Trump to North Korean leader Kim: My ‘Nuclear Button’ is ‘much bigger & more powerful’

As reported by Philip Rucker in the Washington Post.

Peter Baker and Michael Tackett have also reported on this story in the New York Times, including the following responses by both Democrat and Republican political leaders:

“I guess the president regards this as a show of strength,” Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN. “But as everybody who’s ever been in a, you know, first grade playground recognizes, it’s usually the person who’s most aggressively pounding their chest that is in fact the weak one on the playground.”

Eliot A. Cohen, who was counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice under President George W. Bush, said the tweet demonstrated an immaturity that is dangerous in a commander in chief.

“Spoken like a petulant ten year old,” Mr. Cohen wrote on Twitter. “But one with nuclear weapons — for real — at his disposal. How responsible people around him, or supporting him, can dismiss this or laugh it off is beyond me.”

(That, from the counselor to Condoleezza Rice, whose infamous, false "mushroom cloud" Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) warning about Iraq led to the unnecessary, highly controversial U.S. invasion of 2003, ultimately claiming many thousands of American lives, and many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and led to the instability that eventually spawned the rise of ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, resulting in yet more unspeakable carnage.

Of course, a military conflict between the U.S. and North Korea -- even a non-nuclear one -- is predicted to result in many hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths within just the first days, as in Seoul under North Korean artillery attack alone. And very large numbers of U.S. military personnel are based in South Korea, vulnerable to North Korean bombardment as well.)

The New York Times article also reported the following:

Michael Flynn Jr., the son of the president’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in the Russia investigation, said Mr. Trump’s tweet was “just awesome.” He added on Twitter: “This is why Trump was elected. A no bulls#t leader not afraid to stand up for his country.”

Joy Reid, and Lawrence O'Donnell, on MSNBC, have also reported on this story. 

O'Donnell's coverage includes a citation of a Politico article, quoting international diplomats as saying "Trump is insane."  Trump's my-nuke-is-bigger-than-your-nuke tweet is O'Donnell's Exhibit A, re: Trump's alleged insanity.

In short, this Trump tweet seems well suited for the "No Comment" section of the Progressive magazine!