#kim jong un 2021

[imagitory]

I've never been more heartbroken in my life.

I was gobsmacked in 2016, don't get me wrong. I was devastated and frightened and shaken beyond words. I even had to go behind a wall and collect myself at one point that horrible November 9th, 2016, after colliding with a man wearing a red MAGA hat at work. A good chunk of us at work talked amongst ourselves about it, offering each other comfort.

But this? This is different. I could imagine dumb people making excuses for voting for Trump in 2016 -- saying that they thought a businessman would be good for the economy, saying that they wanted someone who wasn't a "Washington insider" like Hilary Clinton. Sure, it was stupid, but people can be stupid. Quite frankly, a lot of people are stupid, in this country and otherwise.

But now? Anyone who voted for Trump now has voted for a man who not only rounded up immigrants and put them in concentration camps separated from their families; bungled the response to COVID-19 so badly that the American death toll easily surpassed every other country on Earth; has poisoned the Supreme Court to the extent that they overturned years of precedence with Roe V. Wade and has basically given Trump cart-blanche to do whatever he wants while he's president; was the first president in history to refuse to concede on election day; was impeached for crimes in office not once but TWICE; was instrumental to and passionately supportive of the full-on attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 that could've very easily resulted in the deaths of his own Vice President and multiple members of Congress; has spoken glowingly of despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and even said he will be "a dictator on day one" if elected again; has both used slogans originally used by modern American Neo-Nazis ("America First") and purportedly told one of his ex-subordinates that he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler's...but also has by the day proven more and more just how mentally inept, vindictive, and mean-spirited he truly is.

And unlike in his previous races, Trump is ahead in the popular vote too. We can't just blame this on the electoral college being antiquated and gerrymandered AF like in the Trump-Clinton or Bush-Gore elections. Even if all of the third-party voters in this country had grown a bloody brain cell and voted for Harris so as to show solidarity against Trump and his form of American fascism, it still somehow wouldn't be enough. We could potentially blame this on lower voter turn-out -- according to what I'm seeing so far, even with all the votes not counted in this race yet, it looks like there were far less votes cast this election than in the last one, though likely still more than the 2016 race. But even so, I don't think that's the only problem. I truly think there were just a lot of people who turned out en-masse to vote for Trump. And all I can think in regards to those people is...

This is beyond stupidity or even selfishness. This is cruelty. This is large swaths of people deciding that they want fellow American citizens to suffer -- because in their minds, if those people suffer, that'll somehow make them happy. This is a large chunk of America saying, "yeah, you know all that crap about 'liberty and justice for all'? Screw that, I want a 'strong man' to bully people different from me for my own amusement." And -- perhaps -- there's also an element of feeling like their vote doesn't really have any consequences for them, so why should they care if the man they voted for is a god-awful person? It's not like that man will hurt them.

I had hoped. I had hoped, seeing the outpouring of support from liberals, independents, and conservatives for Harris/Walz. I'd hoped, seeing how many ex-Trump appointees were standing up against him, how much people were shouting their disdain for Project 2025 from the rooftops, and how many women were protesting in the face of Roe V. Wade being overturned. I truly had started to hope that America would prove we'd grown beyond our country's own original sin -- how our United States preached freedom for all while still being built on the backs of slaves and refusing to grant a vote to over half their population -- by electing a smart, successful, charismatic woman of color who sees our country as great in potential and wants us to pursue that potential as our first female president, rather than backtracking all the slow progress we've made over the last 200+ years.

But now...my hope has faded. My heart is in pieces and the world is so dark. I hardly know how I'll function at work tomorrow, even if I know somehow, I have to try. We'll all have to stand somehow. Somehow, someway...we'll have to find the strength. We'll have to stand, and we'll have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like we're a Little Mermaid walking on knives.

We'll have to stand.

[beardedmrbean]

North Korean authorities have been punishing doctors who carry out abortions and the providers of contraceptives amid a drive by the country to boost its birth rate, according to a recent report.

Radio Free Asia cited a medical field source in the northern province of Ryanggang, which borders China, in its article. The source, who requested anonymity for their own safety, said the head of the obstetrics and gynecology department of Paegam County Hospital was put on trial for having conducted at-home abortions.

The doctor, who conducted one abortion at home that resulted in the death of the woman, was sentenced to five years in prison, according to Radio Free Asia. His trial was held in a conference room of a medical university hospital.

North Korea's fertility rate, or the number of babies expected per woman's lifetime, dropped to 1.8 births per woman last year, per estimates by the United Nations Population Fund. A fertility rate of 2.1 is considered the minimum rate necessary for a population to sustain itself over time.

An OB-GYN working at a hospital in Unhung County, another administrative unit in Ryanggang, was handed a three-year sentence. She had previously been sanctioned for illegally terminating a pregnancy in 2021.

The pair carried out the clandestine abortions at home, as many as three in a day, according to the source. The procedures reportedly cost 30,000 North Korean won ($33), equivalent to an average monthly salary and enough to buy 10 pounds of rice.

"Typically, OB-GYN doctors go to a pregnant woman's home to perform abortions in order to leave no trace, but these two doctors had set up medical equipment in their own homes," the source said.

They added that the department head in Paegam County had reached retirement age this year. The Unhung County doctor has two daughters who are middle school students.

RFA cited sources who said the government had raised doctors' salaries by a factor of 40, now ranging between $5-$11 won per month, to disincentivize earning extra money outside of their regular jobs.

Vendors of contraceptives are also reportedly being targeted, another source told the outlet.

She said she knew of two such merchants in the city of Hyesan who had their stalls seized by authorities in July. Late last month, three others were issued with heavy fines and had their booths confiscated.

These vendors were also banned from conducting business in the market ever again.

The North Korean embassy in China didn't immediately respond to a written request for comment.

North Korea banned abortions during the "Arduous March," a period of extreme economic hardship and famine that gripped the country between 1994 and 1998, with deaths ranging from hundreds of thousands to upwards of 2 million.

North Korea's demographic crunch is also a concern for its neighbors, whose policies to encourage births are so far failing to bear fruit. The fertility rate stands at 1.4 in Russia, 1.2 in Japan, 1.0 in China, 0.85 in Taiwan and 0.72 in South Korea.

However, North Korea is even more susceptible to the negative impact of the trend because of international embargoes on advanced machinery, imposed over Pyongyang's missile and nuclear weapons programs. The country therefore continues to rely more on physical labor and outdated production techniques than other countries in the region.

Late last year, in remarks during the country's fifth National Congress of Mothers, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un named the declining birthrate as one of the country's major social challenges and appealed to North Korean women to do their part to reverse the trend.

[tomorrowusa]

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is apparently in need of medicine.

Kim drinks too much, eats too much, and smokes too much. He is a psychopath who once had an official stripped naked and eaten by dogs. So if you were his doctor, would you tell him that something is wrong with him and that he needs to adjust his lifestyle?

