The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    We should deal with Trump/Kim

    By Flavius on Mon, 06/11/2018 - 11:53pm |

    It's happening and it is immensely important.

    I'll open the floor gates and I expect that  after me the sensible people will join in.

    My belief is that Trump is actually pretty well qualified for today's meeting.

    He made money in a tough league. That's real.  Of course ,exaggerated but for him to exaggerate , there had  to be something for  him to exaggerate, There was some "there" there.

    The  Dagblog view  of his character is unsparing. None of us have a word of praise or even tolerance,

    Rightly so.

    He's  morally unspeakable.

    The morally unspeakable person who defeated  every other Republican. At least some of whom were actually reasonably moral. And in part because he is morally unspeakable.  "Nice guys finish last"
    said Leo Durocher, Never a threat for Donald. 

    So ,turning  to the Trump/Kim main event: Trump will not have been undermined by a mistaken over-estimation of Kim's possible good qualities because he ,Donald, won't have spent a second trying  to   calibrate them. It would have never enter his mind.

    Two very bad human beings met in Singapore today. At least one of them (our guy)  was completely without illusions ,contributing to his faux sincerity which would be difficult for achievement  by anyone with the slightest concern for  morality.

    "All right, all right "you say.  But shouldn't  we be worried  nevertheless ,that he might have been "taken in" by any of Kim's statements?

    Forget about it. Donald  wouldn't   have been  listening. He doesn't do that.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    Verdict?

    Mine is : better than nothing. And nevertheless the best -in fact only-thing Trump has done.

     


    by Flavius on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 8:24am

    Mussolini made the trains run on time. Trump talks to Kim.

    This CNN interview with Dennis Rodman reminds of the insanity of the Trump era. Rodman is unhinged but comfortable in a MAGA hat. Eugene Robinson correctly points out that talking to Kim is a good idea, even if it is Trump. Not talking to Kim has not made the situation better.

    Trump is still the guy who is snatching babies from their mothers, ignoring the Russian cyberwar, and alienating our European allies. He is still mentally unstable. 

    The 4:15 is pulling into the station right on time though.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 8:32am

    It was contemptible to see scores of American flags completely debased, hung side by side, one by one, with the flag of this lying, oppressive, cruel, duplicitous, tin pot regime and its murderous, juvenile con man of a leader.

    And Trump has the audacity and hypocrisy to criticize NFL players who kneel in silence as a gesture to draw attention to protection of our civil rights.

    Kristof-

    ... There was nothing about North Korea freezing plutonium and uranium programs, nothing about destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, nothing about allowing inspectors to return to nuclear sites, nothing about North Korea making a full declaration of its nuclear program, nothing about a timetable, nothing about verification, not even any clear pledge to permanently halt testing of nuclear weapons or long-range missiles. the bottom line is that there’s no indication that North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear weapons, and Trump didn’t achieve anything remotely as good as the Iran nuclear deal, which led Iran to eliminate 98 percent of its enriched uranium.


    by NCD on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 9:12am

    Trump was the one who escalated the rhetoric by calling Kim “Rocket Man”

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-promised-big-change-at-summit-but-north-korea-keeps-its-nukes-for-now

    Kim gave up nothing in the negotiations. 

    Edit to add:

    The South Koreans are probably happy that the US gave yup on joint military exercises 

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2018/6/12/9141/04762

     


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 10:45am

    Wake me up when the IAEA has a job in the deal. You know, the kind of efforts that the U.S. has already pissed upon in Iraq and Iran.

    The rest is just Power Point Porn.


    by moat on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 11:13am

    The NYT had an article that the IAEA counts centrifuges, measures nuclear fuels as to exact quality and amount, as with Iran.

    The IAEA does not deal with securing actual nuclear weapons.

    US defense, energy department, nuclear weapon experts would be required to find, assess, handle and secure NK's unknown number of nukes, but probably over 50.

    The article said the leading US nuke bomb expert estimated 15 years to dismantle the entire nuclear weapons personnel/infrastructure /weapons complex in NK.

    But Trump and Pompeo know all that.....of course.


    by NCD on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 12:53pm

    That dismantling work does go beyond the scope of work the IAEA has done so far. If the deal were to go forward, it seems like some kind of neutral party would have to be part of the verification process. That, after all, has been the backstory for the "six party" negotiations that fell short in the past. Who is neutral?
    Assuming for the moment that the agreement was signed in good faith on both sides (*moat experienced a sharp pain in his sides while typing that), the administration will have to support this yet to be named international authority to move forward.

    Gotta go. Bolton just appeared in my Lobby intercom camera.
     


    by moat on Thu, 06/14/2018 - 4:52pm

    Why would Trump need a third party to monitor the verification process? Trump thinks Kim is "very honorable" and he trusts him. But if a third party is really necessary how about Putin? Trump trusts him too and there's historical precedent. Obama trusted Putin to remove chemical weapons from Syria.


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 06/14/2018 - 5:51pm

    I find it hard to imagine anything other than a We don't need no stinking third parties policy, especially as the Trump Doctrine of foreign policy has recently been elaborated by a White House official as We're America, Bitch

    Excerpt from Jeffrey Goldberg's June 11 column @ TheAtlantic.com:A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’

    The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.

