The GOP had better be happy, because this is what they’ve wished on the rest of us.
BREAKING: Trump says he talked up North Korea's real estate, beachside hotel opportunities in Kim Jong Un meeting.
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 12, 2018
Pres. Trump on North Korea:
"They have great beaches. You see that whenever they're exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said boy look at the view. Wouldn't that make a great condo?" https://t.co/69MUIH5a5j
— Tim Stenovec (@timsteno) June 12, 2018
President Trump says he got North Korea to commit to destroying a major missile testing site but "we didn't put it in the agreement because we didn't have time."
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) June 12, 2018
Think about this quote for a second.
You’ve scored, what you believe is, a MAJOR disarmament win from a longtime enemy.
The thing is, that enemy has a history of reneging.
You could hold em to it by putting it in writing. But you don’t do it because you… didn’t have time. https://t.co/uBGatumxWW
— Sam Stein (@samstein) June 12, 2018
Negotiating advice 101. When you want to make a deal real bad you will make a really bad deal. #SingaporeSummit
— T. Boone Pickens (@boonepickens) June 11, 2018
Here is the Hollywood-trailer-style video that Trump showed Kim. “The future remains to be written.” https://t.co/sMmRNLmWEM
— Edward Wong (@comradewong) June 12, 2018
Within a month, Trump pulled the US out of a 159-page detailed arms control agreement with intrusive verifiability with Iran and signed a short, ambiguous, and concessionary declaration with North Korea. https://t.co/TzaROchmAG
— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) June 12, 2018
The lesson for Iran now is pretty clear: show off an ICBM and a sufficiently large-yield nuke and, in a matter of months, you too can have your Singapore declaration (never mind the JCPOA).
— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) June 12, 2018
TRUMP on KIM JONG UN: "He's very talented. Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 & is able to run it, and run it tough…one out of 10k probably couldn't do it."
Trump then downplays death of Otto Warmbier at hands of Kim regime, saying "he did not die in vain." pic.twitter.com/ske5rL1AVy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 12, 2018
Trump, asked if he has a transcript or notes from his meeting with Kim Jong Un: "I don't need to verify as I have one of the great memories of all time."
— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) June 12, 2018
With this photo, he got much of what he wanted: A picture with one of the world’s most recognizable faces and a propaganda victory to fuel his popularity back at home, aided by glowing coverage from state media.
And, as for Kim Jong-un, his objectives aren’t all that different. pic.twitter.com/jQ8Up0XitZ
— Ned Price (@nedprice) June 12, 2018
Revealing moment from Trump's presser:
Trump says he trusts Kim. If he's wrong? "I may be wrong, I mean, I may stand before you in six months and say, 'Hey I was wrong,'" said Trump, adding, "I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 12, 2018
opiejeanne
Did he really say that maybe someday South Korea could be like NK, in a way that made it sound like a goal to be desired?
MattF
Only unstable non-geniuses need to take notes.
zhena gogolia
@opiejeanne:
Yes. Yes, he did.
BC in Illinois
I would give a lot, if he could only have, not a “great memory,” but even the smallest portion of self-awareness.
Mandalay
When Trump is asked a tough question he just insults the reporter and ignores the question:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-transcript-of-trumps-press-conference-after-meeting-kim-jong-un-2018-06-12
Kay
Guffaw. Such a liar.
It doesn’t matter what they said in there. Trump lies all the time. He won’t hold up his end of the deal, if we ever find out what he even promised, which we won’t. His words have no meaning. It’ll be a completely different tall tale tommorrow.
We have the Trump Event, then the series of Trump statements, quickly followed by the same conclusion every time- no one knows what happened or what it means because Trump LIES all the time and he’s the only witness!
Bobby Thomson
Let’s be real. It’s not like either regime honors written promises.
MJS
I’m hoping someone soon has the opportunity to remind Trump of every time he has bragged about having, “one of the greatest memories of all time.” As in someone deposing him, in response to every time he says, “I don’t remember”.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: And as far as I can tell that’s precisely the point. He got to have a day for being in the headlines Presidenting. It felt like a win to him and it looked like a win to his idiot fans. There’s no follow-up, and there’s not MEANT to be follow-up. I’d bet he LOVES that old saw about how Reagan understood that politics is what things look like with the sound off, or whatever it is.
chopper
it’s like a terrible parody of an actual presidency. i just can’t with this shit.
Villago Delenda Est
November. Blue wave. Only thing that matters now, unless the military says “fuck this” and totally upends the entire apple cart.
Fair Economist
It’s really boggling what a bad negotiator he is. He gave up regular military preparedness exercises for a bunch of platitudes North Korea had previously agreed to anyway. Yep, he’s the kind of guy who could go broke running a casino.
Kay
This time will be better because instead of one liar who doesn’t keep his promises at the table now we have two.
No one knows why that would be “better”, but that’s our operating theory. Two delusional liars are better than one.
It’s a matched pair or something. Magical symmetry. No one can get further than “it’s better because …..they’re both nuts” – they just sorta trail off after that.
BC in Illinois
@zhena gogolia:
@opiejeanne:
It’e here, at the end of the Stephanopoulos interview.
(Edited, twice, to correct spelling of Stephanopoulos.)
schrodingers_cat
@Villago Delenda Est:
What do you mean? Are you hoping for a military coup?
MomSense
@Kay:
Apparently they decided to meet without note takers so we have to rely on the two dicktators to be honest about what was said and agreed to.
What’s a little ambiguity when nukes are involved?
Here’s my question. Does trump know he got shit from NK and the optics are intended to fool the rubes or does he genuinely think he did well?
I suppose it doesn’t matter except for figuring out the ratio of delusion versus lying.
Mandalay
Little Marco, a passionate supporter of human rights whenever it’s politically convenient, decides to go rogue and troll Trump after getting roasted and skewered for previously supporting Trump’s meeting with Kim:
Looks like a Marco 2020! tweet to me.