Kim spends a huge amount of money developing nuclear weapons but neglects healthcare – especially public health. North Korea had a disastrous response to COVID-19, even worse than that of the Trump administration. So even the Kim clan, communist absolute monarchs, can't rely on internal health providers and medicines.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has regained weight and appears to have obesity-related health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and his officials are looking for new medicines abroad to treat them, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Monday. The 40-year-old Kim, known for heavy drinking and smoking, comes from a family with a history of heart problems. Both his father and grandfather, who ruled North Korea before his 2011 inheritance of power, died of heart issues. Some observers said Kim, who is about 170 centimeters (5 feet, 7 inches) tall and previously weighed 140 kilograms (308 pounds), appeared to have lost a large amount of weight in 2021, likely from changing his diet. But recent state media footage show he has regained the weight. On Monday, the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s main spy agency, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Kim is estimated to weigh about 140 kilograms (308 pounds) again and is in a high-risk group for heart disease, according to Lee Seong Kweun, one of the lawmakers.

There is already speculation about Kim Jong-un's successor. He has a tween daughter who seems to be the favorite at this point.

The NIS in its Monday briefing maintained its assessment that Kim’s preteen daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, is bolstering her likely status as her father’s heir apparent. But the NIS said it cannot rule out the possibility that she could be replaced by one of her siblings because she hasn’t been officially designated as her father’s successor. Speculation about Kim Ju Ae, who is about 10 or 11 years old, flared when she accompanied her father at high-profile public events starting in late 2022. State media called her Kim Jong Un’s “most beloved” or “respected” child and churned out footage and photos proving her rising political standing and closeness with her father. The NIS told lawmakers that at least 60% of Kim Ju Ae’s public activities have involved attending military events with her father.

If Kim Jong-un suddenly dies, there's the potential for a succession battle which could be like House of the Dragon but with nukes.

[levysoft]

In Corea del Nord è stata eseguita la condanna a morte di un ragazzo di 22 anni giudicato colpevole di aver visto film sudcoreani e ascoltato musica come il k-pop – genere musicale sudcoreano mescolato o ispirato alla musica pop statunitense – in violazione della legge che vieta di farlo. Lo ha evidenziato l’ultimo rapporto sui diritti umani in Corea del Nord, diffuso giovedì dal ministero per l’Unificazione della Corea del Sud: è la prima volta che il governo sudcoreano conferma che una persona è stata uccisa per motivi simili in Corea del Nord, ma non sarebbe il primo caso simile.

Il rapporto si basa sulle testimonianze di 649 persone scappate dalla Corea del Nord e la notizia della condanna a morte su quanto raccontato in forma anonima da una di queste. Il ragazzo era originario della provincia dello Hwanghae Meridionale, nel sud-ovest della Corea del Nord, ed è stato ucciso pubblicamente nel 2022 per aver ascoltato 70 canzoni sudcoreane e visto tre film, che poi avrebbe passato ad altre sette persone.

Questo viola una legge approvata nel 2020 che proibisce qualunque forma di diffusione di «ideologia e cultura reazionaria» originaria di «paesi ostili»: riguarda in particolare la cultura sudcoreana, che la Corea del Nord ritiene una grave minaccia per la propria società, si rivolge soprattutto alle persone giovani e in caso di violazioni prevede appunto la pena di morte. Tra le altre cose la legge vieta alle donne di indossare abiti da sposa bianchi, di bere vino dai calici o di indossare occhiali da sole, tutte abitudini diffuse sia in Occidente che in Corea del Sud. Nel 2022 inoltre il regime di Kim Jong Un ha introdotto ulteriori misure che vietano alle persone nordcoreane di indossare indumenti come i jeans e maglie con marchi stranieri, così come di portare capelli tinti o troppo lunghi.

Quello diffuso giovedì è il secondo rapporto che riguarda gli abusi e le violazioni dei diritti delle persone in Corea del Nord dopo quello del 2023, ed evidenzia altri casi di esecuzioni pubbliche per chi aveva violato la legge. In base a un rapporto pubblicato nel dicembre del 2021 dal Transitional Justice Working Group, un’organizzazione per i diritti umani di Seul, le persone uccise pubblicamente per aver guardato o diffuso media sudcoreani, tra cui video k-pop, erano almeno sette. Il rapporto diceva che da quando Kim Jong Un governava il paese c’erano state almeno 23 uccisioni pubbliche: due per impiccagione e le altre con armi da fuoco.

[msbeth313]

November 6, 2024

I have struggled all day to put my thoughts into words. I would like to say that I am surprised that this country has once again chosen a man over a more qualified woman for president. What I am surprise about is that people not only saw this man for who he is—a misogynist, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, and anti-intellectual, from his first term as president, and thought it was better than a woman. A woman who is arguably the most qualified candidate for president ever, having served the past four years as vice president. Kamala Harris has served as Attorney General of California from 2011-2017, U.S. Senator from California from 2017-2021. And these were all after being a District Attorney in San Fransisco from 2002-2011.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the only president ever to have been impeached twice, attempted to incite a coup, and has been found guilty on 34 felonies and has been found liable for rape. His former cabinet members cautioned the public numerous times about his unfitness for office and his fascist ambitions. He has called those in the miliary and gold star families (those who have lost family members while in the field of battle) “Suckers and losers.” He has made “friends” with dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. I won’t even talk about how many people died under his incompetence during the Covid pandemic.

I was talking with my mom earlier this evening. I live with my mom, who will be 80 years old next year. I pretty much take care of her since my dad passed away in 2020 and she cannot live alone due to various issues with arthritis and neuropathy in her feet that makes her mobility compromised and she no longer drives. My mom lives on social security, her pension and my dad’s pension. It really is not all that much. I have been attempting to find a job myself that allows me to work from home or at least work close to home to be available in case she needs me. I was supposed to start a job this week, but it turned out being a fake.

I keep applying to jobs and not having any luck and you cannot tell me that under Trump things will be better. I also thought at some point in my life that I would have become a parent by this time in my life. I know that people are having kids nowadays in their 40’s like I am now, but honestly, now, there is just no way ever. Maybe if, somehow in the future if I get a good paying job, have my own home, do not have to take care of my mom, I would adopt, but the idea of bringing my own child into this world, into a world where Trump is president, where he will put RFK Jr. in charge of the health department (if you have no idea who he is or what he’s about, LOOK HIM UP, its terrifying for anyone who cares about children’s health). People who support Trump and other MAGA supporters may believe that they have won. They may feel that they have “gotten their country back.” But I feel that they will truly be surprised when they feel the effect of a second Trump administration. He has told us that he will be a dictator on day one. The only people who will benefit financially will be those who make more than $400,000 a year. It is not financially feasible to deport all of these “illegals” (by the way, NO ONE IS ILLEGAL, everyone is a HUMAN BEING, there is nothing more dehumanizing than calling someone an “Illegal”).

This is how Nazi Germany started. People thought Hitler was doing something “good for the country” at first too.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

On Tuesday, Rep. Claudia Tenney announced that she had nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his "groundbreaking efforts to foster peace and cooperation between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates" via the highly praised Abraham Accords. Tenney compared the former president's work to that of the 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the 1994 Oslo Accords, both of which were recognized and rewarded by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

"Donald Trump was instrumental in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years," Tenney wrote in a statement. "For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy 'professionals,' and international organizations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false." "The valiant efforts by President Trump in creating the Abraham Accords were unprecedented and continue to go unrecognized by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, underscoring the need for his nomination today," she continued. "Now more than ever, when Joe Biden's weak leadership on the international stage is threatening our country's safety and security, we must recognize Trump for his strong leadership and his efforts to achieve world peace. I am honored to nominate former President Donald Trump today and am eager for him to receive the recognition he deserves." This is not the first time Trump has been nominated for the prestigious award as the result of his Middle East policy. As the CBC reports, the former president received a slew of nominations from all over the world for the 2021 prize. Among those who put his name forward citing the Abraham Accords were a quartet of Australian law professors and conservative members of the Swedish and Norwegian parliament. The latter, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, had previously nominated Trump for the prize following his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. [source]

----------------------------

The difference between the numerous global wars taking place under the Democrats and the unusually peaceful Trump years is striking and undeniable: No new wars were started under Trump's presidency, and he made great strides in de-escalating conflict everywhere.

