BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
A man looks at images depicting missile launches and military exercises, on a display board in Pyongyang, North Korea, earlier this week.
Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 8:25 p.m. ET
North Korea said early Saturday that its intercontinental ballistic missile test on Friday showed its program could hit the United States, according to a statement reported by The Associated Press and Reuters.
The U.S. Department of Defense says the missile, which launched just before midnight local time, traveled roughly 620 miles — from the country's northern province of Jagang to the Sea of Japan, where it finally splashed into the waters off Japan's west coast.
There have been no immediate reports of damage, and Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis says the North American Aerospace Defense Command "determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America."
In response to the launch, the Pentagon announced that it had conducted a precision missile firing exercise with South Korea.
President Trump released a statement calling the launch "only the latest reckless and dangerous action by the North Korean regime."
"The United States condemns this test and rejects the regime's claim that these tests—and these weapons—ensure North Korea's security. In reality, they have the opposite effect. By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region."
The launch — which the Pentagon was expecting, according to Davis — comes just weeks after the government in Pyongyang marked a milestone by conducting its first successful ICBM test. The missile launched Friday, however, flew farther than the one the country fired July 4 — and demonstrated greater capabilities.
"It does appear that at a minimum this missile may go up to 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), but it may go as far as 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles)," Melissa Hanham, senior research associate with the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, tells NPR's Robert Siegel.
"And that puts all of the West Coast and the Midwest in range at 10,000 kilometers," Hanham adds, "and at 11,000 kilometers, pretty much every U.S. state but Florida is in range."
To this point, the international community has attempted various approaches to slow the progress of North Korea's weapons program, none of them particularly fruitful.
Less than two weeks ago, for instance, the South Korean government made a rare diplomatic overture to Pyongyang, seeking new military talks with Kim Jong Un's regime. That offer was never accepted.
South Korea and much of the rest of the world have long tried another tack, as well: sanctions for violating international law with its missile tests. But NPR's Elise Hu notes that approach has proven less successful than hoped for:
"Despite 'tough-on-paper' sanctions designed to stop the flow of nuclear weapons material into North Korea as well as to deliver economic punishment on the regime, the latest research shows the numerous countries expected to enforce the sanctions aren't doing so. The reasons the sanctions have fallen short include: The sanctions are too complicated to implement, private businesses independently aid North Korea (knowingly or not), and Pyongyang has grown increasingly deft in evading sanctions as it has become more isolated."
In the meantime, Hanham says the U.S. military has sought to buttress its missile defense, even going so far as to shoot down a mock ICBM in a recent test. But she cautions "those tests aren't very realistic when it comes to a real war scenario."
"The terrible problem with North Korea is that there's really no good options. And that's why we haven't had an enormous amount of success in the past," Hanham says. "You know, there are very few options and all of them are bad."
The long-running animus between North Korea and its neighbors and the U.S. has only escalated in recent weeks, with the rivals trading increasingly barbed words.
North Korea is "the single most dangerous threat facing the international community right now," Gen. Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, told the National Press Club on Thursday. "It is clear, based on [the ICBM launch] over the July 4 weekend, that North Korea has advanced significantly and quicker than many had expected."
He added that North Korea's military threat is "the one thing I'm worried about."
"A war on the Korean Peninsula would be highly deadly. It would be horrific," Milley said. "The United States military, in combination with the South Korean military, would utterly destroy the North Korean military — but that would be done at high cost in terms of human life."
In his statement Friday, Davis reaffirmed U.S. support for its allies in the region.
"Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, remains ironclad," Davis said. "We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation."
IF it wasn't happening in the White House this would be funny. The cast of no class characters, the lying, cheating, leaking, backstabbing, bullying by twitter, is all so childish and yet this is the drumpf/trump-pence administration. It is no wonder drumpf/trump-pence get along so well with sleazy little anthony scaramucci, the new WH communications director and Not My pres drumpf/trump and NOT MY vp pence speak the same language. Here's the latest drama, from +NPR .....
