A Fissile Missile Pissing Contest, Con't

Over at Foreign Policy, Jeffrey Lewis argues that North Korea won its game of nuclear chicken some time ago, and that the world will have little choice but to come to the negotiating table and give Kim Jong Un what he wants, no matter what Trump blusters about.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that North Korea has a large stockpile of compact nuclear weapons that can arm the country’s missiles, including its new intercontinental ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting the United States. That’s another way of saying: game over. 

Also: I told you so. 

There are really two assessments in the Post’s report. One, dated July 28, is that the intelligence community — not just the Defense Intelligence Agency, contrary to what you may have heard — “assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles.” The other assessment, published earlier in July, stated that North Korea had 60 nuclear weapons — higher than the estimates usually given in the press. Put them together, though, and its pretty clear that the window for denuclearizing North Korea, by diplomacy or by force, has closed. 

These judgments are front-page news, but only because we’ve been living in collective denial. Both intelligence assessments are consistent with what the North Koreans have been saying for some time, for reasons I outlined in a column here at Foreign Policy immediately after the September 2016 nuclear test titled, “North Korea’s Nuke Program Is Way More Sophisticated Than You Think: This is now a serious nuclear arsenal that threatens the region and, soon, the continental United States.” 

Authors rarely get to pick titles, and almost never like them, but I think the editors at FP got this one about right. It is about as subtle as a jackhammer, although even so the message didn’t seem to sink in.

The world must now deal with a nuclear North Korea, and it must deal with Pyongyang soon or risk a fatal miscalculation that could cost tens of millions of lives.

Let’s walk through the evidence. 

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests. That is really quite a lot. Looking at other countries that have conducted five nuclear tests, our baseline expectation for North Korea should be that it has a nuclear weapon small enough to arm a ballistic missile and is well on its way toward testing a thermonuclear — yes, thermonuclear — weapon. 

A lot of people got the wrong idea after North Korea’s first nuclear test failed, and subsequent nuclear tests seemed smaller than they should be. There was a common view that the North Koreans, well, kind of sucked at making nuclear weapons. That was certainly my first impression. But there was always another possibility, one that dawned on me gradually. According to a defector account, North Korea tried to skip right toward relatively advanced nuclear weapons that were compact enough to arm ballistic missiles and made use of relatively small amounts of plutonium. That should not have been surprising; both Iraq and Pakistan similarly skipped designing and testing a more cumbersome Fat Man-style implosion device. The disappointing yields of North Korea’s first few nuclear tests were not the result of incompetence, but ambition. So, while the world was laughing at North Korea’s first few nuclear tests, they were learning — a lot. 

And then there is the issue of North Korea’s nuclear test site. North Korea tests its nuclear weapons in tunnels beneath very large mountains. When my research institute used topography data collected from space to build a 3-D model of the site, we realized that the mountains are so tall that they may be hiding how big the nuclear explosions are. Some of the “disappointments” may not have been disappointments at all, and the successes were bigger than we realized. I think the best interpretation of the available evidence is that North Korea accepted some technical risk early in its program to move more quickly toward missile-deliverable nuclear weapons. 

The fact that North Korea’s nuclear weapons used less fissile material than we expected helps explain the second judgment that North Korea has more bombs than is usually reported. The defector claimed that North Korea’s first nuclear weapon contained only 4 kilograms of the limited supply of plutonium North Korea made, and continues to make, at its reactor at Yongbyon. (For a long while, experts claimed the reactor was not operating when thermal images plainly showed that it was.) The North Koreans themselves claimed the first test used only 2 kilograms of plutonium. Those claims struck many people, including me, as implausible at first. But they were only implausible in the sense that such a device would probably fail when tested — and the first North Korean test did fail. The problem is North Korea kept trying, and its later tests succeeded. 

We also must take seriously that North Korea has perhaps stretched its supply of plutonium by integrating some high-enriched uranium into each bomb and developing all-uranium designs. North Korea has an unknown capacity to make highly enriched uranium. We’ve long noticed that the single facility that North Korea has shown off to outsiders seems smaller than North Korea’s newly renovated capacity to mine and mill uranium; we naturally wondered where all that extra uranium is going. (My research institute thinks it might be fun to estimate how much uranium North Korea enriches based on how much it mills, if you know anyone with grant money burning a hole in her pocket.) 

Unless the intelligence community knows exactly where North Korea is enriching uranium and how big each facility is, we’re just guessing how many nuclear weapons the country may have. But 60 nuclear weapons doesn’t sound absurdly high. 

