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

    I am listening to Trump press conference live from Vietnam summit on CNN

    By artappraiser on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 2:51am |

    The chyron says summit cut short, no deal. But I would like to share a little of what Trump is saying.

    He seems in a very friendly and polite mood. Not hyper, calm. Taking a lot of questions.

    Trump says it's all been very productive. But not a good thing to be signing anything right now. He'll let Pompeo explain that later.

    But everyone's been great: Chairman Kim, China, Russia, they've all been great, real helpful. Great leaders! Pres. Moon. yes, another great leader. Real helpful. President Xi, a great leader. Everyone thinks so, especially in Asia. They are all great leaders!

    By the way, in case you foreign reporters didn't know this, you should know it's true: he gets along really well with all world leaders!

    As far as Otto Warmbier, well bad things happen, the prisons they have are bad. It was a terrible thing that happened to him. Something bad happened to Warmbier, but Kim didn't really know about it, he takes him at his word.  The rest came back fine. Believes Kim didn't know about it until after.

    About Netanyahu. He doesn't know about the corruption, but he knows he's been a great prime minister. They buy a lot of weapons from the U.S. and they pay their bills. Peace plan still could work. It's famously one of the hardest things to solve, still may be solved (by Trump peace plan.)

    Back to North Korea: previous administrations failed, and Obama did absolutely nothing about North Korea.

    Sanctions sanctions, there are still enough sanctions. we will still have sanctions, but after getting to know Chairman Kim better, got to be so it doesn't hurt the North Korean people too much. Changed his mind on that after getting to know Chairman Kim.

    (Apparently earlier he spoke about the Cohen testimony, I missed that part.)

    Comments

    oh I missed this part too, it's a good one:

    I suspect that someone from his spin team, or perhaps State's spin team, must have lectured him right after the big fail and right before the press conference that it was important to "be positive". So he chose all kinds of things to wax positive about that no one in their right mind would.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 5:47pm

    Warmier statement a bridge too far for Senators Graham & Collins, House Minority Leader McCarthy, as well as the GOP Rep. from Warmier's district. While Mitch, well he is old and hard of hearing, doesn't catch some things?:

    Republicans push back on Trump’s trust of Kim on the death of Otto Warmbier

    By John Wagner & Seung Min Kim @ WashingtonPost.com, Feb. 28

    [....] Speaking to reporters at a news conference Thursday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also counseled caution on trusting Kim.

    “I do not see the leader of North Korea as somebody who’s a friend,” McCarthy said. “We know what happened to Otto. We know what this country has done. I support the president in his effort to denuclearize them, but I do not have a misbelief of who this leader is.”

    Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has been a staunch Trump ally on many issues, said he didn’t “buy it for a minute” that Kim had nothing to do with Warmbier’s treatment. He suggested Trump was “probably trying to leave some space to negotiate” on broader issues with Kim by saying he trusted his account.

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was “surprised that [Trump] accepted at face value, apparently, what happened to the American who was held there.”

    Other leading Republicans avoiding commenting on Trump’s assessment of Kim’s truthfulness.

    During floor remarks Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised Trump’s performance in Hanoi but made no mention of his comments regarding Warmbier [....]


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 8:35pm

    the exact quote of the nastiest part of his riff on Otto Warmbier:

    His whole riff that I heard in answer to the question was pretty bad, though. Not just that one thing.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 5:51pm

    Rep. Adam Schiff:

    Walking away from the summit was better than making a bad deal. It’s also the result of a poorly planned strategy.

    But accepting Kim’s denial of involvement in Warmbier’s death? Detestable, and harkens back to Trump’s duplicitous acceptances of denials from other dictators. https://t.co/JvidU3AJYO

    — Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 28, 2019

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/01/2019 - 6:46am

    David Sanger, no slouch on topic, in going over what happened with plenty of detail, also ends up doing a splainer why recent presidents have not gone the personal route with NK:

    History suggests that the North Koreans may try to pressure Mr. Trump by escalating https://t.co/QSkELiMUaC

    — Annie Karni (@anniekarni) March 1, 2019

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/01/2019 - 6:54am

    One can't really say Trump didn't change anything because who else could have caused this: shazaam! just like magic, after so many decades of same old same old, the North Korean regime has learned a fun new way to do propaganda! Spin the reporters!

    North Korea disputes Trump’s Hanoi summit claims

    In surprise post-midnight press briefing following hotel talks fiasco, Pyongyang tells its side of the story

    By ANDREW SALMON @ Asia Times, Feb. 28

    In a highly unusual development, North Korea called a post-midnight press briefing in Hanoi to dispute some of the claims made earlier in the day by Donald Trump in a press conference that the US president had held following a summit that ended unexpectedly with no declaration and no agreement.

    “What we have asked for was partial lifting of sanctions, not entirely,” Pyongyang’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said at the late-night briefing, according to Kyodo News. “In detail, we asked to lift five sanctions that were imposed within 2016 and 2017, out of total 11 sanctions, which would affect ordinary people’s economy and life.”

    Ri’s statement contradicted what Trump had said hours earlier in his own press conference [....]

    (Looks like Sarah Sanders really will have another option after her White House gig ends?!)


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/02/2019 - 3:08am

    This is an absolutely fabulous article rounding up not just what happened at the summit but everything you need to know about what everyone in the Trump admin from Day One thought and argued about on topic. I highly recommend. A plus is that it is in plain lingo, easy to read, unlike many on topic that are too much like homework. One spoiler: Pompeo and Bolton did not agree with what Trump was trying to do in this last summit.

    How the Trump-Kim Summit Failed: Big Threats, Big Egos, Bad Bets

    By David E. Sanger and Edward Wong @ NYTimes.com March 2, 2019

    interestingly still in HANOI, Vietnam —

    [....] In interviews with a half-dozen participants, it is clear Mr. Trump’s failed gambit was the culmination of two years of threats, hubris and misjudgment on both sides [....]


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/02/2019 - 7:40pm

    another reader of the above, a "Yonsei University Professor: in Seoul:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/02/2019 - 9:30pm

    Daniel Dale furnished a running record of Trump's blathering at CPAC:


    by artappraiser on Sun, 03/03/2019 - 5:49am

    "President Bolton":

    President Bolton. https://t.co/FGtwiUV8yz pic.twitter.com/zqsAWjOAmD

    — Kingston Reif (@KingstonAReif) March 5, 2019

    Edit to add, on same article:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/04/2019 - 9:24pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 03/04/2019 - 9:22pm

    I agree:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 03/06/2019 - 1:13pm