During his campaign for president, I’ve called Mr. Donald Trump a madman, a lunatic, and a megalomaniac; he has not let me down so far, and now, sincerely believe he is a nuclear nihilist. In the microcosm of sheer, untainted lunacy that is Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed, he has seemingly outdone himself this time with his latest terrifying social media rant. Mr. Trump recently said via Tweeter, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” Yikes!
Quite the contrary Mr. President-elect. It seems like the world has come to its senses considering most countries are participants in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; this treaty seeks to reduce propagation, and development of weaponized nuclear technology; it has done so successfully for decades with few exceptions.
Few countries have weaponized nuclear capability. The nuclear club is restricted to only nine nations: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. North Korea is currently being sanctioned for its nuclear malfeasance in violation of international law.
From this list, United States and Russia have over 90% of the nuclear weapons, and Russia’s technology is antiquated – right now. The United States and its new-found frenemy Russia have approximately 7,000 nuclear weapons a piece. Both countries have the ability to abolish the Earth several times over.
Trump’s tirade comes on the same-day Russian President Vladimir Putin, much more graciously I should add, announced he would expand Russia’s own nuclear arsenal. Does Trump have a suicide pact with Putin? If so, can he leave the rest of us out of it? While it should go without saying, the more nuclear weapons in circulation, the higher the probability those nukes could end up in the wrong hands.
Mr. Trump’s simple, yet controversial nuke Tweet could trigger an arms race. However, from these latest news reports, this is something Trump doesn’t seem too concerned about. Trump, mind you, is the same individual who was nonchalant about countries like Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons. Yes, Saudi Arabia; nothing bad ever came from that country (sarcasm) besides a group of pissed-off terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
Nuclear weapons are serious business, but tell that to Mr. ‘nuke happy’ Trump. America needs to take a stern look at its nuclear weapon's capability before flirting with expanding an arsenal that already exponentially exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. If not, wear a lot of sun-block because the chances of a nuclear holocaust devouring the world will greatly increase.
Matt Fecteau ([email protected]) of Pawtucket, Rhode Island was a Democratic candidate for office in 2014 and 2016. He is a former White House national security intern and Iraq war veteran.
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"We don't really know what a Trump presidency means for the nation, never mind the smallest state. One of the unintended consequences of last night's results is that Sen. Jack Reed won't be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Chalk that up as a loss for RI."
"Trump’s win means that his signature issue, illegal immigration, could have a big impact on RI, hopefully reversing our course as a sanctuary state and saving the state taxpayer millions of dollars. While we agree with his 'repeal and replace' Obamacare stance, we have no idea what that means to the RI debacle known as UHIP. It is not a stretch to believe that federal funding for this kind of system will be off the table so, will RI be stuck with this massively expensive system that still doesn’t work and that is expected to cost another $124 million to fix?
Trump's belief that there is significant fraud in the Food Stamp program and the policies that may come from that belief could have a negative impact on RI's local economy since there are businesses in certain cities that rely heavily on this program, fraud and all. On the upside, we may be able to ditch the UHIP program if there is significantly less need for processing welfare program requests (ie. Medicaid and food stamps) resulting from fewer illegal immigrants and less fraud. While we are ambivalent about his touted child care policies, if enacted, it may force our legislators to revisit the ever growing state cost of subsidies in this area and possibly reduce the fraud and abuse in this system."
"The RI congressional delegation just became even less powerful than it was. With unified government, Trump doesn’t need to quell Democrats’ concerns or acquiesce because he’s worried about a Democratically-controlled Senate.
His appointments will reflect that. His executive orders will affect that. And the conservative policy agenda he puts forward will affect that."
"Well there's a few things -- because there's not going to be gridlock, that's a big difference if it had been Hillary and a GOP Congress, in which nothing would got done. We'll at least get a half a billion in infrastructure that's going to pass which will have an impact.
I think you'll see there will be reduced reliance on government nationally -- and that's where we'll stick out like sore thumb. We've relied way too much on government -- and our government is highly inefficient and ineffective. Maybe, just maybe, in this who cycle of things we might be forced to be small and more efficient for once.
A couple of other things -- interest rates jumped. The one to follow is the ten year government bond rate -- which is tied to mortgages. It went from 1.7% to 2.05% in one day. The point is -- if the ten year stays high, mortgage rates will start going higher -- and in the short time people will run to re-finance.
That's the short term impact -- but then if rates stay hight, that will make mortgages more out of reach. And we just passed a bond issue to limit open space -- housing has limited upside here.
The next thing -- the Fed Reserve will go ahead with tightening next month. A strong dollar will hurt manufacturing. When the dollar is strong our exports become more expensive overseas.
Our goods production sector -- manufacturing and construction -- in the near term will do a little better, but as time goes on will be more limited. But something you won't hear, is there are lags in fiscal policy, of six months to year. So we won't really see the effects until the third our fourth quarter of 2017, going into 2018."
"As the unbelievable turned into reality this morning, it struck me that the presidential election was not really all about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was about a fed-up people, revolting against a corrupt system - the "beast" - that relentlessly favors insiders. Hillary personified the beast, while Donald personified the slayer.
Sadly, based on election results in our state, Rhode Island's version of the beast lives on. I fear our political class has not learned the lessons from the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump movements - and will continue with their government-centric, anti-family, anti-business status quo."
"A Trump Presidency means the validation of the ugliest part of America. In RI, as with the rest of the country, the hammer of his hatred will fall hardest on minority communities. Being a blue state doesn't make us immune from this danger.
Trump won over 35% (39.5) of the vote here! We need to look in the mirror, and not lie about what the reflection shows us. No more hiding underneath a blue blanket. I expect those who claim Democratic values to be true to those values. The gulf between words and actions have turned into fertile ground for Trump's message to grow here in RI. If you call yourself a Democrat, if you claim to stand in opposition to Trump, now is the time to prove it. Show up and fight back."
