Trump DoE pick didn't know what the DoE does.

[I Push Buttons]

There's a general theme here:

Secretary of State: Tillerson: CEO of big Oil and love them russia contracts!
EPA: Scott Pruit: Love him some oil and fracking - Screw you Oklahoma quit whining about your earthquakes.
S of Energy: Rick Perry: Advocate of big oil.. whats that.. that's not in the job description?

We go from world renowned scientists Ernest J. Monizin and Steven Chu to OOPS Rick Perry. Holy SHIT!

What's funny though is that if they deregulate oil anymore than it already is they will destroy the US oil industry.

That industry are already deep in a hole and laying people off by the truckload with oil as cheap as it is, a lot have already gone bankrupt unable to service their debts.

If they make it even easier to drill here it will just send that already low price even lower and put US companies out of business...

[Deleted]

And who do you think is going to try and step up in their place given the latter scenario?

Hopefully not a warmonger and someone with prosperous ideals.

[VooDsXo]

More than a little dumb to act like maintaining THE US NUCLEAR ARSENAL is just "hey one of many things they do"

Nuclear security is the largest item in their budget, by a sizable margin. After that its "Energy and Environment" which, spoilers, is nuclear reactor maintenance, development and disposal for the most part.

This chump of a politician apparently thought it was the "Department of Lucrative Tax Breaks" or something.

The nuclear weapons held in our country and abroad are also under direct command of the president, and it'd be ignorant to think anyone in his cabinet would be focused on task of an underling. This 4 years will be no better or worse than the 8 under George Bush, the middleclass will be forced into voting for anyone but republicans and we will have a teetering effect back and forth.

[Skroe]

The DoE has little to do with the actual maintenance its almost entirely the military. They deal with the funding and bureaucracy if their was an accident they MIGHT send someone in person to get a report but mostly they go on what the military says.

Most DoE secretaries have never worked with nuclear weapons or plants so its a nonissue.

If you want to be worried about something be worried that our land based nuclear weapons platforms are using 50 year old tech.

Wrong. Well sort of.

Until ~2005 the US had two Land based Ballistic Missiles: the 1980s era Peacekeeper MX and the 1960s era (nominally) Minuteman. Bush and Putin's 2002 SORT Treaty lead to large nuclear cuts. Furthermore the US continued to impliment (the never ratifed) START II in principle, which SORT largely replaced. The end result decided to move it's MIRV'd (multiple warhead) ballistic missiles almost entirely into our Submarine launched ballistic missiles, the Trident II. This is because the are the most survivable, fastest reacting deterrent, and also the most advanced warhead and launcher (the Trident II missile itself) the US had.

By incidence, to stay under agreed upon missile caps, the US decided to put only one warhead on land based missiles. The purple of land based missiles in the modern Era is to offer hundreds of more "aim points" for the other side to target, thus providing the US defense in depth. The other side would have to hit all 450 silos IN ADDITION TO any other targets. Any many of those silos would require 2+ nuclear weapon detonations to destroy each (one to "dig", one to "break"), meaning they would consume a large number of the other side's nuclear weapons capaicty.

Because of the single-warhead purpose of land based missiles, and also the complexity of the system, it was desired to premature retire the Peacekeeper MX and modernize the Minuteman III. The Peacekeeper MX was a very large missile, able to carry up to 12 W78 or 10 W87s warheads. By contrast, the Minuteman III, an older, smaller missile, could only carry 3 warheads. It was decided to move the Peacekeeper's more modern warheads to the modernized Minuteman III, which was cheaper to own and operate. Peacekeepers have since been repurposed as commercial space launch vehicles.

As part of this, the Minuteman III, while keeping the name, is a hugely new missile. The US often does this, as a budgetary trick to save money and "slip under the radar" of controversy. For example the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is hugely different, and basically an all new plane, compared to the older F/A-18 C/D Hornet (it just "looks" similar).

https://www.armscontrol.org/factshee...rModernization

Over the bast 10 years, most of the 450 missiles have been entirely rebuilt and updated, as the ex-Peacekeeper warheads were integrated.

As part of the US's 30 year nuclear modernization plan, the US would like to replace the Minuteman III with an all new ICBM. It will probably be smaller and lighter, and haves some degree of design commonality with the Trident II SLBM (like the Peacekeeper). It will probably be designed around carrying one warhead, which will make it even a smaller rocket and cheaper to maintain.

There is also a not-insignificant chance it could very well be a physically downsized Trident II, perhaps with a third stage for range.

The entire point of the nuclear modernization is to cut cost of ownership by increasing commonality. If you're looking for "new features", there really hasn't been much new going on with Nuclear Weapons design in about 30 years. The closest thing is better guidance on the Trident II D5 Life Extension program modified Tridents, which increase accuracy from 90m to 5m.

[callipygoustp]

Hopefully not a warmonger and someone with prosperous ideals.

And those countries would be? Only two countries come to mind when I think about who would replace the USA and neither one of them fit what you describe.

[Deleted]

I don't like it when unapologetic war criminals interfere with the issues, politics of other sovreign nation, the US has shown it has 0 respect for anyone else and I could not be happier its going to hell. I feel sorry for the american people though, but you will cope.

And those countries would be? Only two countries come to mind when I think about who would replace the USA and neither one of them fit what you describe.

How many wars and how many casualties have these two countries caused worldwide upon other nations in the past 40 years; compared to the US?

[callipygoustp]

I don't like it when unapologetic war criminals interfere with the issues, politics of other sovreign nation, the US has shown it has 0 respect for anyone else and I could not be happier its going to hell. I feel sorry for the american people though, but you will cope.