Villago Delenda Est
@BC in Illinois: He’s bought into NK propaganda. He’s all about the surface, nothing beneath it. As Adam has pointed out, repeatedly, and correctly, we have very little actual information on the what the man or woman on the street in Pyongyang is thinking. It’s a true hermit kingdom, and Donald is blissfully unaware of what that means.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay:
Who is “we” and “our” in this quote.?
Ben Cisco
He is such a fucking clown.
Cheryl Rofer
Oh wow. Before Trump came out, they played the video Anne posted up top, and the reporters thought it was North Korean propaganda.
I’ve been wondering how long it will take for it to show up on North Korean tv.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I have to hand it to him though- he plays political media in exactly the same way every single time.
I don’t know what I would do differently if I were them, honestly. I don’t know how to fix it, but it’s not my job to fix it and it is theirs, so they better come up with something. He plays them. Every time. They’ve had two years. They need a new approach. I get that it’s difficult- it is REALLY diffcult dealing with liars, but they have to grapple with this in some serious way, because it ain’t getting better. They cannot continue to follow their old script. It doesn’t work with this level of really systemic dishonesty in that administration. They’re not correcting for new circumstances, and they need to.
randy khan
No notes, no written promise for the most important thing Kim said he’d do (well, at least what Trump says Kim said he’d do).
Heckuva job, as GW Bush might say.
schrodingers_cat
Washington Post is not falling for the circus
FlipYrWhig
@MomSense:
He genuinely thinks he did well. Kim told him that no other president could have done what he just did, which is perfectly designed for this oaf’s vanity. And Fox will laud him for stickin’ it to the libtards, so he’ll never change his mind or the brain-shaped cavity where a mind may once have been.
James Powell
@Kay:
The sad fact is that the press/media doesn’t see that there is anything that needs fixing. From the owners, to the editors/managers, to the reporters, they are all having the best time ever and thanking their lucky stars that they don’t have to deal with that unforgivably boring policy wonk Hillary Clinton.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I watched CNN coverage last night and that was the general theme. This is different because it’s Trump. It was fucking insane, the “reasoning”. They all but admit he’s a huge liar and completely untrustworthy but they have decided this is some kind of advantage. No one follows out WHY that wou;ld be an advantage. It would look like this, shorter: “chaos, uncertainty….then you win!”
lgerard
I guess trump didn’t notice that North Korea has built a beautiful wall along those beaches to keep people from escaping.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Are there any foreign analyses on the GOP and what they’ve become?
Snarki, child of Loki
@Mandalay:
birds of a feather.
opiejeanne
@zhena gogolia: I don’t believe that was an accident of him just running his mouth. While we’ve most of us already come to this conclusion, he’s evil personified just for that statement alone.
Frankensteinbeck
@Fair Economist:
I doubt it. This sounds like a prime case of ‘Trump will promise anything and deliver nothing.’
MattF
@FlipYrWhig: Right. Trump’s brain instantly translates ‘Other president’ into ‘OBAMA‘. And, apparently, Kim is aware of that.
lowtechcyclist
Trump conducting diplomacy is like those old SNL skits where Toonces the cat would drive the car.
zhena gogolia
@opiejeanne:
As I said below, he is working for Putin and he wants to become just like Putin. I have no doubts any more. The question is whether we let him do it.
It took Putin three years to become Supreme Leader. (The Medvedev interlude was just window dressing.)
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist:
Exactly.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: I’m fearing a military coup. But at some point, they’re going to weigh the actual meaning of their oaths against a “president” who uses the Constitution to wipe his ass. The cure might be worse than the disease, long term, but short term, when things become intolerable…
Mary G
NRA under pressure:
Nate Silver said on Twitter the other day he didn’t understand why the Democratic resistance doesn’t get more press, and I replied that we are mostly middle-aged women ** in sensible shoes who aren’t interested in blowing our own horns but just in getting bodies to the polls in November, and that isn’t a sexy story. Someone responded to me that Rosa Parks was a middle-aged woman in sensible shoes too. ** [plus men of Balloon Juice, too, of course]
Villago Delenda Est
@James Powell: Hence my nym.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Kay
@James Powell:
I sort of disagree. I think someone will eventually figure out an approach that is workable and productive because they’re trapped. They’re in a box where they replay the same script again and again and get nowhere, and that can’t feel good and must be enormously frustrating. Someone will see a way out- a new approach. It’s a hard problem. I don’t envy them.
That’s why there are sanctions for lying to law enforcement or courts. There have to be. Not for moral reasons but for practical ones. No one would ever get anywhere. They’d go around and around forever. There has to be a baseline truth (not absolute- I’m not claiming that) or a lot of things don’t function. They can no longer function in any worthwhile or productive way in this environment. He isn’t changing, so they have to.
Mandalay
@Kay:
I agree, and the situation is actually getting worse. Trumps antics are becoming normalized and accepted, and he’s edging up in recent polls.
The media has two specific failures that they can and should address:
– Stop treating Trump’s behavior as normal or acceptable. Time and again I hear reporters making light of his misconduct by saying “…but as we all know, this president does things a little differently…”, with a carefully faked chuckle at his antics thrown in for good measure. They prefer to treat him as though he’s a mischievous but cute and irreproachable teenager even though he’s our President.
– Stop saying he “misspoke”, or said an “untruth”, or was “factually incorrect”. Start calling him a liar, and explain what he gained by the lying (e.g. to divert attention from another issue, to smear, to obfuscate, etc).
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: Trump’s one refrain is that the rest of the world is laughing at us and we have to get a better deal.
yes it is.
cleek
they are thrilled, absolutely thrilled.
check out Breitbart if you need confirmation.
lamh36
said last night. Otto’s parents hated Obama. They voted/supported for Trump did they not? So why’d exactly do people think they be anything but supportive of Trump and his NK photo-op? There is NOTHING that DJT does that supported winter rationalize and endorse.
I’d bet right here and now if u talked to the parents they do what all Chump supporters do…endorse and rationalize!
Spanky
@Mary G: No, you don’t get press, and Democrats don’t get press, nor do they get the Sunday gabfest slots, because all of that goes against the corporate (read “Republican”) narrative.