Whereas, six months into taking office, Biden started bombing Syria, and during his term we have seen the U.S. send tens of billions of dollars worth of killing machines to Ukraine to run a proxy war against Russia, bringing the entire world closer to nuclear war than it has been in 40 years. and now it's Gaza. All this has happened in only 4 years, but the corporate media has pushed an entirely opposite narrative to the facts the whole time.

Trump is unique in that he is not owned or funded by the military-industrial complex, the biggest business in the world, that owns all the other little businesses, the news sites and TV stations. He disrupts the status quo, and that is why they are so scared of him, and have been doing everything they can to destroy him the past 5 years.

[mariacallous]

This past January, Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker, both experienced Korea-watchers, caught many by surprise when they wrote that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is preparing for war. That may be an exaggeration, but the concern is not misplaced. I have worked on the Korea nuclear problem in and out of government over the past three decades, and the Korean Peninsula seems more dangerous and volatile than at any time since 1950.

Since 2019, there have been three interrelated strategic shifts around the North Korean nuclear problem that have invalidated the core assumptions guiding United States and South Korean diplomacy since 1992. First, following the failed 2019 summit in Hanoi between Kim and former U.S. President Donald Trump, Kim revealed a five-year plan in 2021 for a major nuclear and missile buildup, including solid-fuel ICBMs, miniaturized warheads, tactical nuclear weapons, and hypersonic missiles. North Korea’s investment in its nuclear-industrial complex, along with Kim’s emphatic statements that it will not give up its nukes (which is embodied in its constitution and preemptive nuclear doctrine) underscore the strategic shift in posture.

These new capabilities and stated intentions have changed the strategic balance in Northeast Asia, posed new credibility questions about the United States’ extended deterrence, and fueled South Korea’s desire to obtain its own nuclear weapons.

Then there’s Pyongyang’s geopolitical repositioning. It began with Kim discarding the long-term North Korean goal of normalizing ties to the United States, aimed at balancing major powers. This underpinned the logic of three decades of nuclear diplomacy.

At the same time, Pyongyang bolstered ties with China, which had become tense after Beijing backed tough United Nations economic sanctions after North Korea’s nuclear tests in 2016 and 2017. Kim visited Beijing in January 2019, and Chinese President Xi Jinping followed with an exchange visit to Pyongyang that June. China, along with Russia, has since blocked U.S. efforts to impose new sanctions for North Korea’s ICBM tests.

The geopolitical shift intensified as Russia formed its new security partnership with North Korea after the Ukraine invasion, trading economic and military aid for ammunition and missiles. This move made China uncomfortable, as conveyed in private discussions with Chinese officials and thinktank experts. They fear Russian President Vladimir Putin is displacing Beijing’s leverage and creating a situation much like the 1950s and ’60s, when Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, played the two communist powers against each other.

The third shift is no less profound: In January, Kim abandoned a 70-year-old policy of reunification of what both North and South Korea defined as one familial nation divided by history, and declared South Korea as a “principal enemy.” He called for a change to North Korea’s constitution—erasing a commitment to reunification—dismantled agencies that handled North-South reconciliation, and tore down a reunification monument in Pyongyang that his father built.

Recent events reinforce these changes. For Kim, U.S. election cycles are often fun messaging opportunities. In September, Pyongyang launched a barrage of short-range ballistic missile tests, Kim vowed to make his nuclear force ready for combat with the United States, and then, for good measure, he published a rare photo of himself strolling through a top-secret uranium enrichment plant and pledged to build more nuclear weapons. But this is just a sneak preview of what we can expect.

Why does all this matter? For now, at least, Kim has taken both denuclearization and North-South reunification off the table—regardless of the fact that those remain the policy goals of the United States and South Korea, respectively.

The Korea problem is now embedded in zero-sum, great-power competition. The trend is toward two opposing blocs in Northeast Asia: There’s China, Russia, and North Korea, and then there’s the United States, South Korea, and Japan. The shared concerns about nuclear proliferation that enabled China and Russia to cooperate in the Six Party Talks (involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea) are no more. Kim is now emboldened as never before by his evolving nuclear and missile arsenal, support from Putin, and, at worst, indifference from China.

But don’t take my word for it. A 2023 report from the National Intelligence Council on North Korea outlined the new risk environment. Its judgment:

North Korea most likely will continue to use its nuclear weapons status to support coercive diplomacy, and almost certainly will consider increasingly risky coercive actions as the quality and quantity of its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal grows.

While the report assessed that Kim will not use nuclear weapons unless he “believes the regime is in peril,” it hinted at the specter of miscalculation by stating, “He may be willing to take greater conventional military risks, believing that nuclear weapons will deter an unacceptably strong US or South Korean response.”

While the report said “an offensive strategy that seeks to seize territory and achieve political dominance over the Peninsula” by force is “less likely than the strategy of coercion,” it makes an important caveat that I suspect the council might revise in hindsight:

An offensive strategy would become more likely if Kim believed he could overmatch South Korea’s military while deterring US intervention and maintaining China’s support, or if he concluded that a domestic or international crisis presented a last chance to accomplish revisionist goals.

What scenarios might result from such a strategy? One flashpoint that could escalate is the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the maritime border between North and South Korea. The NLL was delineated by the U.N. Command around the time of the armistice in 1953, but it is disputed by North Korea and is the source of long-standing grievances and episodic military clashes. In 2010, Pyongyang fired on Yeonpyeong, one of the five islands that the NLL defines as South Korean. The attack killed two Republic of Korea (ROK) Marines and also sunk a South Korean ship. North Korea also fired artillery shells near the island earlier this year.

In the same January speech where Kim called for the constitution to be changed and declared South Korea as his “principal enemy,” he also alluded to revising NLL border claims at a future Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) meeting: “As the southern border of our country has been clearly drawn, the illegal ‘northern limit line’ and any other boundary can never be tolerated, and if the ROK violates even 0.001 mm of our territorial land, air and waters, it will be considered a war provocation.” Kim has scheduled an SPA meeting for Oct. 7.

The risks arising from these realities on the Korean Peninsula and the geopolitical predicament in Northeast Asia suggest some dangerous, but plausible scenarios. First, there is the nuclear shadow scenario foreshadowed in the National Intelligence Council report and by South Korean analysts:

After denouncing a US-ROK military exercise, Pyongyang begins what appear live fire drills near two of the islands, then fires a barrage of artillery shells at them followed by troops landing on Yeonpyeong island. US efforts to restrain South Korea fail, and Seoul sends air and naval forces to the area, firing on North Korean ships and lands Marines on the island. As fighting ensues, Pyongyang fires a tactical nuclear weapon on a nearby uninhabited island.

