Tag: North Korea

…meanwhile…

(WED 9/7/22)

Nuking Mar-a-Lagogate… A document describing a foreign government’s military defense, including nuclear capabilities was found by FBI agents in their August 8 search of Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club, The Washington Post reports. (Picture above is for illustration purposes only -- NOT the document(s) in question.) The FBI also discovered documents so sensitive that only the current, sitting president, some of his cabinet members or near-cabinet level officials “could authorize other government officials to know details of a special access program,” the report states, citing unnamed sources. 

On August 8, serving a Justice Department warrant, the FBI found documents stored at Trump’s Florida estate, more than 300 of them classified, with “uneven security,” 18 months after the former president dragged himself out of the White House, WaPosays.

Who has the nukes?: Sources declined to identify to the WaPo the government involved. It’s unclear what level of nuclear capability might be involved, but for the record, here’s the list of known nuclear weapon powers, beside the United States, according to World Population Review: Israel, North Korea (where the former president has had a “love affair” with its leader), Pakistan, India, China, France, the United Kingdom and, of course, Russia.

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Bannon indicted again … Ex-President Trump confidant Stephen K. Bannon is expected to surrender to New York State prosecutors Thursday over a new criminal indictment over the $25 million “We Build the Wall” fundraiser, The Washington Post reports. The indictment alleges that Bannon and “several others” defrauded contributors who thought they were funding a portion of then-President Trump’s wall on the southern border with Mexico. 

Uh-oh: Trump pardoned Bannon in 2020 over federal charges in the “We Build the Wall” scheme, but presidential pardons do not apply to state prosecutions.

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Massachusetts primary… Donald J. Trump-backed candidate Geoff Diel won Tuesday’s Republican primary for governor, 55.6% to moderate Chris Doughty’s 44.4%, according to Ballotpedia, despite no reports of Democratic Party money helping his campaign. Diel, who is fervently anti-abortion and was the state chairman for Trump’s 2016 campaign, faces Maura Healey on November 8. Healey took 85.4% of the Democratic primary vote Tuesday, and her only challenger, Sonia Chang-Diaz, who unofficially withdrew. 

Healey is now a heavy favorite to win the general election to replace outgoing Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and would become the state’s first openly gay governor. While outsiders think of Massachusetts as deep-blue, it has had only one Democratic governor since 1990, Deval Patrick. 

Note: The reality of Massachusetts is that it has a socially liberal, fiscally conservative constituency, according to Newsweek.Considering its gubernatorial history of the past 32 years, it seems an ideal place for the vastly diminished moderate wing of the GOP.

--Todd Lassa

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Twitter Trump Handed the Senate to the Democrats

By Bryan Williams

In thinking about this column, I tried to find a theme. The one that kept coming to my mind was “Let the chips fall where they may.” Ever since it became clear in early November 2020 that President Trump had lost the election, he and many Republicans have gone on a journey of lawsuits and arm-twisting with a goal of making those chips fall where they wanted them to.

Trump and the loyal Republicans in Washington spent the last two months losing the Georgia Senate runoff. What did they expect when they blurted out, “Don’t vote because the system is rigged, but please vote to defeat these socialist Democrats?” Huh?

I voted for Trump in November and I didn’t hold my nose. He won me over because I was able to separate Twitter Trump from the Trump who presides. I generally agreed with his policies. He cut taxes. He was prudent with the use of the military. He confronted China and engaged North Korea’s Kim Jong-un (with mixed results, but hey, he did more than most other presidents). Trump’s administration got us out of the Paris Climate Accord and Iran Nuclear Deal, which I think were both stinkers. He also had much success in advancing peace in the Middle East.

Then he lost in November and Twitter Trump took over and the wheels really fell off. Georgia voters noticed, and to their credit, organizers there were able to turn out the Democratic vote in volume not seen in decades.

It wasn’t all Trump’s fault. Incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue were weak candidates in my opinion. Loeffler is a rich white woman who was appointed and never chosen by Georgia voters, to begin with. Perdue refused to debate Ossoff, which was a huge mistake. Also, my theory that the younger or more vigorous candidate usually wins held true in the case of Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.

So now we have government run by the Democrats. It wasn’t inevitable, but Trump and his loyal Republicans made it inevitable with their odd behavior of the past two months. Will the Dems muck it up with their newfound power? As the outgoing President said so often, “We’ll see.”

By Bryan Williams In thinking about this column, I tried to find a theme. The one that kept […]

Debate Audience Wins as Trump and Biden Mind the Mute Button

By Charles Dervarics

Voters claimed at least a small victory Thursday night when the major party presidential candidates had to accept a tool familiar to anyone working in remote video meetings during the pandemic – the all-important mute button.

Both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden had to follow this new rule, which significantly reduced interruptions during their final debate in Nashville. The president showed occasional frustration at having to wait for an open microphone, but the new guideline kept shouting to a minimum and gave viewers a chance to hear the candidates’ views on key issues.

During the 90-minute debate moderated by NBC’s Kristen Welker, the two candidates sparred over every issue from COVID-19 and race relations to China, North Korea, immigration and climate change.

On COVID-19, Trump laid blame primarily on China and said that “we’re rounding the corner” on the virus with a vaccine announcement likely within weeks. “We can’t close up our nation or we won’t have a nation,” he said. Biden countered that the president’s performance has fallen far short with 220,000 Americans dead from the disease. “Anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States,” he said.

The former vice president also said he planned to implement “Bidencare,” with Affordable Care Act improvements such as lower premiums and drug prices and the ability of low-income individuals to opt into Medicaid. Trump criticized this plan, saying it would lead to socialized medicine and a loss of private insurance for 180 million Americans. 

An extended segment on race relations saw the candidates approach the issue from different directions. Trump touted his administration’s passage of criminal justice reform and more funding for historically Black colleges, saying the Obama-Biden administration failed on these and other issues. “I ran because of you,” he said. “If I thought you did a good job, I would’ve never run.”

For his part, Biden said he regretted past support for minimum sentencing laws and promised to give states $20 billion to eliminate these standards and create drug courts so offenders go to treatment rather than prison. “We should fundamentally change the system, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Some of the most heated moments came when Trump challenged Biden over alleged misdeeds by his son in gaining international business and whether the former vice president benefitted from deals in China and Ukraine. Biden denied any wrongdoing and the debate turned to Trump’s own international business dealings, bank accounts and unseen tax returns. At one point, Biden turned to the camera and noted that the election is “not about his family or my family. It’s about your family, and your family’s hurting badly.”

With the debates now complete, both candidates head into the final 11 days of campaigning. Nearly 50 million Americans already have cast early votes, with Election Day set for Nov. 3.

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