The press is tied at the hip to the Republican Party through their management and boards of directors. No major news outlet can be assumed to be telling the straight story, as it goes through editors and then gets headlined by who knows who before it hits our eyeballs.
The press is not our ally.
Ian G.
I’m not sure that Iran needs to test an ICBM or a nuclear weapon to make this imbecile eat out of their hand. They just need to kiss his ass: tell him he’s a genius, the best negotiator, belongs on Mt. Rushmore, etc.
MattF
@Kay: It’s fair to say that that getting this stuff right is hard to do, and what we’re seeing is getting it all wrong– and I suppose one could simply sigh and wait until everything breaks down. In any case we’re getting there on several fronts now, perhaps sooner than expected… It’s hard to feel positive about that.
Jeffro
@cleek:
Well, of course: facists propping each other up while triggering the libs…what’s a MAGAt not to love about that?
different-church-lady
At this point the only thing missing is the flight suit.
MattF
@Mary G: I feel pretty strongly that the press (and the polls) are missing the big story in the way you suggest. I’m hoping for a lot of surprised opinionators right after Voting Day.
Mike J
Otto Warmbier thought a propaganda poster was kitschy and tried to take it home as a souvenir. Guards beat him to death in prison.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mandalay:
But by how much? Enough to matter?
Chyron HR
@Mike J:
And we appreciate him bigly taking one for the team.
Jeffro
@Ian G.: Nah, that’s not enough – too many anti-Iran psychos around him. They’ll insist on sanctions that amount to becoming an American colony (or worse). “Give us half…no wait…ALL of your oil, and we’ll THINK about not bombing you to smithereens. Also any technology you have above the level of a two-slot toaster, Just. To. Be. Sure.”
Jeffro
@Mike J: I’m still not getting how he “did not die in vain”. Did he die as a blood sacrifice of some kind? Did he die to bring our two nations together as one? Summit-fuel, as it were? Did he die so that NK would somehow finally realize the error of its ways and rush into the loving embrace of Trumpov & Co?
Why do I have a feeling that last one is closest to what they mean?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Thanks. CNN and NYT both behave like they are propaganda arms for T. I don’t have cable, so CNN for me.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s all about the surface.
This is why I say that every thing he owns isn’t gold, only gold spray paint. First of all, he wouldn’t know the difference, and he’s never trying to do more than fool every one else anyway.
MattF
@Jeffro: Helped Trump and Kim bond over a shared love of freedom?
Kay
@MattF:
I’m suggesting something different than “waiting”. Instead I’m suggesting admitting that the “old rules” don’t apply and everyone has to adjust. Trump doesn’t follow any rules. That demands that everyone else really grapple with that and find some new way to approach what is a completely different environment. But they won’t get there if they keep insisting they can continue to follow the old rules and hope he will change. He won’t. They have to.
I don’t mean “accommodate”, although I understand why they tried that. It’s easier.
I mean they have to change and that’s hard. I think that is what people really mean when they complain he is being “normalized”. People recognize that this a new environment and they don’t see a sufficient effort to deal with that reality. It won’t work, “he said, she said”. It isn’t working. That’s because it isn’t “he said, she said”. It’s “he lied, we said”.
Cacti
So a professional grifter has faith in a gentleman’s agreement he struck with a foreign dictator?
Sure, why not?
Mandalay
@Spanky:
This x 1000.
It’s revealing to listen to relatively bland mainstream media figures like John Heilmann or Katty Kay or Michael Steele when they are free to speak their mind. For example, on Bill Maher last week Heilmann was sticking his boot and his knife in on Democrats. You won’t hear him doing that on MSNBC.
And I used to think of Michael Steele as “one of the good ones”; a Republican, but still a pretty decent human being. And then I listened to his radio show on Sirius/XM. Far from being one of the milquetoast token Republicans on MSNBC, he was a nasty RWNJ who openly despised Democrats, progressives and the left.
I can’t imagine the mental hoops these hypocrites must have to go through to hid their real beliefs in order to earn a paycheck.
rp
Reading the twitter feeds of Michael Tracey and other “leftists,” the extent to which they’ve become Trump supporters and defenders in order to own the Democrats and the resistance is amazing. At this point their entire worldview is based on Cleek’s law.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
He sounded naive before he got on the plane, now he just sounds like an old, deluded moron.
Mary G
@Spanky: @MattF: Not sure that getting less publicity is necessarily a bad thing. Flying under the radar might help lull the Republicans into complacency. Watching the NYTers be confounded the day after the election would be kind of sweet.
@Mandalay: Trump’s approval has actually been edging back down, and the generic poll gap has gone from 3.4 to 7.6 in about a week. People don’t like chaos and Twitler’s decided he knows best and is sowing it right and left.
I’ve decided I’m done with the summit. Talking about how dumb and bad he is can be fun, but volunteering for candidates and doing voter registration work is what’s really important.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Cannot be trusted.
TenguPhule
@Cacti:
Seems Legit.
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay: Their only belief is Rs rule and Ds drool.
rikyrah
@rp:
They were never Democrats to begin with. Period. Folks told you that they weren’t.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Kim Jong Un had the meeting recorded. Because he’s not Donald Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: RWNJs != World. The world is in turn smirking (How the mighty have fallen) and sympathizing with us.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Conservatives never have coherence or logic. If they were capable of those, they wouldn’t be conservatives.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Bravo!!
TenguPhule
@Kay:
First rule that needs to be thrown out the window is that the IC can’t interfere in a domestic situation.
Everybody else failed in their duty. Step up or step aside.
Cacti
@rp:
The horseshoe theory of politics at work.
Sandia Blanca
@Mary G: I’m in Austin, and I know one of those people waiting to testify. She’s not a Mom, she’s a high school student, but her Mom posted on FB that she is very proud of her!
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
Little Marco is so cute when he yaps and makes noise. But don’t worry, he will quickly back down and run under the sofa.