Warning: This post contains some very graphic language (I filled in the blanks, NPR had "s*** my own c***" because I want to make it very clear to the Christian right wing what they elected. NPR did include "fucking" in their print version of this story).
Updated at 6:40 p.m. ET
The newly installed Trump White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, unloaded on the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and adviser Steve Bannon with some harsh language that would make a sailor blush.
In the interview, posted Thursday, with New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, Scaramucci called Priebus "a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac."
Turning his attention to Bannon, Scaramucci said he had no interest in media attention. "I'm not Steve Bannon; I'm not trying to suck my own cock," Scaramucci said. "I'm not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I'm here to serve the country."
On Thursday evening, Scaramucci followed up on Twitter, saying he would "refrain" from using such language.
Scaramucci was initially set off by a report in Politico that indicates he has assets worth as much as $85 million and that he took a $5 million salary from SkyBridge Capital, the hedge fund he founded, in the first half of the year.
Scaramucci tweeted Wednesday night suggesting that reporting the financial disclosure information was "a felony" and saying that he will contact the FBI.
"In light of the leak of my financial disclosure info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45."
The tweet has since been deleted.
On Thursday morning, Scaramucci called into CNN and all but accused Priebus of deliberately leaking the report.
"If Reince wants to explain that he's not a leaker, let him do that," Scaramucci said. "Let me tell you something about myself — I am a straight shooter, and I'll go right to the heart of the matter."
The Justice Department, meanwhile, says it is taking leaks seriously. DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement, "We have seen an astonishing increase in the number of leaks of classified national security information in recent months. We agree with Anthony that these staggering number of leaks are undermining the ability of our government to function and to protect this country. Like the Attorney General has said, 'whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail,' and we will aggressively pursue leak cases wherever they may lead."
The increasingly nasty contretemps playing out in the West Wing between Scaramucci and Priebus seems to have started when Priebus reportedly objected to Trump's hiring of the financier.
Priebus ally Sean Spicer, who was pulling double duty as communications director and press secretary, quit when Scaramucci was named to the job.
Scaramucci acknowledged to CNN that he and Priebus "have had odds. We've had differences."
Referring to his remarks last week that he and Priebus were like brothers, he elaborated.
"Some brothers are like Cain and Abel," he said. "Other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don't know if this is reparable or not. That will be up to the president."
Of course, as every Sunday school graduate knows, in the Bible, Cain murdered Abel.
On Thursday, new White House Communications Director Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci gave a striking interview, if you want to call it that, with The New Yorker'sRyan Lizza. According to Lizza, Scaramucci pledged to fire "everyone in the [White House] comms team" in an attempt to flush out leakers, referred to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as a "f--king paranoid schizophrenic," and accused top a top White House adviser of trying to perform fellatio on himself. Like clockwork, memes and jokes about Scaramucci's interview surfaced on Twitter later that same day.
Scaramucci, a former investment banker, said a lot of things in that interview that you don't normally hear top White House officials saying. He distanced himself from another high-profile White House adviser, telling Lizza, "I’m not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own c--k." He added that he'd like to "f--king kill all the leakers" in the White House, and cryptically suggested that one or more of those leakers had committed a felony.
"I've gotta start tweeting some s--t to make this guy crazy," Scaramucci said shortly before ending the interview. It was unclear to whom he was referring.
Needless to say, it's not every day that you hear a top government official speak with such, um, candor. The Twitter memes and jokes quickly followed.
Scaramucci and Preibus reportedly don't like each other very much, a report seemingly confirmed in this interview when Scaramucci referred to his colleague as "schizophrenic" and accused him of illegally leaking documents to the press.
He rose from relative state-party obscurity and reached an unlikely pinnacle as the man responsible for the agenda of the president of the United States.
Now, Reince Priebus is out of that job as White House chief of staff in the most significant shake-up of the rocky Trump presidency.
