I had a conversation last night on Twitter with Ankit Panda (@nktpnd), who has been following the North Korean situation. Panda is a senior editor with The Diplomat magazine.
I contend that the North Korean statement issued in response to Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” threat contains an invitation to negotiations. As is often the case, that invitation is not stated as such. Diplomacy guards such invitations so that nobody loses face when they don’t work. Neither Trump nor his people understand this, and they ignore the State Department and are doing their best to gut it. This is the sort of thing that the State Department specializes in.
The North Korean statement, unlike Trump’s threats, was carefully planned and vetted. They use all their governmental resources because they see the United States, with whom they are still technically at war, as the prime threat to their country’s survival. It starts out with an observation of US missile testing and goes on to the flights of US bombers from Guam over South Korea.
Typically, the nuclear strategic bombers from Guam frequent the sky above south Korea to openly stage actual war drills and muscle-flexing in a bid to strike the strategic bases of the DPRK. This grave situation requires the KPA to closely watch Guam, the outpost and beachhead for invading the DPRK, and necessarily take practical actions of significance to neutralize it.
In the morning of August 8 the air pirates of Guam again appeared in the sky above south Korea to stage a mad-cap drill simulating an actual war.
In simpler words, US bombers are threatening us.
The statement goes on to describe a plan to fire North Korean rockets around Guam. A warning shot, a shot across the bow. The plan is in preparation “and will be put into practice in a multi-concurrent and consecutive way any moment once Kim Jong Un, supreme commander of the nuclear force of the DPRK, makes a decision.”
The statement contains the usual DPRK declaration that its nuclear weapons are not up for negotiation, and ends
[The US] It should immediately stop its reckless military provocation against the state of the DPRK so that the latter would not be forced to make an unavoidable military choice.
In simpler words, stop threatening us with bombers from Guam and we won’t attack Guam.
Quid pro quo.
It reeks of blackmail, but that is how North Korea negotiates. If we want negotiations, rather than war, it would be smart to respond to the offer to negotiate. That doesn’t necessarily mean ending the B1B overflights, although my adventurous side says, hey, why not?
We could have sent a message to North Korea via the recent Canadian visit to free one of their citizens. We could send a message through the Swedish embassy to North Korea, which often represents US interests. We could arrange some diplomatic action on which China might take the lead. There are many possibilities, any of which might show North Korea that we are willing to back off from practices that scare them if they will consider backing off on some of their actions. That would not include their nuclear program explicitly at this time, but it would leave the way open for later.
I doubt that any of this has occurred to Trump officials, certainly not to Trump himself.
germy
Patricia Kayden
@germy: That’s exactly how Trump’s entire Cabinet feels.
PaulWartenberg
If trump thinks a war will unite people behind him, he’s so horribly wrong.
Frankensteinbeck
Trump will not negotiate. Trump will continue to issue blustering threats and do absolutely nothing to follow up. Maybe other countries will negotiate when Korea realizes America under Trump is a non-actor. China is certainly cleaning up in international politics thanks to that.
father pussbucket
This is how far we have fallen.
Cermet
How can we have the child and that bloody state has the sane leader (who murders his people to hold power)? What scares me is the fart cloud will be cornered by his farting mouth and he will fear to lose his base (the only people stupid enough to believe that vile puss hole) and do something very stupid (not a nuke since I don’t believe the military would follow that order but resign in mass.) But any military move that triggers military retaliation by the North, then all bets are then off.
Ocotillo
I miss Obama……..heck, I miss Hillary.
Villago Delenda Est
NK has a clue as to how to drop hints.
Donald has no clue at all.
Villago Delenda Est
I’ve seen some crap from malasstration idjits that the NKs need to halt all missile tests.
Given that the US routinely tests its missiles, why should the NKs comply? They see such demands, quite reasonably, as attacks on their sovereignty. The US wouldn’t dream of stopping its tests because some country objects to them. We’d be outraged.
So much of this can be understood if you just bother to put yourself in NK’s shoes, and then try to figure out what would calm their tits. Donald isn’t bright enough to figure any of this out.
rikyrah
I despise everybody who voted for this muthaphucka and put us into this position.
Phuck them today.
Phuck them tomorrow.
Phuck them always.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulWartenberg: His approval numbers will almost certainly go up in the short term, maybe even above 50%. That’s the way this always works.
They won’t stay there.
Matt McIrvin
…It could be enough for the Republicans to retain Congress, though.