TenguPhule
We are so fucked.
lamh36
Translation. Bernie will run as an Independent in 2020 and the attempting ratfucking of Dems can continue…
embrace mild “soft” Trumpism supporters, while holding on to diehards anti-Dem folks…
JPL
Trump has a campaign rally in MN next week and I wonder if he plans on showing his propaganda video.
rp
@rikyrah: Yeah, I get that. Maybe a better way of putting it is that they’re not even bothering with a fig leaf of ideology at this point. It’s just “Democrats suck!” 24/7.
stinger
That photo in the Ned Price tweet BURNS MY EYES. I am gobsmacked at the dishonor shown to the United States flag BY THE ADMINISTRATION. Displaying it side by side with the flag of a despotic tyranny — someone should go to jail just for that.
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
You are attempting to make sense of Trump’s words. Stop and take a deep breath, and remind yourself that such is a futile exercise. Trump isn’t trying to say anything about Otto Warmbier that makes sense, or even approaches the truth.
gene108
@MomSense:
Trump and Fox News got the optics they wanted to stir up the base going into the mid-terms. Trump is a great statesman bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula.
Sure nothing was concrete, but sometimes you just have to say “hello” before you can win someone over, which I think is the current narrative for conservatives.
Never mind Clinton’s Agreed Framework that actually got N. Korea to halt developing nukes or even Bush, Jr’s six party talks, no American administration has ever reached out to N. Korea.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I was really thinking about it this time, listening, though and I don’t know what to do either. I know a different approach is called for but I don’t know what that would be. It isn’t lists of trangressions a la Rachel Maddow or “fact checking” – those tools just don’t fit this job. There are creative people. They exist. One of them will find a way out of this box and the rest will follow but to do that they’ll have to ignore the huge mass of people who are insisting the old approaches are sufficient. I get it. I tend to be quite conventional myself and I don’t like change either, but we better accept that this is a new environment and start asking how we can approach it differently.
Mandalay
@Mike J:
That Trump quote on Otto Warmbier reminds me his quote on the Green Beret Sgt. La David Johnson who was killed by Islamist militants in Niger:
Now what color is Warmbier and what color is Johnson?…
Immanentize
@Mary G:
I’m with you on this — I’m already on to girding for the next insane outrage against the rule of law and international order.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Oh I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some written agreements yet to be revealed.
“Good morning, Mr. Donald, and may I congratulate you on your choice of tie. The orange fluorescent stripes pick up your handsome coloring so nicely and set off your rugged good looks so well.”
“Uh… yes, you may go ahead and say that.”
“I would be so honored if you would put your signature on each of these documents to help our poor inferior minds recall these great events.”
“What are they?”
“Just autograph books. Please sign.”
(Idiot signs. Scene ends.)
Immanentize
@Mandalay: To be fair, Warmbier didn’t sign up for anything except a little youthful X-ian proselytizing in a seriously anti-religion State.
Immanentize
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I think Trump agreed that Pyongyang can seek unification and rule South Korea which is (to Trump) a messy semi-democracy….
MattF
@Kay: And, of course, in fact, the news reports are all ‘He said, he said, he said, he said’. They feel it’s their job to keep track of Trump’s lies. But why, exactly?
I guess I’d like to see the media do more than that, or something… different than that, but reporters (and editors) insist that what they’re doing now is their jobs, and they’re the experts in what ‘journalism’ means.
trollhattan
@Mike J:
Yup. What flew home was an ambulatory corpse.
Then there’s the matter of nerve-poisoning the half brother and killing the uncle thus.
Birds of a feather? Trump was a little wistful pondering getting away with murder on 5th Ave.
West of the Rockies
@Mandalay:
Hmph… Somehow I can’t imagine Barack or JFK or even Reagan calling someone (on a quasi-presidential platform) “a total weirdo.”
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig:
Kim is remarkably good at stealth insults.
David Evans
@BC in Illinois:
To be scrupulously fair, I think that can be read either as “SK will be something like NK” or as “NK will be something like SK”. Even he is not likely to have intended the former. He is not a precise speaker
germy
Holy shit. Michelle Wolf reveals “Op Ed” (the crazy song and dance man who approves all NYT opinion editorials):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsWj7Q5iPus
John
I just got my proposed health insurance rate increase for 2019. From $610 to $930. For a silver plan for a healthy 45 year old. And I don’t get a subsidy.
Thanks Republicans!
West of the Rockies
@trollhattan:
Didn’t that happen in Moonraker?
TenguPhule
@Immanentize:
Which one? There are so many to choose from these days.
catclub
I think a way to set off Trump would be to tell him KJU is a better golfer.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Our media is run by Underpants Gnomes.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
People like the Trumps don’t follow rules, but key, essential to their success is that everyone else follow rules.
That’s the edge they have. They are confident that they can violate norms and others will continue to follow norms. They need that, or not following rules isn’t an edge anymore- it’s just chaos. We need to be predictable or their unpredictability doesn’t work to their advantage.
When Trump stiffs a contractor Trump relies on the fact that the painter will hold up his end- he’ll paint the hotel, he’ll honor the contract. Advantage- Trump. If the painter doesn’t follow the rules either Trump is SOL. There goes his edge. Now the painting isn’t done and he paid a third upfront. They RELY on others following rules.
Mandalay
@Immanentize:
Well I’m not glad he died, but he was asking for trouble and he certainly found it. He was no hero.
I have the same sympathy for him as I have for surfers who get in trouble in the water after a hurricane, and hikers who accidentally wander into Iran.
West of the Rockies
@John:
A 50% increase… Shit.
Immanentize
@Kay: Hello. Just happy to see you. And I agree completely. The old rule book has been thrown out (proven before Trump with Garland) and we are currently in a no-rules state. What rules will emerge is currently contested, including a completely corrupt family dynasty system. But it is so hard to internalize — and act on — the fact that the old rules are G.O.N.E.!
Immanentize
@TenguPhule: I was only joking a bit when I said this morning that I expect Trump will pardon Jared Kushner’s father soon. “Treated so very unfair.” I think he is about to make pardons for dollars a real thing.
Immanentize
@John: Did you check out whether the gold is a better deal? I read on David’s post that in some places it will be.
