US elections

The doctrine of nuclear deterrence that leaves open the possibility of launching a "first strike" before an enemy attacks will remain the basis of U.S. policy even as new generations of nuclear weapons are introduced, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday. "That's our doctrine now, and we don't have any intention of changing that doctrine," Carter told airmen in a question-and-answer session at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

But maybe more worrisome than all those, already very worrisome “objective” facts, is the level of discourse emitted by the two persons competing to become Presidents of the most powerful country of the world. They want to rule the superpower and the world. But you will hardly find in the insults they exchange any meaningful idea on what they will do with the formidable challenges in front of their country and the planet.

Tuesday night’s debate between the vice presidential candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties was a display of mudslinging, lies, canned rhetoric and phony promises on a par with the first debate between the presidential candidates the previous week, with one telling exception.

An email hacked from Colin Powell’s Gmail account has him writing that he had just returned from the famed Bohemian Grove — a place the Washington Post oncedescribed as “where the rich and powerful go to misbehave” — and that most attendees there will not vote for Donald Trump and find him to be a “disaster.” Powell further reported that “quite a few will

German corporations with operations in the US reacted somewhat differently. As Die Welt reports, notable large concerns from Germany gave more than two-thirds of their election donations to the Republicans, and thus to Trump; above all BASF, Allianz, Siemens and Deutsche Bank.

Putin, who has won praise and a pledge to improve ties from Trump while facing attacks from Clinton, stuck repeatedly to his position that he has no preferred candidate and would work with whoever wins. While his purported predilections have been the subject of bitter invective from both sides, in public at least, Putin didn’t show much enthusiasm for either one.

The references to Sanders came from a president and a Democratic nominee for vice president who devoted substantial portions of their speeches to hailing Hillary Clinton, the party’s nominee for president. Obama and Kaine were not objecting to the fact that Clinton beat the senator from Vermont for the nomination, and that tomorrow night she will deliver her acceptance speech.

Dear Senator Sanders, Last summer you said you would not run as a third party candidate if you did not win the Democratic nomination. You said, “the reason for that is I do not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican to be president of the United States.” This was before the unexpected and unprecedented success of your grassroots campaign where you won 22 states and almost half of the delegates in a primary process that was stacked against you every step of the way.

Bernie Sanders replied to those attacking him for not quitting from the Democratic presidential race on MSNBC on Chris Hayes’ show last Wednesday: “What I say to those people who booed is 'you can boo me all you want, I am going to continue to fight to make sure that we transform this country”.

Of all the cringeworthy insta-narratives framed by horse-race journalists during the presidential campaign, the Bernie Sanders needs-to-fall-in-line meme easily takes the top spot.