Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Their shamelessness is their super power.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

This fight is for everything.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Politics / Crazification Factor / The Nobel Peace Prize Is Hard To Win – Open Thread

The Nobel Peace Prize Is Hard To Win – Open Thread

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Today North Korea broke off a meeting with South Korea because of a military exercise coming up by South Korea, the US, and a cast of thousands. Just now,

I think I said something a few days ago on Twitter if not here, and so did Adam, that “denuclearization” did not mean what Trump and company thought it did. Now North Korea is saying it.

Will tomorrow morning’s executive time bring tweets about the fake news media, Little Rocket Man, or something else? Stay tuned.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    As I said previously:

    KJU just rolled up his copy of Forbes magazine and is spanking Trumps ass like Clockwork Orange.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    NK is master class trolling this fucking buffoon Trump. This is like DougJ old school style sticking the shiv in. Except for the nukes, I mean.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    Reuters Top News
    ‏Verified account @Reuters

    MORE: North Korea says Trump will remain as failed leader if he follows in the footsteps of previous U.S. presidents. For the latest on #NorthKorea, follow our live blog https://reut.rs/2L5x6er

  4. 4.

    B.B.A.

    Trump would have offered Kim the entire peninsula in exchange for putting his name in big, beautiful gold letters on the Ryugyong Hotel. But I guess we’re going to be spared that spectacle now.

  5. 5.

    jayjaybear

    The Ryugyong is actually pretty perfect for Trump. YUUUGE, ugly and tacky as sin.

  6. 6.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Earlier today, a couple of my colleagues predicted pretty much exactly this.

  7. 7.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    B-b-but the South Korean President said Trump could have the Nobel Peace Prize!

    This literally a justification a Trump supporter made (even though they tried to give off the impression of being a high-minded independent defending free speech from the rabid leftist hordes and the evil Leftist Silicon Valley Coporations like Facebook and Twitter) to me a week ago on YouTube. I posted this to the thread several hours ago. Crickets. They also tended to ignore points I was making and would use other arguments for other issues.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Dolt 45 administration will take out a few commas, randomly capitalize a few words and present the otherwise unaltered Clinton era deal as a brand new, greatest ever in history proposal.

  12. 12.

    EveryDayIHaveTheBlues

    The idiot is so desperate for a win that, for just this one time, he’ll be the one doing the micturation.

    Of course NK was gonna reel him in like a fucking hooked fish. These people are not dummies. They can read him well. They know that after dreaming of (and boasting publicly about) a Nobel, something his illustrious predecessor regarded with bemusement, the idiot is slobbering for one. He’ll do anything now to not let this mirage of a victory slip from his grasp.

  13. 13.

    jonas

    Lulz! But they told Mike Pompeo they “share the same objectives” as the American people! How can they now claim they didn’t intend to unilaterally disarm? I’m sure a lot of people in Trumpland are very confused tonight.

    Trump’s MO is always: 1. Bullshit. 2. ??? 3. Affirm total victory!!

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Did somebody tell the North Koreans about Infrastructure Week, and they just want to get in on the meme?

    ETA: I know it happened seven or eight years ago last week, but I’m still not over trump thanking Kim for treating the people he took prisoner excellently

  19. 19.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    And here it is: the English-language translation of N. Korea’s latest statement, taking aim pretty clearly at John Bolton.

    Oh, great. Are we going to bomb North Korea too?

  20. 20.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: I was just wondering if Bolton’s BS subtexting around had something to do with it.
    I typed a comment recently that Bolton’s repeated mention of Iraq and Lybia when he talked about NK almost seemed like not so subtle taunting. Not that Bolton was getting in the way of a brilliant plan by Trump that promised great success.

    The best we can hope for is that the Trumpsters stumble and bumble flummoxed through the midterms. I guess would be good if they get punked and fume about it right before the midterms, But best thing would be for Trump to just get distracted and forget about it, except then someone would wave Iran in front of him.

    Man, anything the Trumpsters do in foreign affairs and international security makes my skin crawl. Anything.
    Maybe if we can get to NFL exhibition season, Trump will go apeshit over players kneeling again, and foreign policy will go on ice for a while.

  21. 21.

    Jager

    Off topic, but my oldest grandchild is 26 today and graduates from law school on Saturday, she’ll take a break and then begin her clerkship with a Federal judge. What a kid! It’s good to be old. (sometimes)

  24. 24.

    jl

    @Yarrow: Trump thinks Bolton has an ugly non-central casting ‘stache. So, might not take much for him to get tossed out.

