Patterico's Pontifications

5/26/2019

Unsurprising: President Trump Expresses Confidence In Kim Jong-Un While Mocking Joe Biden

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:35 am



[guest post by Dana]

Last week at his campaign launch in Philadelphia, former vice-president Joe Biden rhetorically asked the crowd:

Are we a nation that embraces dictators and tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Kim Jong Un?

Pyongyang reacted in typical fashion when their Supreme Leader is publicly insulted:

Former U.S. Vice-President Biden has gone reckless and senseless, seized by ambition for power…What he uttered is just sophism of an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being, let alone a politician…It is by no means accidental that there is nonstop comment over his bid for candidacy that he is not worth pinning hope on, backed by the jeer that he is a fool of low IQ.”

This weekend, President Trump praised North Korea’s murderous, thug dictator Kim Jong-Un by expressing confidence in him while casually downplaying North Korea’s recent missile testing. And instead of loudly reinforcing Biden’s accurate assessment of Kim, the President of the United States opted to join in with the tyrant to publicly mock the former vice-president of the United States:

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?

Untitled

Some will say, with a certain level of exasperation and condescension, that this is just part of President Trump’s clever strategy to keep Kim Jong-Un reined in, and that this demonstrates his magnificent skills in deal-making with the world’s strongmen. But when one considers what President Trump’s own national security adviser said about the missile testing, that theory comes into question:

Bizarrely, Trump made the comments not only just hours after his own national security adviser condemned North Korea for testing ballistic missiles, but also right before his scheduled meeting in Japan with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who also spoke out about the missile testing.

The country’s test of ballistic missiles earlier this month was seen as an aggressive escalation that violates United Nations Security Council resolutions, according to Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton.

“In terms of violating Security Council resolutions, there’s no doubt about that,” Bolton told reporters on Saturday morning. Bolton also said Trump is working to maintain sanctions pressure on the North Korean regime until it backs down.

A day earlier, Pyongyang suggested it had no intention of cooperating with Washington until the Trump administration agrees to make compromises instead of insisting on what it described as unilateral disarmament. An unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman made the comments to state media, saying nuclear negotiations between the two countries will not resume until the U.S. changes its terms.

This morning, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told Chuck Todd that the president and Kim Jong Un agree in their assessment of Joe Biden. This as she bizarrely tried to divorce the person Kim Jong-Un from his words because in Sander’s upside down world, what a person says is not reflective of who they are, and vice-versa:

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Todd referenced Trump’s tweet, and asked Sanders whether Americans should be “concerned that the president of the United States is essentially siding with a murderous authoritarian dictator over a former vice president of the United States.”

“Chuck, the president’s not siding with that,” Sanders said. “But I think they agree in their assessment of former Vice President Joe Biden.”

“The president doesn’t need somebody else to give him an assessment of Joe Biden,” she added. “He’s given his own assessment a number of times. I think you’ve seen it. I’m sure you’ve covered it on your program. The president watched him and his administration with President [Barack] Obama fail for eight years. He’s come in in two and a half, he’s cleaned up a lot of the messes that were left behind.”

Sanders went on to say that Trump shouldn’t have to “deal with” North Korea at all, but that the previous administration failed on North Korea, Iran and trade and now it’s up to Trump to be “tough with these countries.”

“I think if anybody needs help with an assessment, it’s Joe Biden and whether or not he should be trying to get an upgrade when he failed to do the job in the number two slot.”

Context :

Kim Jong Un is an enemy of America & the world. His nuclear program exists to threaten & extort the planet. North Korea is a prison state & hundreds of thousands are kept in gulags for generations. And he’s responsible for Otto Warmbier’s death.

This on top of the continued starvation of his people.

–Dana

147 Responses to “Unsurprising: President Trump Expresses Confidence In Kim Jong-Un While Mocking Joe Biden”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (779465)

  2. “Fired off some small weapons”…shades of Little Rocketman, so let us hope Kim III doesn’t take that as a dare to fire off some big weapons.

    But given the disconnect on this and other matters between POTUS and the people, like Bolton, he himself selected to help him, does anyone know what our foreign policy actually is? Do we even have one?

    Kishnevi (a731c3)

  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/us/politics/trump-japan-abe-flattery.html

    So to keep close ties with Mr. Trump — Mr. Abe’s occasional golf buddy and the world leader on the other end of more than 40 discussions or visits since the 2016 election, according to White House officials — the prime minister has planned a visit dripping in a level of ceremony that money can’t buy.

    All of Mr. Abe’s plans are meant to remind Mr. Trump, the leader of Japan’s most important ally, not to forget about his closest friend in Asia. …

    By the way, Trump seems to be saying that that North Korean statement seems to be designed to keep Trump on his good side , and he seems to think that’s a good thing. What could he be thinking? Maybe that that means that Kim will not openly back away from his pledge to get rid of nuclear weapons, or do anything to really upset him. So Trump is not going to look the slightest bit upset over this. He’ll act not upset at all, this giving Kim again a full chance not to upset him. Like someone thre a punc, and then suddenly realized that he didn’t and has a chance not to pick a fight. Will this work? It doesn’t sound like a complete strategy. Everybody understands that Kim is just trying to outlast Trump.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  4. My guess would be that this is the President’s way of getting back at Biden after the whole “world leaders are calling me and telling me how worried they are about Trump” claim that the former VP made a couple of weeks back, but like with everything else coming from DJT it completely lacks finesse.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  5. And it’s not as if Biden is wrong about Vladimir Putin and his potential for nefarious meddling, but next time he invokes that name he should be asked why, a mere seven years ago, his former boss was promising Russia “more flexibility” after the 2012 election and dismissing concerns about Russia’s reemergence as Republicans trying to re-fight the Cold War. Biden should either be forced to defend their handling of Russia back then, or admit that they were totally wrong.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  6. I’m confused. So when Trump first took office the Never_trumpers and Democrats were concerned Trump was going to “Blow up the world” with his belligerent talk. Then he was going to upset the NK leader at the summit and “Blow up the world”. When they met at the Summit, trump was going to be taken to the cleaners. Now, Trump is too soft on NK.

    The only consist criticism is “Orange man bad”

    rcocean (1a839e)

  7. As for Putin. Trump said it best. Getting along with Russia is a good thing not a bad thing. Childishly insulting foreign leaders, and getting high off your moral virtue, doesn’t get the job done in foreign policy. Unless, its part of negotiation strategy. Which is almost never is.

    Putin isn’t a Dictator he won elections. They may have been less than clean elections, but they were just as honest as those in Chicago. And I’m not aware of Russia occupying a foreign country like – uh- Tibet. Or persecuting its Muslim minority like -uh – China.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  8. Biden tried to divide this country and stir up hate with his lying attack on Trump over Charlottsville. He’s not fit to be President.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  9. 7. rcocean (1a839e) — 5/26/2019 @ 10:34 am

    Putin isn’t a Dictator he won elections. They may have been less than clean elections, but they were just as honest as those in Chicago. </blockquote. While they do knock candidates off the ballot in Chicago, it's not quite that way in Russia. You might notice also that Rahm Emanuel decided he could not win re-election. Also potential caniddates for mayor don't gte murdered. And the Mayor is not suspected of having been behind some big crimes in order to gain popularity.

    And I’m not aware of Russia occupying a foreign country like – uh- Tibet.

    There are parts of several countires that used to be affiliated with Russia. Tibet was occupied back in 1951.

    Or persecuting its Muslim minority like -uh – China.

    I think we could say China is definitely more of a threat to human rights.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/opinion/china-religion-human-rights.html`

    However, Russia is more or less allied with China.

    And Putin has gotten involved with the North Korea situation.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/world/asia/north-korea-food.html

    Mr. Kim met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last week, seeking help in tiding over international sanctions. President Xi Jinping of China has agreed to visit North Korea to meet Mr. Kim, although no date has been announced.

    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/what-putin-wants-north-korea-55452

    More significantly, Putin endorsed Kim’s call for a step-by-step negotiated settlement backed by U.S. security guarantees. Argued the Russian leader: “it will eventually be possible to achieve [denuclearization] if we move forward gradually and if we respect each other’s interests.”

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  10. I mishandled the first close quote

    While they do knock candidates off the ballot in Chicago, it’s not done quite that way in Russia. (but worse) And he has to knock practically everybody off now.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  11. It’s a signal all right: “I got your number, bobble-head!”

