Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

We still have time to mess this up!

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Innocent people do not delay justice.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Cunning Dealmaker Open Thread: Kim Jong Won

Cunning Dealmaker Open Thread: Kim Jong Won

by | 206 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
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(Jim Morin via GoComics.com)
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… Over the long run, Singapore changed none of the fundamentals of the situation. North Korea still has a track record of agreeing to things and then reneging on its agreements. So, for that matter, does Donald Trump. It seems extremely unlikely that a regime that believes its security is intertwined with its nuclear capabilities will surrender them. It seems even more unlikely that hawks such as national security adviser John Bolton are going to roll over and not try to provoke Pyongyang again. Most important, there is no evidence that the fundamental policy preferences of the key actors (North Korea, China, the United States) have changed on this issue.

That said, the primary reason the long-term odds have not changed is because those odds were not as high as everyone thought six months ago (myself included). Back in January, Michael Horowitz and Elizabeth Saunders concluded that structural factors (capabilities, geography) limit the likelihood of armed conflict. None of those factors has changed after the summit, either.

The Singapore summit produced great theatrics. Beyond that, everything that was said in Singapore could be easily revocable. So embrace the season of conciliatory rhetoric between president Trump and Kim Jong Un. Just realize that even if the rhetoric begins to curdle, the fundamental situation will not have changed all that much.

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)
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Frank Rich, former theater critic, at NYMag, yesterday:

… What is going to dawn on Trump now is that in television terms the summit was only a limited series while the Mueller inquiry, and its many attendant subplots, is an open-ended series with no season finale yet in view. Trump has already milked the Kim story for all that he could. Now that the summit is over, he can no longer create artificial suspense by threatening to cancel it or suggesting he might walk out if Kim wasn’t to his liking. He can no longer bask in its photo ops. He can no longer brag about his ability to take the measure of a new acquaintance in less than a minute…

… Trump gave up all his cards in Singapore, and not only does he have no national security achievements to show for it, but he will soon have no selfish political gains to show for it either. North Korea will vanish into the ever-churning news-cycle ether by next week. Its fading memory will not derail the scandals at home, and will not be a factor in the midterms. Americans don’t cast their votes on foreign-policy issues short of cataclysms like long-running, blood-drenched quagmires in Vietnam and Iraq.

This won’t stop Trump from repeatedly trying to hawk the summit as a great achievement in world peace. He values a Nobel almost as much as an Emmy. Still, for all the throwing around of the word historic this week, what’s most historic about the event is how closely it seems to emulate Munich. Upon returning to England from his meeting with Hitler in September 1938, the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain used triumphant language much like that we find in Trump’s Twitter feed today. “This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine …[It is] symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again … I believe it is peace for our time.” Hitler invaded Poland six months later…

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)
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Reader Interactions

206Comments

  1. 1.

    TenguPhule

    “I can now call him. I can now say, “Well, we have a problem.” I told him — I gave him a very direct number. He can now call me if he has any difficulty. I can call him. We have communication. It’s a very good thing.

    Trump is going to subcontract his political assassination of Democrats to NK?

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  2. 2.

    marcopolo

    So yesterday in one of Betty’s threads I bitched about how hard it is for reporters to clearly point out when the president is lying & to correct those lies.

    Watch the first few minutes of this!

    In it Katy Tur goes to town on Trump’s impromptu White House lawn interview with Fox & Friends. She uses the word lie! Yay! I realize this might also go well in the worm turning thread but just saw it.

    Really, watch the first few minutes, enjoy.

  3. 3.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    He claims he said that “sarcastically”. Yeah, right. Nothing in his tone or demeanor suggested he was using sarcasm. He meant it and when called out he started backpedaling.

    Claiming you were being sarcastic is what all people do when called out on something others find objectionable and don’t want to face the consequences of what they said. “Come on, I was just joking. Can’t you take a joke?”

  5. 5.

    burnspbesq

    The possibility, however unlikely, that this time next year Nancy Pelosi could be President probably scares Our Progressive Betters more than it scares Trump or Pence.

  6. 6.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @marcopolo:

    I really do wonder what Trump did that was the last straw on the camel’s back (assuming this is a trend that will continue). Was it the trade war? Trump’s bullshit summit and the humiliations it spawned? His lying about the IG report on the FBI in a transparent attempt to exonerate himself? Or is it the concentration camps being built for kidnapped migrant children?

  9. 9.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @VeniceRiley:
    Well, fuck. He seemed like such a likeable guy. My exposure to him was on the game show The Wall.

  10. 10.

    Cheryl Rofer

    To go back to a previous topic, here are some lawyer thoughts about Manafort’s current situation.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    a little boy’s ignorant fascination with uniforms.

    no question there’s a childishness to trump’s ignorance and lack of impulse control, but his love of uniforms, and big men wearing them*, and the brute authority they represent, is much more dangerous than a little boy who wants to play army man

    *

    At another point, Trump marveled at how “tough” the North Korean guards seemed, noting that they were always stone-faced and refused to shake hands, the two people said. One recalled the president joking that they could probably take on White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.

    the whole article is basically one long entry into Dan Dresser’s Giant Toddler thread

  12. 12.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)

    He wants us all to fucking bow down before him. Fuck.

