North Korea upgrades nuclear facility despite Trump-Kim summit, satellite images show

Trump may have jumped the gun boasting about his denuclearization agreement with North Korea. Although I was optimistic and Trump tried his best I'm not surprised regarding this latest development and said so in this April post.

 North Korea's Kim Jong Un crosses DMZ line for historic meeting with South Korea 

North Korea just like China has a long track record... a trail of deceit, broken promises, and out-and-out lies.

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President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just signed an agreement calling for denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. Buzz60

North Korea continues to upgrade a major nuclear research facility despite President Donald Trump's claim that leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to disarm, according to new satellite images and a research paper published by a North Korea monitoring group. 

Experts at 38 North, a Baltimore-based website devoted to analysis of North Korea, concluded the images show that "improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace." The satellite images are from June 21. 

That's less than two weeks after Trump boasted of a diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program after decades of hostility. 

Trump and Kim signed a joint declaration at a summit in Singapore on June 12 and pledged to work toward peace and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. "We’re ready to write a new chapter between our nations," Trump said at a news conference following the summit. He called his meeting with Kim "honest, direct and productive."

The improvements to the Yongbyon facility include modifications to 

a plutonium production reactor’s cooling system and various support facilities. Uranium enrichment, a key component for civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons, is still taking place, according to 38 North's interpretation of the images. 

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to 38 North's analysis. 

The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center is located about 60 miles north of the country's capital Pyongyang and is a core part of its nuclear weapons program. 

Still, the monitoring group conceded in its research paper that the ongoing improvements to the Yongbyon facility should not necessarily be seen as having any direct relationship to North Korea’s recent pledge to denuclearize. 

"The North’s nuclear cadre can be expected to proceed with business as usual until specific orders are issued from Pyongyang," the authors of the report said. 

In an apparent sign of goodwill before the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea in May claimed it demolished a separate nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, which sits in a sparsely populated mountainous region in the country's northeast.

But the Singapore summit has been criticized for being light on details of any policy changes and producing only an intention to denuclearize.

It did not produce anything on how to get it done. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. will regularly assesses Pyongyang's seriousness toward abandoning its nuclear weapons program but has not committed to a timeline or roadmap. 

"North Korea is not obligated to any specific actions as of yet, but (these images) certainly underscore the importance of continuing negotiations, and getting a detailed agreement in place to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program," said Jenny Town, managing editor at 38 North, in emailed comments. "This is the true test of the Trump administration, to now see if they have the will and ability to do the hard work needed to move past lofty goals to practical and sustainable solutions." 

North Korea upgrades nuclear facility despite Trump-Kim summit, satellite images show

Sotomayor and Ginsburg Issue Scathing Dissent of SCOTUS Travel Ban Decision

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

No big surprise here. Two appointed by Barry, two by Clinton.

But I'm here to address the witch without a broom on the right. This is what she said about Trump before the election and made no bones about it.

"I can't imagine what this place would be -- I can't imagine what the country would be -- with Donald Trump as our president,"

"He is a faker," she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point as if presenting a legal brief. "He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. ... How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that."

My initial reaction was she should have been fired on the spot. Then I discovered this:

No federal judge can be “fired” in the conventional sense. They can only be impeached by the House and removed by the Senate for whatever Congress determines to be “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

It is interesting, though, to speculate about how an unsatisfactory Supreme Court justice might be pressured to resign. Because they have life tenure, some justices become mentally unclear, (Ginsburg to a tee) and others physically can no longer handle the demanding workload. (Ginsburg makes Anthony Bourdain look energetic). Traditionally, some of the other justices take it upon themselves to speak to the underperforming justice when it gets bad enough. First, they drop hints, then they say it outright: you need to stand down.

So when is this event going to take place?

Does anyone in their right mind truly believe she would ever rule in favor of Trump?

Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me. Her mind is shot - resign!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 13, 2016

Keep this in mind. If Trump does 8 he'll get at least two more. No way 

Ginsburg is going to make 2024 and Stephens is already talking about retirement.

Update:


Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire - letting Trump pick ANOTHER conservative justice to replace key swing vote

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The Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s travel ban Tuesday, siding with the president in Trump v. Hawaii. The 5-4 decision legally allows vast immigration restriction from several majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

While the court’s opinion stated the president had “sufficient national security justification” to order the travel ban, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a scorching dissent calling attention to Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign road.