The thing is, we knew all this already. Sure, sure it isn’t the same when I say it. I mean, I am just some rando living out in California. But now that someone with a tie and real job in Washington has said it, it is news. 

The big question is where to go from here. Some of my colleagues still think the United States might persuade North Korea to abandon, or at least freeze, its nuclear and missile programs. I am not so sure. I suspect we might have to settle for trying to reduce tensions so that we live long enough to figure this problem out. But there is only one way to figure out who is right: Talk to the North Koreans.

We don't really have much of a choice right now, do we?

Of course, we don't have much of a State Department or President right now either.  Hell, we don't even have an ambassador to South Korea.

I assume China, South Korea, and Japan will need to step up and handle this mess.  America doesn't even have the people to do so right now.  Our diplomacy is nearly worthless and the rest of the world will press on in spite of our apparently uselessness in situations like these.

Take your pick as to whom the Leader of the Free World title belongs to these days.  North Korea has just proven it's no longer the United States in that chair.

Fast-Growing Fascism

It's totally strange how the response to the nation's first black Democratic president was the Republican party going full-on authoritarian with white nationalism at its core and seeking to completely undo Obama's entire memory, let alone his presidential legacy.  No surprise then that years of "Democrat voter fraud!" screaming now has a majority of Republicans backing the end of federal elections should Dear Leader Trump declare so.

Slightly more than half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election if President Trump proposed it to make sure only eligible American citizens can vote, according to a new survey. 

According to a poll published by The Washington Post, 52 percent of Republicans said they would back a postponement of the next election if Trump called for it. 

If Trump and congressional Republicans proposed postponing the election to ensure only eligible citizens could vote, support from Republicans rises to 56 percent. 

Pollsters found 47 percent of Republicans think Trump won the popular vote.

A majority of Republicans, 68 percent, also thinks millions of illegal immigrants voted in the presidential election and 73 percent think voter fraud happens somewhat or very often. 

The poll was conducted from June 5 to 20 among 1,325 Americans. The survey focused on the 650 respondents who said they identified with or leaned toward the Republican Party.

Clinton of course won the popular vote by 3 million or so, but apparently we've reached the point where open fascism and dictatorship is now acceptable to the majority of the voters belonging to the party in power as long as doing so maintains their power.

Needless to say, keep a close, close watch on Mike Pence's "Voter Integrity Commission".  That's where the real voter suppression will be in 2018 and 2020, I fully expect tens of millions of registered Democrats to have their voting registrations purged while Republicans cheer "democracy" in action.

Democracy was overrated anyway, right?

A body politic that elected and re-elected a black president has to be dismantled, of course.  It can never be allowed to happen again.  Trump, Pence, Kris Kobach and the rest of the GOP will make sure that it's all but impossible for the Democrats to win ever again.

Watch.

StupidiNews!

• North Korea is once again threatening to fire missiles near Guam and dismissed Donald Trump's ad-libbed threats of "fire and fury" as "a load of nonsense." 
• Two Cuban diplomats have been expelled from Washington after US personnel in Havana's Embassy were harmed by sonic surveillance equipment.
• Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake has resigned over corruption charges linked to a bond scam, the former Finance Minister maintains his innocence while stepping down.
• US consumer debt has now surpassed a record $12.7 trillion, more than the GDP of China and eclipsing 2008's total as the "great recession" leveled markets. 
• E-mails from Tesla suggest the electric car and battery company will begin testing its planned automated electric semi trucks in Nevada later this year.

Last Call For Zuck Trucks Amok

So what exactly is Facebook founder and gazillionaire Mark Zuckerburg up to with his "listening tour" across the country these days?  Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton tagged along for some answers, and it may actually be that he's not running for anything.

A couple months ago, I received a text message from a friend containing a brief video clip that caught me utterly by surprise. It depicted a man giving a rousing speech at Harvard in front of an audience of thousands, who listened rapturously despite the beating rain, as he enumerated the various policies that the average American needed to adapt in our increasingly volatile world. “We need affordable childcare,” the man said, before noting the plight of a younger generation who “will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks.” It seemed less of a commencement address than a stump speech. A few seconds later, my friend texted me again to say, “I think he’s running for president.” 