    I know this is futile, but one of the things I want to see badly is for Tяump’s voters to tell us all that they were wrong. I want them to tell us they understand what they did, and why it was so harmful to so many people. I want them to ask us to forgive them. I know this’ll never happen. Never. Tяump could order ICE to begin shooting down children in the street. He could begin selling weapons to North Korea. He can do anything to anybody, even those who voted for him, and they’ll never turn on him. I know that. But I still want to hear it from them, that they fucked up, and they know they fucked up.

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cheryl Rofer: I feel less and less like I need to change the tinfoil in my hat when I think he’s afraid that his daughters will grab a poison door knob, or something more spectacular, if he flips.

  14. 14.

    marcopolo

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: It could be, along the lines of the theory Kay espoused a couple days ago, that various reporters/ cable folks/ others have been trying various ways to address the Orange menace in the room and that they’ve finally come down to “we just have to say when his mouth is open he is lying.” Who knows, maybe they finally realize there is no real mushy middle to appeal to and that anyone who is already on the Trump train will be riding that sucker into whatever oblivion for which it is headed. We all know that the hosts on MSNBC who seem to be doing the most confrontational/reality-based reporting are being rewarded in the ratings.

    All I can do is to praise the folks who are doing the right thing when they do it.

    PS I will need a way to blow off steam after working at the nearby coordinated campaign office much of the week. Anyone here at BJ ever play Elder Scrolls online and have an opinion of it. I burned out on WOW a couple years ago. Thanks in advance.

  15. 15.

    DCrefugee

    The television angle is interesting. As someone who lived through Watergate, for a lot of us, the end of this won’t be in sight until Congressional hearings begin and get live coverage. Agent Orange’s reaction to daily televised hearings will be off the charts…

  16. 16.

    Kay

    Manu Raju
    ‏@mkraju
    2h2 hours ago
    More Manu Raju Retweeted Chris Sommerfeldt
    A clear message from Trump to Manafort not to cooperate with Mueller team

    Every once in a while it hits me how strange this has all become- the President of the United States is sending “messages” to his (currently incarcerated) campaign manager NOT to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

  18. 18.

    germy

    Watching the clip, I thought Trump meant he wished his staff would be at attention when he spoke. He sort of gestures behind him when he says it. I didn’t interpret it as meaning the American people.

    It sounds like he’s acting like a jocular CEO talking about his middle managers.

  21. 21.

    marcopolo

    @Cheryl Rofer: Guess he should have thought of that before he started trying to tamper with witnesses. No sympathy here. But if he ever does flip for realsies I am gonna drink a really really good beer. Thinking Fin du Monde. It is a lovely 9% alc by volume.

  22. 22.

    Mike J

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    8. Being imprisoned before trial is a huge detriment to being able to prepare your defense. /6

    When y9our defense is witness tampering, this is true. It’s designed to stop it.

  23. 23.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I keep wondering why someone would put himself in that position. I know – money, a sociopathic tendency to believe he won’t get caught. But still, I keep thinking, he was in a position to see what can happen to people who do precisely what he’s been doing and how arbitrarily it happens. It’s a cognitive dissonance for me.

  24. 24.

    germy

    That mountain of skulls cartoon.

    The editorial cartoonist who got fired from his paper (by his pro-trump editor) did something similar, but only posted it online because he knew it wouldn’t get printed.

    Things with my paper are still unresolved but I decided to draw this one for syndication only. Enjoy. Summit cartoon: https://t.co/gGOKCq5thp #TrumpKimSummit #KimJongUn #Trump #TrumpKim #nukes #HumanRights #NorthKorea pic.twitter.com/9eA1gnnfzO— Rob Rogers (@Rob_Rogers) June 13, 2018

  26. 26.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: Where is the suspense there? Putin is like an old recurring character brought back to juice a failing sitcom. Putin apparently does face-lifts, so the audience won’t gasp at how he’s aged since the last episode he was on, is main difference.

    And might be counterproductive, if Trump’s Oval Office meeting with the Russians early in his term is any indication. Trump will be like a gleeful little kid who gets his moment with a callous and crooked baseball hero, who sneers and chuckles, or stonefaces, his way through the ordeal. Trump ether won’t notice or will double down on the boorish good cheer to try to make it look good.

    Trump’s already given away the drama. He’ll have burgers and fries with Putin, lean over the table and say “Hey, pal, everyone wants you out of Ukraine and I’m supposed to help, so do me a solid on that, huh? Now wait until you see the ice cream sundae, it’s first rate, really a top sundae. Served at the all the premier Trump properties”

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: One reminder and one fun fact.
    Reminder: The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has a wonderful chief judge. Named Garland. You might have heard of him.//
    Fun fact: As I type this a no official cover (NOC) member of Russian intelligence is preparing to get himself arrested in DC and thrown into general population. This is not sarcasm.

