Live Blog: A murderous Dictator and an Aspirant met up in a bar in Singapore with no one watching …
Posted: June 11, 2018 Filed under: Kim Jung Un, Live 24 CommentsHi Sky Dancers!
We’ve been together over 10 years and what a long strange ride it’s been. I struggled with the idea of putting up this as a live blog because while I’d really like to give peace a chance, I know that the seeds of poisonous fruit never grow anything but more poisonous fruit. So, here’s some links. I’m actually in no mood to join hands to sing Kumbayah. I admit to hoping a very focused natural disaster hits a specific location on an island in Singapore.

Emad Hajjaj / Jordan
or “Murderous Dictator Meets Dishonest President Behind Closed Doors. “How will the American public know what they actually said? They may not.”
The first-ever North Korea-United States summit will start with a one-on-one meeting between a brutal dictator known for breaking his word and a president famous for his daily dishonesties.
With two unreliable narrators in Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, how will Americans know what they actually said and agreed to with each other?
“We won’t,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “The whole Trump team has been an unreliable narrator throughout this process. It’s like ‘Rashomon,’ but really stupid.”
In Akira Kurosawa’s classic movie, the murder of a samurai is told through the vastly differing recollections of a handful of witnesses. For the meeting scheduled to begin in Singapore Tuesday morning ― Monday night on the United States East Coast ― there will only be two witnesses: each nation’s translator.
“And I don’t think either interpreter will be in a position to correct the record if the self-reporting by Kim and Trump doesn’t reflect what was actually said in the same manner and tone,” said Jenny Town, assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
The White House said it does not believe there is any cause for concern about getting an accurate description of the two men’s words.
Trump, nevertheless, on almost a daily basis says and writes things that are demonstrably untrue ― sometimes doing so even though he knows what he is saying is untrue.
Even White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has been forced to acknowledge, multiple times, that information she received from Trump and relayed to the public has not been correct.
Tom Nichols, a Russia scholar with expertise in Soviet Union-era arms control talks at the Naval War College, said Trump’s propensity for falsehoods makes getting an accurate rendering of the conversation essentially impossible. “There will no way of knowing what happens in that room, unless it’s being recorded ― knowingly or otherwise,” he said.
On top of Trump’s habit of untruths is Kim’s record of failing to honor his word.
Other links:
Dave Lawler / Axios: What to watch: Trump’s crucial minute draws near
Ken Dilanian / NBC News: U.S. won’t bring up North Korea’s human rights issues at Singapore summit
Jonathan Allen / NBC News: Trump turns up the heat on Kim while lowering expectations for a deal
Los Angeles Times: Trump becomes first U.S. president to meet a North Korean head of state
Other news:
Evan Halper / Los Angeles Times:
Trump administration moves to block victims of gang violence, domestic abuse from claiming asylum
Tonda MacCharles / Toronto Star:
What led to Trump’s outburst against Trudeau: Behind the scenes at the G7
Here we go …





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