The man in the video was Mark Zuckerberg. And his oration at his old stomping grounds appeared to solidify a whole lot of political speculation and Internet gossip. A few months earlier, a whisper campaign began to mount regarding the Facebook C.E.O.’s potential political aspirations. Zuckerberg, after all, was sending out some strong signals: Facebook had updated the company’s proxy statement to allow him to run for office and still maintain control of his company. Then Zuckerberg, a former atheist, said that he believed religion is “very important.”. And then there was the most controversial intimation—Zuckerberg’s New Year’s resolution to meet “people in every state in the U.S.,” which spurred a series of bizarre campaign trail-style imagery. At the time, I wondered aloudif Zuckerberg, who turns 35 in two years, would indeed (try to) be our next president. In a funny way, it almost seemed like a demotion. Yet over and over again, various sources told me that Zuckerberg had grander plans in life and wanted to be “emperor.” 

The reaction to the rumors, though, were sometimes stranger than the potential of a Zuckerberg presidency. On the left, a lot of people applauded the notion of a tech genius running for office, especially in the wake of an ignoramus like Donald Trump. Some in the alt-right reduced the prospect of Zuckerberg, who is of Jewish heritage, in the White House to horrifying racist screeds. And then there were those in Silicon Valley who momentarily wondered aloud about Zuck’s calculation before concluding—perhaps after back-channeling with Zuckerberg’s communications team—that there was absolutely no way he would run for president, that he was really just hauling across the country in order to get to know The People. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has since taken to Facebook (where else) to deny that he’s running for office. 

So, if he’s not running for president, what exactly is Zuckerberg doing? Nathan Hubbard, a former executive at Twitter, recently posted a series of tweets outlining his theory for what Zuckerberg has been up to during the last few months—and it’s a theory that a lot of people in Silicon Valley subscribe to. “Zuck isn’t running for President. He’s trying to understand the role the product he created played in getting this one elected,” Hubbard wrote on Twitter. “Zuck woke up on Nov 9th acutely aware that FB had facilitated a new shift he didn’t foresee or understand; that’s terrifying to a founder.” 

I’ve spoken to several Silicon Valley executives and tech journalists about this theory, and it makes a fair amount of sense. People at Facebook have also privately told me how they were caught completely off guard by the role that the social network played in the election. But while this sounds entirely plausible, it doesn’t explain why Zuckerberg would amend Facebook’s proxy statement.

In the updated S-1 filing, this provision is invoked several times, explicating that Zuckerberg can take a “Pre-Approved Leave,” which translates as “any leave of absence or resignation of the Founder that is in connection with the Founder serving in a government position or office.” One person who interacts with Zuckerberg on a regular basis theorized that maybe Zuckerberg is leaving open the option to run for office one day in the very distant future, or that he could try running for lesser office to better understand how government works. But again, this is all just conjecture and speculation. No one really has the faintest clue what Zuckerberg is up to, which all amounts to fairly genius politicking for a political neophyte. Mike Pence, in fact, might want to give it a try.

So here's the exit question folks: which is more frightening?

One one hand there's the notion that Zuck wants to run the country like he's running Facebook, as the ultimate Silicon Valley dudebro who thinks tech can solve everything. On the other hand there's the notion that he's lost control of his social network behemoth and not even he knows how to fix the fake news spewing volcano that he's helped to unleash under the body politic.

Neither scenario exactly fills me with confidence.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign continues to shift into higher gear as now the Washington Post is reporting that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's home was raided by FBI agents two weeks ago and evidence taken into custody.

FBI agents raided the Alexandria home of President Trump’s former campaign chairman late last month, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. 

Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records. Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, confirmed that agents executed a warrant at one of the political consultant’s homes and that Manafort cooperated with the search. 

Manafort has been voluntarily producing documents to congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena. 

It could also have been intended to send a message to President Trump’s former campaign chairman that he should not expect gentle treatment or legal courtesies from Mueller’s team. 

The documents included materials Manafort had already provided to Congress, said people familiar with the search. 

“If the FBI wanted the documents, they could just ask [Manafort] and he would have turned them over,” said one adviser close to the White House. 

Josh Stueve, spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment, as did Reginald Brown, an attorney for Manafort.

So the timing on this matches up with the grand jury investigating the Russian affair going to work as well as the sudden push by Sessions to get Trump off his back by going after leakers and those who publish their stories.  There's no way that the White House didn't know about Manafort's house getting raided by FBI and you'd better believe Trump is scared.

Mueller is being pretty thorough on this.  Whatever Manafort had, Mueller has.  How useful that information is as far as building a case, we don't know yet, but FBI search warrant raids are pretty serious business.

Oh, and Manafort isn't the only guy coughing up documents either.  The Senate Judiciary Committee is getting their investigation under way as well.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, his son Donald Trump Jr. and former campaign manager Paul Manafort have started turning over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the panel’s expanded investigation of Russian election-meddling. 

