North Korea to Secretary of State Pompeo: "Your fired".

A US Secretary of State is expected to display the utmost diplomatic deportment. Such is not the case with current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. North Korea is so upset over his hard line negotiations over their nuclear program they've publicly called for his ouster from future talks. Their demand wasn't very diplomatic either; charging Pompeo was "fabricating stories like a fiction writer" and that future talks "required a partner who was more careful and mature in communicating with us". Furthermore, "Pompeo is talking nonsense...which subjects him to public ridicule".

Trump fired his first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after just 13 months due to Tillerson actually trying to conduct sensible foreign policy such as maintaining the Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump loves his replacement Pompeo who idolizes Trump and follows every one of his delusional diplomatic policies including blowing up the Iran nuclear deal, promoting criminal regime change in Venezuela and demanding North Korea give up everything in the nuclear talks before the US give up a single sanction. Pompeo, like Trump, is unfit to serve in any government position, much less Secretary of State. He has a history of Islamophobic and white nationalist statements and associations which make him a raging bull in the tinderbox of international relations. He threatens war with Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and others we may not know about. He's a factor prompting the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moving the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it's been since 1953; signaling nuclear Armageddon.

It's fitting the North Koreans are calling out this diplomatic disgrace by channeling Seinfeld's soup proprietor: "No diplomacy with you. NEXT".

Foxx needs a 'time out' to figure out how to the right thing

It's human nature to make mistakes and then cover them up, lest they be revealed to our family, friends, co-workers or whoever we want them hidden from. We don't like losing face, being embarrassed, appearing incompetent, being less than perfect. We all do it all the time. But when a public official makes a big mistake at the beginning of a high profile case involving waste of the city's manpower and finances, then covers up the first mistake with mistake after mistake, we must ponder that official's competency to remain in office, much less seek re-election next year. 

Such is the fate that has befallen Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx in her handling of the likely false hate crime reported by celebrity Jussie Smollett. Foxx has staked her reputation on bringing a new paradigm of justice to the minority community long neglected by the entranced powers of justice. She has accomplished much and needs to achieve more. But she cannot proceed along her laudable path of reform unless she provides the full, unvarnished recounting of every step her office took that let a relatively simple case of a likely false police report spiral away from a prompt resolution that would uphold the public trust. This isn't complex but it does go against one of the strongest impulses in the human psyche. If States Attorney Kim Foxx wants to get back to completing the task she was called to do by first herself, then the public, she simply needs to do the right thing in the now unending case of Jussie Smollett. 

Keep the blood spigot flowing

On Tuesday, Trump vetoed a bi-partisan resolution passed by both House and Senate to end our criminal enabling of Saudi Arabia's catastrophic war against neighboring Yemen. How catastrophic? Over 60,000 dead and over 5 million suffering disease and starvation thanks to B & B...Bombs and Blockade...all with the aid and comfort of Uncle Sam. Without US support the war would end as Saudi Arabia couldn't fight its way out of a paper bag. In his veto message Trump said "This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future." Incredibly, Trump ignores that war making power rests in Congress, not the president. Trump ignores the oceans of blood he's unleashing on the hapless Yemeni people. Trump ignores that 58% of congresspersons voting want the war ended. Trump knows they can't muster the 67% to override his veto, allowing him to keep on killing and killing and killing.

While he's doing that the media keeps on ignoring the biggest story of the week, if not the year. Do even 5 in a hundred know about the Yemen war, much less Trump's bloodthirsty veto to keep it going? When I fired up the Trib's pixels Wednesday morning, the veto should have been the headline on Page 1 instead of a tiny blurb on Page 14. Alas, publicizing criminal war and efforts to end it doesn't sell papers to a citizenry memorized by the fantasy blood and gore of Game of Thrones.