“The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty,” they wrote.”Our Founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment. The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns.”

Their quotation refers to a statement Trump made in December 2015. “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” he said then, at a South Carolina rally.

“The full record paints a far more harrowing picture from which a reasonable observer would readily conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by hostility and animus toward the Muslim faith,” they wrote.

The dissent continued to give Trump’s full statement on banning Muslims, which remained on his website until May 2017, several months into his presidency. From there, Sotomayor and Ginsburg account every moment during Trump’s campaign, month by month, where he defended his position on banning Muslims. After some time, Trump’s language surrounding a ban took a turn, focusing instead on “radical Islamic terrorism.”

“Asked in July 2016 whether he was ‘pull[ing] back from’ his pledged Muslim ban, Trump responded, ‘I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion,'” Sotomayor and Ginsburg account in their dissent. “He then explained that he used different terminology because ‘[p]eople were so upset when [he] used the word Muslim.'”

Continuing their account to when Trump signed the travel ban and thereafter, Sotomayor and Ginsburg provide detailed evidence of Trump’s personal view on Muslim immigrants and how he incorporated this rhetoric into his political policies, determining that with all the evidence, the travel ban is clearly motivated by anti-Muslim fervor.

“Our Constitution demands, and our country deserves, a Judiciary willing to hold the coordinate branches to account when they defy our most sacred legal commitments,” Sotomayor concludes. “Because the Court’s decision today has failed in that respect, with profound regret, I dissent.”

Sotomayor and Ginsburg Issue Scathing Dissent of SCOTUS Travel Ban Decision

Fox News suspends Trump ex-staffer for 'cotton-picking mind' comment

We sure are a sensitive bunch. I was under the belief some people use the phrase 'cotton-picking' in lieu of cursing. I guess I'm wrong. But to put it in context anyone remember this exchange?

"You Bow-Tying White Boys" Jehmu Greene Drops Racial Slur on Tucker (Throwback)

Video 411

So certainly if "cotton-picking" is racist "You Bow-Tying White Boys" has to be right? 

Apparently not. Shamu was never suspended for a minute and still appears on FOX.

 Bugs Bunny is gonna be next:

"The euphemism was used in early Western films and Bugs Bunny cartoons, especially in the form ‘wait a cotton-picking minute!" 

Get a rope.

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Fox News has suspended a former staffer from President Donald Trump’s campaign over his remark that a black panelist was out of his ‘cotton-picking mind’.

David Bossie, who is white, was suspended from appearing on the network for two weeks over his comment to black Democratic Party strategist Joel Payne on Sunday morning’s Fox And Friends, the Daily Beast reported. 

Host Ed Henry had invited two guests on Sunday to debate Trump’s policies toward migrants and the fallout from the separation of families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The discussion grew tense over accusations that those criticizing Trump by comparing him to Adolf Hitler and his supporters to Nazis crossed the line.

A Fox News Channel host, Ed Henry (center), apologized on air to viewers after a segment in which a pro-Trump white guest, David Bossie (left), told a Democratic Party strategist, Joel Payne (right), who is black, that he was ‘out of his cotton-picking mind’

Bossie and Payne were vigorously debating when Bossie raised a controversial tweet by General Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, which compared family separations to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.

Bossie criticized Hayden’s tweet, which prompted Payne to reply that Hayden was not a liberal. 

‘You’re out of your cotton-picking mind,’ Bossie told Payne.

Payne was furious.

‘Cotton-picking mind?’ he said.

‘Brother, let me tell you something, I got some relatives who picked cotton and I’m not going to sit back and let you attack me on TV like that.’

‘Attack you how? You’re out of your mind,’ Bossie said.

‘This is ridiculous, this is what’s gone on in America.

‘This is what we’re about.’

Bossie made the remark in response to Payne’s suggestion that General Michael Hayden (above), the former head of the National Security Agency, was not a liberal

Hayden, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, raised eyebrows last week when he tweeted a photo of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in response to the news about family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border

After the segment, Henry returned to the air and distanced himself from Bossie’s comments.

‘Bossie used a phrase that clearly offended Joel Payne and offended many others,’ the Fox and Friends host said.

‘But I want to make sure that Fox News and this show, myself, we don’t agree with that particular phrase.

‘It was obviously offensive and these debates get fiery, that’s unfortunate.

‘We like to have honest and spirited debates, but not phrases like that, obviously.’

Bossie also apologized later on Sunday.