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  12. Back, in 1999, when Trump was still in possession of all his marbles, he made it quite clear that the North Korean threat was existential.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQUaQo2j42Y

    TIM RUSSERT, MEET THE PRESS: Let me talk about some of the issues. One is North Korea. And you say that you, as president, would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea’s nuclear capability.

    MR. TRUMP: First, I’d negotiate. I would negotiate like crazy. And I’d make sure that we tried to get the best deal possible. Look, Tim, if a man walks up to you on a street in Washington— because this doesn’t happen, of course, in New York. But if a man walks up and puts a gun to your head and says, “Give me your money,” wouldn’t you rather know where he’s coming from before he had the gun in his hand? And these people in three or four years are going to be having nuclear weapons. They’re going to have those weapons pointed all over the world and specifically at the United States.

    And wouldn’t you be better off solving this really potentially, unbelievable—and the biggest problem? I mean, we can talk about the economy, we can talk about Social Security. The biggest problem this world has is nuclear proliferation. And we have a country out there, North Korea, which is sort of wacko, which is not a bunch of dummies. And they are going out and they are developing nuclear weapons. And they’re not doing it because they’re having fun doing it. They’re doing it for a reason. And wouldn’t it be good to sit down and really negotiate something and ideally negotiate? Now, if that negotiation doesn’t work, you’d better solve the problem now than solve it later, Tim. And you know it and every politician knows it, and nobody wants to talk about it.

    Jimmy Carter, who I really like, he went over there. It was so soft. These people are laughing at us.

    MR. RUSSERT: The former general of the Air Force, Meryl McPeek, the former secretary of defense, Les Aspin, said you could not launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea because the nuclear fallout could be devastating to the Asian peninsula.

    MR. TRUMP: I’m not talking about—I’m not talking about us using nuclear weapons. I’m saying that they have areas where they’re developing missiles.

    MR. RUSSERT: No, but taking out their nuclear potential…

    MR. TRUMP: Do you know that this country, Tim…

    MR. RUSSERT: …would create a fallout.

    MR. TRUMP: Tim, do you know that this country went out and gave them nuclear reactors, free fuel for 10 years? We— virtually tried to bribe them into stopping, and they’re continuing to do what they’re doing and they’re laughing at us. They think we’re a bunch of dummies. I’m saying that we have to do something to stop. Ideally…

    MR. RUSSERT: But if the military told you, “Mr. Trump, we can’t do this…”

    MR. TRUMP: You give me two names— you’re giving me two names. I don’t know. Do you want to do it in five years when they have warheads all over the place, every one of them pointing to New York City, to Washington and every one of us— is that when you want to do it, or do you want to do something now? You’d better do it now. And if they think you’re serious— deal with lots of people— if they think you’re serious, they’ll negotiate and it’ll never come to that.

    Now, he’s accepting endorsements from the Kims.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  13. North Korean is a little bit clumsy in its propaganda.

    According to Donald Trump, it’s Maxine Waters who is low IQ, not Joe Biden. Joe Biden is Sleepy. Has Trump forgotten who gets what insults?

    Bernard Sanders is “Crazy Bernie.” Last week Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy: but mused that that was maybe a bad nickname because it could look like he was copying “Crazy Bernie” so he wasn’t really satisfied with that, so he’s still working on it.

    I think he could say they are crazy in different ways. Bernie because of his policy proposals, and Nancy because she said that his family, or his staff, should stage an intervention and get him to stop. (stop what>) Insulting people? Fighting Congress? Being president?)

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  14. North Korean is a little bit clumsy in its propaganda.

    According to Donald Trump, it’s Maxine Waters who is low IQ, not Joe Biden. Joe Biden is Sleepy. Has Trump forgotten who gets what insults?

    Clearly this argues against collusion, which will be important in 2021.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  15. I’ve never claimed Orange Man Bad.

    Instead: Orange Man Baby.

    Having a narcissistic, egotistical, out-of-control reality TV show host as the leader of the world’s greatest superpower is an inherently bad idea, rcocean. Not because he’s necessarily going to be too weak or too hard. Because he’s going to be easy to manipulate, as even a ridiculous amateur like Kim is demonstrating.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  16. And yes, there is rcocean (#7) defending and making rationalizations for Vladimir Putin. No further comment needed.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  17. Trump:

    North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal

    @Kevin M:

    Yes, it is obviously a signal that he considers Trump an easily manipulated fool or a bobble-head but to Trump it is another thing:

    It also means that Kim is afraid of getting Trump upset.

    Trump may think that gives him the upper hand because Kim may reverse himself at any time or get coaxed into doing things because otherwise he might upset Trump.

    Bit Trump believes can only play that card (getting upset) once or twice. Trump wants to play that card (being upset) at the right moment.

    So to preserve that possibility, he has decided not to get the least bit disturbed now.

    This may possibly strike Trump as clever but it doesn’t really go any where. It didn’t realy help with the Democratic leadership in Congress.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  18. When Trump is asking whether Kim is signaling him, this after laughing with him about Biden, is it possible he takes that as Kim not supporting Biden in 2020, and supporting him instead? Normally I would scoff at such as suggestion if it were any other any other president. However, given Trump’s oversized ego and need to be perceived by the world as a brilliant leader and deal maker, it’s not unreasonable to think that maybe he sees this not only as flattery but backing for 2020. Because Trump values even a madman’s approval.

    Dana (779465)

  19. Trump wants to play the fool with North Korea, until suddenly, at the right moment, he’s not the fool, and he hopes the change, or he fear of change, will make an impact then. Because he can’t really be this kind of a fool, and he’s even hinting he isn’t because he’s aware of what some of his people think.

    I mean, really, can Trump genuinely have confidence that “Chairman” Kim will keep his promise to him??

    Maybe all this will do is keep Kim just on this side of not provoking a crisis till January 20. 2021 at least.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  20. Oh, Trump definitely sees this as possible flattery. Which woud mean either support, pretended support, or a belief that Trump will win re-election.

    In reality, this North Korean attack on Joe Biden is not about Trump but par for the course fo=by North Korea for its critics. Still, there’s that “low IQ” moniker, which is definitely borrowed from Trump. except that Trump used it for Maxine Waters. But maybe some things got mixed up in the translatio of propaganda bureau.

    Now, if Kim feels the need to flatter Trump, well, that means he doesn’t want to upset him. Trump now may see Kim’s fear of upsetting him as a strategic advantage.

    For now, he’s playing the fool because Kim hasn’t done very much, and Trump doesn’t want to play that trump card yet.

    He played it with the Democrats twice, but the first time, with shutting down the government, even though the Democrats did consider re-opening he government very important, Nancy Pelosi retaliated by taking away from him the State of the Union message, which he hadn’t banked on; and the second time, with infrastructure, the Democrats do not care about that so much, and neiher is the prospect of getting the “pork” so imminent, that they will give up all their investigations just to get the money for the instrastructure. Trump’s next step there, by the way, was to intensify the investigation of the investigation. There’ll be dueling investigatios.

    With Kim maybe it might work better, if he can play his cards just right.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  21. Now, if Kim feels the need to flatter Trump, well, that means he doesn’t want to upset him. Trump now may see Kim’s fear of upsetting him as a strategic advantage.

    Sammy, I would suggest it means that he knows how to push Trump’s buttons and manipulate him with flattery because he knows that flattering Trump opens doors with this president. Kim is not afraid of upsetting this president. Why would he be? He’s an unstable, erratic lunatic. He is devious and cunning and Trump is a fool if he thinks otherwise.

    Dana (779465)

  22. Because he can’t really be this kind of a fool, and he’s even hinting he isn’t because he’s aware of what some of his people think.

    I mean, really, can Trump genuinely have confidence that “Chairman” Kim will keep his promise to him??

    What evidence do you have to support your believe that Trump can’t be this kind of fool? He has repeatedly flattered Kim (and Putin). To what end?

    Dana (779465)

  23. @ rcocean, who wrote (#8):

    Biden tried to divide this country and stir up hate with his lying attack on Trump over Charlottsville. He’s not fit to be President.

    It’s astonishing that the reason you list for why Biden’s not fit to be President — something with which I’m in full agreement, by the way — is because he made a “lying attack on Trump.”