Today's April snow had nothing on April, '75 blizzard

Though 1,140 flights were cancelled today, April 13, the disruption to Chicagoans was nothing compared to the calamity of April 2, 1975, when 11 inches pelted Chicago on a workday afternoon. I remember it well as about the most unusual day I spent at work in my 45 laboring years. Working as a supervisor in Montgomery Ward's Wardfleet trucking arm, my office was appropriately a remodeled trailer up against the shipping dock. By 3:00 PM it was clear we had to vacate immediately to avoid disastrous traffic. I offered to drive my boss to his Palatine home to avoid a nasty slog to the train station. We started out on Chicago and Larrabee at Ward's ancient Catalog House. Too late as we could barely move. We decided to stop at closest pub for a quick one to let traffic dissipate. But when we got out traffic was totally snarled so we hit another gin mill to chill out. Back at the car, nothing was moving and cars were being abandoned everywhere. One more tavern stop and we called it quits, inching our way back to the trailer office where we settled in for a little sleep. A blizzard can sure make strange bedfellows. Next morning we got the operation going in the 6 state region we served before heading out in now movable traffic. Finally got home about noon much to the relief of wife Mary who had been a tad alarmed. Side note: back in '75 studded tires were sill allowed but had to be removed by April 1, one day before they were most needed that winter snow season. Only in Chicago.

Assange displaces bin Laden as America's most hated person in the world

I'm dismayed but not surprised at the outpouring of vitriol and hatred directed at Julian Assange upon his arrest in London by the Brits after seven years holed up in the Ecuador embassy. Some anti war progressives completely forget or disparage his efforts back in 2010 to assist Pvt. Chelsea Manning in revealing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. US officials, horrified their crimes against humanity were being exposed, embarked on a relentless assault on Assange, calling for his indictment, imprisonment, even his death for possible technical violations of US security laws. 

The campaign worked brilliantly as those who should know better swallow the accusations without a thought to the depth of the US propaganda campaign against Assange and the larger issue of the real criminality at work; US perpetual war throughout the Middle East and Africa and the need to end it. Assange's prickly, unrepentant persona and possible collusion with the Trump campaign hasn't helped his cause in getting Americans to consider his contributions that have made him a hero to the antiwar movement, garnered him Nobel Peace Prize nominations and made him a symbol of unfettered journalism in the digital age to inform the public, regardless of personal peccadilloes.  To his US critics he's a rat, a rapist, a traitor (tho not a US citizen), a narcissist, a thug, a con man, a Trumper, a Russian agent, a non-journalist, or descriptions too profane to repeat. 

That's a shame. But hat's off to America's disinformation campaign, deflecting the public from peeking into murderous US military policy by turning Julian Assange into the most hated person in the world. 

How low can he go?

It is not surprising that Trump would use Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar as a prop to whip up his base. His retweet of a video juxtaposing Omar's comments about how the 911 attacks brought erosion of American Muslims' civil liberties with planes hitting the Twin Towers was not intended to provoke death threats against Omar. It was intended to keep his base in line for the 2020 election. But it most certainly did provoke an uptick in death threats, so much so House Speaker Pelosi ordered Capitol Police to conduct a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and staff. We've seen Trump play this disgusting, irresponsible gambit directed against anyone who suffices as a target for his Neanderthal supporters since he announced his presidential bid four years ago this June. His mocking of reporters and rally protesters has led to some physical confrontations with those supporters with Trump either egging them on ("Beat the crap out of them") and defending them if arrested for violence ("I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees"). But he reached a new level of mendacious incitement by directing that tactic at a congresswoman who also fits Trumps racist and Xenophobic profile of a person of color and the Muslim faith.

The mainstream Republicans who enable Trump's debasement of our civil and political culture utterly disgrace themselves as public servants. Trump doesn't know better; they do. We don't know if any damaging information regarding Trump may come from the full Mueller Report and his tax returns that would warrant impeachment on the legal grounds of high crimes and misdemeanors. But we know enough that Trump deserves impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate for high moral crimes against Congresswoman Omar, the entire country and the Constitution he swore to uphold.   