  26. 26.

    sdhays

    What?!?? But he treated those hostagesguests so beautifully? How could this happen???

  27. 27.

    mai naem mobile

    Hard to win the Nobel Prize when you pass the deadline for the nomination. Don’t bother for next year because Trumpkins have the attention span of an immature gnat.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    Rudy’s been awfully quite. Shipment of ball gags must have arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

  31. 31.

    sdhays

    @B.B.A.:

    Trump would have offered Kim the entire peninsula in exchange for putting his name in big, beautiful gold letters on the Ryugyong Hotel.

    I wonder how much Kim Jong Un realizes how much this is true.

  33. 33.

    Cheryl Rofer

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone: That is indeed some master class-level trolling right there. CUT A DEAL WITH US NO MATTER HOW SHITTY OR REMAIN IN THE BOTTOM TIER OF YOUR PRESIDENTZ 4EVER!!!

    And he’ll fall for it, too.

    Time to do the right thing here, Deep State.

  37. 37.

    jl

    @Yarrow: Also, US pulling out of Iran deal might have something to do with it. Bolton’s BSubtexting plus facts on the ground that Trump is willing to renege. Plus fact that Israel decided to mess around with Iranian proxies immediately after Trump pulled out of Iran deal.

    I find it hard to believe that NK would tease around to get more concessions, since their approach seemed to have been working so well. Maybe they think they smell a rat. They would be right, and it takes one to know one, so maybe that’s it.

    Edit: so far, NK is going about it a way that suggests they want to stall or put on ice, not another aspect of their gambit. But we will see.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    @jonas:

    Trump’s MO is always: 1. Bullshit. 2. ??? 3. Affirm total victory!!

    aka Government by (orange) Underpants Gnomes…if “kakistocracy” is defined as rule by the worst, I supposed this would be “tanger-gnom-ocracy”? “Gnomango-ocracy”?

    Or just, “sucks”

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Trump told the Europeans that Iran would just fold after he slapped them around a bit, just like North Korea did.

    Oh well.

    The Europeans and Iran met today and put something together to get around US sanctions. I don’t know much more than that right now.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Bolton and Trump are used to being able to bully people because they have more power and/or more money. They blundered into this assuming that their usual tactics would work, but they forgot that we don’t really have much to hold over NK. Now they’re floundering, because they have no idea what else to do except bully louder.

  45. 45.

    Chet Murthy

    “denuclearization” did not mean what Trump and company thought it did.

    Cheryl, I remember when you wrote it, and it was (to me) very perceptive. So much about this is comical (when it’s not depressing). The -idea- that Kim would give up his nukes, knowing what happened to Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussein, what is in-plan for Iran: what monumental idiocy.

  46. 46.

    jl

    @Major Major Major Major: I think any reasonably informed somewhat thoughtful person would see parallels between Iran action, and what Israel did right after, and Korean peninsula. Even Dub would. But we have Trump now.

    Trumpsters are such a nightmare in foreign affairs, best we can hope for is shambling confusion on NK and Iran for the time being., IMHO..

  47. 47.

    jl

    @NotMax: You mean recently? If so, thanks for info, I didn’t know that. I guess for some reason it made the news after the US pulled out of the deal.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: Hehe.

    Relatedly, Trump’s Ferrari disappoints at Florida Auction (from 2017):

    President Donald Trump’s 2007 Ferrari F430 F1 Coupe left the sale block before meeting reserve at auction on Saturday in Florida. Bidding on the car stopped at $240,000, $10,000 below its low estimate.

    Yeah, Donnie no longer owned the car, but still. ;-)

    Donnie isn’t good at making deals, and people across the table from him know it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“How stupid do you have to be to publish a book that tells your adversaries how you ‘win’ a deal?”)

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    @Cheryl Rofer: Bolton: “I got an entire COUNTRY to hate on me? BY NAME, MULTIPLE TIMES??” Siiiiiiiighhhhhh…

    What? It’s what he wants, after all. Isn’t he one of the higher-ups in the neocon death cult at this point? Even Kristol is like, “yer nutz, dood”…

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @jl

    Yup. Was mentioned several times here in comments, including Israel expecting retaliation before Dolt 45’s JCPOA debacle.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    NEW: A former Trump campaign official told Senate he thought he received email in 2016 alerting him Russians had damaging information about Clinton. But so far no one can find the email.