The Trump campaign turned over about 20,000 pages of documents on Aug. 2, committee spokesman George Hartmann said Tuesday. Manafort provided about 400 pages on Aug. 2, including his foreign-advocacy filing, while Trump Jr. gave about 250 pages on Aug. 4, Hartmann said. The committee had asked them last month to start producing the documents by Aug. 2.

A company the Judiciary panel says has been linked to a salacious "dossier" on Trump, Fusion GPS, and its chief executive officer, Glenn Simpson, have yet to turn over any requested documents, Hartmann said. 

The committee asked for all records regarding any attempts or interest in obtaining information about Hillary Clinton from Russian government or affiliated sources, including the June 2016 meeting of Trump Jr., Manafort, Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and a group of Russians including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. 

The committee asked for documents related to any attempt to coordinate or use information related to Russia’s attempts to influence the election. It sought Manafort’s registration filings and contacts with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Lot of smoke, lot of fire, lots of documents.  We've gotten to Trump's campaign manager and his son turning over possible evidence.  Who's next?

A Fissile Missile Pissing Contest

Donald Trump has all but completely flunked Syria at this point, handing the country over to the Assad regime at Putin's request with "safe zones" bringing the "peace" of dictatorship to the rubble-strewn cities while anti-Assad rebels supported by the previous administration are exterminated under the guise of US-Russia cooperation against Islamic State.

Now North Korea continues to be the big new international crisis as two man-children suffering from arrested development scream at each other and threaten nuclear destruction, and while the US nuclear arsenal's power to reduce all of human civilization to ash dozens of times over remains without doubt (hooray!), it's looking like North Korea may be far more able to deliver on the nuclear missile threat than previously believed.

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.

The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.

President Trump, speaking Tuesday at an event at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., said North Korea will face a devastating response if its threats continue. “They will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” he said.
Earlier Tuesday, North Korea described a new round of U.N. sanctions as an attempt “to strangle a nation” and warned that in response, “physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilization of all its national strength.”

Although more than a decade has passed since North Korea’s first nuclear detonation, many analysts thought it would be years before the country’s weapons scientists could design a compact warhead that could be delivered by missile to distant targets. But the new assessment, a summary document dated July 28, concludes that this critical milestone has been reached.

“The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. Two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment verified its broad conclusions. It is not known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially claimed last year that it had done so.

Considering that Trump hasn't even nominated an ambassador to South Korea yet, we have zero diplomatic personnel on the ground right now and that's even if this State Department wasn't in complete shambles under Rex Tillerson.  Apparently we're farming that out to our neighbors to the north as Ottawa is at least nominally interested in not having a giant nuclear death party.

Meanwhile, North Korea state media is happily reminding Trump that Guam is a lot closer to Pyongyang than the mainland US is, and that it would be a darn shame if something happened to it.

North Korea said on Wednesday it is "carefully examining" plans for a missile strike on the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with "fire and fury".

North Korea has made no secret of plans to develop a nuclear-tipped missile able to strike the United States and has ignored international calls to halt its nuclear and missile programs.

The strike plan would be put into practice at any moment once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision, a spokesman for the Korean People's Army (KPA) said in a statement carried by the North's state-run KCNA news agency.

"The KPA Strategic Force is now carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 in order to contain the U.S. major military bases on Guam including the Anderson Air Force Base," the spokesman said.

The plan would be reported to the North's Supreme Command soon, the spokesman said, without citing a date.

I'd say at this point cooler heads would prevail, except we're talking about Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump here, two guys with nuclear toys not exactly known for their reasonable levelheadedness.

Yeah, I know, we were a lot closer to real nuclear destruction 55 years ago over Cuba and Soviet hardliners almost starting World War III twice in 1983 over a missile detection radar glitch and then NATO's Able Archer military exercises in Europe, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried now.

We'd be nuts not to be concerned.  The reality right now is that we have several military options, and the option of continued attempts at containment.  None of them are good options, and all of the military options would almost certainly lead to the deaths of millions, maybe tens of millions, on the Korean Peninsula and Japan. 

But acquiescence to a nuclear North Korea risks a far greater global conflict down the road, a road that this intelligence assessment report this week makes very clear.  With nukes and the time they can buy his regime, Kim can start making more and more belligerent demands, and we either meet them or choose to ignore him and risk his reponse. Again, there is no good option here, only the least awful (which is containment and diplomacy).

