Of course, the GOP has always used oaths to intimidate their minions. Remember Grover Norquist?

Thing is, I think Trump supporters would welcome the chance to elevate him above the presidency, above the constitution and above the law.

As a society, we are truly in no man’s land here.

They tried it again a few days later and our skipper had rehearsed an appropriate response. Our ship and the oiler we were receiving from actually changed course and cut across their wake, while we were still rigged together and transferring bunker fuel. In those days, the Soviet Navy didn’t even have a fully developed UNREP capability and they were flabbergasted. They were good sailors, but that kind of seamanship was just beyond them.

We were also buzzed frequently by long range air patrols that photographed our gear and monitored our freqs. I remember one Bear (actually, a prop 4-engine strategic bomber modified for maritime recon work) came so close I could see a cameraman in the Perspex blister between wing and tail taking pictures of us.

There was a recon Bear lost (with no survivors) while buzzing an aircraft carrier later that year, and the rumor going around the fleet was that it had been shot down.

A Russian spy ship sits 30 miles off the coast of Connecticut, a US defense official told CNN, while an armed Russian warplane recently carried out a “mock attack” against a US ship.

This is the farthest north the Russian spy vessel has ever ventured, according to US defense official.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/25/norad-responds-russian-bombers-zoom-japan.html
NORAD Responds After Russian Bombers Zoom Around Japan

A pair of Russian Tu-95 Bear nuclear-capable bombers flew around Japan on Tuesday, prompting the Japanese military to scramble fighter jets as the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) increased its threat posture, two U.S. defense officials revealed to Fox News.

The Russian bombers stayed in international airspace, the officials said. News of this latest Russian provocation came shortly after the Pentagon announced that new Defense Secretary James Mattis would make his first visit overseas to Japan and South Korea early next month.

A third Russian Tu-95 bomber took off from a base in eastern Russia near the Pacific Ocean but it did not fly around Japan. Instead, it acted as a “communications relay” to pass radio traffic between the bombers flying around Japan, the officials said.

All three Russian strategic bombers took off outside the Pacific coastal city of Anadyr in eastern Russia. They returned to the eastern Russian airbase Ukrainka, roughly 1,000 miles from Japan.

Three Russian refueling tankers (IL-78) were also part of the flight. Two airborne radar and communications planes known as Beriev A-50 AWACs were also part of the Russian flying armada.

Only two Russian bombers made the flight around Japan’s major islands, according to officials.

The increase in threat posture from 5 to 4 meant the U.S. Air Force would place an extra tanker crew on standby ready to refuel the Japanese jets if necessary, according to officials.

It was the first time Russian bombers had circumnavigated Japan’s major islands in a year, the officials said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/02/14/in-first-under-trump-russian-jets-buzzed-a-u-s-destroyer-at-close-range/?utm_term=.9e55f7edf4bc
In first under Trump, Russian jets buzzed a U.S. destroyer at close range

Multiple Russian aircraft buzzed a U.S. destroyer patrolling in the Black Sea last week, in an incident the captain of the American ship called “unsafe,” the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The three flybys occurred on Feb. 10 and were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Lt. Col. David Faggard, a U.S. European Command spokesman, said the USS Porter, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, was returning from an exercise with the Romanian navy when an Il-38 sub-hunting quad-engine aircraft approached at a high speed and low altitude. The Il-38 was followed by two Su-24 fighter-bomber jets and then a single Su-24.

Faggard said the aircraft did not respond to radio calls and that they did not have their identification transponders turned on. He could not confirm whether the jets were armed and would not specify the altitude of the aircraft.

“Incidents like this are concerning because a miscommunication could turn into an accident or miscalculation,” Faggard said, adding that the captain of the Porter called the flybys “unprofessional.”

During the campaign, President Trump had suggested that such incidents show “how low we’ve gone that they can toy with us like that.” He said that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be warned in a phone call to stop and if the flybys continued then “when that sucker comes by you, you gotta shoot.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/europe/russia-cruise-missile-arms-control-treaty.html?_r=0
Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump

Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile that American officials say violates a landmark arms control treaty, posing a major test for President Trump as his administration is facing a crisis over its ties to Moscow.

The new Russian missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration is struggling to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon — and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned late Monday. Mr. Flynn stepped down after it was revealed that he had misled the vice president and other officials over conversations with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington.

The ground-launched cruise missile at the center of American concerns is one that the Obama administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans American and Russian intermediate-range missiles based on land.

The Obama administration had sought to persuade the Russians to correct the violation while the missile was still in the test phase. Instead, the Russians have moved ahead with the system, deploying a fully operational unit.