Donald Trump Is Playing a Dangerous Game of Nuclear Poker

[Hermit-The-Prog]

By W.J. Hennigan February 1, 2018

Since 1993, the Department of Energy has had to be ready to conduct a nuclear test within two to three years if ordered by the President. Late last year, the Trump Administration ordered the department to be ready, for the first time, to conduct a short-notice nuclear test in as little as six months.

That is not enough time to install the warhead in shafts as deep as 4,000 ft. and affix all the proper technical instrumentation and diagnostics equipment. But the purpose of such a detonation, which the Administration labels “a simple test, with waivers and simplified processes,” would not be to ensure that the nation’s most powerful weapons were in operational order, or to check whether a new type of warhead worked, a TIME review of nuclear-policy documents has found. Rather, a National Nuclear Security Administration official tells TIME, such a test would be “conducted for political purposes.”

The point, this and other sources say, would be to show Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Iran’s Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and other adversaries what they are up against.

http://time.com/5128394/donald-trump-nuclear-poker/

[struggle4progress]

1. We're back to this? Some of my friends spent most of the 1980s on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Ye gods and little fishes on a fuggin icy popsicle stick!

Do we have to reinvent the American Peace Test?

438 PROTESTERS ARE ARRESTED AT NEVADA NUCLEAR TEST SITE
By ROBERT LINDSEY, Special to the New York Times
Published: February 6, 1987

MERCURY, Nev., Feb. 5— More than 400 people were arrested today when they tried to enter the nation's nuclear proving grounds here after nearly 2,000 demonstrators, including six members of Congress, held a rally to protest nuclear weapons testing.

In a scene that at times recalled the antiwar protests of the 1960's, 438 demonstrators, some carrying American flags, were arrested as they marched past the entrance to the 1,350-square-mile Nevada Test Site. Among those arrested were the astronomer Carl Sagan and the actors Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Blake.

The protesters who were arrested were taken in buses to nearby Beatty, Nev., where they were booked and released. A spokesman for the Department of Energy said 433 of those arrested were charged with trespassing and five were charged with resisting arrest. They will face trial at a later date.

The march came after a rally protesting the Reagan Administration's resumption of nuclear weapons testing despite a Soviet moratorium on the testing of new weapons. The demonstration at the desert test site 65 miles north of Las Vegas was organized by a consortium of groups ...

[ehrnst]

2. Be careful about posting from Time Magazine....

There are those here who think doing that means you support the Koch brothers....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=10170639

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10174130

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. thanks

Thanks for those links.

I do not want to feed the Kochs, but I think this report is significant at this time and couldn't find another one covering the issue.

Dirty little donnie is too obsessed with nukes and too stupid to understand the consequences.

[ehrnst]

4. You aren't feeding the Kochs - any more than you do if you

wore anything with elastic or stretchy fabric (Spandex) before November 2017.

Your post didn't mention a specific Senator, so I doubt you will be accused of supporting the Koch Bros.