I remind you the person now in charge of that decision is a failed reality TV show host who may be a Russian agent, with a State Department all but crippled and the very real possibility of facing a constitutional crisis sooner rather than later over his numerous misdeeds.

Good luck, America and the world.

We're gonna need it.

StupidiNews!

• Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang continue to rise after Donald Trump threatened "fire and fury" against North Korea, and North Korea responded with threats against Guam.
• French police officials say a driver deliberately targeted and wounded six French soldiers with a vehicle, the soldiers were outside a Paris barracks on an anti-terrorism patrol.
• Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has pulled into the lead after Wednesday's presidential vote count, opposition leader Raila Odinga is claiming Kenyatta is behind massive voter fraud.
• The UK is among several other countries looking to follow the FDA's lead on possibly stripping nicotine and other addictive chemicals from cigarettes entirely.
• Disney confirms it will be pulling its animated films and TV shows from Netflix in 2019 to start its own streaming service, the fate of Marvel and Lucasfilms movies remains unknown.

Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem

Last week an improvised explosive device was thrown through a window of a Minnesota Islamic Center in the Twin Cities, causing severe damage and it was only by luck that nobody was hurt or killed at the time.  It was definitely an act of domestic terror, but the Trump regime has been strangely silent on the attack.

That silence ended late Monday when regime spokesman Sebastian Gorka suggested strongly that the reason why the White House has refused to comment on the terrorism is because the White House believes it was a false flag attack in order to damage Dear Leader Trump.

The White House will not officially comment on the bombing of a Minnesota mosque because it may be a hate crime faked by a liberal, according to Trump national security adviser Sebastian Gorka. 

An as-of-yet unidentified individual threw a makeshift bomb through the window of a mosque in Minnesota Saturday, and Gorka was asked on MSNBC Monday if the White House will comment. Gorka said that the White House will “absolutely” comment once there is a finalized investigation into the incident. 

“There’s a great rule: All initial reports are false,” Gorka said. “You have to check them and find out who the perpetrators are. We’ve had a series of crimes committed, alleged hate crimes by right wing individuals in the last six months that turned out to be prop propagated by the left. Let’s allow the local authorities to provide their assessment and then the White House will make its comments.” 

But Trump has, in the past, commented on attacks without full information, including a recent June attack in the Philippines, which may have been a robbery gone wrong. He has not been so fast to cry terrorism after the Minnesota bombing, despite the fact that Minnesota’s governor called the attack terrorism. 

Gorka is correct that there have been incidents of hate crimes in recent months that were made to look like they were perpetrated by someone other than the actual perpetrator. 

On Tuesday, the FBI accused an Israeli teen of making bomb threats to U.S. schools and Jewish community centers more than 100 times since January. The teen also allegedly sold his bomb threat services online and offered to frame people for the threats.
But as the MSNBC host pointed out, authorities can and should still condemn attacks, even if the perpetrator is in question. 

“You don’t have to make a statement about who did it but you can make a statement denouncing how terrible it is to attack a building of worship,” the host said. 

“That’s fine and I’m sure the president will do that,” Gorka responded.

But three days have passed and the president still hasn’t done that.

Nor will he.  And remember, this isn't just some random right-wing pundit making this horrible statement that an attack on a mosque is not only beneath Trump commenting on, but was in fact done to hurt Trump politically, this was said by a White House employee and adviser to Trump.

This is unconscionable in every way, and yet this is where we are in America in 2017.  We have to keep pushing to get Trump out of office before this country self-immolates.

Welcome To HateFest '17!

The largest public gathering of white supremacist Klansmen, neo-Nazi skinheads, and alt-right jackasses in decades will be this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia as The Losers of the Civil War come together to mourn the loss of yet another of their participation trophy monuments.  We've seen these racist losers whine and moan before and they still keep losing.

Only this time around these guys will be heavily armed and spoiling for a bloody fight, and they very well may get it.

A planned demonstration by white nationalist extremists in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been described as the “largest hate-gathering of its kind in decades in the United States” by a monitoring group. 

The Unite the Right gathering of extremists protesting the removal of a Confederate-era statue will draw alt-right groups, neo-Confederates, Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis, all of whom have been “emboldened by the Trump presidency,” according to nonprofit civil rights group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). 

The extremists will be met by counter-demonstrators from left-wing and civil rights groups, including Antifa and Black Lives Matter, with Virginia state law enforcement officers equipped with riot gear to police the event alongside officers from local forces. 