Would the United States or South Korea respond militarily and risk escalation? Would China veto a U.N. Security Council resolution in the face of the first nuclear use since Hiroshima—or work with the United States to contain the situation? At a time when both the United States and South Korea lack reliable diplomatic or military channels of communication with Pyongyang, it could easily spin out of control.

A still more alarming scenario is a two-front war in Asia involving simultaneous Korean and Taiwan crises. In an in-depth 2023 report based on wargaming, interviews with officials, and workshops, Markus Garlauskas, former national intelligence officer for North Korea, detailed how deterrence could fail, and the logic and dynamics that could, for example, lead Kim to attack South Korea if China invaded Taiwan and the United States intervened militarily, diverting focus and resources. Or, conversely, the possibility of coordinated simultaneous offensives, where both China and North Korea launch attacks on Taiwan and South Korea.

Three nuclear weapon states in conflict (and one might speculate how Putin would act) may sound fantastical or, as some fear, sleepwalking toward Armageddon. While such worst-case scenarios are unlikely to occur anytime soon, North Korea’s geopolitical repositioning has raised the possibility of a dramatic move by Pyongyang in the next six to 18 months.

Both the United States and China lack a sense of urgency around the Korean Peninsula. Beijing, as Chinese officials tell me, sees Pyongyang’s actions as the fault of U.S. sanctions—not their problem. With conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East raging, and zero-sum competition with China high on the agenda, North Korea is and will likely continue to be on the back burner. But Kim Jong Un may have something to say about that.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.13 (after 1940)

1945 – World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army. 1945 – World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment. 1951 – Korean War: Battle of Chipyong-ni, which represented the "high-water mark" of the Chinese incursion into South Korea, commences. 1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game. 1955 – Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls. 1955 – Twenty-nine people are killed when Sabena Flight 503 crashes into Monte Terminillo near Rieti, Italy. 1960 – With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons. 1960 – Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. 1961 – An allegedly 500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears to anachronistically encase a spark plug. 1967 – American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain. 1975 – Fire at One World Trade Center (North Tower) of the World Trade Center in New York. 1978 – Hilton bombing: A bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman. 1979 – An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 0.5-mile (0.80 km) long section of the Hood Canal Bridge. 1981 – A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky. 1983 – A cinema fire in Turin, Italy, kills 64 people. 1984 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1990 – German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany. 1991 – Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad. Allied forces said the bunker was being used as a military communications outpost, but over 400 Iraqi civilians inside were killed. 1996 – The Nepalese Civil War is initiated in the Kingdom of Nepal by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre). 2001 – An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter magnitude scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 944. 2004 – The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". 2007 – Taiwan opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigns as the chairman of the Kuomintang party after being indicted on charges of embezzlement during his tenure as the mayor of Taipei; Ma also announces his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election. 2008 – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations. 2010 – A bomb explodes in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, India, killing 17 and injuring 60 more. 2011 – For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855. 2012 – The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 2017 – Kim Jong-nam, brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, is assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. 2021 – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is acquitted in his second impeachment trial. 2021 – A major winter storm causes blackouts and kills at least 82 people in Texas and northern Mexico.

[beardedmrbean]

Recently surfaced North Korean footage has captured the North Korean government's crackdown on citizens, including teenagers, for consuming banned South Korean media.

The footage, obtained by South Korean production company KBS Media, shows a public denunciation session where a group of young girls, including a 16-year-old student, are publicly humiliated and arrested for the offense.

Pyongyang maintains tight control over the flow of information within its borders, forbidding citizens from accessing foreign music, films, and TV series. Those caught violating these restrictions face severe penalties, including public shaming, imprisonment, and in some cases, execution.

The Kim Jong Un regime views South Korean media as a direct threat to its ideological purity and legitimacy, heightening crackdowns on such content in recent years.

The footage shows a young girl identified only as Choi, breaking down in tears during a public denunciation session—a form of organized group criticism employed by communist regimes such as North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and China under former Chairman Mao Zedong.

"I made the mistake of listening to and distributing impure published propaganda," Choi said into the microphone during the hearing, according to KBS's translation. The footage then shows her being led away in handcuffs.

Though such public punishments are commonplace, a North Korean defector surnamed Jang who fled the country in 2020 expressed shock at the public punishment of someone so young.

"I've never seen school students punished like this before," she told KBS. "The fact that they were handcuffed is really shocking to me."

The video is part of over 10 recordings obtained by KBS, most of which were produced after May 2021.

North Korea closed its borders in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country finally reopened its borders to returning citizens in August 2023.

Video under the cut

North Korea's rigid control over media intensified in 2020 when Pyongyang enacted what has been dubbed the "evil laws" as part of its crackdown on perceived external threats to ensure loyalty to the regime.

These laws target foreign cultural products, including media and also South Korean slang.

"The North Korean authorities have been policing and cracking down on foreign culture for over a decade now, but the three new laws formalize and strengthen the draconian punishment for the offenders," Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal analyst for Seoul-based NGO the Transitional Justice Working Group, told Newsweek.

Shin pointed out that the degree of punishment is linked to the gravity of the offense.

"The distributors are generally more harshly punished than the consumers," he said. "Similar to how other countries would deal with narcotics-related crimes."

The South Korean Ministry of Unification's 2023 report on human rights abuses in the North highlighted testimonies from defectors who witnessed public executions of young adults simply for watching K-dramas and listening to K-pop.

Pyongyang earlier this year amended its constitution to label Seoul as its primary enemy.

Despite the harsh punishments, South Korean media continues to penetrate North Korea, often via activists in the South who send USB drives filled with dramas and music into the North using balloons.

USB drives filled with South Korean media sent north by activists in the South have further inflamed tensions. The North has retaliated by sending balloons south laden with trash, and in some cases human waste.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson previously told Newsweek that Washington, DC advocates human rights and the free flow of information in and out of North Korea and condemns the country's three "evil laws" and "draconian punishments and youth targeting."

The North Korean embassy in Beijing, China, and U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.

[tomorrowusa]

We know how much Donald Trump enjoys nicknames.

To mark Trump's 78th birthday, Jimmy Kimmel recited 78 nicknames he's used for Trump in the past.

On a more serious note, Joy Reid drew a comparison between the way Kim Jong-un's flunkies worship him and the way House Republicans fawned over Trump during his first visit to Capitol Hill since his 06 January 2021 coup attempt as he returned to the scene of the crime.

[medusa1597]

im going through and deleting screenshots on the phone ive had since 2021 and apparently in early december of 2022 i read (and heavily screenshoted) the wiki pages of both kim jong-un and foucault back to back

[bongaboi]

The REAL power behind the North Korean throne revealed

Always careful to walk at least several paces behind her baby-faced brother and keep out of shot if cameras are around, she looks so pale and fragile that its seems a strong wind might knock her down.

Indeed, compared to her obese and surly-looking sibling – North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un – she seems a gentle soul, charming even, who couldn’t hurt a fly.

When her brother met President Trump for a historic summit in 2019, she was seen shyly peering out from behind a wall. Observers thought it almost adorable.

And yet – according to a ground-breaking and revealing new book – those who judge Kim Yo-jong on appearances may be making a fatal mistake.