Major Major Major Major
OT: Some were asking yesterday about that piece in The Nation saying the DNC hack was an inside job, which I helpfully described as flim-flam… from NYMag: “The Nation Article About the DNC Hack Is Too Incoherent to Even Debunk.
What the hell, Nation?
tobie
I can’t believe this maniac has brought us to the brink of war and Republicans in Congress say nothing. Either they agree with Trump’s belligerent stance, in which case they are as insane as him, or they’re too afraid of their rabid base to do anything, in which case they should retire since they are not leaders but followers.
Should China intervene to calm things down here, Trump will take a big victory lap. But what he and his minions will fail to see is that the US has surrendered its role as world leader and the loss of global preeminence has serious consequences.
OT: What do you folks make of the resignations of Nikki Haley’s spokesperson and chief of staff? Apparently the spokesperson said Haley is a “fruitloop.” So much for the one supposed sane person in this administration.
geg6
@rikyrah:
Yup. I hate them. I literally hate them. And will never forgive them.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Major Major Major Major:
Katrina van den Heuvel and her husband the editor are Berniebros.
Probably also on Putin’s payroll.
Stephen F. Cohen just wants Trump and Putin to get along
rikyrah
TREASON against this country.
TREASON!!!
,As Russia expels U.S. diplomats, Trump publicly thanks Putin
08/11/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 08/11/17 08:06 AM
By Steve Benen
There’s an expression in Trump World that the president and his allies are fond of: if you attack Donald Trump, he will punch back 10 times harder. It’s a maxim that helps explain why the president tends to get a little hysterical in response to so many perceived slights.
But for Trump, the principal applies only to him personally: the president can’t tolerate rebukes that target him, but affronts to the United States, in Trump’s mind, are surprisingly acceptable.
Two weeks ago, in response to new economic sanctions approved by Congress, Vladimir Putin’s Russian government announced it was expelling 755 people from the American embassy and consulate staff. It was a striking diplomatic move, and an escalation of tensions between the two countries, which seemed to warrant a stern White House response.
Trump, however, remained silent – until yesterday.
………………………………………………
But that’s really not what’s important here. Rather, this is a dynamic in which the Putin government used harsh diplomatic measures to slap the United States in the face, and after two weeks of thought, the American president expressed his gratitude to the Russian government.
Even the most mindless Republican partisans should find this impossible to defend.
Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s third-ranking official in the Bush/Cheney administration, told Reuters Trump’s comments were “grotesque.” Burns, now a Harvard professor, added, “If he was joking, he should know better. If he wasn’t, it’s unprecedented. A president has never defended the expulsion of our diplomats.”
The same article quoted a veteran U.S. diplomat saying the State Department has been “horrified and rattled” by Trump’s remarks.
A Politico piece added:
geg6
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s been taken over by a bunch of delusional Berniebros and Russian fluffers. Unreadable.
Major Major Major Major
@Ocotillo: some of us like(d) Hillary…
Cheryl Rofer
@tobie: We are in a bizarre situation. In one sense, we are not on the brink of war. It would take 90 days to put troops and equipment into place for a real war against North Korea. It’s hard to say what Trump’s tweet this morning – “locked and loaded” – means beyond his bluster. Very possibly nothing, because he seems to believe his words equate to things happening in reality.
geg6
@Major Major Major Major:
In fact, millions of people like her. Millions more than our current president*.
h/t Charlie Pierce
rikyrah
Maddow makes a good point about this….how come no more corroboration on this NK story?
All this bullshyt from an agency that was dismissed just a few years ago.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/10/17
Trump North Korea frenzy curiously timed
Rachel Maddow explains why this week’s frantic bellicosity from Donald Trump toward North Korea does not seem to have had a distinct trigger.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/10/17
Trump team message on North Korea muddled, chaotic
Rachel Maddow shows the contrasting messaging from different members of the Trump team in how they’re speaking about the potential threat from North Korea.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/10/17
Trump incoherence on N Korea risks dangerous miscommunication
Sue Mi Terry, former NSC senior analyst on North Korea, talks with Rachel Maddow about the intelligence on North Korea’s military capability and why it is dangerous that the Trump administration is not able to deliver a clear policy message on North Korea.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
So, how do you really feel about them? //
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/10/17
Manafort changes legal team as investigation intensifies
Rachel Maddow reports on former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort changing his legal team and adding a lawyer whose areas of specialty paint a stark picture of Manafort’s legal concerns.