Jeffro
@lamh36: I tell myself that 2020 is a crazy-long way off in terms of today’s “Infrastructure
WeekDay” politics. It is still almost five months to the midterms, meaning it’s almost 29 months until the 2020 elections. Would love to see Wilmer left behind for a fresh, Democratic face.TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
But in this case he’s promising to do nothing instead of allowing the military to do something.
Trump’s razor says he will stop the exercises because he really is that stupid.
SFAW
@Kay:
Very glad to see you back!
Turner Hedenkoff
Jeezis, that video — is he trying to get Kim to disarm, or buy a time-share in Panama City?
MattF
@Immanentize: My vague recollection is that the Catholic Church did something like that, once upon a time a long time ago. Some foolish people objected and started some wars here and there..
eclare
@Immanentize: What frustrates me is that most of the media still refuses to call Trump a liar, when he clearly is. The late night comedians do, I think when the newspapers start, that might indicate that the tide is turning.
Barbara
@Mike J:
Not according to the doctor who conducted the autopsy. Most likely he asphyxiated, perhaps choking on vomit or food.
His parents are not sympathetic people, but the point I won’t get over is that Warmbier was one person and there are many others, mostly North Koreans, being treated far worse. He won’t have died in vain because KJU will get even more than he would have by using him as a bargaining chip.
West of the Rockies
@Mandalay:
I have wondered how Rubin, Schmidt, et al, still call themselves Republicans. Maybe it’s all just a grand illusion, a good performance to make some Benjamins…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@trollhattan: Let’s remember that he has said admiring words about the Chinese authorities at Tiananmen Square.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
Don’t know if you got my email but I wanted to apologize for last week or so. I value your input here and think your comments are insightful
TenguPhule
@Kay:
When the rule of law breaks down, its going to break down everywhere. The Republicans keep doubling down on pissing on the justice system and making a mockery of the concept of justice.
TenguPhule
@West of the Rockies:
They know what they are.
Jeffro
@Mandalay: Wait…you’re saying that Trumpov is racist?
.
In other news, I’ve noticed some RWNJs here and there, FB and IRL, starting to call most anything/everything that they don’t agree with an ‘opinion piece’ (whether it is news or an opinion piece). Is that some sort of shift from “fake news”? Did they finally realize how slavish it sounds to call every anti-Trumpov piece “fake news”? Or did they just receive new marching orders/Luntz-ian vocabulary guides?
TenguPhule
@Immanentize:
I think he’s going to do something even worse.
Pardons after the fact for people who do things he approves of. Like Neo-nazis beating protesters.
germy
@Barbara: I thought I read somewhere a friend offered him lots of money to bring back a souvenir from NK. I don’t know the details, but that person must have trouble living with himself now.
Of course Mr. Warmbier thought there’d be no surveillance cameras in every hallway.
A fatal miscalculation.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I think we’re getting there. I was watching the almost hysterical cries on Twitter with the focus on media calling him a “liar” – as if that word would cut the knot we’re in and I just don’t think it will be that easy.
It’s a really hard problem! I don’t think one super-powerful super hero word will fix it :)
A lot of the people and entities who dealt with the Trumps over the years just got out. They bolted. I think that’s because they can’t win with their usual approach and they’re not willing to grapple with it- and I don’t blame them. It’s not worth it to get the “reward” of lending them money on their crap garbage schemes. But we don’t have that luxury. We HAVE to. Maybe kicking and screaming but we have to change or we won’t beat them.
Jeffro
@West of the Rockies: @TenguPhule: Many of them (including Rubin, iirc) have said they’ve left the party until it comes to its senses. The problem of course is that in a two-party system, when you leave one party and go to the sidelines, you really haven’t done anything. You have to join the other team, even if it means breathing in a little whiff of patchouli here and there.
pat
@opiejeanne:
I think the quote can be interpreted that North Korea will be like the South…
It’s the only way it makes sense.
On the other hand, nothing else in this debacle makes sense.
sdhays
@Mandalay: I’d settle for simply always correcting whatever he says immediately. If every quote involves simply saying “Trump said X. X is not true.” with further explanation if necessary, I think the shear volume of false information establishes that he’s lying without “calling him a liar”. Calling someone a liar is potentially defamatory, apparently, since they may have just been stupid – you need proof that they knew better and intended to deceive. But if every word he says is followed by a correction, possibly in detail if warranted, then that adds up. The media currently let’s way too much slide, not wanting to get bogged down.
Brachiator
Trump does not like to leave any kind of paper trail or record of what he’s done. Wasn’t there an earlier story about him tearing up papers after meetings? Even though this violates rules about government officials retaining records. Trump don’t care.
Everything begins and ends with Trump. He has no regard either for history or posterity. And at this point, it looks like his presidential library will contain little more than a download of his Twitter feed.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: That would make sense (to him) – if you’re a “very fine person”, you probably SHOULD get a pardon.
SFAW
@Mandalay:
Why would that make a difference? I mean, the Greatestest Negotiator EVER!!! has told us all that
some of his best friendshe doesn’t hatedarkiesthe coloredsthe nigg — uh, he meant “the Negroes”those people.. Much.West of the Rockies
@Jeffro:
Aging out of politics is a nebulous thing…
We were told that Hillary was a little old to run for president (ditto McCain, Biden…) But Bernie? No worries, mate! DiFi is 84 and running for another six-year term–hooray. But Pelosi is regarded as a drag on the party.
MattF
@West of the Rockies: Rubin sides with Dems on most issues. Her latest column (on the SCOTUS voting rights decision) concludes:
SFAW
@Brachiator:
Not to worry. ZEGS will be all over that before he
runs awayretiresImmanentize
@MattF:
Hey, the 99 thesis were just the twitter of the times.
I’d rather pay for an earthly pardon than a promise of a divine one by earthly types.
And pardon for cash was the official policy in Texas under “Ma” Ferguson, I believe.
Immanentize
@eclare: The papers starting doing that a week ago, a bit, about — damn! I forgot last week’s outrage! But the media was calling him a liar.
trollhattan
@MattF:
Could be as direct an anti-Republican statement I’ve ever seen from Rubin. She lays it out succinctly and her contempt seems genuine.