    But it’s not a cult.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  24. rc ocean @ 6,

    The only consist criticism is “Orange man bad”

    It’s not that he’s a bad man. It’s that his insatiable ego and need for flattery are such huge weaknesses that it makes him an easy mark to get played by cunning strongmen like Kim (and Putin). I feel like he wants to be like them, as he sees them: big and tough, and ruthless with their enemies. Why else do you think he admires them (which he has told he does)?

    Dana (779465)

  25. Unlike some past Presidents, Trump is maintaining the full sanctions against NK. That’s what counts.

    David in Cal (0d5a1d)

  26. As LBJ said:
    Its better to get him inside the tent peeing out that outside the tent peeing in.
    As it sits now we really have limited leverage.
    War would ruin the peninsula, draw in Japan and maybe China while Putin laughs his ass off.
    Sanctions are being circumvented by Trumps other buddy Xi and Iran.

    Once you get Kim in the tent and open up the country a little, leverage increases.
    The little bastard is wily though

    steveg (354706)

  27. Running against Kim, JoeyBee?! He ain’t just ‘folks’ eh?! Yes, shout about the neighbor’s crabgrass while your house is on fire, JoeyBee. You called up some of your Delaware banker chums to have any of Kimmie’s credit cards cancelled– or is that against your– or their- ‘interest’?!?!

    The “Triumph of Trump” has been to effectively neuter the modern conservative movement.

    “Well done. Exemplary. Keep it up.” – Arthur Jensen [Ned Beatty] ‘Network’ 1976

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  28. “It was love at sight.” — Trump talking about himself and Kim Jong Un

    The tent Trump has in mind is a pup tent, I think.

    nk (dbc370)

  29. It’s not that he’s a bad man. It’s that his insatiable ego and need for flattery are such huge weaknesses that it makes him an easy mark to get played by cunning strongmen like Kim (and Putin). I feel like he wants to be like them, as he sees them: big and tough, and ruthless with their enemies. Why else do you think he admires them (which he has told he does)?

    I see no evidence that he’s being “played” by Kim. It seems we’re closer to getting a good deal with NK – then we’ve ever been. Nor do I see any evidence that Putin has “Put one over” on Trump. Like, I said, getting along with Putin and his 10,000 nuclear warheads is a good thing not a bad thing. And I don’t want my President, trashing foreign leaders because it makes people “feel good”. Walk softly and carry a big stick.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  30. The fact that Trump begins his praise of Kim, as usual, by reassuring himself and the world that he has “confidence” that Kim will “keep his promise,” already shows how inept and incompetent Trump is. Can Trump, or any of Trump’s millions of cult followers for that matter, specify what “promise” he is referring to, that Kim supposedly made?

    What happened in their first “summit” — the one Trump declared as a major victory, and on the basis of which he fell in love with the sex-slave-owning homicidal communist thug — was that Trump, who knows zero about geopolitics and thinks war and peace are just another arena for a reality TV ego massage, got completely owned by someone with a strategic agenda.

    Kim promised nothing of substance, and in return Trump voluntarily suspended joint military drills with South Korea, legitimized Kim’s starvation-and-torture regime on the world stage, signed an agreement to limit SOUTH Korea’s nuclear development, and vowed to protect North Korean “sovereignty” in perpetuity.

    Trump is the weakest U.S. president ever on North Korea, even including the Marxist-indoctrinated Obama. He is capitulating and cowering — though, as usual, he is doing it with ticker-tape parades and big neon “Victory” signs.

    As for Trump’s adoption of Kim’s attack on Biden (or “Bidan”) as a source of amusement, I would say that the depths of Trump’s disrespect for his own nation, the one he is supposedly making great again, could not be more starkly demonstrated than by his willingness to play footsie with an enemy and tyrant even to the point of quoting that tyrant’s official propaganda criticism of his electoral opponent, and quoting it with full sympathy, as though he and Kim were fellow partisans facing off against the Democrats in 2020.

    In short, Trump is so megalomaniacal, so dense, and so unserious, that he literally does not understand the difference between domestic opponents and foreign enemies. He would never quote the foolish Democrat Biden’s criticism of Kim, but he is only too excited to quote the homicidal lunatic Kim’s mockery of Biden, as though Kim were a respectable ally and compatriot.

    Daren Jonescu (2f5857)

  31. . It seems we’re closer to getting a good deal with NK – then we’ve ever been.

    I see no sign of that. Of course, we’ve never been close to a good deal no matter who was President.

    Like, I said, getting along with Putin and his 10,000 nuclear warheads is a good thing not a bad thing.
    There’s this thing called the Cold War. Perhaps you have heard of it? We didn’t feel it necessary to get along with the Soviet regime despite their 45,000 nukes (per Wikipedia, that’s what they had in 1986, the peak of stockpiling).

    Walk softly and carry a big stick
    Trump’s version of that is “Yell loudly and carry nothing”

    Kishnevi (d8763f)

  32. 23. Dana (779465) — 5/26/2019 @ 12:23 pm

    What evidence do you have to support your believe that Trump can’t be this kind of fool?

    because if he was, he’d be a fool in alot of other cases, as well.

    He has repeatedly flattered Kim (and Putin). To what end?

    He seems to regard people saying nice words about him, or people saying nice words about each other, as indicating a wish to get along. Even with trade, he’s quick to try praise with Xi)
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/14/trump_were_having_a_little_squabble_with_china_but_we_always_win.html

    The relationship I have with President Xi is extraordinary. It’s really very good, but he’s for China, and I’m for the USA, and it’s very simple…

    He lacks the revulsion most people would have about human rights, so he’s comfortable offering that praise.

    With both Putin and Kim, it may be that their countries have nuclear weapons, which he is very conscious of.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  33. because if he was, he’d be a fool in alot of other cases, as well.

    Ahem.
    He in fact seems to be a fool in a lot of other cases, as well.

    Kishnevi (d8763f)

  34. because if he was, he’d be a fool in a lot of other cases, as well.

    He is. More than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could count without taking off her shoes.

    nk (dbc370)

  35. Heh, Kishnevi.

    nk (dbc370)

  36. Kishnevi (d8763f) — 5/26/2019 @ 1:54 pm

    There’s this thing called the Cold War. Perhaps you have heard of it? We didn’t feel it necessary to get along with the Soviet regime despite their 45,000 nukes (per Wikipedia, that’s what they had in 1986, the peak of stockpiling).

    But that’s Trump.

    Now it may not extend further than that, but in his mind, it seems, getting along, or not fighting, goes along with saying nice words about each other, or not saying critical ones.

    He was very impressed by a letter Kim Jong Un wrote to him

    https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/07/trump-north-korea-letter-shinzo-abe-news-conference-sot.cnn

    He likes letters or other praise.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/us/politics/trump-japan-abe-flattery.html

    In February, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Abe had shown him “the most beautiful copy of a letter” that the prime minister had sent on the president’s behalf to the Nobel Peace Prize committee — a claim Mr. Abe did not deny.

    Now this is probably not because he beleives all this praise, and probably not for its own sake, but for what they signal.

    North Korea using the words “low IQ” might have been a signal, he said.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  37. @32. Actually, it sort of depends on the venue or simply your POV. By choice, by foresighted political planning– and shortsighted U.S. budgetary decisions, Americans have been ‘getting along’ w/Russia for many years; see MIR, the ISS– or ask any of the Yankee Doodle crews riding up and down aboard all those Soviet-designed, Russian Soyuz lofted from Baikonur for details. Look up– or simply look it up. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  38. Does Donald Trmp come out with things like saying people should grow yucca, not cauliflour in New York (or maybe she means North America) because cauliflour plant is a colonizer.

    https://nypost.com/2019/05/22/ocasio-cortez-likens-growing-cauliflower-to-colonialism

    “When someone says that it’s ‘too hard’ to do a green space that grows yuca instead of, I dunno, cauliflower or something, what you’re doing is you’re taking a colonial approach to environmentalism,” the 29-year-old freshman congresswoman says in an Instagram video for her proposed Green New Deal economic-stimulus package.

    “And that is why a lot of communities of color get resistant to certain environmentalist movements — because they come with a colonial lens on them.”

    It appears she was referring to yuca, a regional name for cassava — rather than the desert shrub called yucca. It was not clear who she believed was preventing people of color from planting yuca in community ­gardens.