Prosecutors taking close look at Manafort financial records
Greg Farrell, investigative reporter for Bloomberg News, talks with Rachel Maddow about Trump-Russia investigators looking into former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s financial records and what that might mean to the investigation broadly
germy
The job creator’s party?
Anyway, the workers are still on our payroll. Russia didn’t “fire” them, did they?
O. Felix Culpa
@tobie:
I’ve been wondering the same thing. McCain said words. He’s concerned or something. Where is Brave Sir “Conservative Conscience” Flake? The silence thus far is deafening.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
they can not be taken seriously.
they are Pro-Russia, and have been for some time, and are the first ones to talk about ‘ the Democratic base isn’t interested in Russia’
PHUCK OUTTA HERE.
The Moar You Know
Back off? This has been a godsend for Trump. He’ll escalate more.
How a godsend? Well, how much have you read about Russia recently?
Another Scott
@tobie: Hadn’t seen that report, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Competent people everywhere are pulling their hair out over Donnie’s appointees and policies.
Haley seems way, way over her head.
One week she says (or it’s reported that she said) that having a UN Security Council meeting about NK is “useless”, the next week they agree to more sanctions. Incoherency – even if it’s the result of bad reporting – is dangerous and doesn’t advance the interests of the USA.
She never should have been put in that position at the UN, but in some ways she’s better than Bolton… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl Rofer
@germy: Russia can’t fire the US embassy workers. Some of those let go (by the US) will be local people who are hired to perform routine functions – secretarial and clerical, maintenance, etc.
GregB
The GOP were so worried about an apocalyptic death cult taking over the US that they whistled past the graveyard as it happened from within.
tobie
@Cheryl Rofer: I take your point that conventional wars require massive preparations that take months to accomplish. Soldiers, weaponry, supplies all need to be in place. This is an important reality check. But even if no shot is fired, the losses we’ve suffered are incalculable as we become a rogue nation, like the former USSR which had a huge military arsenal but little to no economic or political clout. We’ve lost the authority/persuasive power that helped make us prosperous.
germy
@Another Scott:
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Instead of Fear nothing but fear itself, your motto seems to be Fear everything.
rikyrah
As Leader McConnell this AM reads Trump Twitter, I wonder how he feels now about blocking action against Russian election interference?
— David Frum (@davidfrum) August 11, 2017
rikyrah
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/four-top-cybersecurity-officials-are-leaving-us-government?utm_term=.vao8Dp83O#.sfWVDdVW6
Four senior cybersecurity officials are stepping down from their US government positions, raising concerns that an exodus of top leaders may make the federal government more vulnerable to hacking.
Two of those resigning – Sean Kelley, the chief information security officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Staropoli, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security – had been in their jobs for just a few months.
The other two, Rob Foster, the Navy’s chief information officer, and Dave DeVries, the director of information security and privacy at the Office of Personnel Management, are departing agencies for which computer security is a top priority. DeVries assumed his job shortly after the OPM suffered the largest known cyberattack in federal government history, and Foster had served in similar positions at the Department of Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ann Dunkin, the CIO of the EPA under President Barack Obama who was asked to leave by Trump’s transition team and now holds the same title for Santa Clara County, California, told BuzzFeed News that four executives leaving in such a short time raised red flags.
“There appears to be a concerted effort to remove the career CIOs who were there during the Obama administration,” Dunkin said. “During the last week we’ve seen four go? That smells.”
germy
@rikyrah:
Like getting a bad tattoo. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Major Major Major Major
@germy: most bad tattoos don’t let you steal a Supreme Court seat.
ETA: not that I’d know, my tattoo is good
Wapiti
@Another Scott: I’m not sure Haley is the problem. I think that with a competent President she’d seem more competent. What should be happening, I think, is that State, the White House, and perhaps Haley should be developing a message – based on what is developing – and then they all stick to it, adjusting the message as things change. Trump can’t. It appears that Tillerson, God’s gift from Exxon, wanders off the reservation if he so chooses.
Major Major Major Major
@Wapiti: what are Haley’s qualifications supposed to be exactly? Foreign-looking (in the diseased GOP mind)?
rikyrah
THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 8/10/17
Lawrence: Trump’s ultimate act of appeasement of Putin
It took Donald Trump nearly two weeks to speak about Putin’s order to expel 755 Americans from the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Instead of condemning the act, Trump thanked Putin for helping “cut our payroll” and again criticized the special counsel’s investigation.
low-tech cyclist
Normally, we’d have a functioning State Department that would be thinking about these things.
