Re: Question.
 

Wow. You in a K race to name the board or what? Seems early.

TM

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Greetings, Kim Jong Un. I am very pleased to me you. The shithole of my origin is Queens. I am pleased to meet with you, and I want to present to you with The Trump Doctrine. I have not read it, of course, because it is more than 140 characters long. However, my crack foreign policy team assures me that it is designed to convince you never to launch another missile, ever again. Mr. {insert your name here; yes, I know you would never work for him, but for our academic purposes assume you drafted what you believe to be the best such policy} will now read you The Trump Doctrine. You will not receive a written copy of this Doctrine. I reserve the right to alter it at will.

To launch the discussion: The version I draft would note that:

1. Given your statements, and graphics, where you demonstrate you have the ability to hit targets in my country, let me say this: We believe you. Therefore any future launch will be assumed to be directed at the United States or its allies, and that the United States will attempt to shoot the missiles down in self defense.

2. You should hope that we are successful in doing so, because if we are not successful in shooting any launched missile down, we will have to destroy all known launching facilities. Please note that at this stage the United States has taken no steps to remove your regime.

3. If you respond by engaging in a ground war with our ally, this will be considered an attack on the United States requiring the immediate removal of your regime. You must know that the United States is capable of doing this, since I can tell you definitively that last night you had dinner in your private quarters, and I am told the veal was very much to your liking. There is no time interval where we cannot locate you. You will be dead 15 minutes after your troops cross the DMZ.

4. I understand your latest shipment of French wines arrived through the embargo today, and that you lean towards Grenache from the Rhone. I don't drink, as you know, but I'm told this is an excellent choice. Enjoy your evening.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

No one in their right mind would make a deal with Trump, because even if he could deliver, he will change his mind and renege or ask for more. Just ask Chuck Schumer or Lindsay Graham. North Korea wins just by getting a meeting in which we treat them as equals.

That said, I am inclined to think it's great that Trump is saying he will meet with them, because it seems to me to materially decrease the chances that we will bomb them, which seems to have been a plan pushed by at least some people in the White House. As long as they are willing to talk, it would be pretty hard to bomb them, even for this White House. And while recognizing North Korea as an equal is a coup for them, it is also a recognition of reality, in the sense that they have nuclear weapons and we need to adjust our expectations to accommodate that reality.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Even if they walk the whole thing back, the ineptitude would still seem to make us safer.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

I keep hearing this. How is this a coup?

I understand Kim Jong Un desperately wants legitimacy. Sure. But in whose eyes but his own will this increase his legitimacy? His people are either brainwashed or cowed into complete submission. No other country is going to start treating him any differently than they currently are. What difference does it make? This isn't high school. It's not like the cool kids inviting the nerd to their table at lunch immediately changing his social status.

TM

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Maybe increases his credibility within the regime?

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

A regime where even the appearance of questioning his credibility gets you a death sentence?

TM

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Internal and external legitimacy are linked, and if Trump meets with him then we are treating him differently, since we've never been willing to do that before. If the cool kids invite the nerd to gun club because now he's got a gun too, then he's their equal in a new way.

I'd rather invite him to the gun club than have him go postal one day.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

This paragraph doesn't really say anything. Meeting with him doesn't make him legitimate in our eyes or any other country's eyes. It doesn't matter if he can brag to his people about meeting with Trump since they're all terrified of him anyway.

This is a strange response from someone who I went back and forth with about whether he's been acting rationally and whether he poses a danger. I remember saying he's nuts and remember you saying he was completely rational.

That's neither here nor there, of course. I'm not against a President meeting with the guy since I think it really makes no difference. I'm not sure Trump should be the guy since he's a fucking idiot who shouldn't be in the room with any world leaders, let alone ones who are as stupid, ignorant, and crazy as he is.

TM

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

He's not going postal. He's despot addicted to power, not a suicide bomber.

It's the same old shakedown he does every few years.

Maybe something comes out of the meeting, but I doubt it. Nukes are Kim's sole bargaining chip.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Correct, but I think it confers an air of credibility Kim doesn't have. Kim wants the photo op with Trump, if nothing else. He's never enjoyed any level of respect like that.

I think Ty was right. Kim's totally rational. Sick, demented, cruel, paranoid, but also rational.

I've never heard anyone say Kim was dumb or ignorant. Comparing him to Trump in these regards may be unfair.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

That type of regime seems stable until it's suddenly not, with the challenge often coming from within. Propping up the appearance of its external influence helps deter the challenge?

I don't know. Just spitballing here.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

You said, no one country is going to start treating him differently. But meeting with him is treating him differently. You might say it doesn't really matter, but I don't think that's right. It's harder for us to take some actions against North Korea (e.g., attacking them) once the leaders hold a summit.

And I think it does help him with his own subjects, which is surely what he most cares about.

True. I would rather Trump talks to him because it makes it harder from Trump to launch a strike. I was just trying to have some fun with your metaphor.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

Can't say I disagree with anything in this post.