    Either way, the tuber is not native to New York — making planting it here also an act of colonization.

    And it doesn’t fare too well in climates such as New York’s, and instead “requires a warm, humid climate” for a good yield, ­according to the US Department of Agriculture….

    Ironically, AOC in another video talked up the Swiss chard, spinach and collard greens she has been growing — even though none of those are native to North America, either.

    Collards are actually part of the same species as cauliflower: Brassica oleracea.

    Meanwhile, the Mexican restaurant where Ocasio-Cortez worked before her dark-horse 2017 [sic] election victory sells cauliflower ­tacos, according to its menu….

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  39. Beldar (#24):

    It’s astonishing that the reason you list for why Biden’s not fit to be President — something with which I’m in full agreement, by the way — is because he made a “lying attack on Trump.”

    Or not so astonishing if you consider how commonplace it has become to divide the good from the bad along the line of “Do they like Donald Trump?” It’s not unusual to see “anti-Trump” used as shorthand to designate people who have no credibility on any subject, people whose motives are malignant and whose values are warped, etc. A large portion of America has chosen to align its moral code precisely with that of Donald Trump.

    But I’ll admit it is astonishing that some people regard “lying” as terrible when it hurts Trump, but of no concern whatsoever when it’s done by Trump.

    Radegunda (989c25)

  40. “Yell loudly and carry nothing” He seems to have scared off Iran, actually. Lindsey Graham says we need to invade Venezuela to have a credible effect on Iran and North Korea.

    (More precisely what he said was, issue an ultimatum that the 6,000 or 7,000 Cubans protecting Maduro must leave or the Venezuelan army must decide what side that are on, or we’ll finish them off the way Ronald Reagan finished off the regime in Grenada in 1983.)

    Or maybe that should be Noreiga in Panama? But that was Bush I.

    Vice President Mike Pence went to West Point and said to tthe graduating cadets that in tehir career they should exect to fight in a war – maybe in this hemisphere. IS it aprospect that they would be sent there soon?

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  41. It is not, I think, that Donald Trump believes the flattery, or the mimickry, but he believes the flattery is a signal.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  42. in Sander’s upside down world, what a person says is not reflective of who they are, and vice-versa:

    Another bizarre effect of Trumpism. During the election campaign, Trump fans were giddy over Trump’s words: “He tells it like it is! He isn’t afraid to say what he really believes! He’s saying exactly what so many of us in flyover country are thinking!” We were told we could trust Donald Trump because of how he speaks: candid, unfiltered.

    When Trump’s words are too embarrassing to defend, that all goes out the window, replaced by “Take him seriously, not literally,” or “We don’t give a flying dr*p about what he tweets. It’s actions that count” (assuming his actions are all fully in the open).

    It’s very strange to see this argument that the way someone expresses himself has nothing to do with that person’s true heart; that he’s really a much better human being than how he usually presents himself publicly. But this is a Trump Exemption — a line of thinking that applies to Donald Trump alone.

    Radegunda (989c25)

  43. And these people in three or four years are going to be having nuclear weapons. They’re going to have those weapons pointed all over the world and specifically at the United States

    This was wrong. The question is, did Trump, in 1999, know it was wrong?

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  44. Any way we could get the Japanese to keep him there?

    nk (dbc370)

  45. well in 2013, we had actual intelligence that Ukrainian sourced boosters, were being sold to north korea, what did the Obama administration do about ‘absolutely nothing say it again,’ they did pursue james rosen, for receiving info about a much delayed bout of sanctions, a few years earlier,

    Biden of the nuclear freeze, who pushed the partition of Iraq, who apparently did much the same because of burisma oil, as with the avionics company of china, that his kin bought into, perhaps he thought kim was ‘jay vee’ as well, the beneficiaries of the framework, which worked out so well,

    narciso (d1f714)

  46. What evidence do you have to support your believe that Trump can’t be this kind of fool?

    because if he was, he’d be a fool in alot of other cases, as well.

    And?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  47. Trump’s version of that is “Yell loudly and carry nothing”

    Not with Putin or China. That’s his critics.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  48. Yeah, I don’t even know why we bothered to have an election and didn’t just keep Obama.

    nk (dbc370)

  49. their 45,000 nukes (per Wikipedia, that’s what they had in 1986, the peak of stockpiling).

    And, to do this, to “keep up with America”, they converted 50% of the national output to the military and bankrupted themselves.

    It wouldn’t surprise me that Reagan only pretended to spend all that money on defense, and instead diverted it to social programs (or something else that’s uncountable), running a lot less of a deficit that it appeared. Western finance is already pretty much of a shell game anyway. They could have done nearly anything and told the Soviets lies. There is no way that Soviet “economists” could have figured it out.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  50. from Robert malley’s houseboy, the hamas fan, who was part of the iran deal

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/26/ian-bremmer-fake-trump-quote/

    narciso (d1f714)

  51. Yeah, I don’t even know why we bothered to have an election and didn’t just keep Obama.

    Judges. Without the judges it would be as you say. Actually, I think Obama would have taken NK more seriously.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  52. This was wrong. The question is, did Trump, in 1999, know it was wrong?

    It was 7 years before their first bomb test, not 3 or 4. It’s inaccurate maybe, but not “wrong.” The “pointed all over the world” portion of that is undated.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  53. This was wrong. The question is, did Trump, in 1999, know it was wrong?

    He has what, a time machine?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  54. @ rcocean, who wrote (#30):

    It seems we’re closer to getting a good deal with NK – then we’ve ever been…. And I don’t want my President, trashing foreign leaders because it makes people “feel good”.

    By “trashing,” do you including mocking them with nicknames like “Rocket Man”?

    What’s the source of your belief that “we’re closer to getting a good deal with NK [than] we’ve ever been”? Anyone or anything other than that’s what Trump and his droogs say? What facts do you point to? For months, when asked this, Trump fans have said, “At least they’re not doing weapons testing! See? It’s working!”

    But they’re doing weapons testing again.

    To achieve the credible global nuclear deterrent that he believes will make him invulnerable to superpower pressure — from the U.S., from China, from Russia, from anyone — what Kim needs most is time and the absence of a shooting war.

    What is Trump giving him hand over fist? Time and the absence of a shooting war, just like every one of Trump’s precedessors.

    Now Trump’s confirmed — surely to Kim’s glee; do you possibly doubt that, rcocean? — that even when Kim ramps up his misconduct, his lover Donald Trump has his back, even against U.S. military and intelligence communities.

    This is going to end very badly, I fear, with something that will make 9/11 look like a Saturday picnic in May. And it will be the fault of Donald Trump, and the people who continue to support him in this nonsense by indulging with him in his ridiculous fantasies about Kim’s goodwill.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  55. @ Daren Jonescu (#31): I take my feet to applaud this comment. Bravo! Just so!

    Beldar (fa637a)

  56. I second Beldar.

    nk (dbc370)

  57. There was a time, when Trump first assayed to talk with Kim, that I thought that he would follow his advisers and lay down the law, and be willing to back it up if he had to.

    God, but I was naive. Instead he ignored his advisers, drove them to resign (Bolton will be next), and acted as if the fantasy he told himself was for real. Worse, he uses that fantasy as the basis for subsequent policy.

    Again, if Trump is to be impeached, rather than try him on murky legal arguments that are hard to explain and harder yet to leverage into popular discontent, try him on being a lying corrupt bobble-head and an incompetent one at that.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  58. Or, if not naive, still hopeful of finding a pony.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  59. Questions for anyone who support Trump’s handling of the Korean threat:

    Do you think it’s likely, or unlikely, that Kim and his generals are keeping notes on what draws the biggest favorable and unfavorable reactions from Trump? Do you not think they have been systematically testing every U.S. president since and including Truman every damn day to see what does and doesn’t draw a response, and what the response is? Do you think they somehow quit doing that for Trump?

    Let me suggest to you: Just as they were willing to spend lives promiscuously during the shooting war, 1950-1953, just to see if we’d run out of ammunition yet, they will spend lives, and take incredible risks, to try to find out the shape of their enemy, his capabilities, his sensitivities and insensitivities, and especially, his resolve.