  30. 30.

    WereBear

    @marcopolo: We all know that the hosts on MSNBC who seem to be doing the most confrontational/reality-based reporting are being rewarded in the ratings.

    This cheers me.

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    It would be fun if they treated Manafort like Starr treated McMillian. Moved from jail to jail, kept in solitary, once even housed in a glass box in the middle of the prison

  33. 33.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @germy:
    It’s not much better, honestly. These people in the White House work for him but they’re not his slaves and don’t have to “sit-up at attention” when he talks. Not even in a private business setting. That’s an unhealthy work culture that would only encourage corruption and waste.

  34. 34.

    GxB

    “Hey, he’s the head of a country, and he’s the strong head — he speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

    Is this the thread where we tell Chump to fuck right the hell off?
    Good ‘cuz go fuck yourself Dolt – I’d have my head lopped off before I’d bow to you – you goddamned psycho.

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    What were people thinking when they voted for a seething mass of resentments with no conscience and the intellectual curiosity of a pumpkin. He doesn’t care for anyone or anything other his own personal profit and aggrandizement.

  37. 37.

    YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)

    @catclub:

    Nixon had a huge landslide win. Nobody ever said they were mistaken about that.

    OTOH I distinctly remember reports of polling afterward asking who people voted for showing that Nixon lost. Denial is strong.

  39. 39.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): The sad thing is, if a Trump supporter DID do those things and said: “I understand now that I made a horrible decision, and that it has caused a lot of harm to many people” I’d be willing to forgive them… in most cases.

    I don’t really see this happening. Anyone who voted for Trump knew what he was even if they wouldn’t admit it – a giant corrupt and racist douchebag who assaulted women. If they voted for him just to spite Hillary, that doesn’t make them any better off. So they’re all doubling down on him again and again. Source: My in-laws, who are mildly racist and think Trump is a clown, but one who’s doing some real good.

  40. 40.

    bluehill

    @Kay: It wouldn’t be happening if the repub controlled Congress wasn’t looking the other way. As with almost every other repub tenet, the law and order party is just a campaign slogan. I would guess that enough of them aren’t true believers and they could stop this slow motion train wreck if they had any of the courage of the Parkland kids, kneeling NFL players or metoo women. But my fear is that they have already condoned so much that it’s too hard to reverse positions. The ones with any decency are retiring and even then they won’t fight. These morans are exceptional in the worst ways.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @marcopolo: So funny fin du monde story. My masters thesis in religious studies was on violent millennial movements entitled: It’s the End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fear, Foreboding, and Violence at the End of the Second Millenium. One of my good friends from aikido was from Quebec. And she gave me a six pack of those as a graduation gift.

  45. 45.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @schrodingers_cat:
    I assume it depends on who you would ask. Plenty probably voted for Trump just to make Clinton lose, not out of huge support for him. Others really thought he was a good businessman and thought that alone qualified him to be President, knowing nothing of his past failures. Still others knew what he was about and identified with him, wanting to vote to punish those they hated. Finally, there are those who pulled the lever for Trump just because he had an R after his name.

  47. 47.

    VeniceRiley

    @ Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  : I know! I never missed an ep of Talking Dead, and often watched Midnight and played the hashtag game. Also, @GunnerGale follows me. Now, I can’t possibly watch the show until he is replaced. I feel sick to my stomach.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Economist cover reminds of my eighty-something RW neighbor, whom I see once or twice a year at neighborhood parties (and is one of the reasons I only go to those parties once or twice a year) who always mentions that he subscribes to it as if that’s proof he’s smart. And I don’t think even he’s on the trump train.

  52. 52.

    YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)

    @Adam L Silverman: I asked about this in a previous post, although I posited Russian mob. What provisions do we have to deal with that potential in a county jail. My guess is few.

  55. 55.

    JDM

    So Trump also gave Kim a phone number to directly call him? meaning that their subsequent conversations will be on Trump’s insecure Android phone, with who knows how many foreign governments listening in.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: Sunday shows, you say?

    Jonathan Karl @ jonkarl
    Exclusive: I’ll be interviewing Steve Bannon on ThisWeekABC Sunday morning. His first live Sunday show interview ever.

    Tommy Vietor
    How many neo-Nazis and fascists does Steve Bannon have to endorse before ThisWeekABC stops inviting him on the show?

    Bannon spoke at a meeting of the far-right National Front in France, where he reportedly told attendees, “Let them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.”

  65. 65.

    germy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Is it my imagination or is Jon Karl egging trump on?

    Every time I see a press conference where Karl is in the crowd, he’s shouting something like “When ya gonna fire Mueller? When ya gonna pardon manafort?”