Yeah, fuck America! Lets give the Russians a shot at globally influencing everything.

[Deleted]

Honestly, yes lets. Modern russia has a 10000 times better track record than the US at this point. How many deaths have russia caused by illegal drone strikes on civilians?

[callipygoustp]

How many wars and how many casualties have these two countries caused worldwide upon other nations in the past 40 years; compared to the US?

Answer the question before changing the topic, please.

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Honestly, yes lets. Modern russia has a 10000 times better track record than the US at this point. How many deaths have russia caused by illegal drone strikes on civilians?

Yeah, I mean, its crazy how out of control immigration is into Russia. The country is so awesome, has such a great track record *cough*Ukraine*cough* everyone wants to move there.

Seriously dude, at this point, you're just embarrassing yourself.

[Iphie]

Honestly, yes lets. Modern russia has a 10000 times better track record than the US at this point. How many deaths have russia caused by illegal drone strikes on civilians?

Living in Finland...let's not? I really don't want to see a resurgence of the good old USSR...

[Deleted]

Has russia been involved in any shady wars since the breakup of ussr? Chechnya comes to mind but remind me, none on the scale of afghanistan, iraq, libya etc etc etc

The US are world leaders at poorly justified wars and from an outsiders perapective, literally everyone else are saints.

Answer the question before changing the topic, please.

I thought it was inferred that I dont really care about particular nationality, only that they behave responsibly; the US have used up all good faith points.

[Deleted]

For someone with no exp to succeed in a job, they need to be smart / clever and adaptable. None if which Perry is...

Assuming they have any real power. Which the standing point of Elim, was that he won't be having.

Kinda funny to see Wells get so triggered, though. Lost his cool at the first prospect and just resorting to shitflinging.

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Reread my post regarding being Gov of Texas. It really doesn't

Doubt it would matter - Isn't your whole Goverment puppets anyway, with the real brains and real job being done under covers, ala how Ghostcrawler gets shit for 99% of stuff done (Whilst he did maybe 10%???)?

[Crispin]

Has russia been involved in any shady wars since the breakup of ussr? Chechnya comes to mind but remind me, none on the scale of afghanistan, iraq, libya etc etc etc

The US are world leaders at poorly justified wars and from an outsiders perapective, literally everyone else are saints.



I thought it was inferred that I dont really care about particular nationality, only that they behave responsibly; the US have used up all good faith points.

Oh come on, there's no country on this planet that behaves responsibly, but I do like how you ask for responsibility yet point at a country that is throwing barrel bombs on hospitals.

[callipygoustp]

I thought it was inferred that I dont really care about particular nationality, only that they behave responsibly; the US have used up all good faith points.

Oh, so you were talking completely hypothetically cause you understand that there is, currently, no better option on the planet. Gotcha!

[Kiri]

That's not what I said. Never cut the context. He won't be doing any serious work within the department he will be doing a lot of work outside the department because he is a proxy between DoE and President/Senate/Congress/Whatever.

So if he is a proxy between those, the SoE requires in-depth knowledge of both politics and the matters and proceedings of the DoE. Granted, his predecessors seemed to know less about the former but more about the latter, which this man seems to switch. However, one could argue that the latter is more important, especially given Trump's promises to only pick the best and brightest for the job. Can you see that he is the best for this job, above everyone else (heck, even above the guy who is currently doing it)?

[Skroe]

Has russia been involved in any shady wars since the breakup of ussr?

Nope. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing at all.

[Deleted]

Oh, so you were talking completely hypothetically cause you understand that there is, currently, no better option on the planet. Gotcha!

No you clearly don't get it, I see you did not read my other posts.

It was argued earlier that russia might 'take USA's place' and I argue that this is a 10 times better option, they have not proven themselves to be bloodthirsty warmongers on the global stage.

This doesnt mean I think russia would be ideal, the ideal is that every nation is the master of their own house.

[Mizix]

Oh, so you were talking completely hypothetically cause you understand that there is, currently, no better option on the planet. Gotcha!

The best thing would be for all the superpowers to be able to agree on some general ideas and points on how to influence and actually rule the world... Of course, it can never really happen because they all are power-hungry and want it all for themselves (I think the UN is enough of a demonstration of that). From a western civilization perspective, and living in Europe, the U.S. remains the best option out of the current candidates. However, that does not mean you guys are free from all critique and we should all bow at your passage. You have been doing a really terrible job at "running" the world in the past 20 years, please realize that. And the question is not if the other options (Russia, i.e.) would have done better or worse, the question is when Americans will wake the fuck up and start demanding better from their government instead of pretending you still are the savior of the world. That ship sailed a long time ago and people don't really feel a debt of gratitude towards the U.S. anymore.

[callipygoustp]

No you clearly don't get it, I see you did not read my other posts.

It was argued earlier that russia might 'take USA's place' and I argue that this is a 10 times better option, they have not proven themselves to be bloodthirsty warmongers on the global stage.

This doesnt mean I think russia would be ideal, the ideal is that every nation is the master of their own house.

You're twisting and turning all over the place to get away from me pointing out the ridiculousness of one of your statements. I asked a question, specifically about one of your comments:

Hopefully not a warmonger and someone with prosperous ideals.

To which I asked :

And those countries would be? Only two countries come to mind when I think about who would replace the USA and neither one of them fit what you describe.

To which you finally responded with :

I thought it was inferred that I dont really care about particular nationality, only that they behave responsibly; the US have used up all good faith points.

At this point we all may as well talk about wanting world peace, an end to world hunger, yada yada yada, cause that's essentially all you are saying(while nation bashing the USA).

[Ausr]

None of the people he's fucking picked know what department they handle aside from the Secretary of Defense.