    I wonder if the Russians are still astonished by how eager Americans were to believe the worst about Hillary Clinton. Their intelligence is good enough to know that all of the bullshit about her being “crooked” is bullshit, and yet Americans were falling all over themselves to eat up the anti-Hillary propaganda. Urgh.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @Cheryl Rofer: “Reality has a way of asserting itself” – PBO

    In this case, a very ‘real’ Iran goes, “hey Europe, you’re still good with our deal?” And Europe goes, “oui, mein freund – muy bueno!” And so Iran drops trou at the US…

  57. 57.

    Yarrow

    In other news, Kilauea is erupting. Alert level is Red/Warning, which appears to be the highest level.

    Summary of #HVO #Kilauea VAN/VONA: Ash eruption at summit has increased in intensity. NWS radar & pilot reports show top of the ash cloud is as high as 10,000-12,000 feet above sea level. Ashfall and vog has been reported in Pahala (18 mi downwind). #KilaueaErupts pic.twitter.com/ChzRdu0Ch7— USGS Volcanoes? (@USGSVolcanoes) May 15, 2018

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: What is puzzling about it is that I read several stories with quotes from Trumpster officials,and analysis agreeing, that they were signaling EDIT: actually no signaling bout outright saying) that they would cave on meaning of denuclearization. EDIT: seemed like Trumpsters thought they could pull one on US public with help of media, and I think they would be correct.

    If that is the case, why would NK not go along? They wanted an endzone dance with the US hanging its head before the talks?
    Looks like two or three possibilities for NK stinking up the party, and maybe we’ll find out which one it is soon.

  64. 64.

    Planetpundit

    (T)Rump will rename it the Slingapore Summit ‘cuz his ass will be in one when Un get through with him.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: as my news-addiction has gotten worse, I find myself watching his show,especially on a night like this, but I pretty much tune out his questions, and his tortured attempts be at once folksy and profound.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    @Yarrow

    Repeating, then. USGS Big Island volcano cams.

    Airlines have been topping off tanks as a precaution to provide enough extra fuel to divert to Honolulu since shortly after this phase of the eruption began.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    Yikes! I hope they’re able to evacuate everyone safely. IIRC, the gases and ash released by an eruption are more dangerous than the lave flow, but IANAV (vulcanologist).

  69. 69.

    NotMax

    @MisterForkbeard

    Some tripe he spat out about the N. Korea situation that was so insipid (and patently wrong) that it would not stick within my skull, thank goodness.

  70. 70.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @jl: What the Trumpsters have said since the Sunday morning interview programs has been internally inconsistent and at least confusing. Nonproliferation Twitter kicked around some interpretations and did not come to any conclusions. I had lunch with a colleague yesterday, and we talked about how difficult it is even to discuss what the administration may think or do. With Obama or W, you could lay out a range of possible actions or motives from probable to improbable, or favorable to unfavorable, or some other scale. Trump and his toadies might do anything, and the motives seem to change from minute to minute.

    Bolton and Pompeo have a history from which we can judge them, but their performance on Sunday was all over the map, and they seemed flustered at times, without answers. They are trying to please The Great Negotiator, of course, and they have no idea what he wants or will do.

    There was a slight move toward what one might reasonably expect to be the North Korean position in the past 24 hours or so. But what is happening now is that the Trumpsters were doing a victory dance because (they thought) they have forced Kim into submission. Tonight Kim’s people said no, you stupid bastards, it’s the other way around. So the Trumpsters have to respond to that element too.

  74. 74.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. I don’t have time to follow stuff as closely as you do. I guess I happened to see stories that emphasized the statements that amounted to moving the goal posts.

    If Trump were smarter about his malfeasance, he should have gone with the cave and then go an a domestic propaganda campaign to hide the cave. Then he would have had a nice, seeming, victory before the midterms. A lot of the media would fall all over themselves to go along. The resulting inept negotiations could have resulted in trouble down the road, so I wouldn’t have been happy about it, except it would be better for now than a war scare.

    So, OK, Trumpsters are incoherent and make no sense. I should have assumed that.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    would I find Kornacki less annoying if i couldn’t see his hammy gesticulation?

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @GregB:

    Well, sure, but it’s more that I’m picturing the guys at the FSB standing around going, Can you believe that they actually think the Clinton Foundation is corrupt? How stupid are these Americans, anyway?