Normally.
tobie
@Cheryl Rofer: My last comment seemed to vanish in the internet ether. Anyhow the point I was trying to make, and it’s more an expansion of @Frankensteinbeck: ‘s comment, “China is certainly cleaning up in international politics thanks to that,” than anything else is that even if no shot is fired, the US has lost a war under Trump. We are no longer a world leader, we have no authority or power of persuasion in the diplomatic sphere. We’re more like the former Soviet Union which had a huge military arsenal but little to no political and economic clout, and the consequences of this shift for our way of life will be harsh.
rikyrah
Trump believes his CIA director, but only to a point
08/11/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 08/11/17 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen
Even before he became president, Donald Trump went out of his way to dismiss U.S. intelligence assessments he found politically inconvenient. That’s continued throughout 2017: the more intelligence professionals tell him Russia attacked the American election to help put him in office, the more Trump tells the public he’s more inclined to believe Vladimir Putin.
All of which led to a good question for the president yesterday: if Trump has so many doubts about the findings of the U.S. intelligence agencies, how reliable is the intelligence now as it relates to North Korea? The president responded:
If we cut through the strange nonsense, what Trump was apparently trying to say was that things are different now. He didn’t believe intelligence assessments before, but now that Mike Pompeo is the director of the CIA, Trump can finally have confidence in the information presented to him.
In other words, if Mike Pompeo gives the president information about the North Korean threat, Trump is going to believe it.
And that’s fine, although it raises a related question: if Pompeo gives the president information about Russia, Trump is going to believe that, too?
rikyrah
Alabama’s Moore suggests US may be ‘the focus of evil’ in the world
08/11/17 10:12 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican voters in Alabama will head to the polls on Tuesday to vote in a U.S. Senate primary, and it’s proving to be a tough race to predict. Sen. Luther Strange (R) has the baggage that comes with having been appointed by a disgraced former governor who had to resign, but Strange has the benefit of support from Donald Trump, the NRA, and the Republican establishment.
Rep. Mo Brooks, meanwhile, is in contention, running on an anti-establishment, pro-border-wall platform, but recent polling suggests it’s former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, twice removed from the bench for ethics violations, who may be the candidate to watch next week.
It’s against this backdrop that Moore sat down with The Guardian, where the Alabama Republican suggested he isn’t impressed with America’s moral standing.
Cheryl Rofer
rikyrah
Poll: Most Say Time To End Effort To Repeal Obama Health Law https://t.co/A0vIh3GQXR
— Newsradio 1020 KDKA (@KDKARadio) August 11, 2017
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: They loves them some Russia. Always have. Apologists for Stalin, even.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah:
“On the other hand, he has the downside of sounding like a comically obvious comic book villain, though many republicans polled said this was a feature, not a bug.”
rikyrah
Married ex-Trump aide admits he fathered a child with staffer during campaign https://t.co/3osLJlAmFh pic.twitter.com/Ul2uo4UVvz
— The Hill (@thehill) August 10, 2017
Cheryl Rofer
@tobie: I think that your judgment applies only as long as Trump is president, and could even be reversed as he continues, if his behavior changed. The rest of the world needs a US like it was before November 9. But how long it will take for us to correct that is not clear.
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
Trump’s D.C. hotel turned a $2,000,000 profit in 4 months, “dramatically beating its expectations.”https://t.co/I1ULZEJ0AX
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 11, 2017
Remarkable: @trump hotel is emptier than most D.C. hotels, but still makes buckets of $ b/c it’s prices are so high. https://t.co/4upEqdDJbx
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) August 11, 2017
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer: I imagine much of the symbolic damage will be reversible, though more difficult than doing so after W, but we’ve lost some concrete ground too that will be harder to reclaim, like with the TPP.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard is simply jealous of North Korea. He wanted to celebrate his election with a yoooouge military parade: dozens of jets, hundreds of tanks, and thousands of troops marching down Pennsylvania Avenue with fixed bayonets. Fucking draft dodger…
tobie
@Cheryl Rofer: I think your long view is better than mine, so I’ll run with it. Mr. tobie tells me constantly that Trump won’t last a full term. I have to believe that.
T S
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t really think his numbers will go all the way up to 50% by starting a real war with NK. Maybe I’m wrong…but even my pessimistic ass thinks the horror of Seoul being destroyed by fire and nerve gas will override the “America FUCK YEAH!” high people got from Iraq. This isn’t Iraq.