  70. 70.

    marcopolo

    @trollhattan: Lol. Have to see if I can find someone in St. Louis selling it. I have a large group of beer drinking friends who might not be the highest on fruit accented beers but would make an exception for this.

    Several of us have the “It’s Mueller Time” t-shirts. I’m sure drinking while wearing the tee will heighten the experience.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    You think somewhere in a Long Island split-level, some mid-level FBI guy just opened his first Friday beer, checked twitter, and said, “Oh you dumb fuck, I told you not to say it was us!”?

    Josh Marshall @ joshtpm
    In light of IG’s failure to look at leaking/anti-Clinton bias among agents in NYC field office, this seems quite relevant. Nunes says “good FBI agents” told him about Weiner laptop in late September 2016.

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @catclub:
    And then, because Watergate was such “recent history” St. Ronaldus the Treasonish skates on Iran-Contra, reputation burnished hourly to this day.

  74. 74.

    Doug R

    @burnspbesq:

    The possibility, however unlikely, that this time next year Nancy Pelosi could be President probably scares Our Progressive Betters more than it scares Trump or Pence.

    …and that’s the problem “betters”. Anyone who doesn’t trust the will of the well informed people I don’t want running things.

  76. 76.

    TenguPhule

    @germy:

    Watching the clip, I thought Trump meant he wished his staff would be at attention when he spoke. He sort of gestures behind him when he says it. I didn’t interpret it as meaning the American people.

    Never give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @bluehill:

    It wouldn’t be happening if the repub controlled Congress wasn’t looking the other way.

    They’re in a box, too, though. Their base won’t allow them to veer from Dear Leader, but they’re not all stupid. They know this doesn’t end well. They’re all just hoping to avoid getting crushed when it crashes. They made a conscious decision to let it play out- they can’t oppose him. They’ll lose their seats. They really only had one choice if they want to keep their jobs.

    No one knows how to deal with this, IMO. Not the media, not elected Republicans – no “institution” is faring well. The people I have the most sympathy for are the career federal employees. They’re victims, as far as I’m concerned.

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @marcopolo:
    I truly hope it has good distribution, since everybody needs a chance!

    Luckily, the peach while there is well in the background so not a deterrent, at least to my palate. Stone generally knows their stuff.

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    : As I type this a no official cover (NOC) member of Russian intelligence is preparing to get himself arrested in DC and thrown into general population. This is not sarcasm.

    How fast can the CIA arrange for the NOC to die from an accident?

  81. 81.

    marcopolo

    @Dorothy Winsor: With the Katy Tur clip I linked at comment #2–which is from around 2 pm today, I’m thinking MSNBC has as of now decided to “bang the nail on the head”, as it were, with Trump’s lying.

    If so, good for them.

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    @germy:

    Is it my imagination or is Jon Karl egging trump on?

    IIRC, Jon Karl got his start in journalism as a member of the Young Republicans writing for his campus paper. He’s always been a Repub cheerleader behind a tissue-thin pretense at “objectivity”.

    The good thing is, if we’re fortunate and the Everybody-Knows tide is really turning against the GOP crime cartel, Mr. Karl is gonna be one of the first wedgie-targets from his former coworkers. Once the schoolyard bully gets taken down, his seconds tend to get everything they and he deserved…

  83. 83.

    TenguPhule

    @GxB:

    Good ‘cuz go fuck yourself Dolt – I’d have my head lopped off before I’d bow to you – you goddamned psycho.

    Don’t give him ideas.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Heh. Hate screwing around with shaving/peeling kiwifruit but in the last year discovered new varieties that can be cut in two and scooped out with a spoon like a two-minute egg. Success!

  86. 86.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Dorothy Winsor:
    So Peter Principle has finally gotten a clue? Good.

    I distinctly remember someone on here mentioning that around 2008 they thought Chuck Todd was actually a decent pundit.

    I’d like to know when everyone’s epiphany was that Chuck Todd was an idiot.

  87. 87.

    misterpuff

    Wait, Obama was a wannabe King with his Executive Orders and his haughty manners…that’s what the GOP and Rand Paul told me during the last year of his administration.

    The Donald wants to be a Drumptator and not a peep. I’m sure if His Trumpness demanded, they would curtsy and kow-tow to him (not the office).

    Its his Divine Right as a Rich Old White Guy and senile fool.

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: They made this box. They propagandized their base into what they are. They did this to themselves in a quest for power and control.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    David Martosko
    ‏@dmartosko
    7h7 hours ago
    More
    Scott Pruitt is just … my goodness. He asked a Virginia lawmaker to get his daughter into UVA law school.

    The Pruitt scandals alone would be a lot for a President over the course of two years, and he’s just one minor corrupt individual in the Trump Administration. He’s loose change compared with the complex, elaborate criminality of people like Manafort.

    I think they keep Pruitt around because they needed some ordinary corruption to distract from…treason.

