To the surprise of no one…

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The intelligence assessment, which has not previously been reported, seems to counter the sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after his historic June 12 summit with Kim that “there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

Analysts at the CIA and other intelligence agencies don’t see it that way, according to more than a dozen

Have a good rant:

According to new research from Queen’s University Belfast, narcissists are some of the most successful people in the world. If you spend your life marauding around with a bellyful of unearned self-worth, it’s claimed, you’ll soon develop a mental toughness that will drive you to beat your more humble peers in education, work and romance.

That may be, but I’d rather live under a toadstool than spend my life marauding around with a bellyful of unearned self-worth. I can’t stand people like that and I would never want to be one.

Everywhere you look, it’s perfectly clear that the narcissists won long ago. Social media drips with wrongheaded opinion masquerading as violent certainty. The

It turns out Rosenstein was not happy about that whole fire-Comey memo setup.

In the days after the F.B.I. director James B. Comey was fired last year, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, repeatedly expressed anger about how the White House used him to rationalize the firing, saying the experience damaged his reputation, according to four people familiar with his outbursts.

In public, Mr. Rosenstein has shown no hint that he had second thoughts about his role — writing a memo about Mr. Comey’s performance that the White House used to justify firing him. “I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it,” Mr. Rosenstein said to Congress last year.

But in meetings with law enforcement officials in

A press release from Leo Igwe:

The Humanist Association of Nigeria (HAN) is deeply concerned over the persistent violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Central Nigeria. The association condemns very strongly the killings in Plateau state over the weekend that left over 100 people dead and several hundreds injured. It urges that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

HAN deplores the poor and ineffective handling of the herdsmen/farmers crisis by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari especially the government’s apparent inability to take strong measures to stop the killings by herdsmen in central Nigeria and beyond. HAN calls on the Buhari government to rise to the challenge of protecting the lives and property of all Nigerians and of enforcing … Read the rest

The Times lets us know, rather belatedly, that Trump and Anthony Kennedy have a link.

But they had a connection, one Mr. Trump was quick to note in the moments after his first address to Congress in February 2017. As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice.

“Say hello to your boy,” Mr. Trump said. “Special guy.”

Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedy’s son, Justin. The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the bank’s global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people

Seen on Facebook – a recruiting poster for the joys of attending the University of Adelaide:

Updating to correct: actually not for the University at all: those are two separate posters.

… Read the rest

Back in mid-October 2016 the Times ran a story on rabid hostility to journalists at Trump rallies.

[E]ven reporters long accustomed to the toxic fervor of Trump rallies were startled — and even frightened — at the vitriol of a Cincinnati crowd on Thursday evening as more than 15,000 supporters flashed homemade signs, flipped middle fingers and lashed out in tirades often laced with profanity as journalists made their way to a crammed, fenced-in island in the center of the floor.

The Trump supporters crowded by the metal barriers protecting the area, leaning over to get in one last insult before returning their attention to the stage as Rudolph W. Giuliani strode out.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to discredit news

And then this.

I will tweet what I can while I wait to be interviewed by police.

— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018

A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.

— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018

Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad.

— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018

There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload

— Phil Davis (@PDavis_LLC) June 28, 2018

Maybe the choice of target was completely random, and Trump’s … Read the rest

What’s going on today:

House Republicans on Thursday mounted a multi-front effort to rebuke and embarrass the GOP-led Justice Department, hauling Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein before an “emergency” hearing of the Judiciary Committee just as the House voted to accuse him of flouting congressional document requests.

Face-to-face with Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte invoked the Church Committee — the 1975 investigation into federal surveillance abuses against figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. — and suggested history was repeating itself in the ongoing investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia on its election interference efforts.

So, to be clear, Goodlatte compared Trump to King, and the illegal surveillance of King with … Read the rest

Wow. This is astonishing. These are Republicans, grilling a Republican Deputy Attorney General in a Republican administration, accusing him of lying under oath. It’s not “partisanship” as normally understood, it’s something even sicker – it’s deranged and pernicious loyalty to one monstrous human being whose only real party is himself.

Watch Rod Rosenstein dunk on Jim Jordan in this AM's hearing. It's beautiful.

JORDAN: "Did you threaten subpoena their calls and emails?"
ROSENSTEIN: "No sir, and there's no way to subpoena phone calls." pic.twitter.com/gOnrS2E0HJ

— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) June 28, 2018

Rosenstein keeps his cool but he’s obviously not impressed.

Jordan: “I asked if you said it.”

Rosenstein: “Said what?”

J: “What I just read you.”

R: “No … Read the rest

Of course.

Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive who was close to Roger E. Ailes, the network’s ousted chairman, is expected to be offered the job of White House communications director, according to four people familiar with the decision.

Mr. Shine, who was forced out as co-president at Fox News last May for his handling of sexual harassment scandals at the network, has met with President Trump in recent weeks about taking the West Wing communications job, which has been vacant since Hope Hicks left the job in March.

Yeah! Fox News and an enabler of sexual harassment; win-win!

Four people familiar with the decision said it was likely to be announced and that the president had offered

Kathleen Stock has thoughts on the new language rules:

I reject the near-pathological zeal with which trans activists, ‘trans allies’, and ‘woke blokes’ generally, seek to monitor and control natal women’s language in this domain: not just with respect to discussing whether trans women are actually women, but also in uses of particular names and pronouns, and gender attributions.

…

One basis for self-identifying as a trans person is the condition of gender dysphoria. It is assumed by many medical practitioners that, on diagnosis of this condition, treating a person ‘as if’ belonging to their self-identified gender is helpful to their well-being; whereas confronting them with their ‘birth-assigned’ gender, or the biological facts of their sex, is not. We

Seriously. I wish I had one.

… Read the rest

Well, as the saying goes, it’s all over.

Kennedy is retiring from the Supreme Court.

The Times, twisting the knife, includes McConnell Says Senate Will Move Swiftly on a Replacement in the headline.

We’d all emigrate, but no one would have us, and who can blame them.

Trump will be able to impose authoritarian rule with the Court’s blessing (possibly literal).

 … Read the rest