A couple details that raised my eyebrows:
As dawn broke Thursday, senior U.S. officials congregated in the West Wing, and by 7 a.m., they were discussing options over the phone with Trump, who was still in his private chambers. The president arrived at a swift decision to cancel the summit.
Trump couldn’t be bothered to go down the stairs and meet with his staff before canceling an international summit. Was he afraid he might miss a complimentary comment on Fox 'n Friends? Was putting on pants too difficult? If they’re not going to give him the Nobel for getting out of bed, then he’s not going to do it and you can’t make him.
CNN correspondent Will Ripley, who was reporting from the test site this week,recalled being the one to read Drumpf’s letter to North Korean officials.
“There was just a real sense of shock,” Ripley reported Thursday. “Immediately they got up and left and are now on the phone kind of relaying the news up to the top.”
The moment, Ripley added, was “very awkward and uncomfortable.”
And the award for Understatement of the Day goes to … Will Ripley, for announcing that Donald Trump nuked the NK summit while in his pjs!
I’d give Ripley the weekly or monthly award, but you know that The Donald will do something that is stupid, dangerous, offensive, or all of the above before the week is out.
Can we talk about the White House Gift Shop for a second?
Here is the coin’s description. Try to follow along.
Commemorative Medallion Coin
If Summit Does Not Occur
You can Request a Refund
Virtually all Customers Have Asked Us to Fulfill This
Unique Heirloom of Political History Regardless of Outcome
Special Note From Our CEO
Our project as has the project of another entity, DISA / WHCA, is generating sigjificant media attrention as well as an outpopuring of support from American and Korean people. Following is a copy of a recent post in response to inquires from customers, supporters and media.
We’ve answered many calls and communications. Our own medallion coin is “not identical” to the WHAC meadllion coin and was planned for several months prior to it.
When news broke and indicated this coin was from The White House Gift Shop, of necessity, we needed to clear the record.
Our coin does commemorate President Trump’s second year, his success in obtaining the release of three American hostages from North Korea, and does include the leaders of all three countries in its raised, bas-relief, design, iconographs of America, South Korea, and North Korea as well as peoples are prominent as are the colors of each country with symbolic representations of Americans and Koreans who fought and died for democracy. American and Asian symbols are elegantly used with President Trump on the coin’s front and President of South Korea and Leader of North Korea on the coin’s reverse.
We will not release an image of the coin until it is ready to deliver to our supporters worldwide who believe in peace and harmony and want our heirloom representation of peace and harmony in the Koreas if not now, soon.
Hundreds of magnificent people from South Korea have communicated with us in hopes that we will fulfill their orders even while summit talks seem stalled at the moment. We will, of course, continue to celebrate the spirit of peace and harmony confluent with innate dignity of humankind. For 70 years, we have supported through many representational products, some fun but many serious, the Presidency of the United States and refrain from poltics.
We support in words, actions, and objects of art America’s current 45th President, Donald J. Trump whose office had no involvement in either the DISA or the soon forthcoming WHGS medallion. As a military veteran, myself, challenge coins are special to the 1% who serve in the military to protect the 99%. A gift is endowed with unique engergy and spirit as it passes from the hands of a brother or sister to another who serves and knows. I still have my own father’s Mickey Mouse boots from the Korean War and my memories of a favorite uncle, a Silver Star recipient, who carries to this day shrapnel in his neck and spine from combat in Korea. The commemorative medallion and related Christmas and Holiday ornament I designed represents the best of America and Korea, a celebration of diplomatic communication, and an embrace of all those who want to succeed our President in his steadfast effort to secure denuclearization of the Koreas and prosperity for America while recognizing other countries have not only a right but a responsibility to seek and secure their own prosperities through peaceful and fair means (my personal opinion, of course).
Best regards, Tony Giannini, CEO / Director.
Note: The White House Gift Shop® holds all United States Patent and Trademark Office exclusive rights to its names and variants - often exclusively for former Presidents of the United States, U.S. Embassies, Departments of the U.S. Government, film and television studios, and patriotic Americans.
United States and Korea Summit Commemorative Coin in Black Velvet Coin Case
Original Giannini Commemorative Coin Medallion Design for the Only Original Official White House Gift Shop, Est. 1946 by Presidential Memorandum and Volunteer Members of U.S. Secret Service
Not Identical to WHCA Coin
Features elegant raised Icons & Historical Iconographs of the United States, of South Korea, and of North Korea with American and Asian Design Raised Relief Motifs in Gold and Perfectly Baked Enamels of Each Countries Traditional Colors
Harmony is the Unifying Design Theme
Silouhettes of All 3 Leaders: President Donald J. Trump, President Moon Jae-In of South Korea, North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un
Parchment History of Korea, the two Koreas, United States and Korean History
Clear 2-piece Plastic Protective Cover Set in a Black Velvet Jewel Case
“At press time, Pompeo confirmed the hostages’ return would only improve the president’s chances of winning a Nobel Peace Prize.”
If nothing else, the copy editing in this administration is definitely criminal.
Well, Trump did say he’s a big fan of the uneducated. Looks like he hires them too.
You know, i was pondering what unbelievably petty, petulant, childish reasons there would be for cancelling this and there it is! I had my money on some perceived insult to the mighty orange turd but it turns out he’s fearful of not being seen as the biggest, strongest badass in the room with the result that we come closer to being irradiated while he cowers in his room because the big boys are knocking on the door.
There’s so much to unpack there’s, it’s kind of unreal. Any holy shit, did anybody actually read this before it went out?
I especially enjoyed this little gem:
TPM looking into the “White House” Gift Shop: the connection to the White House and the U.S. gov is historical only. I think.
Trump’s stated reason for it, in any case, was that North Korea called Mike Pence a “dummy”.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/23/politics/mike-pence-north-korea-intl/index.html
So yes, it’s literally as childish as you expected it would be.
This one went past with virtually no comment:
So, now we’re at the point where school shootings are background noise.
Like they weren’t just there? How much is this costing us? Christ on a bike.
ETA
@Wanderfound
This one went past with virtually no comment:
Teacher credited with disarming student in Indiana school shooting
So, now we’re at the point where school shootings are background noise
45 wasted no time here…
But it took him weeks to acknowledge James Shaw Jr.
Both men deserve praise equally; maybe race blinded 45 to that.
I love how this tweet is phrased:
https://twitter.com/submedia/status/1000333988089577472?s=21
Every week it just gets worse. When you strip away the background noise of Trump’s constant “shock and awe” there’s some really terrible shit going on in his regime that’s largely unnoticed.
I read somewhere else that the teacher disarmed the guy with a basketball. It’s not in that CNN story, though.
But yeah, that’s where we’re at now.
“It is for public opinion,” Giuliani said of his public campaign of dissimulation. “Because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach. Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, are going to be informed a lot by their constituents. And so our jury – and it should be – is the American people."
Jeeeezus do any of them have the common sense to just shut the fuck up?