Believed to be 35, the youngest child of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is actually a ruthless political operator (even by her brutal family’s standards) who some tip to succeed her brother and who their father regarded as the most able of his offspring.

Yo-jong may even be heading for an explosive power struggle with her niece – Jong-un’s daughter Ju-ae – who is thought to be just 10 but has already been publicly hailed as her father’s heir apparent.

But judging by what this new book reveals about Aunt Yo-jong with her ‘trademark Mona Lisa smirk’, it would be foolish to assume that little Ju-ae will one day be sitting on the throne of the Hermit Kingdom.

For Yo-jong, say North Korea experts, is ‘the brains behind the operation’ – and terrifying brains, at that.

According to US academic Sung-Yoon Lee, whose new book ‘The Sister’ provides the first detailed insight into Yo-jong, it’s not for nothing that some Pyongyang officials have nicknamed her ‘bloodthirsty demon’ and ‘the devil woman’.

The de facto second-in-command to her brother, Yo-jong can have even the most senior government officials executed on just a word.

In 2021, she was elevated to the nation’s most powerful body – the State Affairs Commission. And since then, Lee says, she has had ‘the ultimate power of the cruel dictator; the power to play God and decide who lives and who is killed’.

Doted on from childhood, Yo-jong was largely hidden from public view for decades. But in 2018, she sparked a media frenzy when she attended the Winter Olympics in South Korea as her country's official representative and was pictured sitting close to Vice President Mike Pence.

Journalists hailed a glamour, delicacy and charm so lacking in her dumpy brother and many wondered if North Korea could finally be veering away from its dreadful past.

Instead, predicts Lee, Yo-jong is her 39-year-old brother’s zealous and spittle-flecked chief propagandist and is potentially ‘fiercer and more ruthless’ than him.

And, given his health problems with suspected heart disease, diabetes and obesity – the regime as good as admitted he was nearly killed by Covid-19 – North Korea may need a new leader sooner than expected.

Of course, obtaining information about the ferociously secretive dictatorship is immensely difficult but in 2021 Yo-jong reportedly ‘ordered several executions of high-ranking government officials for merely “getting on her nerves”.’

Those she found ‘less disagreeable’ were simply banished – along with their entirely innocent families – to detention camps and gulags, ‘where a life of grueling forced labour, beatings, torture and starvation rations awaited’.

According to Lee, rumors of Yo-jong’s ‘impulse to purge and kill’ soon became so rife that top officials started holding their breath in her presence. If she approached them they would avert their gaze or stare at the floor.

Ignoring her is apparently far safer than trying to win her praise – for ‘just being recognized by her might in due course lead to a fall from favor and a brush with death’.

A computer science graduate, Yo-jong doesn’t reserve her bloodthirsty impulses just for cowering officials. On the few occasions she’s been allowed to show her teeth on the international stage, she’s left little doubt that her finger on Pyongyang’s nuclear button would be every bit as unsettling as her saber-rattling brother’s.

In April last year, the First Sister dropped the sweetness act and warned South Korea that if its military ‘violated even an inch of our territory, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty… and a dreadful attack will be launched’.

The South Korean army, she added, ‘will have to face a miserable fate little short of total destruction’.

As the head of propaganda, she has also demonstrated a knack for concocting particularly vile blasts against her nation’s enemies.

When, 2014, South Korea elected their first female leader, Pyongyang state media carried quotes calling her a ‘wicked sycophant’, ‘dirty old prostitute’ and ‘capricious whore’.

President Obama was outrageously branded a ‘wicked black monkey’, and a gay High Court justice in Australia was labelled a ‘disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality’.

All of the comments were either written or signed off by Yo-jong.

Certainly, she’s come a long way since 2011 when her brother succeeded their father. At the time, few people outside Pyongyang even knew her name.

North Korea is also a staunchly patriarchal society. And one in which, for all its socialist pretensions, women generally look after the family at home while the men handle the politics.

Nonetheless Yo-jong’s own parents were said to be the first to recognise she was special. Even if they felt they couldn’t acknowledge it in public – her father instead elevating her underwhelming, basketball-obsessed brother.

Kim Jong-il had seven children by four women, either wives or concubines, but he reserved his chief affection for a dancer named Ko Yong-hui who bore him both Jong-un and Yo-jong.

Yo-jong’s own parents were said to be the first to recognise she was special. Even if they felt they couldn’t acknowledge it in public. (Pictured: Female North Korean soldiers march in parade).

They and elder brother Kim Jong-chul lived in the ruling family’s gated compound, given every luxury including the best food and toys money could buy, while their countrymen and women languished in poverty.

Up to the early 2000s, Jong-chul was all but set to succeed their father – until it was announced in 2009 that he wasn’t.

According to the family’s sushi chef, his father suddenly decided Jong-chul was ‘no good because he is like a little girl’.

And while Jong-chul reportedly now lives a quiet life in Pyongyang, appearing at occasional Eric Clapton concerts as far afield as Singapore and London, the actual ‘little girl’ in the family was clearly made of sterner stuff.

As a child, she was addressed by her proud parents as ‘sweet princess’ despite having a reputation for being strong-willed and stubborn.

Interestingly, the couple referred to their sons as ‘Big Brother’ (Jong-chul) and ‘Little Brother’ (Jong-un), in other words from the perspective of their sister.

Soon after she was born in 1987, she became the ‘axis of the royal family’, always sitting next to her father at meals while her brothers sat further down the table.

By the age of eight she was sufficiently sure of herself to fire her personal aide. Aged nine, she physically dragged her older brother – who was 16 – out of a women-only theatre on their family estate after he sneaked in.

She and her brothers were sent to be schooled in Switzerland, using pseudonyms and pretending to be the children of North Korean diplomats.

Her father was a psychopath who had his own half-brother Hyon murdered in 2007 to protect his children’s succession right. In the 1980s he attempted to assassinate the South Korean president and blew up a passenger plane in mid-air as one of many terrorist acts.

Lee says Jong-un and Yo-jong have clearly both inherited his murderous instincts. Indeed, Jong-un is suspected of having his own half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, assassinated in Kuala Lumpur airport with nerve agent in 2017.

Quite what his sister would be capable of is yet to be seen. But in the meantime she remains an increasingly powerful and vindictive presence in the background.

Even aged 21, when she was spotted trailing her father to an important meeting with Bill Clinton, it is thought she was already playing a key role in government.

And, unlike her Supreme Leader brother, she can speak English – a notable advantage when it comes to global politics.

When, during a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018, the US delegation cracked a joke, she laughed while Kim Jong-un stared blankly ahead, clearly not understanding.

This may be one of the reasons as to why Jong-un clearly depends on his sister and keeps her close.

During the funeral eulogy for Kim Jong-il in 2011, his daughter – evidently overcome with emotion – suddenly left the official line-up.

For anyone else, such an outrageous break with protocol at a sacred ceremony would have been considered even worse than ‘half-hearted clapping’ and punishable by death.

But, from the earliest days of her brother’s rule, Yo-jong has been ‘untouchable’, says Lee.

Not that ordinary North Koreans would have known: state media never mentioned her once until March 2014 and that was only to say she’d cast a vote for her brother in an ‘election’.

She was mentioned twice more that month when she accompanied Jong-un to concerts. On both occasions, her name came last in the list of more than a dozen attendees and with no reference to her ‘blue blood’.

