The Glorious Blog of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea

[Uncle Ted]

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LOL... I love how Rodman plugs PotCoin a few times during an interview with Cuomo:

What's up with Dennis wearing the MAGA hat? Is he a Russian?

[Topper]

I go to RealClearPolitics a lot and I find a lot there from both sides. There are a lot of pro-Trump articles on there. But 99% of them are clearly written to preach to the choir and are sloppy with the facts because they can be. They're written like that because they obviously don't expect the reader to come from the other point of view. Occasionally you might find one that is written at a higher level and maybe appeared as an op-ed in a respectable source like the Wall Street Journal, or something. But invariably even those usually have a glaring omission of fact that would tank the entire argument if it were included. There are sloppy anti-Trump pieces on there as well, but in general they make much stronger points.

You would agree Trump is a total buffoon. You can just read his twitter feed sans any commentary to see that. The job of those writing the anti-stuff is far easier.

I don't like his persona nor his speech pattern. I don't like his moral compass but buffoon implies he has no idea what he's doing, which he may or may not. He's just a narcissist who doesn't give a fuck what others think. In terms of the norm for politics, he defies those norms in a negative way and is easy to criticize. The fact is he figured out how to get elected to the highest office in the land. Either we are all total buffoons or all the smart people didn't know what they were doing.

[Walter Sobchak]

I wonder where I put my bag of fireworks...

Trump Announces That North Korea Meeting Is Back On

Uncle Ted, did you get your USB-powered fan at the Peace Summit™? How were your fireworks received?

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[BlueK]

Yeah, what would possibly give anyone a reason to feel skeptical when Trump is involved?

[Walter Sobchak]

The only thing that means is that Trump tells us not to worry next week when Kim launches his next missile because the war is over.

[BlueK]

Is ANYONE disputing this?! President Trump might be about to end the Korean War after 70 years, but it's MUCH more important for US pundits and journalists to virtue-signal about "negotiating with dictators." JFC.

The only thing that means is that Trump tells us not to worry next week when Kim launches his next missile because the war is over.

[Walter Sobchak]

You would agree Trump is a total buffoon.

Is ANYONE disputing this?! President Trump might be about to end the Korean War after 70 years, but it's MUCH more important for US pundits and journalists to virtue-signal about "negotiating with dictators." JFC.

[BlueK]

The better and more reliable sources are Reuters, BBC, AP, Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Wella, das Handelsblatt, die Franfurter Allgemeine, le Figaro, Agence France Presse, The Times of India, and a few others by country. I also like FiveThirtyEight, and RealClearPolitics that aggregates stories from a multitude of sources.

MSNBC, Fox, NYT, WaPO and CNN are highly partisan and should be read with that in mind and then weird ones such as Breitbart should be ignored. I read China Daily to understand what the current spin out of the Chinese Communist Party is.

I haven't found a great source for news from Japan, and am still looking for a reliable source from Brazil and South America.

I go to RealClearPolitics a lot and I find a lot there from both sides. There are a lot of pro-Trump articles on there. But 99% of them are clearly written to preach to the choir and are sloppy with the facts because they can be. They're written like that because they obviously don't expect the reader to come from the other point of view. Occasionally you might find one that is written at a higher level and maybe appeared as an op-ed in a respectable source like the Wall Street Journal, or something. But invariably even those usually have a glaring omission of fact that would tank the entire argument if it were included. There are sloppy anti-Trump pieces on there as well, but in general they make much stronger points.

You would agree Trump is a total buffoon. You can just read his twitter feed sans any commentary to see that. The job of those writing the anti-stuff is far easier.

[BlueK]

Here is a very rare insightful piece from Fox:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/...one-thing.html

When I recently asked a North Korean defector, who I have known for years, how he would describe dictator Kim Jong Un to President Trump as he prepares for his summit—or showdown—in Singapore, an instantaneous, one-word answer was all that was needed.

“Hitler.”

I paused, partly out of shock, but partly out of anger, as my own family was forced to leave Greece after World War II, all thanks to the countless horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany.

I wanted to ask my friend why he offered such a brief but unsettling answer—attempting to point out what that meant, the severity of such a statement and how it seemed sometimes almost overused, to the point of being nearly worthless.

But I never got the chance.

Knowing him all too well, I could tell he was growing impatient. He cut me off, something he has never done, his tone shifting all so slightly, as if I had awakened something inside of him.

He explained that “[W]e should not be fooled. The Kim family is as if Hitler had children—a three-generation Hitler dynasty—all ruling over my people for seven decades. They have killed millions of us [Koreans], starved us, broken up our families, forced millions to live in poverty or concentration camps, all the while building terrible weapons that can kill millions of people. Who else should I compare the Kim’s to?”