    So what does it tell them when Trump, citing a supposed bit of political trash talk about one of Trump’s potential opponents, uses that as the basis to ignore Kim’s provocative military testing and, indeed, to create a public rift between himself and his own military and intelligence advisers? Does that encourage more and similar manipulation? Or does that encourage them to abandon their plans for a global nuclear deterrent and, thereafter, effective invulnerability from outside interference?

    Trash talk about Trump opponents

    Beldar (fa637a)

  60. 35, watch it there, nk …AOC could be the grand Marshall of certain loud annoying festivities held fairly close to your abode in a couple of weeks.

    urbanleftbehind (feab98)

  61. (The sentence fragment at the end of my #60 was the result of an editing error; apologies for any confusion.)

    Beldar (fa637a)

  62. How did I miss this bit in rcocean’s defense of Putin in #:

    And I’m not aware of Russia occupying a foreign country like – uh- Tibet.

    Did you enjoy the 1980 Winter Olympics, rcocean? Do you recall why the U.S. teams didn’t compete?

    Can you find Ukraine or the Crimea on the map? Maybe you can, and you’re just “okay” with Putin’s notion that those places, since they were part of the dismantled Soviet Union, should now belong to Russia? Any good reason why we shouldn’t just hand him Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, too, other than that they’re NATO members and vehemently pro-American?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  63. (That, in #63, was a quote from rcocean’s #7.)

    Beldar (fa637a)

  64. it takes a lot of chutzpah for biden to say anything, seeing as his mouth is stuffed with yen and rubles, having the attorney general fired to keep his coke addicted son from getting rapped for his Russian controlled sinecure, along with the Kerry step kid, and whitey bulger’s nephew, that’s on the china project, ‘no adversary they’

    narciso (d1f714)

  65. You’re changing the subject, narciso:
    Biden said: “Are we a nation that embraces dictators and tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Kim Jong Un?”
    Trump could have said what you said.
    Instead, he said: “Yes, yes, we are. Come here and let me give you a kiss, Kim. Pass me a Tic Tac, Melania.”

    nk (dbc370)

  66. this village idiot, who has been perpetually wrong for forty five years on every major issue of policy, really should stop before removing all doubt, I pointed out how the previous administration did nothing to staunch the flow of boosters to north korea,

    narciso (d1f714)

  67. Narciso, it’s the village idiot in the White House we are talking about, not the village idiot who wants to replace him. The village idiot who thinks making nice with Kim is a good idea, that is. The one named Trump.

    Kishnevi (170c4a)

  68. I hope everyone here understands that there is a “fake news” Trump tweet going around, posted by a Time writer, saying Kim would be a better president than Biden. This is indeed a fake tweet, not written by Donald Trump. But it is NOT the tweet that is being discussed in this article and thread. The one we are talking about here is a REAL Trump tweet.

    The reason I mention this is that the Trump cult media (formerly “conservative media”) is going nuts about that fake tweet right now — partly, no doubt, because emphasizing that fakery provides convenient cover for this real Trump tweet from the same day, which is actually much worse and more reprehensible than the fake one by the Time writer.

    In other words, the cult media is trying to hide the ugly truth about their idol behind the veil of that meaningless fake tweet story. Don’t be fooled. (Not that I think most people here are susceptible to being fooled — but then I once had similar confidence in the readers at sites like American Thinker and Right Scoop, before the pod people replaced them too.)

    Daren Jonescu (2f5857)

  69. Yascha Mounk
    @Yascha_Mounk
    Very sobering result from Poland, probably today’s most important battleground between populists and democrats in Europe.

    The ruling far-right Law & Justice party appears to have bested the high-profile pro-European coalition.

    Bad omen for national elections in the fall.
    __ _

    Adrian Vermeule
    @Vermeullarmine
    “All over Europe tonight, far-right parties have triumphed” 🤔 has the Power to Define The Spectrum lost its magic juju
    __ _

    Adrian Vermeule
    @Vermeullarmine
    Ps hint: if you’re getting a plurality or 43% of the vote, you’re not “far right”
    __ _

    Jordan Moorman
    @JordanMoorman1
    being called far-right is like a meme now. It has become hackneyed and meaningless, it seems.

    __ _

    Sounds just like here.
    _

    harkin (ca2d1a)

  70. Can you find Ukraine or the Crimea on the map? Maybe you can, and you’re just “okay” with Putin’s notion that those places, since they were part of the dismantled Soviet Union, should now belong to Russia?

    Sorry, as an American, I don’t care who rules the Crimea. As for the Ukraine, when Putin invades, give me a call.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  71. For someone who’s “Just like Hitler” Putin sure is slacking off. What country has he conquered in the last 15 years? How can he “Conquer the world!” if he won’t even invade Turkestan or Estonia. And why does he keep having elections and where are the Gulags and Concentration Camps.

    He’s failing “Dictator 101”.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  72. Taking this kerfluffle seriously is pointless.

    Both Kim-Jong whatever and Joe Biden are very obviously Chinese tools, so pitting them against each other with constant negs is very obviously a win-win.

    Biden's Hair Plugs (809569)

  73. OT- Tip of the cap to the successful Pacific splash of Apollo 10; returning to Earth from their ‘dress rehearsal’ lunar mission, 50 years go this day: May 26, 1969.

    Next stop: landing site #2, Sea of Tranquility, Moon. What a time to be alive.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  74. All the people biting at Trump’s ankles over NoKo proposed nothing new as NoKo developed to where it is now. Yelling at NoKo now is not going to solve a problem, b/c China stands quietly behind it, and any effort to deal with NO Ko harshly would have Dems and Mittens howling for an “exit strategy.” So we try to make nice– and I’m not hearing an alternative- except for more of what has not worked.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (6b1442)

  75. @ rcocean #72: “For someone who’s ‘Just like Hitler’ Putin sure is slacking off. What country has he conquered in the last 15 years? How can he ‘Conquer the world!’ if he won’t even invade Turkestan or Estonia. And why does he keep having elections and where are the Gulags and Concentration Camps.”

    Are you really so incapable of understanding the progressive learning curve? Putin inherited the nation that most forcefully attempted the direct, overtly oppressive form of progressive assault on civilization. He learned the hard way how that works out.

    Like his ideological kin throughout the rest of the late modern world (including American progressives of both the “left” and “right”) he has adopted the more cerebral (i.e., cunning) strategy of compromising with the superficial optics of openness and democracy, while working long-term on a strategic and constitutional expansion of his power at home, and his influence abroad. In short, his working model is soft despotism gradually converted into hard despotism.

    His “elections” are not so challenging, given that he poisons opponents and their supporters in the media. He served his constitutional “two terms in a row” (the clever wording of the Russian constitution he presided over), then planted his own hand-picked surrogate to hold his place for a while, and is now in the middle of his own next go-round.

    Are you seriously defending this as a model of non-tyranny?

    Daren Jonescu (2f5857)

  76. @71 Your phone has been ringing for 5 years. The Crimea is/was part of Ukraine.

    I wonder if Trump has thought through the optics on all this. It won’t do him much good with any Americans to have Kim vocally supporting him.

    Nic (896fdf)

  77. Called cold by me on his misstatement that Putin hasn’t invaded other countries, here’s rcocean’s remarkably nonresponsive response (#71):

    Sorry, as an American, I don’t care who rules the Crimea. As for the Ukraine, when Putin invades, give me a call.

    Putin has been continuously invading Ukraine, chunk by chunk, bite by bite, gobble by gobble, with much success and little consequence, since 2014, sir. From Wikipedia: Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present). You would profit from reading the whole thing, but be sure to note the helpful disambiguation (links omitted):

    This article is about Russian military invasion in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. For Russian annexation of Crimea, see Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. For the unrest in eastern Ukraine, see 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine. For the ongoing military conflict in Donbass, see War in Donbass.

    So did you really mean in your suggestion, rcocean, that we should call you the next time Putin invades Russia?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  78. @ Nic (#77): I hadn’t seen yours because I was drafting my own to similar effect. Bravo for your concision.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  79. Beldar, Beldar, Beldar…

    To achieve the credible global nuclear deterrent that he believes will make him invulnerable to superpower pressure — from the U.S., from China, from Russia, from anyone — what Kim needs most is time and the absence of a shooting war.”

    Yes, YES, this is all a tiny country in the middle of several great powers needs for ACTING WITH UTTER IMPUNITY and eventual WORLD DOMINATION, I know because I read it in an old Doctor Doom comic book!