  92. 92.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Concerning, though, because it indicates the IG is more corrupt than at first apparent. Not only making up BS summary findings not supported (rather, actually contradicted) by the evidence in the report itself, but apparently not looking into any questionable behavior, like massive leaking, that favored Trump. TPM says didn’t look into the backdoor connections to Rudy either.

  97. 97.

    jl

    @Baud:
    “Being occupied by Canada sounds kind of nice actually.”

    Maybe you should run a Canadian invasion of US up the old flagpole as part of Baud 20201 platform?

    We don’t want to give away the country for free. Canada would promise us big discounts on their superior snacking foods.

  98. 98.

    Adam L Silverman

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: When NBC announced he was their chief polling and politics expert despite not being able to make it through an undergrad polisci program, including never getting to, let alone through, the baby stats class.

  101. 101.

    jl

    @jl: I did not know that about Mr. Todd. But, wow, capable of very smooth and confident moves in front of the green screen. I guess that is what matters.

    Edit: naive me thought that some of the pundit celebs got around to learning something about what they babble on the TV. I think Roker, at some point, bothered to actually learn something about the weather. I assumed the same for Todd. I am slow sometimes.

  102. 102.

    TenguPhule

    Political reactions to today’s announced tariffs cut across party lines. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump was “right on target.”

    “China is our real trade enemy, and their theft of intellectual property and their refusal to let our companies compete fairly threatens millions of future American jobs,” Schumer added.

    Fuck you Schumer. Turn over your leadership to a Democratic Senator who’s not a fucking idiot.

  103. 103.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): The founder of Theranos, the company that was supposed to be able to do hundreds of tests on a drop of blood. Silicon Valley disruptor! Except she missed out on the fact that you really have to know something about blood tests to try to do something like that.

  104. 104.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: No, this is not the case. The IG split the investigation into the leaks in the NY Field Office off from this investigation. It is expected to be completed and released later this summer. I’ve heard July. Also, Comey indicated in his testimony just before he was fired that he’d opened an investigation into this issue. It was unclear if that was IG or part of the ongoing CI investigation that Mueller inherited. Regardless, I would expect that Mueller is looking into this as well. That’s partially why it is so stupid for Nunes to go on TV and say this. It also opens Chaffetz up to some serious questions as well. Such as: did he reach out to Comey, directly or indirectly, in October 2016 to threaten him, which partially prompted and forced Comey’s hand. And if Mueller wasn’t investigating this before, he is now because Nunes is too stupid to keep his mouth shut.

  105. 105.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @TenguPhule:

    @germy:

    Watching the clip, I thought Trump meant he wished his staff would be at attention when he spoke. He sort of gestures behind him when he says it. I didn’t interpret it as meaning the American people.

    Never give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

    I agree, he wants all of us to cheer him all of the time, just like in North Korea. Wonder when we’ll set up the giant loudspeakers on our borders to tell the Canadians and Mexicans how wonderful life is here under Chairman Trump.

  107. 107.

    TenguPhule

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Wonder when we’ll set up the giant loudspeakers on our borders to tell the Canadians and Mexicans how wonderful life is here under Chairman Trump.

    Wouldn’t that be Canada and Mexico broadcasting scantily clad young women singing cheerful Pop songs 24/7 at the borders to encourage us to overthrow our tyrannical dictatorship instead?

  110. 110.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    also, a little boy’s ignorant fascination with uniforms.

    “Boot-licker” is shorter.

  111. 111.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    BREAKING: Justice Dept. announces that a federal grand jury has indicted Elizabeth A. Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani in alleged wire fraud schemes. https://t.co/rkvkCIqZSo

    — CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) June 15, 2018

    But nothing on Hillary! Sad!

  114. 114.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks very much for that info. Either I misinterpreted TPM or it is being uncharacteristically sloppy. or Josh Marshall himself is.

    So, OK, Nunes really really dumb to say what he did on TV. I guess these characters think they have it all wrapped up, they way they are talking. They got all the candy they wanted, the baby is crying in the roller, no parent in sight, and they are gobbling up all the good stuff. Not a care in the world.

  115. 115.

    TenguPhule

    The National Institutes of Health on Friday canceled a mammoth study of moderate drinking after determining that officials had irrevocably compromised the research by soliciting $66 million from beer and liquor companies to underwrite the effort.

    Drink!

  118. 118.

    JMG

    @Kay: Those Republicans in Congress haven’t thought far enough ahead. Suppose the Democrats win the House in November. Trump isn’t going to blame himself, he’ll blame the remaining GOP members. The base will believe him and they’ll all get primaried in 2020 anyway. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous. The Republicans have to know they cannot lose an election as long as Trump is President. They are liable to go a long way to keep it from happening.

  121. 121.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:
    Holy crap. With Pruitt still in office running his GriftMacher 2020 machine at full tilt, Trump may be completely correct that Rod Blagojevich is being unfairly imprisoned. He didn’t even complete the deal!