All considered then, it’s hardly surprising that her private life remains a mystery.

In 2018, during the trip to South Korea for the Winter Olympics, she appeared on one occasion without a coat and seemed to have a slight bulge around her abdomen.

Intelligence analysts speculated that she might be pregnant and South Korean media claimed she confirmed as much to Olympics officials. As to the likely father, she reportedly married Choe Song, a government official’s son, in 2014. It’s also claimed she had a child in 2015.

According to Lee, Yo-jong and her brother have devised a ‘good cop, bad cop’ strategy on the world stage whereby she employs her femininity and deceptive charm to offset Jong-un’s surly aggression.

But while it might publicly appear that she’s in a subservient role – standing happily aside and handing her brother a pen for him to sign the historic joint statement with President Trump in Singapore in 2018, for example – once again, appearances can be deceptive.

In 2019, Jong-un took a long train ride to Vietnam for a second meeting with Trump. He and his sister were caught on camera at a rest-stop during the journey, standing by themselves as he had a smoke and she held up a crystal ashtray for him with both hands.

Some commentators said it smacked of her subservience but in fact, says Lee, she was making sure he left no cigarette butts bearing traces of his DNA for foreign intelligence services to examine.

‘No one else, aside from his wife, has such intimate access to the Supreme Leader,’ says Lee.

But will she be loyal forever?

Just as her butter-wouldn’t-melt appearance hides a woman who kills on command and revels in vile abuse, perhaps nothing about Kim Yo-jong can be taken for granted.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Steve Brodner]

* * * * *

[From Wall Street Journal :: Peggy Noonan]

Peggy Noonan: As to soft Trump supporters, the charges do nothing to keep them in his camp. They reinforce the arguments of former Trump Republicans now backing other candidates: He was our guy but in the end he’s all danger and loss. What were Mr. Trump’s motives? Why would he refuse to give the documents back, move them around Mar-a-Lago, mislead his own lawyers about their status and content?

Because everything’s his. He is by nature covetous. “My papers” he called them. Because of vanity: Look at this handwritten letter. Kim Jong Un loves Trump. See who I was? Look at this invasion plan. Because he wished to have, at hand, cherry-picked documentation he could deploy to undercut assertions by those who worked with him that he ordered them to do wild and reckless things.

My fear is that Mar-a-Lago is a nest of spies. Membership in the private club isn’t fully or deeply vetted; anyone can join who has the money (Mr. Trump reportedly charges a $200,000 initiation fee). A spy—not a good one, just your basic idiot spy—would know of the documents scattered throughout the property, and of many other things. All our international friends and foes would know.

Strange things happen in Mar-a-Lago. In 2019 a Chinese woman carrying four cellphones, a hard drive and a thumb drive infected with malware breezed past security and entered without authorization. She was arrested and jailed for eight months. Another Chinese woman was arrested soon after; a jury acquitted her of trespassing but convicted her of resisting arrest. In 2021 a “Ukrainian fake heiress and alleged charity scammer” gained access, according to the Guardian.

Who else has? Mar-a-Lago isn’t secure. Those documents didn’t belong there. It is a danger to our country that they were. This story will do Mr. Trump no good with his supporters. It will hurt him—maybe not a lot but some, maybe not soon but in time. I mean the quiet Trump supporters, not big mouths and people making money on the game, but honest people.

[tea-party-at-wonderland]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has traveled to and from his residences on special armored trains using exclusively built stations since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, according to new investigations by independent media.

The reports’ authors link Putin’s choice of transportation to his apparent wish to avoid tracking services and his distrust of the presidential air fleet’s security against potential attacks.

“After the outbreak of the war, in February-March [2022], he began to use the [armored] train very actively, especially to get to his residence in Valdai,” the Dossier Center investigative website quoted an unnamed source close to the Kremlin as saying Monday.

The Dossier Center is funded by exiled former oligarch and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The outlet said Putin’s armored train, though nearly indistinguishable from regular trains, is marked by a larger number of locomotives, axles and encased communications antennas.

The train is reportedly comprised of a presidential car with a bedroom and a study for meetings, a car for Putin’s entourage and a separate special communications car. Its schedule is tailored to allow the train to reach maximum speeds and avoid unwanted stops.

With an estimated price tag of 1 billion rubles ($13.5 million), Putin’s armored train reportedly started being outfitted in 2014 and actively used in the late summer of 2021.

The Dossier Center linked the train carrier’s offshore-based ownership structure to banker Yury Kovalchuk, a close Putin ally who also reportedly manages Putin's widely speculated palace and other assets.

A separate investigation by the Proekt news site reported Tuesday that exclusive railway tracks and train stations have been built near three of Putin’s known residences to accommodate his armored train.

Satellite images showed one fenced-off station with a network of surveillance cameras a walking distance away from Putin’s official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow in at least 2015, Proekt said.

Another fenced-off, dead-end train station appeared near Putin’s Bocharov Ruchey summer residence in the southern resort city of Sochi in 2017, Proekt reported, citing satellite images.

The images reportedly showed a third guarded train station with a helipad appearing near the Novgorod region village of Dolgiye Borody, the closest populated area to Putin’s secretive Valdai residence, in 2019.

Putin’s armored train itself is based at a VIP section — separated by a high fence and reinforced with barbed wire — of the Kalanchyovskaya railway station in central Moscow, Proekt said.

Observers were quick to point out the similarities between the Russian president’s alleged preference for armored train travel to that of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

(Source)

[darkmaga-returns]

by Ted Galen Carpenter Posted on October 21, 2024

An especially notable feature of the 2024 presidential campaign has been the number of prominent Republicans who have endorsed Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris. The latest convert is former congressman Mickey Edwards, a 6-term representative from Oklahoma, who had been a member of the GOP’s leadership in the House of Representatives.

Some Republican defectors have been even more prominent. The biggest coup of all for the Harris campaign was the decision by former Vice President Dick Cheney – along with his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) – to support Harris.

Republican apostates invariably cite two reasons for refusing to support their party’s nominee, Donald Trump. With regard to domestic policy, they charge that Trump is a closet authoritarian who supported the “insurrection” on January 6, 2021, and poses a continuing threat to democracy.  With respect to foreign policy, they allege that Trump would (at a minimum) be “soft” on autocratic rulers, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, while failing to support America’s venerable system of military alliances with other democracies.

Such allegations are exaggerated at best and entirely fictional at worst.  Trump’s policy toward Iran, for example, has never suggested a willingness to appease an autocratic regime.  Washington’s assassination of General Qasem Soleimani on Trump’s watch confirmed that point.  Likewise, the numerous policy initiatives Trump took to undermine Russia’s interests discredits the case that he was cozy with Putin.

Even as they highlight Trump’s alleged authoritarian tendencies, Harris and the leaders of her campaign conveniently ignore the dreadful civil liberties track records of their new political allies.  It was bitterly ironic, for example, for Harris to proclaim that she was “honored” to have the support of Dick and Liz Cheney.  It wasn’t that many years ago that Democrats and their allies in the news media routinely asserted that both members of the Cheney family were shameless authoritarians who posed a threat to civil liberties.  Now, the Cheneys are supposedly champions of democratic values.