Chat Noir
@rikyrah:
I am right there with you. I will never forgive anyone who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
You know more about these things than I do, but the thesis of the Nation article does sound like gibberish to me.
Also, it sounds like it could have used the kind of editor who’d slash 900 of the first 1,000 words.
schrodingers_cat
OT but tangentially related. Kelly is on the cover of the latest Time in what looks like his uniform, how long till he lasts as CoS?
schrodingers_cat
@Chat Noir: I broke off a decade plus friendship over that.
Major Major Major Major
@randy khan: the introduction and constant irrelevant interjections made it clear enough to me that it was, again, flimflam. When they got to the magical metadata I just had to stop reading. Really a terrible piece, and just from a prose angle they would have been better off with a fifth grader than whatever ‘journalist’ wrote it.
@schrodingers_cat: over a vote for trump specifically or a vote for not-Hillary?
rikyrah
in moderation, please help.
rikyrah
Column argues Obama daughters subjected to ‘higher standard’ than Trump children
Aug 10th 2017 11:46PM
A Marie Claire opinion column argues that the public holds “Sasha and Malia Obama to a Higher Standard Than the Trump Children, and That’s Ridiculous.”
The op-ed, written by contributing editor Jessica Valenti, states that “[The girls] had to grow up watching their parents be unfairly attacked and sustained a childhood of public criticism themselves.”
For example, in December 2014, a Republican staffer reportedly stepped down from her job at a Tennessee Congressman’s office after she wrote a harsh Facebook post saying the girls should “try showing a little class,” after their attendance at the annual White House turkey pardoning ceremony.
Valenti also says the girls are “still attacked today for doing completely mundane things that are expected rites of passage.”
The piece points to a recent Daily Beast report describing the online criticisms the sisters have sustained over attending parties and festivals and taking part in other teenage activities.
Meanwhile, Valenti points to the controversies the Trump children have been linked to, including, “Don Jr. and Russia or Ivanka and her faux-feminist brand built on sketchy labor practices.”
Conservative groups have argued just the opposite. Sean Hannity stated on his radio show in January, “we conservatives left the Obama daughters alone.”
And in a column for the National Review the prior month, Christian Toto maintained, “No clear-thinking conservative attacked Barack and Michelle Obama’s children over the last eight years.”
Gravenstone
@Cheryl Rofer: I’ve seen it suggested that Trump is confusing preparations for the upcoming mutual defense exercise with SK for preparations with smacking down NK at his whim. Seems plausible, given how little he understands … about anything, frankly.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck:
Gods, it’s worse than that – going by what’s came out in the past seven months, Trump will bluster and demand until it’s clear NK won’t budge and then Trump will capitulate to Nk, give them what ever they ask for and call it a TERRIFIC Deal. Trumpism only works in some kind of school yard popularity contest, not in conversations between functioning adults.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t know but when this is over we need to a have a real debate about how this family rose to the most powerful office with NO due diligence.
We have a multi-billion dollar campaign apparatus. Tens of thousands of people work in and around campaigns. They didn’t vet Donald Trump in any real way, in any “let’s see the documents” way.
No one knows anything real about the family who are running the country. AL said yesterday we’re all doing “Trumpology” where we guess WTF is going on. That’s a weak position and we shouldn’t be in it. People did Kremlinology because it was a closed society and no one could get in and verify anything. Is that what we are now? WTF? We’re reduced to guessing? That’s how powerless we are? I mean, for God’s sake. That’s a SURRENDER. We just handed it to them! No questions asked!
No one knows anything about this family business and the family business is now the Presidency. How did it happen that we are wholly dependent on one man, Mueller, to tell us something real about the President of the United States?
It’s a massive failure. Our multi-billion dollar campaign and political media apparatus failed to get even the most basic facts prior to his election.
gene108
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t think there’s any going back from our loss of international prestige after Trump. Bush, Jr.’s misadventure in Iraq was a bad blow, including the use of torture, but Bush, Jr. hadn’t abandoned all international norms. He still backed NATO, when he finally woke about North Korea he did try to engage in diplomacy, I believe he did a good job in combating AIDS in Africa, and a few other things that weren’t totally fucked up.
But the damage Bush, Jr. did was bad. It took a lot of work by Obama and Hillary Clinton to undo it.
Now all the international community will see is that if America elects a Democrat as President, they can be good actors, and if they elect a Republican they will be fucking nuts. So why bet on American leadership, when it can radically change every four years.