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer: Some Trump tweet I saw this afternoon and maybe some news story suggests that Trump believes that he has a solid relationship with China, and he can depend upon China to put pressure on North Korea.

    It would be very interesting if Trump soft-pedals any response to this little Barb.

  82. 82.

    randy khan

    I’d say I’d stick this one in the Department of Absolutely No Surprise. Of course NK wants something big in return for giving up nukes – it’s hard to see how anyone would think otherwise.

  83. 83.

    Corner Stone

    @randy khan: They will never give up their nukes.
    Understand this – Trump broke negotiations with a nuclear free Iran. He sent Sec State Pompeo at least twice to talk peace with NK. That is a loud and clear message, if NK ever needed one (they did not).

  84. 84.

    Chet Murthy

    @randy khan: I remember when Cheryl was introduced as an FPer. She was asked about the rationality of the Kim regime, and answered something like “they’re supremely rational, focusing like a laser on one thing before all others: the long-term survival of the Kim dynasty and regime”. I found this very, very perceptive.

    I’m no foreign affairs whiz, but I’ll predict that NOTHING will convince Kim to give up his nukes. NOTHING. They’re his ultimate life preserver.

  87. 87.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I have two cats on the verge of starvation weakly managing to meow at me for their late-night snack, so I think we’ll pack it in. I’ll check back in the morning to see if there are any more questions.

  88. 88.

    Chet Murthy

    I just had to post this little gem about Spike Lee’s latest flick

    As he basked in a six-minute-long standing ovation, Lee flashed the “Love” and “Hate” knuckle-dusters worn by Radio Raheem in his 1989 hit “Do the Right Thing” at the cameras.

    DTRT was an awakening for me. I had more to learn, but it was important. Malcolm X was the same. I’m looking forward to this one.

  89. 89.

    jacy

    @Jager:

    Congrats!

    Busy graduation season here — my son’s fiancee just graduated on Saturday from Xavier with a Doctor’s of Pharmacy, and Kid #4 graduates high school on Thursday, enroute to the Engineering college at LSU. (And my youngest turned 13 last week, meaning my last kid is now a teenager, and making me feel really old….)

  94. 94.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    Ferrari would have happily painted it gold if Trump had only asked. He’s not their only customer with more money than taste.

  96. 96.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Mary G:
    Great news! I’m a little disappointed in Ohio Dems as we cast about 150,000 less votes than the GOP earlier this month.

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    I do believe this is what you are referring to:
    https://balloon-juice.com/2018/05/01/the-nobel-lie-the-us-is-now-superfluous-to-the-future-of-the-korean-peninsula/

    I’ve read the joint statement from Kim and Moon a couple of times. While the language is nice and flowery and ambiguous, I think that section 2 and parts of section 3 are going to be what cause the US headaches. These sections read to me as the pretext for Kim to demand or require that 1) the Joint Multinational US-ROK annual military exercises stop and 2) the US drawdown its 28K personnel in the ROK as they will no longer be needed. This is in line with how Kim and the DPRK understands denuclearization, which always means getting the US off the peninsula, not that the DPRK necessarily gives up its nuclear weapons program, or, now, the fruits of its program.

    I also think that aside from the meeting between Kim and the President, the US is now superfluous to the reality on the ground. And that Kim is manipulating the President into a diplomatic and strategic trap where Kim and the DPRK looks like the good guys here and the President, and by extension the US, look unreasonable and become the bad guys. This would also make Xi and the PRC, as well as Putin – another Kim patron – very, very happy.
    Kim, in the DPRK, wants what he’s always wanted:

    – the removal of the US, specifically of the US military, from the peninsula
    – the reunification of the peninsula
    – under Kim family control
    – preservation of the Kim family regime

    When you hear or read Kim or other DPRK officials calling for denuclearization, part of what they mean is for the US to remove the nuclear umbrella that it provides to Japan and the ROK, if not the removal of the US military from the Korean Peninsula. Not giving up the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent.

  98. 98.

    Mary G

    This is what Hillary was up against:

    WaPo:Facebook disabled 583 million fake accounts and millions of spam, sex and hate speech posts

    That’s the first quarter of 2018. In 2016 they weren’t even looking.

    Along with fake accounts, Facebook said in its transparency report that it had removed 21 million pieces of content featuring sex or nudity, 2.5 million pieces of hate speech and almost 2 million items related to terrorism by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the first quarter of 2018.