[rich-apple]

For The Mythical Maybe Trumpers Out There

October 14, 2024

There is an alleged mythical creature out there. We can call this mythical creature a "Maybe Trumper." So though I don't think this mythical creature exists, I'm writing this to them. "Never Trumpers" and "Trumpers" are welcome to read along, if only for shits and giggles.

Casting your November 2024 vote for Donald Trump is like letting out a silent fart in a crowded room. You may not mind it, but it's going to make it really bad for everyone else.

For those who are absolutely not voting for Trump, my bad news is that as crazy as it seems, Trumpers I somewhat know - actual people with functioning brains - are still going to vote for him. They are busy posting stupid misinformation memes on social media, or maybe simply making brief comments that indicate they are still in the Trump camp. Sure, lots of high ranking Republicans and generals are loudly proclaiming they won't vote for Trump, including many who worked for and with him. But people I know and am aware of? He hasn't lost any of them!

So… Vote! Uh, that is, if you're going to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

I would be curious to hear exactly what it is that Trumpers or Maybe Trumpers hear when he's on a stage at a podium. Broadcasting live on tv or the internet or if you're there in person, do you just turn your brain off and let him ramble on, saying stuff that makes no sense? Or so many things that are just outright lies? You'd vote for a guy like that?

Basically, if you remember back to when you were in school, you probably didn't like the spoiled rich kid in your class. That's who Trump is. Do you like bullies? That too is what Trump is? Braggarts? Again, Trump is.

He puts himself on a pedestal, repeats repeats repeats all these claims (genius, physical and mental fitness, that he alone can fix this or that), and it's like some dumb-ass tv commercial - brand name repeated over and over and that it is the best… And so it must permeate into many people's heads.

If you would even consider voting for Trump, then chances are you're a Republican. But have you noticed how many prominent Republicans are supporting Harris, some just to not be supporting Trump? Likewise many who were a part of his White House, including some who didn't turn away from him until the very day he turned away from the truth, as it was presented to him from within his own team, that he indeed did lose the 2020 election.

Do you think the 2020 election was stolen and the populace (and the electoral college) actually voted Trump in? Well the first and foremost reason Don The Con started that was because he is a narcissist and would never admit that he lost. He set up the 2016 election to do the same thing, saying it would be rigged, etc. The 2020 election, the same. 2024? He's doing it again. His starting the denial that he lost in 2020 turned into a huge, ongoing moneymaker and incited an insurrection attempt on January 6th, 2021. But just his narcissism alone would be enough to keep him promoting the stolen election lie.

Now that lie and all the new ones aimed to get him elected again are still first about his ego and narcissism, and keeping him from facing punishment for crimes of which he's already been convicted, and those still being adjudicated, is either second or third. The other second or third reason he's continuing the lie is to get back into office and turn it into an authoritarian position so he can be like Putin, Kim Jong Un and other political strongmen he so admires.

Are you a Christian? Well then what the hell? Your guy Jesus ministered to poor slaves of the Roman Empire. He was about helping the poor and unfortunate. Trump doesn't have a Christian bone in his entire obese body. He'll hug the flag. He'll hold up the Bible. But he doesn't love this country or believe anything in the Bible. He's a narcissist who is only out for himself. And he plays that by saying anything he needs to whether it's an absolute lie or not. Every word out of his mouth adds up to "Trump is great."

I would really like people who know me and are considering voting for Donald Trump (or are absolutely going to) to read this and follow what I'm saying. Agree with or not, but just understand what I'm trying to say.

You may be a kind of reconnected friend from Facebook who I haven't been close to for many years, and then you probably already know that I'm fairly liberal, or in the vernacular of those who would possibly vote for Trump, a "Libtard." (I think that slang is kind of funny because it boldly bucks current thoughts on decency around words we shouldn't use, such as "retard," and at the same time seems to want to say liberals are stupid.)

My main point here does address the very thing that term underscores, and that is the division in our country today into the two distinct camps. Of course there are varying shades of either, but it sure seems one is either completely on one side, or completely on the other. And each side has its particular news stations, internet sites, radio and tv commentators who supply super positive feedback for their side. Idealogical Biofeedback, if you will.

From the liberal side we get a stereotype of the Trump voter as a barely middle-class man who will loudly exclaim that he hates Obamacare but loves his ACA (Affordable Care Act) insurance coverage. Or similarly, a woman wearing a t-shirt that states "He can grab my pussy anytime."

From the "extreme right" view (I say "extreme right" to distinguish what is now considered conservative from what old-school fiscal conservatives used to be) liberals are being portrayed as super sensitive, easily offended and caring too much what other people think. Perhaps that is what is intended when the word "woke" is used, rather than its real meaning according to Merriam Webster: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).

So of course either stereotype does not allow either side to see each other clearly. People are individuals, each with particular views on this or that, and too many times I've found on social networking pages people telling me what I think and how wrong I am. Not because I said that was what I think, but because the stereotype of a liberal thinks such.

I know people who think quite the opposite of me in terms of Donald Trump, and no, they are not stupid and unthinking. I think they are wrong and they think I am wrong, but if you are one such friend, I'm hoping you can fill in some missing pieces for me.

First, I'll honestly tell you that I think there is some real propaganda that has gone on for many years now that led you to a world-view (maybe nation-view is more appropriate) where a "celebrity" like Trump can come along, check all the boxes for that nation-view, and seem like the perfect candidate. And when I say "check all the boxes" I don't mean to imply that you agree with all those boxes - everyone is unique - but still you see that nation-view as close enough to yours to consider voting for Trump.

Example: You may be someone who is very open and in favor of diversity and not at all prejudiced against other races or nationalities. But to support Trump don't you have to ignore it when he shows and says how he won't reject the support of a David Duke (KKK guy) or risk insulting white supremacists at the Charlottesville rally by concluding (after the violence tore the event apart) that there were good people on both sides?

So white supremacist racism might be a box Trump checks for some, but that's not a box you need to, or want to, have checked. More than likely, you don't see Trump as having a check in that racism box. But is it not true that people who would want that box checked would see it as checked, and those are votes he will most likely get? If you ignore that box, you're voting with them.

It's possible you take Trump at his word that he's not racist at all, or as he puts it, the most un-racist person who ever lived. (Or something like that. PS: His history and things that he says do check that (yes, racist) box for him.)

I cannot imagine people I know who might vote for Trump to blindly believe everything he says. If you like him you probably listen to him, and if you listen to him much at all you know that he says lots and lots of things, and in that much of what he says - especially at rallies - is said to get cheering reactions from the crowd. So yes, some things he says contradict other things he says (sometimes in nearly the same sentence) or things he has done. (PS: I'm sure those cheering crowds are his biggest reward from all of this.)

I get that if you don't listen to him speak for lengths of time and only hear sound-bites used by right-wing supportive media, the spoon-feeding of Trump can miss his less-than-logical statements. Or sometimes non-sensical. (What is it with his using the Hannibal Lector references? Is that a right-wing dog whistle of some kind? Code for something to Proud Boys or QAnon faithfuls?) Those various "news" presenters are editing along and often must say, "Oops, no not that one. Cognitive decline totally showing."

I do realize there's probably nothing I can write that will change anybody's mind. I think in 2016 Trump got a lot of people to vote for him because he was running against government, and many people who barely paid attention to politics got very interested.