Law enforcement officials believe the rally could draw thousands, according to local media reports. Congregate Charlottesville, a multi-denominational clergy group, made a July call for 1,000 clergy, especially white clergy, to attend the rally in protest, according to the Charlottesville Courier Dispatch.

According to the SPLC, Saturday’s event will be the first large-scale physical meeting by disparate white nationalist and far-right groups, who have previously been confined to extremist messaging boards, websites and social media. 

Among those expected to address the gathering are alt-right provocateur Richard Spencer, and rapper turned alt-right troll Tim Gionet, also known as "Baked Alaska," reports Vice. 

“This is the biggest rally event we’ve had this millennium,” event organizer Brad Griffin said on a recent radio showed hosted by former KKK leader David Duke. 

Racial activists “get hung up on interacting with people online,” and the racist message board culture has its drawbacks, Griffin said, creating “a lot of paranoia when people don’t know each other in real life.” 

But the Unite the Right rally will give “the movement a real world presence, which it hasn’t had in 15 years,” Griffin said.

It won't take much for this particular powder keg to blow, and should it happen things are going to go straight to hell in a heartbeat.  I'm hoping against hope that nothing happens to anyone here: the counter-protesters, the cops, and yeah, even the skinheads don't deserve to die over this idiocy.  But I'm betting that this is going to be an infamous event that we'll look back on as a milepost on our current road to hell, and that road is going to run red this weekend.

These are not well people, guys.

A Pence-ive Denial At Best

Over the weekend the NY Times ran a story on VP Mike Pence readying himself for 2020 (or sooner) should there be a vacancy in the Oval Office.  Pence couldn't wait to protest this, of course.

Vice President Mike Pence declared his loyalty to President Trump on Sunday and denounced a New York Times article suggesting that he was positioning himself to run for president in 2020 if Mr. Trump does not seek a second term. 

“Today’s article in The New York Times is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family and our entire team,” the vice president said in a statement. “The allegations in this article are categorically false and represent just the latest attempt by the media to divide this administration.” 

He added: “Whatever fake news may come our way, my entire team will continue to focus all our efforts to advance the president’s agenda and see him re-elected in 2020. Any suggestion otherwise is both laughable and absurd.” 

Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, said in response: “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting and will let the story speak for itself.”

The problem of course is that despite his many many protestations Pence is building that campaign machine now and not in 2023, for instance.

Mr. Pence has set up a political fund-raising organization, Great America Committee, and has hosted key figures at the vice president’s mansion, like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and representatives of Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire conservative financiers. Last month, the vice president hosted Kelly and Joe Craft, coal barons from Kentucky. 

A top White House official said Sunday that there would be no reason for the vice president to prepare his own White House bid because Mr. Trump planned to run. “The president says privately and publicly often, George, that he’ll be there for seven and a half more years. So he plans on being a two-term president,” Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor, told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” on ABC. “It is absolutely true that the vice president is getting ready for 2020, for re-election as vice president.” 

Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if there was any concern that Mr. Pence was running a shadow campaign. “Zero concern,” Ms. Conway said. “That is complete fiction. That is complete fabrication. And I know that his advisers who had comments attributed to them have pushed back strongly, as has the vice president. And as am I right now unequivocally.” 

She added: “Vice President Pence is a very loyal, very dutiful, but also incredibly effective vice president, and active vice president, with this president.”

Lots of screaming, but Pence isn't alone, either.  Other Republicans want a shot at 2020 and are betting on the Trump regime's disintegration.  The rats may be fleeing the sinking Trump poop cruise, but they're stealing the lifeboats while they're at it.

You're nuts if you don't think Pence will stab Trump in the front (forget the back) if the opportunity presents itself and it looks like Donny is headed for Nixon territory. He'll find plenty of GOP hands offering him the knife to do it with too, if it means they hold on the country without the baggage of Trump.

Only six months into this term and we've already got Pence plotting.  These guys won't make it, and when it blows up it's going to be spectacular.  No, I don't think Trump will be impeached, but resignation is still possible.

Don't tell me that though hasn't occurred to Mike Pence, either...that is unless he's involved in this too, and there's a pretty good chance he is.

Stay tuned.

StupidiNews!

