Well at least we know we don’t have to worry about their basic competence.

President Donald Trump and US officials seem confused over whether notes were taken during Trump’s private meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.

After the two leaders signed a joint statement, Trump gave a wide-ranging press conference. During this time, according to a White House transcript, Trump and a person he refers to as “Mike,” thought to be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appeared to be unsure whether notes were taken during a 38-minute one-on-one meeting with Kim earlier in the day.

Business Insider then quotes from the official White House transcript:

Q: Is there a transcript of

The Trump people have planted an agent in the State Department to vet people for Loyalty to Trump.

A senior advisor to the State Department appointed just two months ago has been quietly vetting career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to determine whether they are loyal to President Donald Trump and his political agenda, according to nearly a dozen current and former U.S. officials.

Of course loyalty to a particular president is not supposed to be a criterion for career diplomats, in fact it’s decidedly supposed not to be, but hey, the rules don’t apply when Trump is emperor.

Mari Stull, a former food and beverage lobbyist-turned-wine blogger under the name “Vino Vixen,” has reviewed the

North Korea is pointing out the obvious fact that it rolled Dealmaker Trump.

A day after its leader’s historic talks with President Trump, North Korea wasted no time on Wednesday spinning the results in its favor, claiming it had won major concessions from the United States.

The authoritarian country’s state-controlled news media said that Mr. Trump had promised to eventually lift sanctions against the North and to end joint military drills with South Korea. It also said the United States had agreed to a phased, “step-by-step” denuclearization process for the North, rather than the immediate dismantling of its nuclear capability.

I guess it left unsaid the part about having no intention of denuclearizing at all.

The joint statement

Says Trump:

everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!

Foreign Policy gives us the background:

Here are the major talks and nuclear milestones that came before Trump:

1985: North Korea acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It did not, however, complete an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement.

1992: North and South Korea signed the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, agreeing not to test, produce, posses, or deploy nuclear weapons, and agreeing to mutual verification inspections.

In 1994…

the

Renowned China scholar and shoe-seller Ivanka Trump tweeted an Ancient Chinese Proverb yesterday, except that it was greeted by many people pointing out that it’s not a Chinese proverb. Oh yeah? Well what is it then?! A commonplace thought.

“Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.” -Chinese Proverb

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) June 11, 2018

Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.

Oh, awesome. Also, those who don’t like what’s for dinner, can go out and get their own. Similarly, those who forget to walk the dog, can damn well clean up the poop right this second before doing anything else. Likewise, those who like to … Read the rest

Dr. Seuss in 1941:

The reference is to the ships that brought Jewish refugees from the Nazis to US ports only to be turned around and sent back to the Einsatzgruppen and the Zyklon B. Note the “America First” on Mama’s shirt.… Read the rest

Creepy beyond belief – the White House created a propaganda movie to go with the summit.

Reporters crowded into a Singapore auditorium Tuesday, expecting President Trump to walk out and announce the results of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Suddenly, two huge screens on either side of the empty podium came to life. Soaring music boomed over the speakers, and the reporters were bombarded with a montage portraying North Korea as some sort of paradise.

Golden sunrises. Gleaming skylines and high-speed trains. Children skipping through Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, North Korean flags waving between images of Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial.

In a split-screen shot, Kim Jong Un

Jesus h christ almighty.

Trump says he trusts Kim Jong Un. And if he's wrong? "I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, 'Hey I was wrong,'" said Trump, before adding, "I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse." https://t.co/J2k6ehVhW1 pic.twitter.com/onKaUHP2f3

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) June 12, 2018

… Read the rest

Nicholas Kristof doesn’t quite agree with Trump’s take on the hangout with Kim.

Trump made a huge concession — the suspension of military exercises with South Korea. That’s on top of the broader concession of the summit meeting itself, security guarantees he gave North Korea and the legitimacy that the summit provides his counterpart, Kim Jong-un.

Within North Korea, the “very special bond” that Trump claimed to have formed with Kim will be portrayed this way: Kim forced the American president, through his nuclear and missile tests, to accept North Korea as a nuclear equal, to provide security guarantees to North Korea, and to cancel war games with South Korea that the North has protested for decades.

In exchange for

Kim played Trump like a violin.

US President Donald Trump says his historic talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that ended in a joint agreement were “tremendous”.

The signed document includes a pledge from Mr Kim to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.

But the Kims have been saying that for years, while doing the opposite.

If Trump had done any preparation he might have known that. If he had brought other people into the room with him they might have been able to tell him that. Granted it’s more likely that he would have forgotten the first and ignored the second, but as it is, he made it impossible for either to happen.

But in an

Ari Berman on why the Supreme Court ruling on Ohio’s voter suppression matters:

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to end the disenfranchisement of black voters in the Jim Crow South. The law was remarkably successful in dismantling barriers to the ballot box like literacy tests and poll taxes, but a few decades later, Congress recognized that more still needed to be done to boost political participation. In the 1988 presidential election, for example, barely half of eligible African American voters cast a ballot.

In response to persistently low voter turnout, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to allow voters to register at Department of Motor Vehicles offices and other public agencies. President Bill

An exchange on a public Facebook post.

Guy: I hate to say this but she doesn’t look like someone who’d be an expert of love…

Me: No, you were right the first time, don’t say it.

Guy: Ophelia Benson Well, she certainly doesn’t.

Me: But that’s not relevant, and it’s just crude sexist bullying.

Guy: Ophelia Benson No, it’s bullying a religious idiot and that is perfectly OK.

Me: No it is not.

Guy: Ophelia Benson I love your sense of humour.

Me: And yet you started with “I hate to say this but” so you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Insulting people’s looks is a worthless way to dispute the content of what they say.

Guy: Ophelia

Taslima has another piece of bad news.

Shahzahan Bacchu, an atheist poet and publisher was killed today by Islamists in Bangladesh. He was a target, but did not get protection from govt.

— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) June 11, 2018

The Dhaka Tribune reports:

The owner of Bishaka Prokashoni, a publishing house, has been gunned down in his home town in Munshiganj.

Shahzahan Bachchu, 60, was shot and killed in his village, Kakaldi, in the district’s Sirajdikhan upazila around 6:30pm on Monday, Munshiganj Superintendent of Police Jayedul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune.

There were five assailants on two motorcycles, the SP said.

Shahzahan had gone to meet friends at a pharmacy near his home before iftar, when the assailants came

Bad news.

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio’s aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls.

The court ruled that a state may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from state election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.

The case concerned a guy who voted in 2004 and 2008 but not 2010, 2012, and 2014. In 2015 he wanted  to vote against a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and found he’d been stricken from the voting rolls.

Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” But they allow