I feel like we need someone for the front page to talk about women’s and reproductive rights. There is just so much going on and it is happening so fast.
Thursday Evening Open Thread: ‘Dumb’ vs. ‘Willfully Ignorant’
This question has a much greater partisan differential than I expected. pic.twitter.com/o4Y2PRpnlx
— Jennifer Wolak (@j_wolak_) May 6, 2019
The incredibly stupid secret to Trump’s success is lots of people don’t know that reality television isn’t real.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 8, 2019
I first read Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi when I was 9 or 10 (my English-teacher mother gave me a copy when I told her Tom Sawyer was a terrible book, and I was having doubts about Twain’s literary stature). That book made explicit one of the great ‘secrets’ of American life: There’s a considerable percentage of our fellow citizens who genuinely admire con artists, thugs, and those who ‘know how to get what they want, whatever it takes.’
The number of such secret fellow-felons has certainly grown no less, here in our second Gilded Age. It’s not necessarily that all Trump voters are stupid (although many of them *are* plenty stupid; look at the Fox talking heads!), but they choose to insist on being ignorant enough to believe the crap Fox / Trump / the entire GOP ladles into their gaping maws…
Always remember that what makes Trump's enablers so awful is that almost all of them, including at Fox, know better. They know Trump isn't a good businessman. But they're higher on the food chain than the rubes they're fleecing, and so they say what they know will work.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 8, 2019
As another great American artist once said, You can’t cheat an honest man…
2/ "MISTER Trump us the richest man in America." "He's the most successful builder in New York!" "Trump is so rich, that no one could buy him!"
Even when you gave them the truth, the power of 15 years of reality TV indoctrination overcame it.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) May 8, 2019
Thursday Evening Open Thread: ‘Dumb’ vs. ‘Willfully Ignorant’Post + Comments (198)
Breaking News: The US Has Seized a North Korean Cargo Ship
The US seizes a North Korean cargo ship, alleging it was used to transport coal in a violation of sanctions https://t.co/qkKM5zRXqM pic.twitter.com/WdP96m7vfu
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 9, 2019
The United States has seized a North Korean cargo ship, alleging sanctions violations by the country, the Justice Department said Thursday.
The seizure is likely to heighten tensions between the two countries at a time when US efforts to dissuade North Korea from pursuing its nuclear weapons program have stalled following the failure of the Hanoi summit in February.
The ship, the M/V Wise Honest, was “used to illicitly ship coal from North Korea and to deliver heavy machinery to the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),” the Justice Department said, alleging that “payments for maintenance, equipment, and improvements of the Wise Honest were made in US dollars through unwitting US banks.
“This conduct violates longstanding US law and United Nations Security Council resolutions,” the Justice Department said.
It’s unclear precisely when the ship was seized by the US, but a warrant for the seizure of the M/V Wise Honest was issued by a US federal judge in July 2018, according to a forfeiture complaint filed in the Southern District of New York.
According to the complaint, Indonesian maritime authorities intercepted and detained the ship on April 2, 2018. The North Korean captain of the ship was arrested and charged with violations of Indonesian maritime law, according to the complaint, which says he was convicted by an Indonesian court in November 2018 of “offenses related to improper documentation for the ship.”
Court documents said the ship was used to haul coal as well as heavy machinery, including 412,584 kilograms of “steel plate.” The ship moved between ports in China and North Korea, and according to a contract referenced in the court documents, was scheduled to make at least one stop in Russia.
A US judge last July issued a warrant authorizing the seizure of the ship and it is “currently in the custody of the United States,” the court documents say.
In a statement, senior Justice Department officials called the seizure the first of its kind, and said it was part of the US campaign of “maximum pressure” against the North Korean government.
“This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “We are deeply committed to the role the Justice Department plays in applying maximum pressure to the North Korean regime to cease its belligerence.”
This is unrelated to the DPRK’s recent missile tests.