  122. 122.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I think it would be an enormous escalation for Putin to kill an American citizen in the U.S. I really don’t expect that to happen and he probably doesn’t either.

    But I could be wrong!

  123. 123.

    TenguPhule

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Schumer is right. Even a stopped clock trump is right every now and again.

    Picking a trade war with China, Canada, Mexico and the EU at the same time is the very definition of wrong on every level.

  125. 125.

    sukabi

    Question: we know the repubs won’t use impeachment to get rid of Drumpf, but as the Mueller probe inches closer to Ryan & McConnell and the rest of the sellouts, and as Drumpf and Ghouliani spew more and more crazy shit, will McConnell & Ryan try and convince the cabinet to dust off the 25th to stop the Mueller investigation?

    I know a billion to 1 odds with the current cabinet of grifters and thieves.

  128. 128.

    germy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That’s partially why it is so stupid for Nunes to go on TV and say this.

    In the clip, it looks like he realizes his mistake after it comes out of his mouth.

    Or maybe that’s just his regular facial expression.

  131. 131.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BC in Illinois: Sometimes I really do miss the city. Then I drive up there, enjoy the hell out of myself and return to my little speck of the hills and hollers and feel tensions I wasn’t even aware of drain away. If there was ever a way to combine the best of both worlds….

  132. 132.

    trollhattan

    Did somebody say Infrastructure WeekNewsdump Friday?

    New York’s attorney general isn’t done taking on Trump family charities after suing the president over allegations he treated his nonprofit like a personal piggy bank.

    Barbara Underwood’s spokeswoman said Friday that a separate investigation remains open into the Eric Trump Foundation, run by Donald Trump’s son.

    The Associated Press reported in 2016 that the children’s charity flouted nonprofit standards in part by financially benefiting charities with Trump family connections.

    Underwood sued Donald Trump on Thursday. The Democrat alleges he illegally used his charity’s money to settle business disputes and boost his political fortunes. Eric Trump and two siblings are also named as defendants.

    Eric Trump’s charity, renamed Curetivity, says it has raised millions of dollars to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

    A Trump family spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a message.

  133. 133.

    jl

    @JMG: GOPers cannot do one thing until they get through the primaries. Then they’ll reevaluate, and see which way the wind is blowing. They clearly think that they can turn on a dime and BS their way out of anything, it certainly works with their base, as we have seen repeatedly. We’ll see how it works out for them in the general. I hope it works out very badly.

    But given what has happened to any GOPer in the primaries who even made a few peeps against Trump, they are locked in to Trump through from now until beginning of August, at least. Need to get past those primaries. Reliable GOP primary voting base consists only of fanatical die-hard Trumpster fanatics. The ten or twenty percent of Trump voters who’ve drifted off mean nothing for the primary.

  136. 136.

    Wapiti

    @Adam L Silverman: I remember the FBI handling the anthrax terrorism case by first going after one suspect, then pressuring their second suspect into suicide. Case closed.

    I’d be surprised if Manafort died in jail. I don’t think the FBI would lose a lot of sleep over it, if it did happen.

  137. 137.

    TenguPhule

    And Wallstreet yet again has convinced themselves that Donald Trump’s actions “aren’t serious”.

    It feels like the runup to October 2006. The music is still playing, but nobody pays attention to all the seats disappearing. And when the music stops…..

  138. 138.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I forgot to check back after I asked last night. Sorry.
    Please don’t hurt the state capital with your weirdo infrared ray camera.
    Lots of pretty nature pix opportunities around Sacto, if you can find time outside the brewpubs.

  139. 139.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And if Mueller wasn’t investigating this before, he is now because Nunes is too stupid to keep his mouth shut.

    I object! Nunes isn’t too stupid, he’s just stupid enough.

    Confess I’m very curious as to what suburban Fresno has in store for old Devin this November.

  141. 141.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl:

    if you have time outside the brewpubs.

    Shouldn’t be a problem, I don’t drink.

    ETA: I will be taking my IR camera, but it does not emit IR, it just collects IR being reflected off objects(trees, buildings…).

  142. 142.

    ruemara

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): I understand that urge. I gave it up, but every so often, i want to return to a forum I used to hang out in, where i know certain principled republicans who hated the party yet couldn’t be convinced to not vote for it every election, and scream what fucking traitors and scum they were fine with pulling the lever on. But I’m really not a flouncer.

  143. 143.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: You insulting Sacto brewpub food?
    After Canada takes us over, there will be ways to make people like you be polite.
    …. damned outside agitators come up here…

  144. 144.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TenguPhule: I’m not talking about the trade wars, I’m talking about China’s trade policies, specifically their position on American companies access to their markets.

  145. 145.

    randy khan

    @sukabi:

    I suspect I will repeat this comment at least 100 more times, but the Republicans in Congress will be with Trump until they’re against him. If it happens (and I’m not saying it will), it will be like a light switch and they will more or less all abandon him at once. It’s what happened with Nixon and there’s no reason to think the same dynamics aren’t at play today.

