BristolUK

Anyone remember Nellie the elephant? No wonder she packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus. She knew who was coming.

Cancelling a decades long tradition of inviting NBA champions to the White House because they didn't jump at the chance and calling NFL players sons of bitches.

He finds new lows to reach almost every week.

Shard

He is a barking dog dotard. He should be made into a nice lunch with a kimchee side.

Jingsamichty

Trump is a national disgrace to America. I find myself actually disappointed in the Republican Party for not having the balls to stand up to him and say, "Enough!"

He is acting like Mad Korean Kim, like he is a dictator... telling NFL owners what to do, telling fans what to do. Does America really have no checks and balances on that kind of behaviour?

Danny B

You would be surprised at how many of his 'supporters' still think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Trust me, once he wipes out North Korea his popularity with his base will increase tenfold. You only have to search twitter with #MAGA to see how adored he is. Scary times that's for sure.

Shard

Hopefully somebody in the US military has quietly arranged to take direct control of the nuke codes away from Trump. They must be smart enough to do that, even though legally, there is no mechanism to do so.

Almost Canadian

Well, Trump can give the order, but they don't have to follow it and he has only said that he will take action against N. Korea if they attack the US.

Just out of interest, what do you think the rest of the world should do if N. Korea carries out its threat to detonate a hydrogen bomb above the Pacific?

Former Lancastrian

Well we should all be outraged and send a very strong worded letter to our elected officials expressing our disgust and ask for Mr Kim to be sent to the naughty corner or sit on the naughty step as 24 years of talking hasn't achieved much.

Shard

The official US protocol is that if the president gives the order, the nukes are fired. There is no check on that authority. He is followed about with guy that has a briefcase which contain the launch codes. Interrupting that would be tantamount to a coup (of sorts) but hopefully it would happen if the president were to act irrationally.

Hydrogen bomb over the Pacific...depends on the impact. If it's merely a test, nobody is hurt, radiation is somehow limited, then I think no retaliation is warranted. As much as we dislike it, a sovereign nation has a right to nuclear weapons. That is the definition of sovereign. It's hypocrisy in the extreme for any nuclear nation to demand disarmament. Having said that, ecnonomic sanctions and other actions should be taken to weaken the regime and discourage nuclear armament.

dave_j

I lived most of my life under the threat of the US-USSR MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction. I clearly remember the lunacy that was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember the tit-for-tat airborne nuclear testing that only ended when they found that underground testing was just as good and that only ended when they'd understood the sciece sufficiently not to need it. I see the US ignoring Israel when it develops nuclear weapons because it's a 'friendly' state. I've witnessed the US invading countries from Grenada and Panama to Iraq and Afghanistan and covertly undermining regimes it disapproves of like Nicaragua and Venezuela.

If I were north korean, perhaps I'd see the need to have nuclear weapons because history demonstrates that not having them and being an adversary of the US is not a comfortable hole to be in, and as a north korean I might think that my man Kim was my hero.

Trump is older than I am and he should know better.

Former Lancastrian

Wont anyone think about the fish and other marine life?

Shard

They have underwater bunkers so should be safe.

BristolUK

I don't doubt it.

But some of them will also be sports fans and they will have sporting heroes. Trump may well be making a big mistake in insulting those heroes.

Assuming there is US news coverage about it outside of the Washington Post and the New York Times, of course.

BristolUK

But anyway, who does remember Nellie the elephant?

Danny B

You mean the hit from 1984 by the toy dolls? Never heard of it.

scilly

from a brief look online, there's quite a lot of coverage in the US, by both newspapers and TV .... CNN, NY Post, sports channels, etc.

Last time I looked (about 2 hours ago), all teams had either knelt, stood but linked arms or stayed in the dressing room, with what they did being a consensus of the players ........... and this was also done with the approval of the team owners. At least one owner stood arms linked with the players ............. a Muslim Palestinian-American, big supporter of an donor to the Republican Party

At that time every owner who had spoken out had spoken against Trump, most of them are apparently Republican supporters and donors. Sports reports on both TV and newspapers had also spoken out against Trump.