I want to provide some clarification here about how this would have gone done in an operational sense. The seizure would have been done by either the US Navy, with Coast Guard Sailors on board in charge of the seizure operations or it would have been done by the US Coast Guard with the US Navy providing support. While most people are unaware, including a large number of military personnel I’ve worked with (don’t ask…), the US has Coast Guard floats in almost every Geographic Combatant Command (GCC) Areas of Responsibility (AOR). They are there to work with allied and partner nations, specifically to provide training, as well as advise and assist support, for our allied and partner nations navies and coast guards*. As a result, it is possible to divert one of these floats for operational requirements as needed. At the same time, Coast Guard Sailors are also seconded to US Navy ships on a variety of missions in a variety of Areas of Responsibility, though most deal with interdicting smuggling, drug, and/or weapons trafficking because of the Coast Guard’s dual status in fulfilling their historic mission as cutter-men.
Open thread!
* A lot of (most?) countries do not separate out their naval functions into blue and brown water as the US does.
Breaking News: The US Has Seized a North Korean Cargo ShipPost + Comments (104)
On the Road and In Your Backyard
Good Morning All,
On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!
Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com
Apologies, I’m overwhelmed IRL right now for the next few days, so we’ll have more pictures Monday.
As the cupboard is a bit bare, submissions are encouraged as I work through some email-submitted ones next week. For most purposes, please use the form.
Have a great day, open thread!
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Tell It, Senator Warren!
When Warren arrived at work Tuesday, she had no intention of calling for Trump's impeachment on Senate floor. Mitch McConnell made her do it, she said.
“I felt a responsibility to go to the floor to say: ‘Case not closed, buddy,’” she says in interview https://t.co/wuHOoq7Vnl
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 8, 2019
"I had never intended this to be any part of my presidential campaign. I’m running on how to make this government work," Warren says of impeachment. Dems say it's good for primary, potentially bad for the general
Seems "a popular position with the Democratic base," says Shaheen
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 8, 2019
As is her wont, Warren is serving as point-person here. And — as is hers — Speaker Pelosi is proceeding, with all due deliberation, along the same path:
#BREAKING: Pelosi says Barr should be held in contempt of Congress, impeachment isn't "off the table" https://t.co/LuJx0bluK7 pic.twitter.com/chLx4pRvcZ
— The Hill (@thehill) May 8, 2019
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Tell It, Senator Warren!Post + Comments (132)
Open Thread
I think I am going to demand Tamara post a duck picture every day or I revoke her front page status because THAT IS HOW I ROLL.
I had a pet duck when I was a kid. My grandmother gave him to me, and my parents were furious because they knew that while he was young and cute he would soon grow into a full fledged duck and they would have to send him to a farm and I would lose my shit and grandma would not be around to deal with the tears. His name was Jeremy.
Open Thread: “A Clown Living on Credit”
Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. But 10 years of tax information paint a different & far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities & financial condition. https://t.co/JAvVAkuHH8
— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) May 7, 2019
Stories like this are why I subscribe, however grudgingly, to the NYTimes. Because *I* know Trump’s a deadbeat dependent on money laundering, and you know Trump’s a deadbeat, and even Melania knows better than to run up the family credit card — but until the bovine masses of Media Village Idiots and political horserace touts sense a shift in the conventional wisdom strong enough to rearrange their beloved formulas, it’s not enough.
I’m starting to think that aside from sus foreign loans, Trump is desperate to hide that even when he was making easy cash from NBC and the licensing deals that show spawned, he couldn’t manage his money worth a damn.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 8, 2019
Congrats to @realDonaldTrump on finally being the best at something! pic.twitter.com/lj74C1ovIg
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 7, 2019
Also, I’m meanly gleeful that this must be causing the Squatter-in-Chief pain…
As a narcissist, Trump’s worst nightmare is being exposed as unworthy of admiration.
His entire adult life has been an act to convince people he is someone his father would have loved.
This story is his worst outing: he’s a lifelong loser who failed at daddy’s business.
8/8
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 8, 2019
Open Thread: “A Clown Living on Credit”Post + Comments (110)