Now, what are her recent thoughts on Bibi…?
Brachiator
@sdhays:
If you google”Trump Lies” you get 549 million hits, and the top suggestions are to media stories about Trump. One WaPo story headline
You could document Trump lies 24/7 … The media simply can’t keep up. I suppose that some might want the media to do nothing put print “Trump Lies Again” as the opening headline for every story about him.
At this point, the question is, has Trump ever told the truth during his presidency?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: We need more Michelle Wolf and less MAGA Habs when covering T. I think Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star does a much better job covering the WH than any of the stenos that work for American news outlets..
Immanentize
@Kay: The Democratic Senators have real power under Senate rules to really mess up process. But they are still playing by the old rules. Comity and all. If Bernie wants to prove his revolutionary bona fides, he should just make the machine, which is turning out horrible judge after horrible judge, stop!
Haha ha, I almost just wet myself laughing at myself.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Feature, not a bug for the Republicans.
Calvinball is king.
Mandalay
@sdhays:
Not if it’s true, and there are a gazillion examples of Trump blatantly lying. Bring it on!
Call Trump a liar at every opportunity. Let’s hear Trump explain why he wasn’t lying. Brand him as a liar.
He’s been treated with kid gloves for far too long.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
They’re still registered a Republicans. Which means they’re still the enemy.
Just a lower target priority.
bemused
@Kay:
They have to actually do something about it, fish or cut bait but I won’t hold my breath. Takes finding courage and I’m not confident they have any.
lurker dean
@germy: that was soooo good. i guess it would be too much for the nyt to engage in some introspection after that.
jimmiraybob
Here are the retroactive notes:
Trump: “What will it take to sweeten the deal?”
Un: “Give me everything that I want.”
Trump: “OK. So let me get this straight. I give you everything you want and you give me 100-miles of prime, pristine beachfront to develop any way that I please? And no unions?”
Un: “Done.”
Trump: “You are a great leader and wonderful son….er, friend. My sense of touch tells me this was the greatest success ever….take that Obama who lives in my head! I can hardly wait to watch the next Fox and Friends. My lawyers told me to get something in writing but I know I can trust my BFF”
Un: Thought bubble (You ARE an idiot man-child. And I thought they were exaggerating.)
Un: Now I must go home and tell the generals of your great success.
I hope this helped. Of course, I’m not at leave to reveal the source of this information.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I’m a rule person myself, so I sympathize, but after the outtright theft of a SCOTUS seat they need new norms.
Norms assume reciprocity. If that’s not true it’s not even a “norm”, let alone a workable plan. We’re outside the rules which is really unnerving but is also true.
They’re clinging to their guns and religion but we’re clinging to our “norms” with the same ferocity :)
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Bernie’s going to fuck it all up for us in 2020. Bookmark it Libs !
Adam C
If there were written notes, Trump would have just ripped them up at the end of the meeting anyway.
MattF
@Adam C: Incredible to believe that’s true, but…
Mai naem mobile
@Ruckus: Did you notice the birthdau cake the Singaporeans presented to Trumpov had a single candle which was gold colored? WTF? Everybody’s got Donny DumDum figured out.
jl
Heard the vicious loon Lindsay Graham spouting on the radio news this morning.
We have to admit (for sake of balance) that one GOPer is sticking to his principles. Unfortunately, that GOPer is a vicious loon who would get mass quantities of people killed for no reason.
So, seems like essentially nothing happened at the summit, other than Trump revealing again what a damned ignorant narcissistic fool he is.
But, his comments did remind me that in some ways, he doesn’t have to be bought by Putin to do the things he’s doing. He’d do a lot of it anyway.
Trump’s comments on promise to cancel joint military exercises is really 10,000 percent in line of with his impulses on foreign policy going back 40 years now. Go look for youtubes of Trump when he was trying to break into the Democratic party as a conservaDem decades ago. He said exactly the same kind of things wrt to foreign policy.
I’m not saying that Trump isn’t bought by Putin, just that Putin knew he’d just have to do some very minor tinkering with the programming and the product would perform exactly as required.
Gelfling 545
@Cheryl Rofer: And it turns out it was a pitch for a Trump hotel franchise in NK.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
We need to return to our union roots. Mr. Knee and Mr. Cap need to be reinstated as members in good standing with the party.
Mai naem mobile
Does anybody really believe there’s no recording of the ‘private’ Trumpov/KJU meeting? Maybe I grew up too much on 007 and other spy movies/books but I have to believe there was a recording device in thr room/above the room/on either or both translators.I know I won’t be around for it but there are going to be so many really crazy crazy interesting stories about this WH/administration that will come out in 50 yrs from stuff being declassified. Assuming this country is still a functioning democracy ofcourse.
BC in Illinois
@David Evans:
I will grant that your reading makes more sense. It came across the other way to me because Trump was going on and on about the wonderful, fervent, industrious, Kim-loving people of the North. He didn’t have gushing words — or any words at all — about the wonderful people of the South. But it certainly makes more sense that the North should emulate the South, than vice-versa. (I wonder how the statement was heard in the North and the South.)
And your final sentence expresses a great truth:
jl
@jl: Specifically, I meant Trump’s comments in the interview with Stupigoofalous. Basically, the gist was that the joint exercises are a big waste, we have shell out all this money, and where’s the return. Where’s the vig? I gotta shell out to do this shit and no payday, WTF!?
This isn’t a judgment at all on whether every aspect of how the US had handled that part of the South Korean treaty commitments is the best way to do it. But obvious stupid conman BS is obvious stupid conman BS and that is what Trump is spouting.
TenguPhule
Not even bothering with fig leaves any more.
germy
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
You don’t think the good doctor Jill Stein has ambitions as well?
Steve in the ATL
@West of the Rockies: only republicans say Pelosi is a drag on the party. Real democrats love her.
jl
@BC in Illinois: Trump bullshits. No point in trying to figure out exactly what it means. There is no ‘exact’ there.
I always go back to Larry Wilmore’ line, (paraphrase) ‘Trump is the kind of guy who thinks something must be true because he just heard himself say it.”
