Happy Valentine’s Day. Remember to get her roses on the way home.
He’s… Out Like Flynn!
In the short-term, this is another giant headache for the administration, a lot of wasted political capital, and another couple days of bad headlines.
But in the longer term, this is a step in the right direction. On CNN International yesterday, one of the points made by another panelist around the table was that Donald Trump hates to admit mistakes and letting Flynn go is an admission that he made the wrong choice in picking Flynn. Well, one way or another, either out of genuine disappointment with Flynn, a sense that a national security adviser who wasn’t trusted by the rest of the administration, or as a gesture of respect to Vice President Pence, President Trump decided to cut his losses.
Embattled White House national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned Monday night, an abrupt end to a brief tenure.
His departure came just after reports surfaced that the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.
“I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn wrote in his resignation letter.
As the boss points out, “Once Flynn misled Pence, Trump could decide to stand by his national security adviser and humiliate his vice president, or dump Flynn, who it would require major energy and political capital to defend. Now, Trump has a chance to get a national security adviser better suited to the job, and one who will perhaps help ‘normalize’ the president’s posture toward Russia. There was always a haze of unease about Flynn — about his management ability, judgment, and views on Russia — and they appear to have been borne out.”
The North Korean Ruling Family Portrait Just Got a Little Smaller
Catching a connecting flight is usually a pain… but the alternative is worse:
Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, has been killed at an airport in Malaysia by “poison needle-wielding” North Korean agents, according to South Korean media.
Yonhap news said Kim Jong-nam was killed on Monday Morning in Kuala Lumpur. Quoting government sources, other media reports claim Mr. Kim died after being jabbed by a poisoned needle by two women in the city’s airport.
Worst acupuncture ever. The early reports is that this might be the Norks’ version of sibling rivalry.
The women are believed to be North Korean agents but have so far been able to evade a police hunt.
Police in Malaysia told Reuters that an unidentified North Korean man had died en route to hospital from Kuala Lumpur airport on Monday.
Kim Jong-nam was once considered the heir apparent to Kim Jong-il, but fell out of favour in 2001 after being arrested at Tokyo’s Narita Airport after trying to enter Japan on a forged Dominican Republic passport.
He told police that he had wanted to visit Disneyland with his family.
I can picture the endorsement deal already:
“Kim Jong-nam… your family has run a country into the ground as a paranoid, despotic hellhole of human misery and cruelty… What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to Disneyland!”
As if they weren’t surreally nightmarish enough, the North Korean regime seems strangely fascinated by Disney characters. Back in 2012:
Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh took the stage in North Korea during a concert for new leader Kim Jong Un, in an unusual — and unauthorized — performance featuring Disney characters.
Performers dressed as Minnie Mouse, Tigger and others danced and pranced as footage from “Snow White,” “Dumbo,” “Beauty and the Beast” and other Disney movies played on a massive backdrop, according to still photos shown on state TV.
The inclusion of characters popular in the West — particularly from the United States, North Korea’s perpetual enemy and the leading patron of South Korea — is a notable change in direction for performances in Pyongyang. Actors and actresses also showed off new wardrobes, including strapless gowns and little black dresses.
Just imagine all the spies we could smuggle in if we authorized “Disney Pyongyang!”
New Jersey Democrats: We Pledge To Punish Your Employer!
One of the most fascinating things to watch in the coming four years will be New Jersey senator Cory Booker’s rapid, not-so-convincing transformation from a Wall-Street-friendly, quasi-moderate “new ideas” Democrat into the taller, better-looking Bernie Sanders.
I remember a reporter from a mainstream publication who had covered Booker for a long while coming to an increasingly cynical perspective about him. This was a few years ago, so I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was: “You watch Booker go out to Silicon Valley and see him speak about finding new solutions as mayor and connecting with as many people as possible and school choice and technology, and you walk away really excited. You think, ‘Wow, that guy could be the next big thing.’ And then you see him go to these other audiences… and it’s always the same thing.” This reporter concluded that Booker was less The Next Big Thing and more a carefully-calibrated, contrived image covering the usual political ambitions and willingness to move on from difficult problems.
Anyway, it appears “I won’t be a squish like that Cory Booker guy” is turning into a theme in the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski took his gubernatorial campaign to South Jersey today, criticizing fellow Democrat Cory Booker for joining Senate Republicans to vote down an amendment sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would have allowed Americans to purchase cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
“That vote against it was about protecting the pharmaceutical industry,” said Wisniewski, who served as chairman of Sanders’ presidential campaign in New Jersey campaign chairman, told a forum in Evesham sponsored by Our Revolution New Jersey, a grass roots group whose genesis was Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
Wisniewski pledged to put pressure on New Jersey-based drug manufacturers “on day one,” if he is elected Governor.
Easy there, chief. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t quite the same powerhouse of the New Jersey economy that they used to be, but they’re still a big, big employer. It’s the country’s third biggest hub for drug-makers and the state’s biggest private sector employers include Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Novartis, and Bayer.
According to state figures, the pharmaceutical industry employs 47,850 people, which may not sound like a lot but the average salaries are comparably huge: $145,620 in 2015.
But if New Jersey Democrats want to campaign on a pledge to stop “protecting” and start “putting pressure” on the state’s biggest employers… go right ahead, guys.
ADDENDA: In honor of Valentine’s Day, a look back at the pop culture podcast episode that dissected how absolutely terrible 50 Shades of Grey was as a movie, entirely separately from what you think of the naughty sex stuff. Among the good lines:
“People are much less judgmental than they used to be about what you do in the bedroom. But what is the one thing people still have no problem scoffing at or sneering at? Large families. ‘What, they have five kids? Six kids? Are they crazy?’ Think about it, we have now reached the point where the one thing you can be judgmental about in the bedroom… is procreation! That’s the last controversial thing you can do in your bed!”
Basically, the difference between the Fifty Shades romantic lead, “Christian Grey,” and a Lifetime network movie stalker is the lighting. It’s as if no one bothered to tell actor Jamie Dornan that he’s not playing a creepy serial killer. Somebody’s going to recut this movie with a more ominous soundtrack and make one of the great psychological horror films of all time. And I don’t want to hear one more word about men’s unrealistic expectations about women when Prince Charming is a male-model non-workaholic self-made billionaire with perfect abs.