Try to imagine the list of countries that you LEAST want to have nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has got to be up there along with North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Who ever is trying to share this nuclear tech is taking a huge risk with everyones safety.
Pakistan - a nearly bankrupt, terrorism-infested, Islamic country - has had nuclear tech for decades. I'm pretty sure if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy nuclear tech from them it would only be a phone call and a few billion $ away.
Can someone explain how this would work? I'm rather certain that noone in the White House doesn't actually know how to construct a bomb... So, they'll have to order someone else (presumably someone in the military) to transfer those secrets. Why would that person listen to the executive branch, if what they would do would be illegal?
Things get very complicated when someone who has authority over you tells you to do something illegal. The president is commander-in-chief, and it's not the first time a president has given a command that's not strictly legal.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia don't have the agreements with the IAEA required for a party to the non-proliferation treaty to sell them regulated technology as they currently don't have any nuclear facilities.
But you know how Trump is with international treaties; I'd guess this is mostly about letting nuclear tech companies sell regulated tech in violation of the conditions of the NTP.
Here’s a link I found googling for the “Marshal Plan for the Middle East”. It’s from April 2018, and it goes in quite a lot of the details of this affair.
And here’s the copy-paste of the section “Rationale”
“The Rationale
The deal had three main rationales motivating the various parties.
The Middle East Marshall Plan would have provided an excuse to remove sanctions against Russia.
US businesses would need to work with sanctioned Russian entities. Striking a deal that the Administration could sell as bringing power and economic development to the Middle East, as well as bolstering the struggling US civilian nuclear industry, might have softened Congressional support for sanctions, particularly among Republicans.
The deal would involve potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in profit.
Why Erik Prince would care: Corporate documents projected the plan would generate “$250 billion in revenue for US companies.” Billions of dollars from a project requiring a lot of private security would pique the interest of Prince, head of a private security company.
Why Tom Barrack would care: Tom Barrack was reportedly looking to invest in the US nuclear industry, which would have received a huge windfall.
Why Russia would care: This deal could also involve massive investment in Russian state-owned companies, which could explain why the CEO of RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev was at the Seychelles meeting. Dmitriev is close to Putin and is charged with shepherding foreign investment into Russia.
There was an economic policy and geopolitical incentive.
Middle Eastern countries are legitimately seeking nuclear power to support their growing populations. The Gulf states’ participation would have supported regional economic development.
More fundamentally, this would also serve a broader geostrategic objective for the Gulf. As part of this deal, Russia would likely need to shift or soften its approach toward Iran and Syria. In exchange, they would not only receive a huge economic windfall, but would become more closely aligned with the US and the wealthy Gulf states.
For the UAE, a deal like this would cement a relationship with the new Trump administration. MbZ’s attendance – even though the other attendees were far lower ranking – could be explained by the huge investment required and the potential geopolitical stakes.
“
Uh, no. Pretty textbook nuclear proliferation, the KSA doesn't have the required treaties with the IAEA to buy a nuclear power plant from responsible parties of the NPT.
This doesn't matter to Bolton of course, because he simply hates international treaties on pure principle.
The best we can hope for is to weather the next two years without suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable, and that the brazen cronyism on display will be a reality-check for all who would otherwise dip their toes into casual corruption. God help us all.
I think Americans in most of their political discourse continue to miss the point. There's a significant portion of the country who voted for the guy and will vote for him again. He's just a symptom. Whatever it is that's making those people vote for him is where everyone's attention needs to be.
For the most part, the lives of people who live in cities has gotten better over the last generation. They voted for the status quo.
For the most part, the lives of people who don't live in cities has not gotten better over the last generation, and they voted for change.
These differences are structural, and I don't think anybody knows how to make them better. You can tell people to give up their current lifestyle and move somewhere else with more opportunity and a completely different lifestyle, but that's a really hard sell.
