Trump the Destroyer

As reported by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, in an article entitled "Trump has stuffed his Cabinet with tyrants, zealots and imbeciles – all bent on demolishing our government from within":

Trump's pick for energy secretary, Rick Perry, reportedly not only admitted that he didn't know what the Department of Energy actually does, but had called for that very agency's elimination as a presidential candidate (and forgot that fact during a debate). Moreover, Trump had brutalized Perry during the campaign as a dimwit among dimwits, whose "smart glasses" affectation didn't fool anyone.

For Trump and his inner circle to name Perry to any Cabinet post at all felt like trolling, like a football team wrapping the mascot in packing tape and mailing him to Canada. But to send someone you're on record calling an idiot to run the nation's nuclear arsenal, that doesn't fit easily in any bucket: mischief, evil, incompetence – it's even a little extreme for nihilism. (emphasis added)

This troubled, covert agency is responsible for trucking nuclear bombs across America each day

As reported by the L.A. Times.

“Transportation is the Achilles’ heel of nuclear security and everyone knows that,” said Bruce Blair, a retired Air Force missile officer, Princeton University researcher and founder of Global Zero, a nonprofit group that seeks elimination of nuclear weapons.

The danger is not a traffic accident — even a fiery crash is not supposed to explode a warhead — but a heist.

“In an age of terrorism, you’re taking a big risk any time you decide to move nuclear material into the public space over long distances via ground transport,” Blair said. “Bad things happen.”

North Korea says missile launches were training for striking U.S. bases in Japan

As reported by the Japan Times.

Trump Inherits a Secret Cyberwar Against North Korean Missiles

As reported by the New York Times.

Beyond Nuclear letter to the editor in the Washington Post: The looming danger of nuclear weapons

Letter to the Editor, Washington Post:

While the United States and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, the fact that seven other nations have nuclear weapons, albeit in smaller quantities, is highly significant.  

The report “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk?” by Ira Helfand warns that even “a limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause significant climate disruption worldwide.” The resulting global cooling would significantly affect “agriculture, food supplies, and human nutrition” and could result in billions of deaths.

Even North Korea’s handful of nuclear weapons is dangerously destabilizing [“Former U.S. officials plan talks with N. Koreans,” front page, Feb. 20]. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is at two and a half minutes to midnight, due in large part to President Trump’s provocative statements. It’s high time to take President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 warning to heart: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

Kevin Kamps, Takoma Park

The writer is a radioactive waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear.