monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

During today's press conference, a reporter asked DT "how exactly does your (health care) plan work?" DT's response: "The plan gets better and better and better and it's gotten really really good and a lot of people are liking it a lot."

Democrats, Don’t You Ever Change

Look, Democrats, speaking sincerely as your friend, understand that everyone who says you need to take a deep look at yourselves is a racist, sexist, homophobe who won’t even ask about your preferred pronoun. Whatever you do, don’t you ever change.

Don’t be fooled by how America tossed out over a thousand Democrat legislators since Barack Obama was crowned, or by the way that people chose Donald Trump over that sexy beast you wanted to coronate. They seek to sway you from the progressive path with facts and evidence, but facts and evidence are bourgeois constructs weaponized by patriarchal penis-people of pallor!

Fight the power, damn it! Look in the mirror and repeat after me:

I’m special.

I’m uniquely blessed with moral insights from somewhere – definitely not God.

I’m right.

And everyone else is wrong.

Don’t change a thing, Democrats.

The problem isn’t you. It’s those stupid idiots who won’t obey you because they’re stupid idiots. How can those idiots be so stupid?

Who knows? But what’s clear is that it’s not your fault. It’s theirs. So when the going gets tough, and you aren’t making progress – in fact, when you’re moving backwards – what’s the smart play? Double down!

Double down on familiar faces! Don’t buy the idea that your leaders are wizened windbags a decade past their sell-by dates. Nothing says sexy like Chuck Schumer. He’s hotter than Bobby Sherman! And the kids love their Nancy Pelosi, the Lena Dunham of the Chardonnay-and-Volvo set.

Now, I’m telling you this as a friend, the same kind of a friend you are to working people, to our troops, to American patriots: I sincerely hope that you stick to your principles, that you never doubt yourselves, and that you never waver.

You’re perfect just the way you are.

Don’t you ever change.

This is meant entirely for domestic political consumption. He is steadfast. He is firm. He is clear-sighted. He is serious. Very, very serious. And manly.

Venezuela has donated $500,000 to US President Donald Trump's inauguration, newly released records show.

Citgo Petroleum, a US-based subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, is named in papers filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The revelation comes as the Venezuelan economy appears to be crippled by food shortages, violent crime and inflation.

Three people were killed in protests on Wednesday as tens of thousands took to the streets to demand new elections

Even though he has no idea about how to use a set of binoculars.

Scott Pruitt Is Seen Cutting the E.P.A. With a Scalpel, Not a Cleaver

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, has a blueprint to repeal climate change rules, cut staffing levels, close regional offices and permanently weaken the agency’s regulatory authority.

But Mr. Pruitt, a lawyer who made a career suing the E.P.A., is not likely to start with the kind of shock and awe that Mr. Trump has used to disorient Washington. Instead, he will use the legal tools at his disposal to pare back the agency’s reach and power, and trim its budget selectively.

I don’t think he’s going in there to blow up the agency,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a senior E.P.A. official during the George W. Bush administration who has been mentioned as a possible deputy to Mr. Pruitt, and who has joined forces with him on lawsuits against the agency. “I think he’ll be very careful to make sure they’ve done everything legally to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.”

In Mr. Pruit the president has tapped a surgeon, not a butcher, to fulfill those pledges. As much as anyone, Mr. Pruitt knows the legal intricacies of environmental regulation — and deregulation. As Oklahoma’s attorney general for the last six years, he has led or taken part in 14 lawsuits against the E.P.A.

Is Kim Jong-un rational? The new US ambassador to the United Nations thinks he is not. Nikki Haley said after North Korea's simultaneous launch of four ballistic missiles: "This is not a rational person." But is she right?

Kim Jong-un may have many flaws. He is without doubt ruthless - the bereaved relatives of the victims of his regime, including within his own family, would testify to that. He may have driven through an economic policy that keeps his people living at a standard way below that in South Korea and, increasingly, China.

And he seems to have personal issues, such as eating a lot - photographs show his bulging girth - and being a fairly heavy smoker.

But whatever these failings and foibles, is he actually irrational - which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "not logical or reasonable, not endowed with the power of reason"?

Scholars who study him think he is behaving very rationally, even with the purging and terrorising of those around him. Prof Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul told the BBC: "He is perfectly rational. He sometimes overdoes it. He sometimes tends to apply excessive force. Why kill hundreds of generals when dozens will do?