    I remember when the ‘Red Dawn’ remake came out and they seriously cast North Korea as the primary antagonists instead of China too.

    Just like this assertion, it was just as silly, ham-fisted, unbelievable, and overwrought when they had to get their somewhat cool-sounding idea out of the ‘idea’ phase and flesh it out with how it would actually work in real life.

    And just like this assertion, the fact that it was made of North f’in Korea instead of Credible Threat China led us to believe that the writers were either beholden to or paid off by the PRC.

    “Do you think it’s likely, or unlikely, that Kim and his generals are keeping notes on what draws the biggest favorable and unfavorable reactions from Trump? Do you not think they have been systematically testing every U.S. president since and including Truman every damn day to see what does and doesn’t draw a response, and what the response is?”

    Do I think that breathlessly assuming that dictatorships have no internal or external politics and that they have a SUPER-SCARY full-spectrum control of absolutely anything and everything that goes on inside them is the most common armchair analysis fault among so-called ‘foreign policy experts’ from Max Boot to Thomas Friedman that isn’t at ALL a projection of what the writers secretly envy?

    Absolutely!

    You’re out of your depth, you have no military or diplomatic expertise or even imagination outside of your narrow goals of IS THIS GOOD FOR TRUMP OR NOT, and you’re stretching an ambiguous tweet meant for cross-cultural consumption into a caricature of itself. Stick to what you know.

    Foreign Policy Expert (b5377a)

  80. @ Foreign Policy Expert (#80): You, sir, are rude. You have no actual counterargument to that which I’ve written: Although you quote me, you then ignore what you’ve quoted to float some ridiculous strawman argument of your own. Please do not engage me again.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  81. (Your prose is almost, but not quite, too impenetrable to be insulting, but you did manage to get the ad hominems through clearly.)

    Beldar (fa637a)

  82. So did you really mean in your suggestion, rcocean, that we should call you the next time Putin invades Russia?

    Putin and the Russians believe they own Crimea not the Ukraine. Who is right? Its an age old dispute, and I don’t care. As for your other examples, As for Eastern Ukraine, I guess “Invasion” can mean many things. Are Ukraine and Russia at war? Are their armed forces kiling each other. I must have missed it. Maybe Ukraine is accepting “Undocumented Russians”.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  83. Actually they did little progress in three years with Obama promising only food rations and hashtags as opposed to the decimation of the Wagner corps on the Syrian plain, and the javelin missiles.

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  84. Their green men proxies first girkin then his successor turned out not to be too popular but then again neither did Poroshenko and his swoboda allies, who scared the carp out of the average russians

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  85. It’s been a rather painful exercise as the contraktiki have replaced conscripts, and those standards are much looser.

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  86. The only way to actually deter Putin, is to put pressure on his proxies whether in the Ukraine or Venezuela or Cuba, the last administration did none of this and called it statesmanship, the north Korean were encouraged to torture warmbier into catatonia in the style that Kim dynasts mentor had perfected.

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  87. @80. Not to mention that sinister fluoridation plot to poison all our drinking water, too! 😉

    But then, we’ll always have… Helsinki.

    “Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?” – General Jack D. Ripper [Sterling Hayden] ‘Dr. Strangelove’ 1964

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  88. Beldar (63)–

    You forgot Georgia.

    Daren (69)

    I agree with most of that, but I’m confused which “cult media” you refer to?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  89. Sterling Hayden the communist, in the oss, although the captain mccloskey was somewhat on point.

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  90. Your phone has been ringing for 5 years. The Crimea is/was part of Ukraine.

    I suppose he buy’s the Russian line that these are NOT Russian troops they are just oddly-well-armed patriots trying to rejoin the Rodina. Those fighter jets you see without markings could come from anywhere!

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  91. *buys. traitor fingers.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  92. I have real reasons not to trust Russians, but hillarys dirty laundry being exposed to the light isnt one. Obamacare’s exchanges being susceptible to hackers is something else again

    Narciso (2ea7c9)

  93. @ rcocean, who wrote (#83):

    Putin and the Russians believe they own Crimea not the Ukraine. Who is right? Its an age old dispute, and I don’t care. As for your other examples, As for Eastern Ukraine, I guess “Invasion” can mean many things. Are Ukraine and Russia at war? Are their armed forces kiling each other. I must have missed it. Maybe Ukraine is accepting “Undocumented Russians”.

    Yes, you bloody well have missed it. The Wikipedia page I linked answers these questions or has direct links to the answers. Unit names, combat dead and wounded.

    Did you even look? Will you? If not, why won’t you?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  94. Beldar, I think mr ocean’s view boils down to не мои проблемы.

    Kishnevi (276377)

  95. I’m finally getting around to watching Fox News Sunday, as dvr’d from this morning. It’s the first video I’ve seen from Trump’s current trip to Japan.

    First there was video of Trump and Abe at a sumo wrestling demonstration, handing out a 70-pound trophy to the near-naked, massive winner — and then cutting immediately to video of Trump exiting Marine One onto a golf course to shake hands with Abe before a round of golf. Even in “slimming” black golfing pants, Trump’s butt looks several times larger than the sumo wrestler’s did.

    Just not a good look for him.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  96. @ Kish (#95): It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  97. Beldar @ 96,

    For so long I have wanted to do snarky yet insightful fashion critique posts of anybody and everybody in the public eye but never have because after all, politics blog. Now here you come with the first entry into the style critique of our president and even provide an example of why every woman owns at least several pairs of black trousers! Patterico’s House of Style??? I’m here for it!

    Dana (779465)

  98. Beldar, that wasn’t just any 70 pound trophy. It was the “1st ever US President’s Cup”!
    https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1132614380103843840
    If I were cynical, I would think that trophy was invented for Trump’s benefit…

    Kishnevi (276377)

  99. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

    What Rumsfeld called the unknown unknowns.

    Kishnevi (276377)

  100. Fox News said he was the “guest of honor” at the sumo wrestling tournament. All I can say is that it’s just a very good thing for trans-Pacific diplomacy that no Japanese present had a head shaped like the CNN logo.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  101. @96. ‘Just not good look for him.’

    Every look on the TeeVee medium is good for him. It means you’re watching, talking, praising, complaining, posting about Trump- and not somebody else.

    “MTV! Some people just don’t get it.” – Viacom/MTV promo tag, 1985

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  102. Trump knows how to wrestle an audience away from somebody else:

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=jkghtyxZ6rc

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  103. I agree on the pup tent.
    All the more reason to get the little fat kid to pee outward.

    I’ve written this before, but I think Trump is still mad that the Democrats tried and succeeded in weakening his negotiating position with Kim. We should all be mad. There is a reason why tradition says that when the President is overseas negotiating, we don’t undercut him, even if we dislike him. Its a good tradition because it is common sense.
    Regardless of what I think of Trump, I see that as a cynical betrayal and don’t really care about the nicetie of the fighting that(predictably) follow.

    steveg (354706)

  104. niceties

    steveg (354706)

  105. Biden said: “Are we a nation that embraces dictators and tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Kim Jong Un?”
    Trump could have said what you said.
    Instead, he said: “Yes, yes, we are. Come here and let me give you a kiss, Kim. Pass me a Tic Tac, Melania.”

    nk (dbc370) — 5/26/2019 @ 4:32 pm

    Did Biden seriously say this when he was part of the regime fellatiating Iran at the behest of Obama’s right hand?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  106. Considering the way Biden and Obama performed fellatio to Iran, I find Biden’s remarks rather humorous.

    P.S. seems like my computer IP address is banned till it randomly changes. No messages show from it though I know I haven’t done anything for it to be so. Wonder who else I share an IP with.