Lol. Two supreme court justices. Permanent losses of billions in taxes. Russia meddling in our government. It's way too fucking late for hope that lasting damage doesn't occur. Even if this administration ended tomorrow, the damage is done for decades. Some can be reversed. Much can't. God didn't fucking help us.
I think that an important principle of the American organization of power is accountability (that one which is "something left when responsibility is subtracted", according to a Scandinavian). I think that Supreme Court almost exclusively (meaningfully) interacts with the rest of the country via its decisions. I think that may mean that Supreme Court can be judged - and e.g. a justice impeached - solely on the basis of their decisions, as it's the only thing they do. Without this, I see a contradiction with the principle.
That means that if e.g. Congress finds some decisions of Supreme Court distorting Constitution, the Congress is justified in removing a justice solely on the basis of the decisions made by them.
I think that we the best we can hope for is that the government is rendered unusable, and that the world is able to proceed into the information age free from the constant malice of the hegemonic state.
Unfortunately large portions of our society rely on having a functioning government. If things fall apart, I doubt the masses rising in revolt will magically end up with a libertarian government. Something authoritarian is much more likely.
> suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable
I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement (Who is left out of such agreements is an exercise for the reader.) The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage, that the political system is not at all designed (Or has the will) to deal with.
I'm curious why you think his re-election chances are so high?
Comparing to the post-WWII Presidents who failed to get a second term, Ford, Carter, and the first Bush, they all had much higher net approval ratings at almost all comparable times through their terms.
Carter and Ford both had approval ratings almost as low Trump's at this point, but they had much lower disapproval ratings, giving them much better nets.
Scroll down here for post-WWII President approval/disapproval/net rating charges over time compared to the current President over time [1].
My reasoning is, that Democrats seem to be playing the same notes as for previous election (mainly social justice), except with more "socialism" (higher taxes). It seems unlikely that this time they succeed... unless they change strategy before the election, of course!
In the 2016 election, "Social Justice" barely made the top ten issues people voted on[1] (#1, It's the economy, stupid!) The independents that swung for Trump were worried about their jobs (or lack thereof). His base was more concerned with social justice issues, but they would've voted for him anyway.
The democratic candidate, nor her running mate were widely known, or even running on social justice issues. [2]
Lastly a higher tax on the wealthy is highly popular, even in republican circles. As are some "socialist" type policies like medicare for all. [3]
I don't understand how [1] makes your argument... Sure economy is important, but the question is, do the policies differ? Like, it's probably 99% important to voters that they elect a "natural-born American" but if both candidates fulfill this condition, it makes 0% of the decision to whom they will vote for.
I perceived (and I thought many other people did also) as Sanders running more on economic issues (equality, taxes, etc) and Hillary running more on social justice issues (deplorables, "woman card", equal pay, immigration, racial justice, etc)
> I perceived (and I thought many other people did also) as Sanders running more on economic issues (equality, taxes, etc) and Hillary running more on social justice issues (deplorables, "woman card", equal pay, immigration, racial justice, etc)
Most of the notable Democratic candidates are running far more heavily on economic issues than Clinton was, and even the more centrist ones like Gillibrand are campaigning on things that in 2016 were Sanders-exclusive signatures, like Medicare for All. Clinton may have won the 2016 nomination, but Sanders was a lot more influential on the trajectory of the party.
I think we have a very good chance of un-electing him. He's alienated all but his most dedicated core base, and there's a huge list of Democratic primary candidates from which to whittle down the very strongest. Lots of people who voted for him did it with the mentality of "The establishment's bad; let's try something different. Drain the swamp. Things couldn't get any worse." Now those people are saying, "Oh."
> I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement. The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage.
This is definitely true, unfortunately. A government is made of people, and no government system can withstand being populated by bad (or at least shortsighted) people. Most of those before Trump weren't massively better people than him, morally speaking. Even Obama quietly did some really shady things.
Okay, but pragmatism dictates that we don't get a do-over with the governing structure of the most powerful nation on earth. We can work to make it better, but that's a long and slow process, and in the meantime we need to get the various buttons and dials out of the hands of a literal crazy person.