• Tropical Storm Franklin has made landfall along Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula coast, the storm is expected to re-enter the Gulf of Mexico and threaten Mexico's east coast by Thursday. 
• At the 200-day mark of his term, a new CNN poll finds only 1 in 4 Americans trust information from Donald Trump's White House, but overall approval among GOP voters remains high.
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Thailand for the first major US visit since 2014's military coup, Tillerson pressed Thai leaders to join in economic sanctions against North Korea.
• South African President Jacob Zuma faces yet another no-confidence vote in parliament, this time the vote will be conducted by secret ballot to protect lawmakers from retaliation.
• Google CEO Sundar Pichal has stepped in from vacation to remove a Google engineer from the company after a controversial manifesto attacking diversity hiring went public this weekend.

Last Call For The National Revenge Association

Since President Scaryblack Shabazz "Where the white women at?" Ali McBlackmalcolm X is no longer in the White House and firearm and ammo sales are down sharply in 2017 without a Democrat around to "come to take your guns", it seems that the National Rifle Association has to continue to drum up its own targets of fear in order to sell, sell, sell those shootin' irons.  As a result, right-wing loudmouth Dana Loesch and the NRA have declared war on the NY Times.

Another inflammatory video from the National Rife Association went viral Friday afternoon. 

In a short video, NRA spokesperson and conservative firebrand Dana Loesch threatened a "laser-focus" on the New York Times, dubbing the paper "pretentious" and "tone-deaf" without specifying what issues the NRA has with the Times' reporting.

"We've had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news," Loesch said. "We've had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life." 

"Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow," she added. "We've going to fisk the New York Times and find out just what deep, rich means to this old, gray hag."

"Laser-focus" and "shot across the proverbial bow" from a firearm advocacy group is a pretty unmistakable threat, is it not?

Alas, Trump can't sell guns quite like the inchoate racist rage against a black president did.  I don't think fear of a newspaper will do it either, but it's much more likely to get a reporter shot one of these days.

Of course, maybe that's the point.

Trading Blows Over The TPP

Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, and there were plenty of folks in Congress on both the left and the right who would have scuttled any attempt to ratify the trade pact anyway.  The result?  Rural America, which overwhelmingly voted for Trump, will be the first to suffer the vast economic consequences as the rest of the world takes its money elsewhere.

On a cloud-swept landscape dotted with grain elevators, a meat producer called Prestage Farms is building a 700,000-square-foot processing plant. The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

For much of industrial America, the TPP was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. But for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP, covering 40 percent of the world’s economy, was a lifeline. It was a chance to erase punishing tariffs that restricted the United States — the onetime “breadbasket of the world” — from selling its meats, grains and dairy products to massive importers of foodstuffs such as Japan and Vietnam.

The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.

A POLITICO analysis found that the 11 other TPP countries are now involved in a whopping 27 separate trade negotiations with each other, other major trading powers in the region like China and massive blocs like the EU. Those efforts range from exploratory conversations to deals already signed and awaiting ratification. Seven of the most significant deals for U.S. farmers were either launched or concluded in the five months since the United States withdrew from the TPP.

“I’m scared to death,” said Ron Prestage, whose North Carolina-based family pork and poultry business made its huge investment in the plant near Eagle Grove in part to reap expected gains from the TPP. “I don’t guess I’ve gone beyond the point of no return on the new plant, but we did already start digging our wells and started moving dirt.”

He and other agricultural businesspeople and workers have reason for concern.

On July 6, the EU, which already exports as much pork to Japan as the United States does, announced political agreement on a new deal that would give European pork farmers an advantage of up to $2 per pound over U.S. exporters under certain circumstances — a move which, if unchecked, is all but certain to create a widening gap between EU exports and those from the United States.

European wine producers, who sold more than $1 billion to Japan between 2014 and 2016, would also see a 15 percent tariff on exports to Japan disappear while U.S. exporters would continue to face that duty at the border. For other products, the deal essentially mirrors the rates negotiated under the TPP, which the United States has surrendered, giving the EU a clear advantage over U.S. farmers.

The EU’s deal is all the more noteworthy because American farmers were relying on the TPP — to which the EU was not a member — to give them an advantage over European competitors. But in a further rebuke to the United States, Tokyo decided within a matter of weeks to offer the European nations virtually the same agricultural access to its market that United States trade officials had spent two excruciating years extracting through near-monthly meetings with their Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the broader TPP negotiations; the United States is now left out.

The EU, which also recently inked a deal with Vietnam, is now moving forward with talks with Malaysia and is in the process of modernizing a pre-existing trade deal with Mexico.

Meanwhile, a bloc of four Latin-American countries—Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia, known as the Pacific Alliance—is quickly becoming the leading force for free trade in the region, announcing near the end of June it would commence its own negotiations with New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, heedless of its neighbor to the north.