We’ve effectively isolated ourselves from “god given position” as leaders of the world.
The Dangerman
@Cheryl Rofer:
Typo. Vlad had come over and he meant cocked and joaded.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: We’ve been letting the media do our “due diligence” since before I was born. There are some problems with that which should have been obvious a long time ago (Reagan) but somehow we’ve just never noticed until now.
We trusted the media with a lot. Well, guess we’re the suckers. They were always bought and paid for.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: For not Hillary but then they went and defended the travel ban.
Gravenstone
@Cheryl Rofer: Plans continually updated in the face of changing environments? Yes. Having the logistics in place to implement those plans on a moment’s notice? Oh, hell no.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
“If there had been a fifth liberal Supreme Court judge, Republican and white male power would be totally fucked. So at least I saved us where it counts.”
@rikyrah:
McConnell doesn’t have the votes. That’s the only thing he cares about.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cermet:
I don’t think that a resignation would be required – a simple statement of “Mr President, I believe that to be an unlawful order under the Constitution and laws of war, and refuse to follow it” would do the trick. If he has to fire people instead of accept resignations, he’ll find it harder to go down the line to a lickspittle that will convey launch orders. If people down the line note that the orders are coming from the Assistant Undersecretary for Army Commissary Operations and are routed through the USAF Brigadier General of Pentecostal Chaplains, they’re gonna balk.
Kay
Is it true that Manafort of someone in his family told investigators about the Trump Administration meeting with the Russians?
That seems like very bad news to me, if I’m Donald Trump. I don’t know how he spins that as positive inside his crazy head.
Manafort is a white collar criminal. If he or his family are talking about the Russian meeting that the Trump Administration lied about that’s not good! No set of facts where that’s good! I just see rinky dink county level crime but just because these people are richer doesn’t mean the two sets of criminal activity don’t share commonality. Never good when one member of the conspiracy is revealing..things. Never. Whether you robbed the Subway or robbed the United States it’s the same process.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Three words: Seth Rich Truthers.
tobie
@Kay:
Your outrage at the absence of any vetting by the media is warranted…but please also don’t forget the responsibility of the Republican Party which lives only to advance corporate interest and which has trained its base in almost Pavlovian fashion to salivate at any and all attacks on “libtards” and to ask for nothing more than daily doses of hate. The GOP base didn’t arise spontaneously. It was cultivated for decades beginning with Nixon’s southern strategy and achieving its modern incarnation with Ronaldus Maxus.
Frankensteinbeck
@tobie:
I’m sorry, but I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. The corruption and plutocracy are a sideline. The base did not need any training. The base trained their leaders, electing sadistic, ignorant assholes like themselves and throwing screaming fits when anyone told them the truth.
EDIT – Always remember, in 2009 McConnell, Karl Rove, and others got on cable news and said Rush Limbaugh’s most extreme accusations against Obama and the ACA were unrealistic. Within days, they were all forced to publicly apologize by the massive pushback they got from their constituents.
Kay
I have to congratulate Connie Pillioch (running/primary/Ohio gov)
We have a local holding a gathering for her and I just got a call from her campaign “following up” on the people who were invited.
This has never happened before, even with the Obama campaign, which was very good. Good Job! I’m impressed.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@randy khan: Patrick Lawrence Smith is not just dumb for a person, he’s dumb for an opisthokont. (And his prose has been unreadable since at least his Salon tenure).
James Carden, who I linked to a few days back, is about tied with Greenwald in terms of uselessness, though Jim’s more an idiot than a straight-up hack.
NorthLeft12
@rikyrah: The Big Out;
I have long argued that no such animal exists.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Reports are that he told about the meeting.
Also, his son-in-law, has met with the Feds.
Manafort has also changed lawyers.
rikyrah
@Kay:
YEAH!!
Cheryl Rofer
@Major Major Major Major: Yes. Repairs will be necessary, but we can come back.
Cheryl Rofer
A whole bunch of comments went into moderation. I’ve liberated them.
Cheryl Rofer
@Gravenstone: That’s possible. The tweet I posted at #46 can also explain it.
NorthLeft12
If Deadbeat Donald and his posse of bigoted cretins cared to note what happened between Canada and DPRK, it is pretty obvious how to deal with them. The North Koreans want the validation that high level governmental contact would bring. But the US administration, and Republicans in general, are so busy ranting and raving and trying to delegitimize the DPRK leadership that they refuse to make that happen.