President Trump announced on Twitter on Friday that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been named as Priebus' replacement.
As chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign, Priebus' team supplanted a thin Trump campaign with money and staff to help Trump win the presidency. That brought Trump and Priebus close, but it was never a natural fit — the mild-mannered, careful former Wisconsin Republican Party leader with the Midwestern accent, once critically described as the "nebbish's nebbish," and the flashy, cavalier New York billionaire.
Priebus' exit indicates the full decline in the White House of the RNC-led Washington wing. Priebus was the last of the high-profile RNC staffers to exit the West Wing. Months ago, Priebus' deputy, Katie Walsh — a former RNC chief of staff, who was accused of being a leaker by rivals inside the White House — left to work on an outside PAC supporting Trump. Then it was Sean Spicer, the beleaguered press secretary doubling as communications director, who left the day Trump brought on board New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.
Priebus' tenure lasted just seven months, an unusually short stint for a president's first chief of staff.
Priebus and "The Mooch"
Despite lauding Priebus in his first appearance in the White House briefing room, Scaramucci days later revealed simmering tensions with the then-chief of staff. Those tensions burst wide open into public view Thursday when it was revealed that Scaramucci, who refers to himself as "The Mooch," called a reporter and unloaded on Priebus.
Tensions between Priebus and new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci had come to a boil this week.
Alex Brandon/AP
"Reince is ... a paranoiac," Scaramucci told The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. Scaramucci was annoyed, thinking his financial disclosure was leaked to the media. It turns out, a Politico reporter obtained it through a public-information request.
Fearful of an unscheduled meeting or phone call or even a rogue tweet at the thumbs of the president, Priebus made it a point of keeping close by Trump's side. But there were signs that Priebus was, at times, out of the loop, like when Trump decided to hire Scaramucci. Both Priebus and senior adviser Steve Bannon reportedly objected strenuously to the move.
The fact that Priebus is the one who is out certainly lends credence to the idea that the New York wing, which believes in letting Trump be Trump, is ascendant in the White House.
Embracing the tornado
As chairman of the RNC, Priebus had the unenviable role of trying to keep the roof on the Republican Party house with Trump, an outsider tornado, spiraling toward it.
Priebus tried to contain the tornado, getting Trump to agree to a pledge not to run third-party in the fall, if he lost the nomination. But the tornado of Trump only got stronger, and no amount of plywood and nails would keep the house in order.
Instead, Priebus opened the doors and arguably did more than anyone else in the party to embrace the coming force.
Priebus ally Sean Spicer left his post as White House press secretary on the same day Scaramucci's appointment was announced.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
That didn't mean he wasn't critical.
"No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever," Priebus said in October when the Access Hollywood video was revealed. Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women "by the p****," because "when you're a star, they let you do anything."
But Priebus had to temper his criticisms throughout the campaign, so he didn't suffer Trump's wrath — and the party didn't implode. During the general-election campaign, Priebus' RNC wound up supplementing Trump's skeleton campaign with millions of dollars in resources and hundreds of field workers in key states.
Loss of an ally
Priebus wound up winning over Trump. Perhaps it was a calculated decision to get support from someone with ties to a crucial state. Trump needed Priebus, a member of the so-called "Cheesehead Mafia." Priebus is close with House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite. (Ryan is actually Priebus' congressman.)
Why make an enemy of Priebus, when he could be a critical ally, as Trump tried to get his agenda passed? But the wheels have been anything but greased. Priebus' exit comes a day after Republicans' health care efforts were sunk in Congress, at least for now.
A tax overhaul hasn't materialized, despite pledges of addressing it by the summer. And a conversation on infrastructure is only talk of the future.
A chief of staff traditionally is the gatekeeper for the president, but despite his best efforts, Priebus struggled to be that.
Trump has veered off-message in tweets, his handling of the Russia investigation, the firing James Comey as FBI director (arguably his most high-profile political miscue) and with his public shaming of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which turned many congressional Republicans on the president.