TM

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

The Kim meeting strikes me as just an authoritarian recipe swap. They'll talk about manipulating the press, stirring hatred to keep control, the usual stuff.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

It's a can't lose for both of them. If Trump gets anything at all, he'll claim victory. If Kim gets anything at all, he'll claim victory.

Kim will offer nothing dressed up as something, and then cheat on the terms of even that small carrot. Trump will offer some minor mix of concessions and incentives and then tell the media he's brilliantly interfered with Chinese control of NK.

For both, it's like taking on an unwinnable/unsettleable case for a really rich defendant. Why not? It'll be ugly and irritating, but ultimately, there's nothing but upside.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Rex Tillerson is gone.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Well, it's not there is much of the State Department to run at this point.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Didn't even know he was sick.

Or, yeah, that's sort of been anticipated but funny it happened the day after he said Russia was behind the gas attack in the UK.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

He's been a disaster.

The next guy will be worse.

Re: Dumbest ever.
 

It's completely farcical. I'd call it a diplomatic special olympics, but the special olympics athletes have so much more heart.

But it's better than the missile measuring contest they were having.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Appears that he knew it was coming and felt free to speak his mind.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Trump personal assistant, John McEntee, escorted out of the White House by Homeland Security; alleged financial crimes.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

And immediately hired by Trump 2020 campaign.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

They're expecting to lose many of the '16 veterans to the federal prison system, and his experience is attractive to them.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Steady stream of high school students from Maryland suburbs getting off the Red Line at Farragut Square in DC and heading for the White House. Several hundred at a time. The gun control march later this month looks like it is getting up a head of steam.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Or maybe Trump realizes Melania is leaving him soon and he is starting the audition process for the next wife?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It appears that someone at United Airlines is attempting to figure out how absurdly awful the airline's service can be before people stop flying with them. I thought that canceling the ticket of a woman who was going to visit her dying mother on a technicality, after the woman was already on the plane, was devilishly twisted. But puppy killing has really raised the bar. What could possibly be the next move?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't want to do their job for them, but it seems like airplane lavatories are inherently disgusting places and yet that their full potential in this vein has not yet been realized.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Trump branding?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Fantastic:

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

<-- Running a pool on what day the dick pics are released.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You left out the part about the group all being stewards for United.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The NYT reports that Sessions may be about to screw McCabe out of his pension. If you wanted to piss off law enforcement, it's hard to think of a better way.*

* Hmm. Maybe pressuring a cop to have a beer with the black professor he mistakenly arrested?

Re: Another One Bites the Dust
 

One of the great things about the nail-biter in PA-18 is that the Republicans probably would have pulled it out if they'd resisted the urge to start blaming their candidate for losing before he lost.

It's like the Battle of Karansebes all over again.

Re: Another One Bites the Dust
 

I'm amazed at the Republican spin today about the election. Who are they trying to fool?

Re: Another One Bites the Dust
 

All of their base is below-average.

Re: Another One Bites the Dust
 

Intellectual honesty is important in an echo chamber- the T man won the district by a shit ton, so maybe the base turned? What were the 3rd party votes in that district? Is that where sebby lives?

Re: Another One Bites the Dust
 

That's Pittsburgh.

I'd say the Trump base that is focused on economic issues is constantly turning. They're seeking a magic ticket, and when they don't see it materializing, they pull the other lever. (How else does one vote for Obama, then Trump?)

They believe the President and Congress control the economy. When they don't "get them jobs back," they attribute it primarily to policy decisions.

And the Trump base is too small to lose any sub-group and remain effective at the ballot box.

Trump will always have his base in hopeless places like Missouri, or the bowels of Ohio. Those dead enders are true believers, thick with the Jesus, high on revisionist history of lost white 'Mericana.

But Pennsylvania is not ideological. It's got no real personality, no real ethos. It's sole resources have been fossil fuels and cynical pragmatism. They aren't about improving, just surviving.

Democrats and Republicans in PA have traditionally been in the Party of Me. They're interested solely in power, because in a state with next to zero economic growth, filled with geriatrics, govt money is often the only money. (Because it's Commonwealth, PA is actually dozens of mini states at the county level, run mostly by a mix of incompetents and opportunists.) PA will flip blue in a huge way in the midterms. But then, when the Democrats don't deliver any more than Trump did (as they'll be gridlocked), don't be surprised if PA flips red again in 2020.

These back-and-forths are the death rattle of low information voters, and Pennsylvania is filled with them. I think they'll keep voting against the incumbent party that hasn't given them what they want for few more cycles before the realization of the act's futility permeates their skulls.

Re: There are half-wits, and then there are no-wits
 

No, the base didn't turn, but the non-base support for Trump peeled away.

Sebby isn't Trump's base. But he is part of the Trump coalition. Maybe it's a small distinction, but it's an important one.