Gin & Tonic
Nobody at this O’Hare airport bar is talking about this “deal”
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Link
TRAITORS !!!!!!
TenguPhule
@germy:
She will suffer a tragic accident shortly before she can accept a nomination.
Mai naem mobile
@Brachiator: the library will a tourist trap with a grift store instead of a gift store. It will have a golf resort/casino built next to it and rounds of golf will be played with one of the Trumpov Juniors for a thousand bucks a pop.
Mandalay
@jl:
Exactly so. In a similar vein, Hannity is fond of bragging that at Fox News “nobody tells me what to say”, but he is too dumb to realize that is precisely why he has a job.
He thinks he is the tail wagging the dog, but if his employers felt the need to tell him what to say he’d be gone in a New York minute. Hannity performs “exactly as required”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mary G:
The Narrative(r) is the both sides are moving to their extremes, women in sensible shoes doesn’t fit that so it didn’t happen.
one thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Kay: One of the reasons I love your comments is this practical, basic insight into people and institutions. We miss a lot when we don’t step back and look at the nuts and bolts of things.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: it may be a hot topic at Midway, though
Redshift
@sdhays:
Yeah, no. Various press outlets have deliberate intent as their standard for using “lie,” but it’s absolutely not because of defamation.
For a public figure to win a defamation suit, they have to show harm and an indifference to the truth. Trump repeats statements that have been repeatedly debunked. You don’t have to know what’s in his head to call that a lie. Reckless disregard for the truth is intent to decieve.
GregB
The level of danger we are sosking in is staggering. In one weekend with a concerted propaganda effort and the US has trashed one of our oldest economic and military allies and embraced the most brutal military dictatorship on the planet.
Astounding.
Amir Khalid
@Mai naem mobile:
Singaporeans have a word for people like Trump: kiasu. True, he has many nasty attributes and kiasuness is only one of them, but it is one of his ruling traits.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: One of those things I’ll never know.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@GregB: Well I guess the Deep State is cool with it. Otherwise ….
Kay
@Immanentize:
I can’t stand Jake Tapper- he invented Benghazi – there is no single person more responsible for the fake “Benghazi scandal than Jake tapper – but on Trump at least he seems to wrestle with the fact that it’s different. One can almost see him trying out different approaches- occasionally he hits but it’s basically luck. A lie won’t stick for whatever reason and they all declare victory but it’s so arbitrary it’s just luck. He isn’t there yet but he’s trying, which to me means he’s accepted the new environment and is putting some real thought into how to deal.
The rest of them don’t think they have to change. They do. They can’t keep the same methods they used in 2016- that failed.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@different-church-lady:
BINGO!!!
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Nobody makes flight suits for people that obese.
WaterGirl
With everything I’ve seen this week, I really cannot believe or understand how this isn’t a bridge too far. How is it that Trump is not being impeached? Where have all, the statesmen gone, long time passing…
Immanentize
@Kay: I think the words lie and liar have lost all impact. They are useless. But if Trapper et al. wanted traction, they should create a drumbeat of unstable, incompetent, mentally ill, Alzheimers, etc. That would both create a story and enrage Trump to the point of proving the story. I would start by tracking down the Navy doctor who gave Trump the cleanest of clean bills of health, buy him a few drinks, and….
PS What was Melania’s four hour surgery about? No one in the press cares? Did she have a kidney transplant from one of the immigrant children they lost (snark)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mandalay:
The media has a bigger problem with their narratives, they should be reacting to news, not trying to define it like a reality TV show.
Mandalay
This will make Trump go ballistic:
I hope Navarro is putting his affairs in order because he’ll probably be found floating face down in the Potomac later this week for that transgression.
jl
@Mandalay: Why’d he say that? Canada nuking up, or what?
Kay
So I heard something yesterday that surprised me. I took the Sherrod Brown/Cordray organizer to lunch because I like her, also because oh, whatever, Cordray something something :)
Anyway, she was a Clinton organizer in PA in ’16 (she’s from Virginia) and she told me they all knew it would be close. Have we heard that? Didn’t we hear that “everyone” thought it was a done deal for Clinton?
I will follow up and interrogate her further, rest assured, but I was surprised by how she just tossed this off.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Brachiator:
Wasn’t Samantha Bee or Colbert mocking a Trump Presidential twitter library/
Brachiator
@Mai naem mobile:
Hmmm. Sounds like Mar-A-Lago.
FlipYrWhig
Isn’t this also what he says about Jared Kushner?
TenguPhule
@Mandalay:
No tears will be shed.
chopper
@stinger:
silly lib, it’s kneeling football players what are truly disrespecting the flag.
TenguPhule
@WaterGirl:
50 GOP Senators think this is just fine.
rikyrah
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Nope. Because there will be no pretending that we need to be nice to Wilmer. We can lay waste to him, like should have been done in 2016.
Elie
@rikyrah:
Yeah and where are HIS effing tax returns?
J R in WV
@Kay:
Hi Kay! Welcome home!
I was a phone bank volunteer calling in to Ohio, and that last couple of weeks, I first thought it was gonna be close, then the last week I was ‘I dunno?!” and the the last weekend up to the date of the vote, I was feeling doomed. And I can’t say why, but that was my experience.
Doomed the last 4 or 5 days, was how I felt. And sure enough… there we were in Doomville.
ETA: So her feelings of close were shared by me, all by myself sitting in the nearly empty Hillary HQ in WV… not that anyone expected WV to go for Hillary….
ETA2: Maybe that empty election office as an important election neared was all the clue I needed?
different-church-lady
@Kay: Did she mean close in PA or close overall?
stinger
@David Evans: I think so too. Imagine a comma after “Korea” (I haven’t listened to know if he enunciated it that way) and assume “it” to reference North Korea.
Just One More Canuck
@jl: maybe we are, maybe we aren’t
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
IMO, it’s a myth that the Clinton campaign was complacent and thought everything was all sewn up. I think they knew it was going to be close because they knew how many forces were arrayed against them.