    NJRob (a4d99e)

  107. I agree with trump groper joe biden should be mocked he another crook. Check out biden and his son’s crooked dealing with ukraine and red china.

    lany (c2f5c3)

  108. Never Trump’rs gotta Never Trump, I suppose.
    It’s what they do.
    I didn’t like Romney when he was the nominee..but I supported him over Obama.
    You realize that if Hillary had succeeded in stealing the election, it would have been an end to the America I grew up in. Add a little sugar to those sour grapes. I used to read this site daily, but since the president was elected, I only stop by once in a while to see if you’ve snapped out of it yet. Nope, Not yet.
    Have a good summer, see you in the fall.

    firefirefire (11d974)

  109. Mittens would have arrived in diapers.

    mg (8cbc69)

  110. and a bib.

    mg (8cbc69)

  111. From the gerrymandered wraparound district west of my wraparound gerrymandered district – what makes it galling is this dude finally got over his traditional Illinois squishiness over border security: http://www.inquisitr.com/5454823/republican-rep-adam-kinzinger-trump-biden-kim-jong-un/

    urbanleftbehind (0d75ce)

  112. From the link:

    The Daily Mail says that Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran, was particularly irked that Trump was speaking negatively about an American politician while overseas on Memorial Day weekend. Kinzinger seemed gobsmacked that this was really happening.

    Remind me of Biden’s military record:

    Biden was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969. Biden received student draft deferments during this period, at the peak of the Vietnam War, and in 1968, he was reclassified by the Selective Service System as not available for service due to having had asthma as a teenager.

    Yeah, Air Force Vets revere their American politicians. Now, if it had been a Soviet airman referring to a member of the Politburo, well then…

    felipe (023cc9)

  113. He could just as easily go the way of Aaron Schock

    urbanleftbehind (0d75ce)

  114. a retired American politician, who targeted our ally in Afghanistan, because his Sherpa, the galbraith whelp knew better, well it’s not as bad as the islamist Syrian militia, he was palling around with,

    narciso (d1f714)

  115. Quite right. Rep Kinzinger isn’t retired yet, give him time.

    felipe (023cc9)

  116. Fox News said he [Trump] was the “guest of honor” at the sumo wrestling tournament.

    The Japanese can be a subtle people, but this seems pretty obvious to me. Prime Minister Abe knows that Trump is a fickle boy, and he wanted to show him that there are other gravitationally-challenged Asian fish in the sea besides Kim Jong Un. It might even work.

    nk (dbc370)

  117. that last was for kinzinger, who was elected on the backs of the teaparty, and now gives them a brush off, well the redistricting will likely finish him off, if the vote harvesting doesnt’

    narciso (d1f714)

  118. There’s “retired” and then there’s retired. Schock is the later, Kinzinger (IMO) the former.

    felipe (023cc9)

  119. it was Obama who insisted on open ended negotiations whereas this administration insists on full disarmament, but keep playing along with the enemy,

    narciso (d1f714)

  120. He’s ok in his district, they dont really do a lot of early and/or mail in ballot in north central non-Chicago Illinois. It will be the remap for ’22 where population loss will force Cheri Bustos and the farther suburban Dems to carve his district up.

    urbanleftbehind (0d75ce)

  121. my point of reference isn’t yesterday, or whatever Qatari labdog Bremmer has on his timeline,

    https://www.commentarymagazine.com/anti-semitism/jews-anti-semitism-europe-east-west/

    narciso (d1f714)

  122. Trump’s like Andy Kaufman if Kaufman were mean and had managed to accidentally win the presidency. 95% of what he does is performance art.

    JRH (52aed3)

  123. More like Pee Wee Herman.

    nk (dbc370)

  124. As for the Ukraine, when Putin invades, give me a call.

    Um, Putin did invade Ukraine, specifically the Crimean region of Ukraine, and he is actively invading the eastern region of Ukraine. The Russian Federation signed a memorandum and a treaty guaranteeing that all of Ukraine would stay in their sovereign possession, and Putin welshed on the deal, and in violation of international law.
    As for Trump, him agreeing with a communist dictator–a dictator has been hostile to our interests–about an American political opponent is un-American on Trump’s part. It would be like FDR, in 1940, agreeing with Stalin that Wendell Wilkie was a whiny b**ch. But this is the guy who was trying to work a real estate deal with a hostile foreign government while running for president, also un-American and unpatriotic.

    Paul Montagu (7968e9)

  125. Ah the Budapest memorandum, and what exactly was Obama’s response send food rations and hash tags,

    Narciso (61f0ef)

  126. Look at that cloud, narc.

    Paul Montagu (7968e9)

  127. Dana to me: What evidence do you have to support your believe that Trump can’t be this kind of fool?

    SF: because if he was, he’d be a fool in a lot of other cases, as well.

    Kevin M (21ca15) — 5/26/2019 @ 3:19 pm

    And?

    He’s not. There are lots of things that, say, Sanders or some other leftist pr pacifist type people may say, that you never hear him say. I can’t point to anything. He’s not saying that about Iran.

    Where he is foolish is in his belief that when compliments are given, the person making the compliment expects to make a deal, and went insults are given, they don’t; and that in both cases, the truth is almost irrelevant. The latter may be true, that is, when people make insults they are not expecting to get along with the insultee, but the former may be based on an assumption by the flatterers that they will get better terms if they employ flattery. That is not really the case with Trump. And he may trust, or pretend to, but he does verify.

    Trump does want to trade off one thing (like tariffs) for another (Chinese help in eliminating nuclear weapons from North Korea), though, and he’s always looking for signs the other side is prepared to do it.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  128. Trump smiled when he found out that Kim’s propaganda machine called Joe Biden a low IQ individual because when Kim attacked Biden using Trump type language, he thought:

    Ah, he’s beginning to win.

    He sees that as a concession.

    Trump doesn’t take the flattery as sincere, but rather as a signal – that’s what his tweet says: Echoing him is a possible sign that they’ll let him win, not a sign that they hope he’ll be distracted by the flattery.

    Now the truth is, that is NOT a signal.

    North Korea, in all probability, attacked Biden, not to curry favor with Trump, but just because Biden is an important person and he said something they don’t like that might affect American opinion about North Korea.

    Biden said Kim was a dictator.

    Now that’s a strange thing for them to object to. Biden didn’t even say tyrannical dictator. But they didn’t like even he word dictator alone.

    (Like they expect anyone not to think so? Otto Warmbier thought North Korea was an ordinary place – look what happened to him. If North Korea wanted people not to consider North Korea a dangerous place, they might try not arresting and torturing somene for vandalizing one of a tremendous number of propaganda postera, if he did that. If he ddi that Warmbier probably thought it was out of date and should have been removed, or it was blocking something, and he was doing them a favor.)

    North Korea did use Trump type language but that’s because they thought that’s effective in America and they have no idea what kind of insuts really work. The truth is, none do, when they are all false.

    North Korea may have gotten some detail wrong if the idea was to Trump abot Joe Biden rather than just use some insult ideas from his repertoire. Low IQ was applied by Trump to Maxine Waters, not Joe Biden but then Trump echoed North Korea with respect to Jow Biden to show he got the “message”)

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  129. Trump smiled when he found out that Kim’s propaganda machine called Joe Biden a low IQ individual because when Kim attacked Biden using Trump type language, he thought:

    Ah, he’s beginning to win.

    He sees that as a concession.

    Trump doesn’t take the flattery as sincere, but rather as a signal – that’s what his tweet says: Echoing him is a possible sign that they’ll let him win, not a sign that they hope he’ll be distracted by the flattery.

    Sammy, your analysis relies upon both Kim and Trump being of sound and reasonable mind. We know for certain that one is a maniacal madman, with no moral compass and fully willing to do whatever necessary to keep control over his people and the region. The other has demonstrated that he is so self-centered and narcissistic that everything that concerns him is seen through a bi-fold lens of thin-skinned defensiveness and self-promoting utility: Attack those who say anything negative about him and don’t let up until they cry Uncle!. And then, a consideration of how he can use the moment to promote himself and expand the Trump Brand.

    Dana (779465)

  130. He’s not. There are lots of things that, say, Sanders or some other leftist pr pacifist type people may say, that you never hear him say. I can’t point to anything. He’s not saying that about Iran.

    Well, randomly answering a true/false test should get you a 50% mark.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  131. 130. Dana (779465) — 5/27/2019 @ 11:21 am

    Sammy, your analysis relies upon both Kim and Trump being of sound and reasonable mind.

    Most people are, and should be presumed to be that way absent strong proof to he contrry, and when there is proof, the least unsound possibility should be chosen.

    I didn’t say that either of them was assessing the situation correctly, and I didn’t even say that Kim is really that sound. Kim inherited (or maybe took over) a tyrannical dictatorship that has certain habits. I said, that, in reality, the description of Biden was NOT an attempt to curry favor with Trump, but Trump took it that way. And while Trump was wrong, that doesn’t make him of unsound mind.

