoman Sarah Neumann responded that "from INL's perspective, the theft was taken seriously" and properly reported to the police and the Energy Department. But she declined to say if those involved faced any internal consequences. "There is little or no danger from these sources being in the public domain," she said.

Lab documents state that a month after the incident, one of the specialists charged with safeguarding the equipment in San Antonio was given a "Vision Award" by her colleagues. "Their achievements, and those of their colleagues at the laboratory, are the reasons our fellow citizens look to INL to resolve the nation's big energy and security challenges," Mark Peters, the lab director, said in an April 21, 2017, news release.

At the end of the fiscal year 2017, the Energy Department awarded the lab contractor that employed the guards assigned to pick up the nuclear material, Battelle Energy Alliance LLC, an "A" grade and described their overall performance as "excellent." It further awarded them 97 percent of their available bonuses, providing $15.5 million in profit, and in December 2017 the Department of Energy announced a five-year extension of Battelle's contract to operate Idaho National Laboratory, giving the contractor the job until at least 2024.

The NRC, in contrast, has imposed six financial penalties on civilian institutions that lost or mishandled nuclear materials in the past year and a half alone (it has imposed and then waived penalties on another 20 institutions during this period). The largest penalty imposed was $22,500 against Qal-Tek Associates, a radiation detector manufacturer in Idaho Falls, for failing to "contain" radioactive materials during their transport, according to a published notice of the fine.

The most recent NRC fine was imposed this May against Idaho State University for its inability to find a quarter-sized piece of plutonium in a radiation meter that it had borrowed from Idaho National Laboratory in 1991. An Idaho State University employee conducting an inventory of such materials last October expected to find 14 of the Plutonium-239 pieces, each weighing less than four-hundredths of an ounce, but found just 13. The inspector reported this discrepancy to the university's radiation safety officer, who in turn reported it to the NRC.

The NRC imposed fines totaling $8,500 for the college's mishandling of the plutonium, and the years-long delay in reporting it missing. Idaho State University paid the fines June 6, according to Cornelis Van der Schyf, the university's vice president for research and dean of the graduate school. The missing plutonium's whereabouts remain unknown.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#249325: Jul 17th 2018 at 12:47:06 AM

Ugh, what kind of fucking idiot leaves their valuables like that in the car? Even if it weren't a high crime area that'd be a bad idea. The fact that it's radioactive shit makes it so much worse.

And they left it in the back seat. In full view of any would-be thief. They didn't even store it in the trunk.

Edited by M84 on Jul 18th 2018 at 3:49:23 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised

Total posts: 417,856
Top