My dislike of Trump goes back to the '70s, mainly because one of our housemates was from the east coast and paid lots of attention to the news and we were all such California surf-happy tree-huggers that this real estate developer in New York who played the celebrity card as "The Donald" who would be such a catch for women and kind of strutted like some kind of mogul was simply disgusting. Celebrity for celebrity's sake? Like Paris Hilton or something?

But when the unthinkable happened and he won the presidency in 2016, though I very much voted against him, I had an inkling of hope that he'd stop and say "Whoa" and realize how much he'd need to gather smart people (policy analyst professors?) because he now had a job very much not in his wheelhouse. To my mind, however, he just immediately did the opposite and jumped in with choices for the transition team that included those very much from deep in the "swamp" he so promised to drain. So I lost that tiny dribble of hope right away. And further and further along, he simply became the open door for the most extreme right wing policies.

Now remember, the main intended audience for what I'm writing here are people who have followed along as "conservative" beliefs and policies became more and more extreme. For instance, guns. I doubt any old conservatives where so fired-up (pun intended) about gun rights to the point of insisting the 2nd amendment meant that weapons of war such as assault rifles (i.e. AK47) could and should be owned by the citizenry.

Ironies? Commies. Pinkos. The people really buying into the extreme right wing rhetoric somehow equate liberals with communism. And yet Trump admires Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. True, what he admires are autocracies and not really "communism."

My philosophy degree has to show a bit here. Though the U.S.S.R. had a "Communist Party," it was not really communism as a political system. Authoritarian, Autocracy… A severely split class society where people were either in the party and well off, or not in the party and standing in lines… But I digress.

Huge ironies can be found when it comes to Christianity. I do love the old bumper sticker that says "The Christian Right is Neither." There is a Christian Nationalist movement now that wants to tear down the constitutional barrier between religion and government. Perhaps the goal is to make our "Freedom of Religion" to be "Freedom to be whatever Christian Religion you want to be."

I was raised Lutheran and understand the tenants of Christianity as I learned them, and embrace the overall teachings about how to be a good person and be good to others. But around the time of Reagan when the right wing first started sidling up to the Christian Religion faction in general to gain their votes, the hypocrisy kind of turned "Christian" into a label it never was. "Reagan's Right" attacked welfare and helping those who either started at the bottom and could never climb up, or those who lost at the game of Musical Chairs that Capitalism kind of sets up.

Conservatism at that point was much more about fiscal conservatism, and helping the less fortunate in society was an expenditure. So while Reagan pointed at the man dropped off downtown wearing worn clothes by his wife in a fancy car, and then picked up later for them to count their booty, the huge majority of the down-and-out were turned against. And if you can't see that what I described isn't the exact opposite of what Jesus taught, then you (imho) are missing the basic premise of your own stated "religion."

Irony that is likely not exactly "irony" is how those who follow, like, and support Trump, are very likely the people I would think would hate him. People who hated the spoiled rich kid in school. People who respect someone making it on their own. People who are proud of real work. And yet there he is, the silver spooner who received $413 million from his dad over time that got him started and continually helped him along when he didn't immediately find success.

You Trumpers somehow are hypnotized by his gift of gab (always packaged in very angry and insulting tones, or pitifully rude attempts at satire) that you no doubt believe him in a debate when he boldly says he did not get that much money, but the research and gathered evidence is out there, even showing that much of it was from from his father via dubious companies set up to avoid inheritance tax, etc.

It is okay, right, that I call Trump supporters "Trumpers?" And I'm happy to label myself a "Never Trumper." Just for convenience's sake.

So if you are super rich, then it would make sense for you to vote for Trump. He'll lower your taxes. Yes, to the detriment of the more average income earners and lower income workers in terms of depriving all the country's social needs. (Yes, we are a Social Democracy, and if we aren't, then why/how do we have all the public services and infrastructure we depend on. Fire departments, law enforcement, justice infrastructure and physical infrastructure of our nation? This many people living together has to be a society.)

************

So yes, I am fairly liberal. But conservatives ("Conservatives Classic" and "Conservatives Trump Era") please don't ignore this. Especially if you know me from somewhere (distant past, social media), I hope you have read this. And to add just a spot of humor, I do think all these words can save our country.

Though I've of course failed at being succinct, here are a few targeted attempts to get through to particular groups. Like a fun little game, see if you relate to any!

Memo to working or retired, not-so-wealthy Conservatives planning on voting for Trump: You're being conned. There are so many of us who "the right" paint all the same, mostly as socialists or super sensitive wimps, but in reality there are many sensible honest people who, like me, really really scratch our heads and wonder how anybody can like Trump. He sure seems like a babbling fool who lies with just about every sentence he utters. And the anger and being a mean bully? How do you not see that?

Memo to Super Rich Conservatives planning on voting for Trump: I get it. It's money and you'll get to keep more of yours and policies will likely help you make even more. If you can vote for Trump and not feel an inkling of guilt, well then either you buy into everything else about Trump - mostly stated by him about himself - or you don't really care about the vast majority of Americans who are not super rich. Or the environment. (Extra note to Conservative Classics who don't buy into all the angry and cray-cray aspects of the rhetoric, policies and beliefs: yes you've lost your party. The GOP has abandoned all you thought they stood for, and they are embracing Trump because fear, anger and cray-cray works on most of their voters.)

Memo to "Christians" planning on voting for Trump: I put "Christians" in quotes because of the many flavors of religions purporting to be based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, it's almost a special subcategory - likely pulling together recruits from many denominations. What used to be "The Christian Right," mostly coming about in the Reagan era, now seems to be "Christian Nationalism." For "The Christian Right" there was a great bumper sticker. "The Christian Right Is Neither." Anyway, while we need a new bumper sticker, I can tell any "Christians" that by voting for Trump you are voting for someone who doesn't at all follow any of the teachings of Jesus Christ. So you are being conned, too. And if you belong to a church or group where anyone says that our country should abandon its separation of church and state principles, then you're hearing from those who are against a founding principle of our nation. So maybe a bumper sticker saying "Christian Nationalism Is Neither" would work too.

Memo to those who are angry about government (and yes, our government is inherently crooked - based on legalized bribery, otherwise known as lobbying) and to whom Trump's attitude of disdain for our government and constant expression of anger and hate appeals: Don't go there. Don't say "Yes he's an asshole, but who do you want as president? A nice person or an asshole who will kick other country's butts?" Don't see mean as good, or bullying for anything other than what it is. And please please please don't see any true humor in Trump's snideness or version of insult comedy. How he dismissively insults someone or something he knows the crowd also sees as a bad person or thing with his conceited, flippant style, couched in his overall attitude of egotistical narcissism, just really turns my stomach. You want real sarcasm? Read Mark Twain. You want real insult humor? Watch old Don Rickles bits. Good sarcasm or insult humor comes from love and admiration, not from hate and bitterness.

Memo to everybody: Trump is too fucking old. He is way too thin-skinned. His brain is kaput (cognitively speaking, but also poorly wired), and if he becomes president, Vance will probably take his place soon, and that guy is an ass-licking tool with barely 2 years in congress. Also, if you are someone who can help vote out the total conspiracy theorists who are just an embarrassment to our country, please do. (Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Asshole Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tommy Tuber-vile, Matt Gaetz… and yes, Mitch McConnell too.)

Thank You