    We know for certain that one is a maniacal madman, with no moral compass and fully willing to do whatever necessary to keep control over his people and the region.

    Let’s take them one at a time:

    a maniacal madman

    I don’t think Kim is maniacal – he just doesn’t really believe in the balance of terror (although power may have gone to his head a little bit, like was said to have happened with several Roman Emperors. I think the North Korean doctrine has always been that you can use a nuclear weaapon in war and win – that if the United States is deterred from dropping atomic bombs on North Korea now, it will still be deterred after one is dropped is dropped on Japan, or Guam, making the airports through which troops would be sent to South Korea radioactive, just so long as North Korea has some in reserve.

    And that South Korea can be conquered because the United States will not send troops through a radioactive zone. Now so far North Korea didn’t do that. The big deterrent, of course, is that in such a case, even if there is a ceasefire, North Korea can expect to be totally boycotted for several years.

    That’s why Kim Il Sung wanted to make North Korea independent of foreign supplies of food and why he starved his people. He needed to save up food for the aftermath of a war.

    This idea – that nuclear bombs can be used in war without it resulting in the destruction of the government that used it – isn’t Kim Jong Un’s – it probably was held by his grandfather and father, and probably originated with Chinese military advisers in the time of Mao.

    In fact there are still people in the PLA who hold to this – only they’d like some other country to try it out first and see if if a nuclear bomb can be used successfully. If it does, the strategy can be used against Taiwan. Right now, Beijing’s possession of nuclear weapons doesn’t scare Taiwan at all. A nuclear bomb is, in Mao’s words, a “paper tiger.” There are people in the People’s Liberation army who want to change that and have wanted to do so for decades.

    What I’m saying is I think Chinese military doctrine is that that nuclear deterrence is fragile – the nuclear taboo is fragile and can be broken. They just have to contrive a situation where some country uses a nuclear bomb and gets away with it. Or even doesn’t get away with it, but the United Nations Security Council condemns the response.

    I’m also saying that using nuclear bombs one day is the reason North Korea is interested in nuclear bombs, and it is not because they believe it will prevent an attack – for that all they need is artillery aimed at Seoul – they actually increase the risk of attack by what they are doing. As Hillary Clinton pointed out once.

    with no moral compass

    Yes, Kim has no moral compass.

    fully willing to do whatever necessary to keep control over his people and the region.

    Including murdering his haff brother just in dase China should get some ideas about replacing him with anotehr member of his family.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  132. The other has demonstrated that he is so self-centered and narcissistic that everything that concerns him is seen through a bi-fold lens of thin-skinned defensiveness and self-promoting utility: Attack those who say anything negative about him and don’t let up until they cry Uncle!. And then, a consideration of how he can use the moment to promote himself and expand the Trump Brand.

    A little like that, but that would assume he sees nothing else.

    For him, solving the North Korean problem would be great thing.

    Now in some ways Trump’s acting out winds up working.

    What stopped Kim’s bluster and brought him to the negotiating table (although it didn’t really make him willing to disarm) was one time when he said he had a nuclear button, Tump weeted that he had a nuclear button, too and my button works

    Oops. It looked like Trump had carelessly given away some U.S. secrets:

    The United States had sabotaged the bombs, or North Korean missiles or the bomb trigger mechanism or something.

    Now all that Trump probably meant was that in the absence of a test, you can’t say a weapon works, but Kim got really worried that he was holding only duds.

    So now Kim’s trying to run out the clock till he figures out what the situation is.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  133. Trump’s playing the whole thing by ear. He’s got lots of people trying to make policy more ratioal and he seems more or less amenable to that. Trump may actally like a policy that’s rational. It may build up his ego to think that he does.

    We’ve also got Japan’s Abe constantly trying to get his ear. He;ll be back in Japan against next month. Trump was persuaded to take this trip by the idea that he would be the first foreign leader to meet the new Emperor. Something for the record books, thought Trump. I’ll do it.

    Abe is worried that Trump will just ..forget..about Japan – and accept let’s say short range misisles. But there’s almost no chance that Kim will offer to get rid of anything.

    As I said. Trump’s interpreting the North Korean attack on Joe Biden as some kind of favor to him, and therefore a concession. I don’t know how much Kim will do just to maintain the lies that eh is willing to disarm. He’s not going to get partial lifting of sanctions.

    Kim was encouraged to not give in by China. The United States government – well everybody in it – noticed this because of the timing.

    The only thing that will get him to disarm is the idea that his regime is at more risk if he doesn’t than if he does.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  134. another area where Trump a=has hadsome success because of hsi craziness, or whatever: The economy.

    Trump’s tariff’s which, to crtain economists, risk damaging the economy, has succeeded in halting the federal Reserve Baord’s increae of interest rates, s economist growth has stayed up – thsi is recent, but it might go up more. Maybe the fed will even redce rates – all becase of trump’s apparent irrationality or indifference to certain kinds of economic advice.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  135. @ Dana (#98): I swear, when I saw the size of Trump’s butt in this photo, I started singing, “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” (Note the appearances of Air Force One and the White House in this video.)

    Beldar (fa637a)

  136. Gosh he’s put on the pounds. Unflattering cut of trousers, but also his tomato red sweater is zipped-up, scrunching at the waist, and doing him no favors by announcing plump red tomato! Not a flattering look. It’s amazing how forgiving an expensively cut business suit is. Where is Melania’s fashion sensibility when he’s clearly in need of it??

    Dana (779465)

  137. Further regarding the trophy:

    “We bought that beautiful trophy,” he said, “which you’ll have hopefully for many hundreds of years.”

    By, “you’ll have … for many hundreds of years,” Trump of course means: That trophy will be valuable for you to hand down to your family, because my name will still be famous and important for hundreds of years.

    Yes, business suits can hide a lot when well made and cut. I’m not sure what sportswear would flatter Trump’s figure; Melania might have pleaded that she only does skinny-woman fashion. Someone lets him out of the residential quarters every day with that red tie that hangs down a foot below his belt-line, so I think he’s his own fashion consultant, in the same manner that he’s his own hair stylist.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  138. It’s paywalled, I’m sure, but one of the WJS photos of him mugging with Abe at the end of their golf round makes him look like he’s just sustained a really nasty sunburn.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  139. Um, Putin did invade Ukraine, specifically the Crimean region of Ukraine, and he is actively invading the eastern region of Ukraine. The Russian Federation signed a memorandum and a treaty guaranteeing that all of Ukraine would stay in their sovereign possession, and Putin welshed on the deal, and in violation of international law.

    Crimea historically has never been ruled by Kiev. Mostly been independent or ruled by Moscow. But, as i said, its none of our business who rules it. We got no dog in that hunt. Talking about Trump being unpatriotic because he feels getting long with Saudis and the Russians, is unpersuasive, to say the least. The American people have never supported crazy warmongers like McCain and his hatred of this country and that country. We want a President who looks after America First. I hope Biden wastes his time in 2020, attacking trump for being a “Putin lover” – the American people will just laugh.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  140. In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Russia to the Ukraine. At the time it didn’t matter. never read why he did it. But as a result, at the end of 1991, Crimea wound up being ruled from Kiev.

    In 1994 Boris Yeltsin agreed with the United States and others that Russia would make no claims on Ukraine.

    Now there is an important Russian naval base in Crimea. In 2014 Putin lost his friendly government in Ukraine,

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  141. * Typo. In 1954 Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Russia to the Ukraine.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  142. Biden waited uuntil Trumps’ plane touched down in the United staes before responding.

    In the meantime Trump tweeted he defended Biden because he did not repeat all of Kim’s description of Biden. Kim Jong Un called him a “low IQ idiot” while he called him a “low IQ individual”

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  143. Maniacal madman, with no moral compass deartment:

    Breaking: Kim Jong Un executed his top nucear negotiator with Trump back in MArch, along with four oth officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry. The envoy was accused of having been won ove by the American imperialists to betray the supreme leader. (and also of being aspy)

    This was reported in Friday’s editions of South Korea’s largest daily newspaper, Chosen Ilbo, which in turn was reported by the New York Times. The South Korean newspaper relied on an anonymous source.

    Apparently they told Kim that Trump would be more amenable to Kim’s propsals in the February summit in Hanoi than he was.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)


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