‘During a heated segment on Fox & Friends today, I should have chosen my words more carefully and never used the offensive phrase that I did,’ Bossie tweeted. 

‘I apologize to Joel Payne, Fox News, and its viewers.’

Over 2,000 migrant children were separated from their parents by federal agents after they crossed the border from Mexico, sparking national outrage. U.S. Border Patrol agents are seen above checking passports at the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Mexico this week

The network released a statement saying: ‘David Bossie’s comments today were deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate. His remarks do not reflect the sentiments of FOX News and we do not in any way condone them.’ 

The use of ‘cotton-picking’ as a euphemism for certain curse words did not originate with specific ties to slavery but has caused racial rows in recent years.

The phrase arose in the 17th century to describe something onerous or difficult, according to essayist Heather Michon as cited in the Globe and Mail. 

At the time, before the invention of the cotton gin, cotton-picking was a household activity not associated with slavery or industrial-scale production.

The euphemism was used in early Western films and Bugs Bunny cartoons, especially in the form ‘wait a cotton-picking minute!’ 

Fox News suspends Trump ex-staffer for 'cotton-picking mind' comment

Democrat Mark Pocan: Eliminate nation's immigration-enforcement agency, ICE

 What an asshole! 

This is what they're going to run on in 2020? Guess they're tone deaf. Didn't Trump win the last election because of their stupidity? Do you have any doubt, given the chance, they would tear down the border wall?

First, they took the unprecedented step of warning illegals of an impending ICE raid...

now they want to do away with the agency!!!

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 A Wisconsin congressman wants to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A press release from Representative Mark Pocan says he’ll introduce legislation this week. 

The 2nd District Democrat says the bill would dismantle ICE and “create a commission to provide recommendations to Congress” on how the federal government can implement a humane immigration enforcement system . . . while transferring necessary functions to other agencies.” Pocan tweeted using #EliminateICE: "Stories like this are why I’m introducing legislation that would abolish @ICEgov and crack down on the agency’s blanket directive to target and round up individuals and families."

Pocan made a recent trip to the U.S.-Mexican border and says he “witnessed the nation’s immigration crisis” there. With Republicans in control of the House, Pocan’s bill is unlikely to advance.

Democrat Mark Pocan: Eliminate nation's immigration-enforcement agency, ICE

This story from CNN

Russell Crowe to star as Fox News' Roger Ailes in Showtime miniseries

By Frank Pallotta NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

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Well, it appears Harvey Weinstein, a Democrat, who singlehandedly started the Me Too movement did not exhibit sufficient deviant sexual behavior to warrant a miniseries. 

Ailes is dead. So how much do you want to bet this is going to be an exercise in Trump bashing.

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— Russell Crowe will play Fox News founder and chairman Roger Ailes in a new miniseries for Showtime, the network announced on Monday.

The series, which will run for eight episodes, is based the reporting by journalist and Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman, who wrote, "The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News -- and Divided a Country."

Tom McCarthy, the director of "Spotlight," will executive produce with Jason Blum, who produced "Get Out." McCarthy co-wrote the initial episode with Sherman, Showtime said in its press release.

"In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today. We've seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes." David Nevins, Showtime's CEO, said in a statement, in reference to the fictional main character in "Citizen Kane."

Nevins added that with Crowe in the lead role, the series "promises to be a defining story for this era." The series will be told through multiple points of view and will focus on Ailes' rise and fall at Fox News.

Ailes, who resigned as Fox News chairman in 2016 amid sexual harassment allegations, died last year at the age of 77. He's credited with playing a significant role in helping to establish Donald Trump as a credible political figure during the 2016 campaign by featuring him on Fox's programs.

"To understand the events that led to the rise of Donald Trump, one must understand Ailes," Showtime said in its announcement. "The upcoming limited series takes on that challenge, focusing primarily on the past decade in which Ailes arguably became the Republican Party's de facto leader, while flashing back to defining events in Ailes' life, including an initial meeting with Richard Nixon on the set of The Mike Douglas Show that gave birth to Ailes' political career and the sexual harassment accusations and settlements that brought his Fox News reign to an end."

Crowe, who won Best Actor for 2000's "Gladiator," is one of the biggest and most recognizable stars in Hollywood starring in acclaimed films such as "A Beautiful Mind" and "L.A. Confidential" and blockbusters such as "Les Miserables" and "Man of Steel."

This story from CNN