I'll put it this way: I disagree with Mike Pence politically on virtually every issue. But it would still be a massive relief for me if he finished up Trump's presidential term.
The Times submission around this was flagged. Considering this particular issue actually does have a few overlaps with tech, given the nature of Saudi investment/Softbank and the tech transfer (which often stays on the front page when it’s China), as well as nuclear (which also tends to stay on the front page) - it would be nice if this isn’t flagged and there could be a substantial discussion on it.
I've seen lots of unflagged articles on here about world events which aren't necessarily related to tech, and given that this is a .gov website, there shouldn't be (as much) concern about it being politically charged.
It's a news release from a representative's office. Surely a news article from a reputable outlet would be less "politically charged" (whatever that means)?
This is from the House Oversight committee, a group made up of a bipartisan group of congressmen whose job is to oversee, investigate and report on the actions of the executive branch.
Yes, it is from the committee, but after watching GOP-controlled House committees operate for the past eight years, it's hard to claim that they can't be partisan. I'm not claiming that it's not accurate (I'd expect it to be much more factual than anything the GOP would put out), but I'd expect a well-researched news article (with actual competent journalism—not just both-sides he-said-she-said garbage) to be less "political".
If Times is the NYTimes, I'd have flagged it had I seen it. It has a paywall, and I don't want inflammatory off-topic political stories on HN that I can't read.
As for substantial discussion, it'll take a few days before anything can really be considered. As scandals go, 'generals sell nuclear tech to countries enemies' doesn't scan as very believable, even for corrupt officials. Give 'em a chance to respond and see what gets said.
Please stop trolling. We ban accounts that won't post civilly, substantively, and on-topic.
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
What's wrong with your comments in this thread, and similar comments, is that they're ideological/political battle made more fiery by snark. This sort of internet posting only makes sense in the context of flamewars, which is what they produce and perpetuate. We don't want flamewars on HN, as you know—or ought to, given the number of times we've had to ask you not to do this. Since we eventually ban accounts that can't or won't stop posting in the flamewar style, could you please just not do this anymore on Hacker News? Regardless of topic, and regardless of how wrong other commenters are or you feel they are.
You can see all that and more by setting 'showdead' to 'yes' in your profile.
On HN, we never delete anything outright unless the author asks us to (except for a rare few cases when we've had to for legal reasons). All the rest can be seen by turning on that profile setting.
As someone who's spent a lot of time around Republicans, their driving mantra is that any means justifies the ends. The most principled still believe in something resembling admirable ends behind all the actions they take, but even those are a dying species.
As a prime example, take the Punisher emblem (and the mentality behind it). These days you see it on trucks and land rovers all over the place (at least here in Texas).
The character, for those who don't know, was created as an antihero who circumvents the judicial system and commits extreme violence against those he judges to be criminals. He was designed to be a commentary. From the guy that created him: “I was an anti-war person. I argued against it and certainly wrote against it...In my mind he’s not a good guy.”
From Chris Kyle, the "American Sniper": “He righted wrongs. He killed bad guys. He made wrongdoers fear him...We spray-painted it on our Hummers and body armor, and our helmets and all our guns. We spray-painted it on every building or wall we could, We wanted people to know, We’re here and we want to fk with you.”
That's just a list of scandals under the timeline of then-present administrations. It is not actions taken by the administration that they are categorized under.
You claim it's a fun read, but I think you can only claim that if you decided to actually read it. And the evidence points to the fact that you very obviously didn't.
With that very young intern in his employ. Traditionally known as sexual harassment. Of course that was just one of the many cases of impropriety with women and allegations of assault.
Many will argue that there is no way to know if there was true consent when there is such a power differential between the two parties and especially when the act is taking place in the workplace between boss and subordinate.
Which is why most workplaces require any kind of relations like this to be declared in writing to HR or in some cases forbidden all together.
Clinton did hand over emails, and the deletions were vetted by lawyers and government officials. She did this back in 2014, two years before the election.