"Most people he kills would never join a conspiracy but he feels it's better to overdo it. It's better to kill nine loyal generals and one potential conspirator than to allow a conspirator to stay alive.

Prof John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said that even having his half-brother killed (as the allegation is - denied by Pyongyang) would be a rational act; not nice but rational.

"A sad fact of history is that young kings often kill their uncles and elder brothers. It may be cruel, but it is not 'irrational'. If you don't take my word for it, read Shakespeare."

On this assassination of Kim Jong-nam, allegedly at the hands of agents of the regime, Prof Lankov says it is similar to the Ottoman Empire, where concubines of the Sultan had countless children, any of whom had a bloodline that might one day legitimise a claim to the throne.

Prof Lankov thinks that Kim Jong-nam was, accordingly, a threat, probably not that great a one but still intolerable: "Probably he was not that dangerous but you never know. He was definitely under Chinese control."
Prof Delury said that there was nothing irrational about Kim Jong-un's drive to obtain credible nuclear weapons: "He has no reliable allies to guarantee his safety, and he faces a hostile superpower that has, in recent memory, invaded sovereign states around the world and overthrown their governments.

"The lesson North Koreans learned from the invasion of Iraq was that if Saddam Hussein really possessed those weapons of mass destruction, he might have survived."


This was compounded by the lesson of Libya, according to Prof Lankov: "Did American promises of American prosperity help Gaddafi and his family? Kim Jong-un knows perfectly well what happened to the only fool who believed Western promises and renounced the development of nuclear weapons. And he's not going to make that mistake. Once you don't have nuclear weapons you are completely unprotected.

"Did Russian or American and British promises to guarantee Ukrainian integrity help Ukraine? No. Why should he expect American, Russian or Chinese promises to help him stay alive? He is rational."

If he is rational, what does he want? On this, scholars are divided. Prof Brian Myers of Dongseo University in Busan in South Korea said that Kim Jong-un wants security but also a united Korea as the only way he and the regime can survive in the long term.

"As every North Korean knows, the whole point of the military-first policy is 'final victory', or the unification of the peninsula under North Korean rule."

A credible nuclear force would give him the ability to pressure the United States to remove its troops from the peninsula.

"North Korea needs the capability to strike the US with nuclear weapons in order to pressure both adversaries into signing peace treaties. This is the only grand bargain it has ever wanted," said Prof Myers.
And once the US troops had gone, on this argument, North Korean rule would be unstoppable.

Prof Lankov doesn't agree with the emphasis. He thinks survival is by far the most important motive behind Kim Jong-un's actions: "Above all, he wants to stay alive. Second, economic prosperity and growth - but it's a distant second."

So what's to be done? Prof Lankov sees no good options: "I don't see any solution right now." He thinks the best option is to persuade North Korea to freeze its development of nuclear weapons at a particular size of arsenal "but it will be very difficult and North Koreans may not keep their promises".

And money would have to be paid. "But this deal isn't good from an American point of view because it means paying a reward to a blackmailer, and if you pay a reward to a blackmailer once, you invite more blackmail.

"The second option which might work is a military operation but that is likely to trigger a second Korean war and will permanently damage American credibility as a reliable ally and protector.

"Worldwide, a lot of people would see that it's better to have enemies than such friends."

Le Pen calls for France to restore border controls after ISIS-claimed attack

Marine Le Pen on Friday called on President Hollande to restore the country’s border controls one day after a gunman opened fire on police on the Champs-Elysees.

“Because our country is at war, the response must be global, total,” she said, according to Bloomberg. She went on to say that the French government has been weak in its effort to confront terrorism.

One police officer was killed and two others seriously injured when a gunman with an automatic weapon opened fire. Officers shot and killed the assailant. Officials said the assailant was armed with an automatic firearm akin to a "war weapon."

Two French officials said the gunman was detained in February for threatening police then freed. He was convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in shootings on two police officers.

French citizens head to the polls in two days for the first round of the country’s election. Emmanuel Macron locked is locked in a duel with the far-right leader Marine Le Pen at the top of the polls for the first round of voting.

Centrist Macron, the former protege of Francois Hollande, is now the bookies' favourite to become president, with the average of the latest polls showing him marginally ahead of Le Pen. However, Thursday's terror attack could alter this situation.