    “No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

    “What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:

    “The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

    It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 06/15/2018 - 12:51am

    Power Point Porn - Trump style.


    by barefooted on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 3:47pm

    Oh geeeeez, whoever made that for him really had Trump's number and is freaking me out just as badly as the Macy's homeless shelter story. Comes to mind at least Ronald Reagan stuck to the more heavenly and vague shining city on a hill, while Trump is selling hotels with gold plated brass plumbing and a kind of mix between Saddam and Palm Beach, the classic difference between Hollywood movies and broadcast teevee sitcoms. Us as observers, it's all seeming kinda like the PoMo horror scenario moat was getting at here on the Lakoff thread. At the very least I know there's a Salvador Dail painting somewhere that fairly accurately depicts what we are going through right now


    by artappraiser on Fri, 06/15/2018 - 1:55am

    Ah yes, Dali has this sort of thing in view. I thought about the draping ham series but decided the following is closer to the mark:

    Rhapsodie Moderne


    by moat on Fri, 06/15/2018 - 6:22pm

    wow, what a find, I never saw that one and it certainly does fit the bill with not just one burning giraffe but three of them, that would basically signify: armaggedon! And it gets across exactly the mood I was getting at being a news junklie at this point in time, I am reminded of this Dali quote: I do not understand why, when I ask for a grilled lobster in a restaurant, I am never served a cooked telephone


    by artappraiser on Sat, 06/16/2018 - 2:26am

    All true but Jaw ,Jaw is better than War, War 

    as someone said 81 years ago-18 months  before the War happened. 


    by Flavius on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 6:55pm

    There is no push for war here at dagblog. Trump increased to threat of war by talking nuclear strikes, degrading names, and measuring buttons. Trump is trying to clean up a mess that he created.

    We are now in a situation where dictators are treated better than allies. Children are being ripped from mothers. Children are being kept in cages. Voter suppression is alive and well. 

    Ivanka and Jared are making millions from graft.

    There is no silver lining.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 06/12/2018 - 8:58pm

    We are at war. Russia captured our king, just this ain't chess, or maybe multiplayer chess.

    Update: seems China thinks they captured our king too, while our NSC has been reduced to making propaganda videos for North Korea. I guess "at least it's not bloody bloody War War" (yet) is one of our consolations. Maybe they'll send us to war to defend Crimea or Syria or the Spratley Islands in the South "China" Sea.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/13/china-hails-its-indisputab...


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 2:49am

    Trump blurted out the war games were ending. This may have just been oral diarrhea but we will never know. The South Koreans weren’t warned. The military wasn’t warned.

    North Korea wants the war games to end. Their northern neighbor China wants the military practice to end. The eastern neighbor Russia wants the military practice to end. Trump got nothing in return. 


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 8:02am

    It's not immensely important. It's totally meaningless. It's just a show put on for the rubes. It doesn't do anything for denuclearization. It doesn't make it any more likely. It perhaps marginally helps Kim by making him look sane on the world stage. But it barely does that since the show was so short in time and in public appearances.


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 1:32am

    Already a major hitch, on when sanction relief starts. link

    Trump may flip out and go for the big button,  Bolton's "bloody nose" bombing. War by October.


    by NCD on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 1:43am

    BBC : 

    North Korea has celebrated the Trump-Kim summit as a great win for the country, with state media reporting that the US intends to lift sanctions.....Most Western observers have said the deal appears to include significant concessions from the US while including no new commitments from North Korea nor details on how denuclearisation could be achieved.


    by NCD on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 1:58am

    Unfortunately "we" are not "we" but "me me me me me me" and a delusional-about-reality me-child at that:

     

    One and done https://t.co/TBNhQdvQ1M

    — Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) June 13, 2018

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 3:06pm

    Oops, had the wrong link, edited the right one in now:

    He's mouthing this kind of weird sort of meritocracy where some bad hombres not so bad. Really kind of explains everything, doesn't it?


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 10:30pm

    Zero self-awareness:

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/13/2018 - 9:30pm

    North Korea state TV airs footage of Trump saluting North Korean military officer

    @ TheHill.com, with the video


    by artappraiser on Thu, 06/14/2018 - 12:13pm

    Interesting point I haven't seen being made until now:

    Some 7,800 American troops are still missing from the Korean War, far more than from the Vietnam War. Most are thought to be in North Korea. https://t.co/plgXAUL3VQ

    — NYT National News (@NYTNational) June 16, 2018

    by artappraiser on Sat, 06/16/2018 - 5:02am

    Donald Kirk of the Daily Beast has expressed clearly the view that the conventional weapons are the most important issue dividing the Koreas.

    NK is not going to nuke the real estate they covet.


    by moat on Mon, 06/18/2018 - 5:33pm

    NK is not going to nuke the real estate they covet.

    That's the argument I've always used with nervous nelly freakouts about NK since like 2003. Like: call me when they have a missile that will carry it across the planet.

    The difference between worry about them and worry about mideast nukes was always: the stability of the world oil supply, stupids. Now even that matters less.

    Related breaking on this isn't Kansas anymore Toto, Salvador-Dali world: I just heard Gen. Michael Hayden, formerly known as a CIA director and NSA director and National Intelligence director, basically tell Wolf Blitzer that we are now the most frightening de-stabilizing force in the world. He said when people ask him what keeps you up at night, he answers: us, we do, i.e., this country. I believe he also used the word "scary".


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/18/2018 - 7:00pm

    Light up another giraffe.


    by moat on Mon, 06/18/2018 - 7:03pm