  99. 99.

    Mary G

    More good turnout news in PA:

    With most of the vote counted in Charlie Dent's old #PA07, there have been 28,915 votes cast in the GOP primary, 41,769 votes cast in the D primary.— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) May 16, 2018

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: Trump has issues with buying cars:
    https://jalopnik.com/how-donald-trump-got-cadillac-to-build-him-the-most-opu-1764776150

    Donald Trump often suggests that his greatest asset is his name, which he personally has valued at over $3 billion. What’s less commonly known is that the very first time he slapped his name on any product, it was on a pair of Cadillac limousines known as the Trump Executive Series and the Trump Golden Series. And he got Cadillac to build them for him by agreeing to order a run of limos he never bought.

    So, sure, these are exactly the sorts of limos you can imagine Trump wanting. A recent story by Automotive News points out he said he wanted them so much, he arranged with Cadillac that if they worked with him on making them, he’d buy 50 limos for his personal use and to shuttle bigshots to and from his casinos in New York and Atlantic City.

    This is bit different than how Trump portrays the arrangement in the book, which makes it sound more like Cadillac was just thrilled to build a Trump-branded limo, with gifts of gold Allantés and no mention of a 50-limo order.

    But the GM’s Cadillac division at the time, John Grettenberger, told the story differently. Here’s what he wrote in his hard-to-find book Ready, Set, Go! My Life at General Motors, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Opel, and Isuzu, again via Automotive News:

    “He would input to the interior styling of the vehicle and allow Cadillac to use his name in promotional activity. By doing so he intended to purchase 50 of them for his personal use.

    He was looking for means to transport high rollers from New York City to his hotel and casinos in Atlantic City and return.”

    According to Grettenberger’s take, it seems like the order of the 50 cars was what made Cadillac open to the arrangement, along with Cadillac’s use of Trump’s name—which, to be fair, was a desirable commodity in 1987-1988, prior to Trump’s 1991 bankruptcy.

    That’s why the way the Trump Car deal played out is so interesting. Also from Grettenberger’s book:

    “The two prototypes were built but when it came down to approving the transaction and placing a purchase order for the fifty limos, nothing happened!

    Donald gave all sorts of reasons for a delay, purchased one for “his father,’ but no order for the remaining forty-nine. I’m not even sure what happened to the second prototype.

    So much for the Trump limousine!”

    So, when it came down to Trump actually closing the deal and buying the promised 50 limousines, apparently Trump graciously decided to buy… one, which he said was for his dad. Allegedly, he didn’t even buy the whole initial production run of two, reneging on 49 Trump Limousine orders and effectively killing the whole project.

    It’s not just Grettenberger who was expecting to build more than two of these land yachts; contemporary news reports like this AP article of the era suggest that “Several hundred of the limousines may be produced annually,” and that the limos would cost between $55,000 and $65,000 (or between $112,000 and $133,000 in today’s money).

    Nobody seems to know where the second prototype is (the other one seems to be in the hands of a European collector, which explains the modified headlights and taillights), and Cadillac really got nothing at all out of the deal.

    What we do know is that Cadillac never got the order for the full run of 50 cars, and never got to make use of Trump’s name in any promotional or advertising context.

    If you step back and look at the Trump Car “deal,” it could easily cause you to wonder if Donald Trump got Cadillac to take the considerable time and effort to design and build him (or, sure, his dad) a custom limousine at essentially no development cost to himself, beyond the purchase price of the final car.

    If one did follow this line of reasoning, one could also note that he even managed to get his reportedly mob-connected friends at the Dillinger Coachworks company some cash out of the deal.

    One way or another, Trump ended up with the very fine personalized custom limo, the one he wanted in the first place.

    I hope this has been a good lesson in the exquisite Art of the Deal.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne:

    But so far no one can find the email.

    This is what the National Security Agency is for. I guarantee that Bob Mueller has a copy of the email.

  103. 103.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow:

    Kilauea is erupting. Alert level is Red/Warning

    With blood and rage of crimson red,

    Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,

    Together with our hellish hate,

    We’ll burn you all–that is your fate!

  104. 104.

    jonas

    @Chet Murthy: OF COURSE keeping his nukes is priority #1. The fact that Trump got suckered into agreeing to a summit without realizing this is simply proof that America’s Götterdämmerung is going to be performed by an amateur theater company from Mike Pompeo’s former district.