    It’s really about how they see their interests, and right now they see that they can’t get elected without Trump supporters. If there comes a time when Trump is so off the rails that he loses, oh, half of his current support (or evidence comes out showing that he sold us out to Putin, or something equally awful, with the same effect), they will realize that they can’t get elected with the Trump supporters, and will turn on a dime. There’s no principle there except self-preservation, and if Watergate is any indication, they won’t figure it out until it’s too late.

  147. 147.

    Miss Bianca

    @schrodingers_cat:

    What were people thinking when they voted for a seething mass of resentments with no conscience and the intellectual curiosity of a pumpkin. He doesn’t care for anyone or anything other his own personal profit and aggrandizement.

    The latter sentence is the answer to the former, as far as I’m concerned.

  148. 148.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl: Madame has family in Canada, I’ve learned to be quite polite. I’m sure the SacTown brewpub food is quite good, but it’s also probably not the reason most folk visit.

  149. 149.

    TenguPhule

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’m talking about China’s trade policies, specifically their position on American companies access to their markets.

    Supporting Donald Trump in any manner whatsoever is a surefire way not to address that.

  152. 152.

    jl

    @randy khan: The GOPers have to wait until after the primaries. So, the timing isn’t great for them. But, they have great confidence that they can BS their way out of anything. If they have to run out and start ripping Trump the day after the primaries are over, it will be too awkward for even the corporate news media celebs to ignore.

  154. 154.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: People have been tweeting at Marshall since yesterday that this is what the IG has done with that part of the investigation. He acknowledges them and then goes right back to stating he’s confused about what happened to that part of the investigation. Perhaps someone in his newsroom needs to do a hard reset…

  155. 155.

    jl

    @trollhattan: Damn, Brown is smart. I wondered what he was using all the rainy day money for. The BillinGlendale emergency infrared ray camera interception plan.

  156. 156.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    A joke I just read on Twitter: Did you hear about the MAGA coyote who got caught in a trap? He chewed off three legs and he was STILL caught in the trap.

  157. 157.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jl:

    Baud 20201

    Don’t know about y’all, but I don’t think I can wait that long.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sukabi: They won’t. The 25th calls for a supermajority vote in both chambers of Congress to ratify the Cabinet’s decision.

  160. 160.

    burnspbesq

    @TenguPhule:

    How fast can the CIA arrange for the NOC to die from an accident?

    Where are John Clark and Domingo Chavez when we need them?

  163. 163.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TenguPhule: Agreed, but saying that trump is right about the trade practices of a foreign country is not necessarily supporting trump in his policies to address the problem. The WTO is the proper venue to address this issue. I’m not sure of Schumer’s exact position on the whole thing but the timing (following the latest tariffs) is troublesome.

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jl:

    If they have to run out and start ripping Trump the day after the primaries are over, it will be too awkward for even the corporate news media celebs to ignore.

    Also a great way to suppress votes from their base.

  165. 165.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    So let us look at this like rational human beings would instead of the fucking brain dead media. Trump says he gave Kim his “private cell phone number” and everyone glombs onto that. Not one of them mentions the fact that a) Trump can’t speak Korean, b) Kim speaks limited English (I have seen various reporting on this, some say his English is excellent, others say it is limited) so are we being led to believe that Trump is savvy enough to have a Korean translator on stand by 24/7 on the off chance that Kim calls him “with a problem” a 3AM? Really? I mean come on folks, ask a fucking follow up question for once.

    “I gave Kim my private cell phone number”

    Reporter with a functioning brain “but Mr. President you don’t speak Korean”.

    How hard can it be?

  167. 167.

    jimmiraybob

    What!? I have no regard for the peasants? They are my people. I am their sovereign. I love them.

    Pull!!

    – The King

    It’s good to be the king.

  168. 168.

    Patricia Kayden

    When Trump was telling his supporters to attack peaceful protesters during his Nazi rallies, that was the first indication that he was a fascist. The fact that he’s now openly fawning about Dictators is just par for the course. Not shocking at all to anyone who paid any attention to his election campaign where he literally kept the media at bay in fenced off areas.

  169. 169.

    Calouste

    @Cheryl Rofer: Mattis was on the board of Theranos, as were a number of other high profile people. Wonder if they are going to get sued for not doing their oversight job by investors.

  170. 170.

    Aleta

    That picture of him saluting a NK general should be billboarded all over the red states and sold as christmas cards. Send to relatives and rw radio/fox advertisers, local gun clubs and NRA candidates … and the editors of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.

    eta I think I’ll send it to my local and state R office holders, maybe leaflet cars with certain bumper stickers

  174. 174.

    TenguPhule

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    b) Kim speaks limited English (I have seen various reporting on this, some say his English is excellent, others say it is limited) so are we being led to believe that Trump is savvy enough to have a Korean translator on stand by 24/7 on the off chance that Kim calls him “with a problem” a 3AM?