It’s the alleged “left” that was running around saying that she expected a “coronation” and that’s why they were voting for Jill Stein. And they thought that in part because the MSM was claiming it was in the bag and they were pissy about it.
Hill Dweller
The BBC’s China Correspondent is saying China knew Trump was going to suspend joint military drills w/ SK before the SK government was informed. Hell, the SK government learned of the decision watching Trump’s press conference. It will take decades, if ever, for this country to recover from Trump’s presidency.
Tokyokie
@lgerard: And why anybody wound want a beachfront condo in a country with no retail sector to speak where the weather is only warm enough to swim maybe 3 months a year is well beyond my understanding. It’d be like an English beach resort city on the North Sea like Brighton only without the pier.
Tenar Arha
@Kay: Good to see you!
I’ve been been thinking along your line that Trump is definitely unique. He really knows how to play the media. I also believe one reason so many commentators outside of the RWNJ propaganda bubble are having a hard time is that long before this moment, news media bent over backwards giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt. The media trained themselves to accept the spin, the obfuscation, even the overt lie as straightforwardly well intentioned to keep on getting their interviews, and so now when they really need to be able to call bullshit, they simply don’t know how.
Their talking head business model doesn’t really accept as necessity that burning bridges to hold liars to account is required. So it’s okay to have the rare Maddow or Reid, who prepares & debunks during the interview, and then probably that person never comes back. But Chuck Todd’s whole career is based on letting people lie to his face & then come back the following week to do it again.
And I’ve gotten to the point that I think there’s someone in each network’s management telling the bookers it’s fine to invite back total liars, even as the occasional interviewer (like your example of Tapper) wobbles their way through trying some new way to push back & debunk the lies. You can see him & Cuomo & others trying it out, yet they’re still talking to the same people who created some crazy drama last week, or month, or a year ago. I mean otherwise, why does anyone outside of Fox talk to Conway or Lewandowski anymore? Someone has decided it’s better to give known liars tv time than to do the work, & press them hard on what they’ve said previously on tape. It’s really the same risk that corporate media refused to take in the 90’s or the 00’s, that the following week they’ll only be able to report the lies without GOP or Admin apologists & guests, only now it’s risking death of the republic instead of just scandals & wars.
ETA I have no idea if they’ll figure this out fast enough to make a difference.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@rikyrah: I think he’ll run third party.
different-church-lady
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
lurker dean
@Amir Khalid: that describes him well, and fits in well the motivation of his voters, resentment.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
She meant close overall. She was watching Virginia because that’s where she’s from but she was putting it all together when we were talking- she knew Virginia was essential because it would be that close in some of the more traditional “hold” states for Democrats, like PA. . I was like “oh, I was complacent as hell” which is true :)
It matters to me because we were told that “everyone” though Clinton would win and that’s why there was no real scrutiny of Trump. Everyone didn’t think that. She said “we”- we knew it was close.
ruemara
@TenguPhule: Beating? Ha! Try murdering.
catclub
@Mandalay:
He did it while Trump is not home.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I really don’t care about 2020 right now. November is what is vital. I will start thinking about 2020 after this election. YMMV.
Dorothy Winsor
I appreciate Maddow’s policy of reporting what they do rather than what they say. She usually ignores Trump’s tweets.
Kay
@Tenar Arha:
I think they’re taking their cues from the NYTimes., and the NYTimes is a disaster on Trump. The worst thing that ever happened was those reporters being so familiar with the candidate. They can’t cover him. They adopted this “we’re the Trump experts” attitude early on because of his NYC ascendency and it’s just so much of a box they’re in.
It has to be something new. The same institutions who failed us won’t be riding to the rescue. In a weird way it’s optimistic. If you stop waiting for the cavalry it opens up possibilities. What’s the point of “institutions” that don’t come thru in a crisis? They failed at their whole reason for being. The whole reason we accepted them as “institutions” was they uphold norms- there’s no other uspide FOR US of granting them that. If they can’t do that then they aren’t earning their keep.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@germy: I saw this on Twitter and proceeded to break my phone forwarding it to people. Thank you for saving me from having to figure how to put it up here!
donnah
@Mandalay:
Trump has done this to everyone, not that Navarro isn’t a dick already. Trump has made it okay to speak like a bully, say whatever terrible things they want to say, and be a hateful and threatening as possible. Then they get called out on it, and oh, they didn’t mean it, they misspoke, they were taken out of context. Right.
And Scott Pelley of CBS News was our favorite guy after Trump was elected. He accused Trump in his evening broadcasts of having a nodding acquaintance with the truth and actually called him a liar. And he got canned. Until the mainstream media people say those words, nothing will change. And possibly even if they call him a liar things may not change, but it would be a good start.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Immanentize: Would that Ray Blanton were living in this hour!
Edited to add:
Pardon me, Ray!
Ksmiami
@Mandalay: i wouldtake it a step further – everything the GOP says is a lie from being pro-life to pro-military. Brand the whole damn party- they’ve earned it
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: Kay, just wanted to say I’m really happy you’re back. I always really appreciate your information about local politicking and your insights.
Just wanted to toss that out there.
frosty
@Kay: Interesting, so the organizer thought PA would be close? I didn’t hear that from anyone I worked with, just the usual “we have to work our tails off.”
When I was poll watching deep in Pennsyltucky and figured out we had a lot of new and infrequent voters, I started to worry. My polling place had an unheard of 80% turnout.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Tokyokie:
Today in pedantry: Brighton is not on the North Sea.
r€nato
where is that fucking giant meteor? It is way overdue.
trnc
@Kay: I think it’s safe to say that one of the reasons it didn’t get written down is that Kim didn’t actually agree to it.
Calouste
@Tokyokie: Probably less than two hours to fly there from Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. It will be cheap booze, gambling, drugs, and hookers that people will come for, not the beach.
TenguPhule
@r€nato:
Should have known better then to subcontract it to the Martians.
Johannes
@Cheryl Rofer: you mean that video is for real? From the US sodding government? It looks like something a Doctor Who villain would put out.
Arthur Dent was right.
cleosmom
@West of the Rockies:
Now what do those two disparities have in common, I’m not wondering?