  105. 105.

    sukabi

    @jonas: NK was as likely to unilaterally disarm as the NRA is to embrace getting AR-15s and similar weapons out of civilian hands.

  106. 106.

    Mary G

    The Idaho Democratic Party is asking a judge to keep two precincts in Ada County open until 10 due to low ballots and high turnout. Stay tuned for the judge's decision #idpol #idleg— Kimberlee Kruesi (@kkruesi) May 16, 2018

    This is part of Boise; they did not have enough ballots for all the Democrats who wanted to vote. The judge said no.

    Republicans are all cheaters.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chet Murthy:

    There are still kids who get onto the LA subways with the 2018 version of a boombox, and I still refer to all of them as Radio Raheems (not in their hearing, because teenage boys are delicate creatures who should be granted their dignity). I really hope I don’t sound racist by saying this, because I don’t mean to be.

  110. 110.

    ? Martin

    Christ. There have been a total of 3 leaders of North Korea, all related. The entirety of the existence of that country has been focused on one thing – how to preserve the regime, keep foreign influence out (not just the US, but also China, etc.) and get a seat at the table not as some misbehaving child to be dealt with, but as an equal. All they know how to do is exert leverage. If Trump makes it easy, they’ll assume they can get more. They’ve been ratcheting up their position for half a century. They’re experts at this.

    Kim is smart enough to realize that the US has no diplomatic planning capacity right now. He knows we have no plan B, and so a move like this will cause chaos in the WH, rather than get a calm but determined response. Everyone but the residents of the WH and political appointees in the State Department seem to be able to see this.

    Consider what Ford put together in Operation Paul Bunyan. That was organized and implemented in 3 days. It’ll take them 3 days to pull Trump away from Fox and Friends and his iPhone.

    I don’t mind Kim’s approach. Let’s be honest, here – it’s worked. It’s unconscionable to his own people, but it worked. I mind Trumps approach for signaling that he’s okay if NK can nuke everyone in Asia, just so long as he can’t hit California. Granted, there’s a bit of progress in this approach that they feel California is not worth nuking, but it’s hard to make friends when you publicly proclaim to the neighborhood arsonist that everyone else has more flammable houses than you do.

  112. 112.

    ? Martin

    @Chet Murthy: Exactly. Kim pushed hard for the nuke program, and now he has unilateral talks with the US. What’s more, he’s got a US president who is now desperate to have those talks because he put himself in a corner. Nukes gives a country legitimacy. Kim knows this, and Trump proved it by backing out of Iran and agreeing to unilateral talks with NK. If I were running Iran, I’d be calling Kim and asking how much to get a nuke, and how soon can I have it. Fuck, if I were running Lichtenstein I’d probably be doing that.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    @? Martin:

    They’ve been ratcheting up their position for half a century. They’re experts at this.

    I don’t know. I don’t know if the current leader is as sharp as his predecessor, or is willing to continue to press on. His greatest advantage may be that in Trump he is dealing with someone who is as much a dope as he is.

    Kim is nothing without his nukes and the support of China. He could cause great havoc, but after that he would have nothing and could never sustain anything after an initial military attack.

    But the destruction he could cause is to be feared.

    Trump and his chief advisers are total fools. And so we are waiting to see whether these idiots might actually stumble into something resembling peace. Heaven only knows.

  115. 115.

    ? Martin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I think DPRK distrusts all foreign powers. I think they have pretty good reason to.

    @Brachiator: I don’t think Kim is a dope. He seems smart enough to realize that he’d get nowhere diplomatically without the nuke. We’ll see what he can make of it, but so far by the rules of the game that they’re working under, he seems to be doing pretty well by them.

  116. 116.

    J R in WV

    @Jager:

    You are so lucky. A successful kid executing their desire for something difficult is so great to witness. We have neighbor/friends whose daughters both went to law school, intent on helping under-served people, and I felt the same way back when they took jobs with NGOs.

    Congratulations from the bottom of my heart! Tell her there are a lot of people glad for her success and hoping she continues her success for years to come. We’re still looking for that presidential candidate! (You might not want to go with that last one, no matter how true it is! — ;-) — )

  121. 121.

    ottercliff

    Wait, won’t they give him the Prize for trying? He has probably sunk 20 or 30 mins of his “executive time” into this project already. Fake Prize!! Not fair!!

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