The previous Canadian PM refused to deal with the North Koreans, leaving a Canadian citizen stuck in prison. Thanks Steve!
tobie
@Frankensteinbeck: You may well be right. It could be the base that pushed the party rather than the party that pushed the base. But the rage, the grievance had to be channeled into a particular cause and political platform. If nothing else, the party was willing to capitalize on this with attacks on minorities, immigrants, LGBTQs, and Muslims. Who knows what Mitch McConnell thinks? But if he can get tax cuts by attacking vulnerable communities, he will.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): ETA: “Straight-up hack” should read “transparent bad faith.” The distinction – between refusal to properly perform the job and being intrinsically unqualified – remains, however.
@Cheryl Rofer: W/r/t to the Nation’s Russia fuckery: Have columnists Patrick Lawrence Smith & James Carden ever been worthwile analysts?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Major Major Major Major: Even the leftist The Nation…
If it’s any consolation, at least Katha Pollitt & Joan Walsh hate this bullshit as much as we do (though my conjecture that Katha was quitting seems to have been mistaken).
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@rikyrah: Manafort’s trying desperately to avoid getting sent to Ukraine. Last month’s no knock search of his residence suggests such efforts are not going swimmingly.
Cheryl Rofer
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): The Nation is currently worthless wrt commentary on Russia. Editor Katrina VandenHeuvel and her husband Stephen Cohen are apologists for Putin. Sad!
ruemara
@rikyrah: lol. Those fucking liars.
Kay
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Trumpsters must be getting nervous. I did wonder why they all colluded to lie about the Russian meeting.
Their story doesn’t make any sense. The big shots in a campaign don’t meet with people on things that aren’t important and these people are weirdos, sure, but no one meets with someone without finding out who they are. Have you ever in your life met with someone without knowing who they are? They wouldn’t do that just for personal security and safety reasons.
They lied about all of it and the lie was important enough for Trump to draft it personally. Why?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Cheryl Rofer: That it’s passed into Scopie’s Law territory w/r/t Russia (and that this is KvH & Cohen’s fault) goes without saying, but I was asking about those two columnists’ histories – had Lawrence Smith and Carden in particular always been this terrible?
Kay
The unqualified nepotism hire gets a tiny tap on the wrist.
Every time you see Jared and Ivanka remember they are making piles of money off daddy’s Presidency. We’re all subsidizing some of the most privileged spoiled people in the world because it’s never enough. They must have more and more and more because they are just that fabulous and they are ENTITLED to it.
They are adults. At any time they could make the right choice and stop taking what they haven’t earned, but they don’t, because they’re horrible people- people who lack character and have no sense of boundaries or decency .
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m baffled. Wasn’t there anyone at The Nation who could tell that the article’s technology reporting didn’t make sense? Do they not employ IT people?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Kay:
This sums it all up, much like your comment that Trump is an aggressively bad person. He is, and it’s distressing that he’s aspirational for so many of his voters. They want to be able to be bad people – mean and racist and cheaters – without suffering consequences.
Cheryl Rofer
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I don’t know those two in particular. And I read all the best Russia experts.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Amir Khalid: Hi! It seems I’m never around when you’re posting, so I’m especially glad to see you today.
I’m not sure anyone at The Nation cares about coherency – there’s an agenda!
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: I lived through both George Bushes. Major wars are popular in the early phase, and any international crisis where you can identify an external enemy will work. Even Jimmy Carter’s job approval went up to fifty-fifty because of the Iran hostage crisis, until people realized he couldn’t fix it and it crashed down again.
One thing I’m not afraid of is North Korea nuking the US in the immediate term. I don’t think they can actually do that yet, and I also don’t think they’d do it unprovoked.
Cheryl Rofer
Seven experts: Are we on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea? Probably not.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
This is actually an interesting confession – there are NO “clear-thinking” conservatives, as all of them attacked both the First Lady and her children routinely and continuously.
Fuq them today!
Fuq them tomorrow!
Fuq them forever!
Despicable and morally depraved hatred and racism flowing like a waterfall. It sickened me, the depths the racists delighted in sinking to. Horrid!! Inhuman and grotesque, beyond anything a sane person could even imagine. I gotta stop now, I got stuff to get done today.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
He remembers Iraq Clusterfuck the Sequel. We all do.