The phoneline then went quiet. I thought maybe we lost the connection. I thought I might have pushed too far. But after a few seconds, he would speak again. While not one to scream or even show emotion—Kim’s thugs beat that out of him thanks to torture sessions he described to me that can only be described as crimes against humanity—I could feel pain mixing with anger, even thousands of miles away, that was buried deep down, crying to come out.

While the words would come, there was a pulsing delivery attached to them, as if primitive human language could never convey the pieces the Kim regime had chipped away from his soul, or the anger that wrapped around him, like a blanket of terror, that he could never shake off.

Before asking to move on from this subject, he added one thing, predicting what North Korea will do in Singapore: “Kim will lie, agree, shake hands—do whatever he can to wash away his family’s sins. And then, just when you think he is respectable, a so-called world leader, he will cheat you again. Just like Hitler.”

And history tells us he very well could be right.

Perhaps only someone touched by the terror that is the Kim regime could provide the only actionable advice to the leader of the free world: trusting a tyrant is a fool’s errand.

And yet, President Trump will have to do just that.

---He then points out a few cases where the US dealt with other countries and leaders with horrific human rights records and something good or not terrible came from it. But the price can be extremely high, such as Chamberlain with Hitler.

"...history cries out for caution, skepticism and the constant testing of North Korea’s intentions. As is most likely the case, Kim will never keep his word, trying to draw us into years of negotiations, all the while building more nuclear weapons and better missiles. History shows us that is Pyongyang’s preferred playbook, and it works all too well to change tack now."

[Topper]

For those who purposely avoid information it's hard to know that.

But if you have a decent brain and some critical thinking skills and you read a variety of sources, it's not really THAT hard to discern where the truth probably lies. The propaganda blogs like Breitbart in most cases are writing about the same stories you see everywhere else. The thing is, you don't know that they're leaving out key details for the purpose of being manipulative and distorting, unless you read the other sources also.

To just say they're all hyper partisan and dishonest, etc., without even trying to read anything is being lazy. To only follow one source is being purposely ignorant.

The better and more reliable sources are Reuters, BBC, AP, Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Wella, das Handelsblatt, die Franfurter Allgemeine, le Figaro, Agence France Presse, The Times of India, and a few others by country. I also like FiveThirtyEight, and RealClearPolitics that aggregates stories from a multitude of sources.

MSNBC, Fox, NYT, WaPO and CNN are highly partisan and should be read with that in mind and then weird ones such as Breitbart should be ignored. I read China Daily to understand what the current spin out of the Chinese Communist Party is.

I haven't found a great source for news from Japan, and am still looking for a reliable source from Brazil and South America.

[BlueK]

Putting breitbart in the same category is laughable.

For those who purposely avoid information it's hard to know that.

But if you have a decent brain and some critical thinking skills and you read a variety of sources, it's not really THAT hard to discern where the truth probably lies. The propaganda blogs like Breitbart in most cases are writing about the same stories you see everywhere else. The thing is, you don't know that they're leaving out key details for the purpose of being manipulative and distorting, unless you read the other sources also.

To just say they're all hyper partisan and dishonest, etc., without even trying to read anything is being lazy. To only follow one source is being purposely ignorant.

[Maximus]

I do not know what to believe, but given the hotly partisan nature of many of these organizations, somebody speculating that T talks with anybody is nothing more than that. As you know, I do not listen or watch or read Foxnews, unless somebody forwards to me an article from Fox. I also don't regularly read MSNBC, CNN or Breitbart.

Putting breitbart in the same category is laughable.

[Topper]

So are you saying Trump doesn't talk to Hannity that much? What exactly doesn't seem believable to you?

I do not know what to believe, but given the hotly partisan nature of many of these organizations, somebody speculating that T talks with anybody is nothing more than that. As you know, I do not listen or watch or read Foxnews, unless somebody forwards to me an article from Fox. I also don't regularly read MSNBC, CNN or Breitbart.

[Eddie]

Great to know that the two people we've put in place to spare the world from a nuclear holocaust are Donald Trump and Dennis Rodman. Imagine submitting that script to the studios just a few years ago. They should take along Roseanne to add the feminine touch.

Working in the child welfare world - I used to know a gal who would say "some of our kids in foster care are pretty weird. And some of our foster parents are pretty weird. Weird and weird match, sometimes, and it works out for the best for both of them."

I'm hoping her theory hold water in this regard, and that these two world leaders who have worked to out-weird each other will be a great match for this discussion.

[BlueK]

IF Newsweek or the New York Mag published it, it must be true.

So are you saying Trump doesn't talk to Hannity that much? What exactly doesn't seem believable to you?