The rest of the world is moving on, leaving the Trump regime behind.  The free trade argument is that in order to protect US jobs, we have to engage in trade protectionism and make it cheaper to produce goods here instead of importing them from Asia, Africa, the EU and South America.

But the flip side to that is exports: trade protectionism also costs US jobs as other countries go elsewhere to buy things that we export.  The anti-trade folks say the balance still favors us as we import far more, meaning we'll come out ahead.  I beg to differ here in 2017, things are too interconnected to sit out the game like this.

Keep in mind however that there are going to be losers in a tariff war too, and there will be US jobs lost in places that can't exactly afford to lose them.  Barack Obama fought for the TPP because of this, but it got scrapped (along with the Paris Climate agreement and you know, our country) last November.

The US may be the world's biggest economy, we represent 24% of the planet's global economic activity, but that leaves 76% elsewhere.  The rest of the world will go on without us, and for the most part they already are.  We chose to elect the guy who would make that happen while carefully choosing to enrich himself at the expense of his own voters.

What did you think the end result of that was going to be?

Reaping What The Gardner Sowed

It's Senate August recess time, and that means it's the time of year where senators sneak home and hold town halls with constituents hoping nobody but supporters show up, so they can check off boxes without making too much in the way of negative national news.  

Alas, this year there's little chance of that going to plan this year for GOP senators especially, as Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner tried to rip the bandage off the failed GOP health care plan debacle and got his town hall over this weekend, before opposition could mobilize (or so goes the thinking.)

Gardner discovered the opposition was waiting for him, and it wasn't pretty.  Washington Journal's Vinnie Longobardo:

The meeting was meant to discuss the disastrous aftermath of an environmental catastrophe, last year’s wastewater spill at the Gold King Mine in south west Colorado. When you haven’t held a town hall in over a year, however, you may find that your constituents have some pent up questions and not a few previously unvoiced frustrations that they want to add to the agenda.

All it took was one man’s pleading question from the audience regarding Senator Gardner’s vote in favor of the failed Republican-designed bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. “Why on earth,” did the Senator vote for this bill “when the vast majority of your constituents opposed it?”, asked the angry citizen, according to an account of the meeting on Shareblue.com.

His reply–“Well, I voted for it because I will vote to continue to work to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act,”– left the audience jeering, booing, and drowning out his pitiful excuses and lies.

“The Affordable Care Act isn’t working. It’s not working. It’s not working,” he stammered, before being reminded of the grim reality of health care in the pre-Obamacare era by a constituent who shouted out:

“I never had insurance until the ACA. I could never afford it.”

The audience wanted accountability. They repeatedly asked why he hadn’t held town hall meetings sooner and when he would set up a “real” town hall. With an audience picked at random from names put into a hat, Gardner couldn’t use the typical Republican canard that he was ambushed by paid protestors with an agenda to sell. These were real people with real concerns.

Perhaps this is not the type of August vacation that the Colorado Senator had in mind. Perhaps if he had held a few town halls when the health care legislation was being crafted, he wouldn’t be so apparently surprised at the reaction of the people he is supposed to be representing to the threat of their healthcare being ripped from their hands.

He has until 2020 until he’s up for re-election. Perhaps he’ll learn a lesson from this latest debacle. Or perhaps the good citizens of Colorado will elect someone who listens to them and cares about their interests, rather than parroting the Republican party line and trading the people’s health for tax breaks that only benefit the rich.

Which brings up a good point: Republicans are going to have to defend a lot of vulnerable seats in 2020 in the same way the Dems are having to defend Senate seats in 2018.  Should the Trump albatross still be on the ticket then, Republicans like Gardner are in for spectacular amounts of trouble.

Sure, a lot could happen between now and then and almost certainly will.  But if the Dems can't quite retake the Senate in 2018, in 2020 they will have an extremely good chance to do just that.

StupidiNews!

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced that the city will sue the Justice Department over withholding federal law enforcement grants due to Chicago's sanctuary city status.
• Archaeologists in Israel have found the site of the lost Roman city of Julias, the possible home of three of Jesus's apostles near the Sea of Galilee.
• South Korean President Moon Jae-in has agreed to continue to pressure North Korea in a call with Donald Trump as Pyongyang has vowed "ultimate measures" against new UN sanctions.
• Brexit uncertainty continues to weigh down UK consumer spending as everything from housing to food prices are dropping according to the Bank of England's latest figures.
• "Pharma Bro" CEO Martin Shkreli has been found guilty on three of eight federal charges for his role in manipulating drug prices to cover losses for his hedge fund.