Matt McIrvin
@TenguPhule: I’ll say this: The popularity doesn’t last, and absent any international support or something like 9/11 as a traumatizing act, liberals are really unlikely to play along this time–though the TV guys who declared that some cruise missile attack gave Trump presidentiality probably will. But the cost is high.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@NorthLeft12: I often wonder if it’s fair to rag on Kim Jong-un for the complexities involved in interacting with the DPRK, because this is a system he inherited, and one in which he has to constantly work to maintain the backing of the people who present him to the public as Supreme Leader. Just as an American politician has to address the needs and wishes of their base, so does he–and I don’t think the base that he inherited from his father, and that his father inherited from his is very comfortable with or familiar with the norms of diplomatic interaction as they are commonly understood by nearly everyone else.
We saw during both the Clinton and Obama administrations that DPRK has been willing to negotiate in good faith when we have attempted to do so as well. However, they don’t have a very good way to indicate that they do wish to initiate negotiations with us. In part I think that’s because they have positioned themselves over the years in such a way the normal methods of reaching out are likely to be seen, inside their own state, as presenting themselves as supplicants to a greater power–because that is exactly what they are in many instances. Lacking a normal foreign diplomatic corps resident in Pyongyang (per Wikipedia, there are 24 actual resident embassies in Pyongyang, compared to 110 in Seoul), too much outreach has to be handled through third parties, which makes it even harder to take the risk of asking “Hey, can we talk this over here?”
Which is to say I think Kim Jong-un is probably saner and more sensible than Donald Trump (and certainly a lot tougher–all those family assassinations seem to be along the lines of the old Ottoman sultans killing their brothers to ensure uncontested power, rather than a matter of personal issues–and something for the people who long for a strong authoritarian leader to keep in mind!). But he can’t initiate and pursue normal overtures and negotiations with many foreign powers, especially unfriendly ones such as the US, as he can’t risk appearing weak at home. He must demand; appearances demand it of him before his most important audience–the one in Pyongyang.
TenguPhule
@Matt McIrvin:
Combined with all the other ratfucking the Republicans are getting ready for, it could be just enough to get their cheating over the line again. Trump’s weakest supporters would love an excuse rally back around a flag.
I blame our declining civic courses.
Mike in DC
@Cheryl Rofer:
The only way i see things going that way is if Trump overreacts to whatever provocation the Norks stage on the 15th (worst case, e.g., firing 3 missiles with dummy warheads at or near Guam, just to prove they can).
TenguPhule
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
He purged a bunch of people (execution by AA gun) and assassinated his own brother in another country with Sarin. Its more then fair to rag on him. Just not at the highest levels of government.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
And the odds of a hot conventional war when Trump gets pushed into a corner if/when NK fires into US waters and he either has to strike them or look like a paper tiger?
Matt McIrvin
@TenguPhule: Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters are old people. If our civics courses are declining, they’re the ones who got the most and best civics education. So it’s not just that.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: Out of curiosity, I recently checked Trivago for rates at the Old Post Office. They’re less than half what they were in January (and lots of other fancy places were sold out while the OPO still had rooms), but they are higher than other hotels listed there now.
It’ll be interesting to see if they’re back up at ~ $600 a night at the Old Post Office anytime soon…
And of course it’s unconstitutional that his name is still on the place and “his family” is still running it. Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. I think people are becoming less willing to be rah-rah for the President (even under the best of circumstances) after W’s disasters. Attacking the DPRK would be a disaster and lots and lots of people know it – and it couldn’t be blamed on Clinton or Obama.
Look at Trump’s approval numbers from Gallup. The Syria cruise missile attack was April 6. The approval numbers hardly moved, and have been flat or slowly falling since June.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Don’t be so sure they couldn’t blame Bill Clinton. This is already the narrative being pushed around the right-wing echo chamber–that Clinton’s Agreed Framework (and not Bush’s trashing of it) started NK on the path to nuclear weapons, making the current crisis inevitable.
Boatboy_srq
@tobie: Two thoughts.
1) The GOTea is the party that CHEERED “we begin bombing in five minutes.” If anything Raygun wasn’t belligerent enough for them and squished out on arms treaties when he should have just nuked Moscow and called it a day, and neither Bush turned Iran into the lifeless glassy plain they desired. It’s hardly surprising they’re keeping quiet when they’re about to get the Righteous Nukular Exchange of their dreams.
2) Anyone in SC, or watching SC under Haley, could have predicted this. No surprise there. What’s shocking is the [mal]administration’s ability to recruit lower-level staff that expect the Central Committee to be sane and rational.