A smoker's tale

 

Not at all a Mike Ditka fan, I read the article about his approaching 80 a bit subdued after a second major heart attack only because of the pic of Da Coach clutching a cigar. A lifelong cigar smoker, Ditka appears oblivious the Grim Reaper is trying to educate him that cigars have more nicotine, more tar, more toxic substances and are consumed over a longer period of time than those wimpy cigarettes. At 74, I'm not far behind Ditka in years, but I got the message back in '67 after a seven year, pack and a half a day habit starting at 15 began to diminish my endurance for playing baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Though I loved smoking I loved those sports more. 52 years on I still consider smoking one of the dumbest moves I made in all my foolish years; and quitting one of my proudest. I'm still playing tennis a couple of hours most days even tho I occasionally get so winded I need an extra minute to recover between changeovers. I still also cringe I puffed about 77,000 ciggies before wising up. Speaking about wising up, it took Da Coach's wife Diana 60 years to quit her pack and a half a day habit starting at age 16. Apparently more strong willed than hubby Mike, Diana quit mainly because smoking began to spoil the taste of her beloved wine. Hey, whatever works. In case your curious as I was, that's 657,000 cigarettes and millions of puffs. Makes me feel a tad less angst about my measly 77,000.

Trib Assange editorial ignores the big picture

Without context, the Trib's editorial 'An eviction notice for Wikileaks Julian Assange, and a date with justice' does a great dis-service to Trib readership. While factual, the editorial ignores the implications and motivations behind both Chelsea Manning's theft of classified military documents and Assange's publication (and possible assistance to the theft) which revealed US war crimes in Iraq. To ignore those implications and motivations is to bury the Assange story as a simple one of a renegade foreign national who assisted a treasonous US soldier. Not a word of the sordid facts of US mendacity in the Middle East, courtesy of Manning and Assange, is presented to give readers a frame upon which to judge the morality of their actions, regardless of technical law violations. Yet, the Trib sees fit to participate in long standing US government degradation of Assange as a disgusting human being. We're told of his alleged "discourteous and aggressive' behavior" including quoting Ecuadorian embassy officials "that he needed to do a better job cleaning up after his cat". That doesn't add value to a thoughtful, reasoned discussion of Assange's motivation and contribution to understanding US war crimes in the Middle East. If in WWII, news came of a German intelligence analyst passing sensitive documents of Nazi war crimes to a Julian Assange of that era, the Trib would most certainly hail both as heroes. Manning served seven years in prison, the first two under conditions described as torture, for NOT following orders to keep US war crimes secret. Assange has been imprisoned just as long in Ecuador's London embassy, before Ecuador caved to US and British pressure to toss him out to face likely imprisonment in the US for aiding Manning's noble, patriotic conduct. The Trib should ignore Assange's alleged cat messes...and keep an eye on their own.    

Trump negotiating North Korea nukes like a village idiot

Folks from  right to left praised Trump expansively for scoring the first summit between a US president and the leader of North Korea last June. Trump promised an end to North Korean nukes and the 66 year old stalemate to the Korean War. Kim Jong-un made a number of concessions and the US made....none. Well, we did cancel some provocative military exercises with South Korea both kept every onerous sanction in place. 

Then Trump trumpeted the second summit in February which ended early with no agreements because Trump claimed North Korea hasn't done enough. Trump's message was simply, 'You give me everything I want and I'll consider ending sanctions'. No fool, Kim walked away after 2 days. 

Now Trump seeks new diplomacy with North Korea including "small deals that maybe could happen"even though he views current sanctions are at  "a fair level". Not content just to discourage North Korea from ever negotiating at arms length with the US, Trump criticized South Korea's President Moon Jae-in's rapprochement with North Korea stating "This isn't the right time". 

What it's not the right time for is to let a delusional, clueless idiot negotiate foreign policy.