    What makes you think Trump can tell one Korean speaking on the phone from another?

    Who wants to bet that whoever is speaking to Trump from North Korea, it most certainly isn’t going to be Kim himself?

  176. 176.

    father pusbucket

    “Hey, he’s the head of a country, and he’s the strong head — he speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

    To paraphrase Maya Angelou, how many time does Trump have to tell us who he is before we believe him?

  180. 180.

    sukabi

    @TenguPhule: well to continue with my “Fantasy Fridays” theme…

    Rudy standing before the judge on his Obstruction arraignment, starts to open his mouth. Judge shuts him up with the maga coyote joke from upthread and finishes with: “Mr. Giuliani, you’ve already chewed off the only legs you had to stand on, which is why you’re before me now. Are you going to claim it’s only a “flesh wound”?

  183. 183.

    Aleta

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): The more wrong they are, the less likely they are to admit or apologize. Especially if the effects are regrettable. So many humans are like this that it seems to be a brain thing, like self-deception. Or behavior when losing. The worse the results, the more they are invested in continuing, not admitting anything.

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I don’t think little Pauly flips. He plays rather serious games with some very serious people. The kind of people who play extreme hardball. He has the balls to think that he could talk to and get witnesses to play dumb and you know that his attorneys had to have warned him about that. He’s played high stakes politics with dictators and such for years. He flips and he’s going to have to ask for protection for the rest of his nasty life. Which wouldn’t be long with that protection. He’s in that proverbial rock/hard spot, his only good option is shutting the hell up.

  189. 189.

    sukabi

    @Aleta: yep…except it would fly over their heads…remembering all the shit Obama got for shaking hands and customary bows with Japan…

    Saluting an adversaries generals…no biggie, especially when you consider they’ve pretty much accepted treason.

  191. 191.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Marshall just went on a ten tweet tear about it. Obvs reads BJ comments in real time, and closely! I guess he thinks he sees something others don’t, or vice versa.

  194. 194.

    Aleta

    @Kay: Giuliani seems nervous.

    Giuliani,who worked as a federal prosecutor for nearly a decade, claimed he had seen no evidence to warrant locking up Manafort.
    “I don’t understand the justification for putting him in jail,” Giuliani, 74, said. “You put a guy in jail if he’s trying to kill witnesses, not just talking to witnesses.”

  195. 195.

    sukabi

    @Aleta: could be he’s nervous because part of the evidence against Manafort includes phrases like “It would be a shame if something happened to your family.”

  196. 196.

    dopey-o

    @marcopolo:

    @Adam L Silverman@Adam L Silverman: It is one of my go to beers for serious celebrating along with the local 4 Hands brewery’s Chocolate Milk Stout.

    Hope you enjoyed it though drinking more than a couple bottles at a sitting can leave you swaying.

    Then stay sitting!

  197. 197.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Aleta: “Look, just because he violated his parole multiple times and was trying to suborn testimony by other witnesses is no reason to revoke his parole.”

    Guiliani, Best Lawyer Ever

  198. 198.

    Boussinesque

    @marcopolo: Late to the thread, but just wanted to put my 2 cents in–I’m enjoying the hell out of Elder Scrolls Online. I picked it up when it first came out, but got distracted shortly afterwards and never came back to it until about 2 weeks ago. It’s got great storylines, voice acting, and quest design, and they’ve come up with a way of scaling content so that you never have to worry about outleveling zones–you can basically go anywhere and play with anyone and still be earning level-appropriate rewards while being able to contribute meaningfully to the group (and most of the content can be done solo, as well, if that’s your jam). I play on the PS4, but I’m contemplating dropping the $10 for the base game/Morrowind upgrade on Steam, just to have it on PC/Mac as well.

  199. 199.

    Scamp Dog

    Welcome back! I don’t think I’ve seen you since you had that front page post. Will we be getting oceanography posts from you? I love reading that kind of stuff.

  204. 204.

    Kdaug

    @marcopolo: I am friends and colleagues with many of the principals. If you enjoyed Skyrim, but would like a more compelling storyline in an MMO environment, check out ESO

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy Winsor:

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I didn’t see the clip, just heard it on my car radio. It didn’t sound like a joke.

    Trump can’t make jokes, nor can he use sarcasm. Probably part of his psychopathy complex of issues. Or just too stupid.

  206. 206.

    Boussinesque

    @Scamp Dog: aww, thanks for the vote of confidence! I’ve been tied up with tutoring (my current day job) and personal stuff for a while, but since the summertime is a bit light, I might be able to put something together again. Would be a good chance for me to review the material myself, since I haven’t had much cause to use it while tutoring Physics and Calculus.

    As far as being around, I’m always here, I just don’t comment a lot because by the time I get to a thread, anything I want to say has probably already been said better or snarkier than I could =P

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