Ho boy… politics and news

Nowadays and in the political sphere, things come at you fast and furious.

Yesterday, for example, Donald Trump called in to Fox and Friends and ranted and raved to such an extent that over on Reddit, they posted this amusing graphic showing the Trump-lover hosts before and nearing the end of the interview:

The actual full phone call/interview, if you dare!

If you’re curious for even more stuff, there are plenty of comments and takes on this off the rails phone call/interview.  You can read it over here:

Before and after your call to the President

A comment by Ryepodz at that link noted the following regarding the video:

At 13:43 you can hear a producer or staff in the background saying “oh god…” At 13:55 he says “jesus christ…” 

Wading through all the crap Trump said, one of the things that really hurt him was stating that Attorney Michael Cohen barely did anything for him and, further, he admitted for the first time that Cohen handled the Stormy Daniels affair, comments which not two hours later was presented to the judge handling the Michael Cohen case as evidence that the documents seized from him were not subject to the attorney/client confidentiality provisions.

Man, talk about shooting yourself in the… foot.

If you want still more information about this, check out this article by Chris Cillizza over at CNN.com where he encapsulates…

The 53 most stunning lines from Donald Trump’s Fox and Friends interview

But that’s not all!

The second bit of big news is that actor/comedian Bill Cosby was found guilty of sexual assault against Andrea Constand.  Ms. Constand was quite literally the last person who could bring Mr. Cosby to justice as the many, many women who have subsequently come out and given testimony eerily similar regarding Mr. Cosby’s actions (ie, drugging then sexually assaulting them) had already passed the time limits for prosecution.

Mr. Cosby was supposedly unemotional when the guilty verdict was read but he had an outburst following the verdict and when talk turned to revoking his bail.  In arguing to revoke his bail, Prosecutors stated he had an airplane and might use it to flee.  At that point Mr. Cosby blurted out: “He doesn’t have a plane, asshole.”

Yes, Mr. Cosby referred to himself in the third person.

One can only guess that the gravity of his predicament finally came into focus at that point.

Anyway, if you want to read more about that, here’s an article about the trail by Eric Levenson and presented on CNN.com:

The long, winding path to Bill Cosby’s guilty verdict

But wait, there’s still more!

As if all that wasn’t enough, later in the afternoon came this stunning news, which you can read in the article by Joshua Berlinger, Nick Thompson, and Euan McKirdy and presented on the below link:

North and South Korea leaders hold historic summit and pledge to end Korean War

Wow… just… wow.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the very real fear a potential nuclear war might occur because of the actions of North Korean leader Kim.  His provocative missile “tests”, his nuclear ambitions…

So what exactly happened?

I suspect a few things, and one of them is this: Donald Trump.

There’s an old cliche that goes like this: Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Mr. Trump’s instability and outrageous threats leveled at Kim, I suspect, unnerved him.  Previous U.S. Presidents, Kim knew, wouldn’t risk a nuclear war and, perhaps, that emboldened him to push his luck with them.

But because Trump is so out there, he might (and, I repeat, might) have finally gotten worried that he was facing someone as crazy as he was projecting himself out to be and, therefore, the risk of a war was suddenly far higher.

Note, there are certainly other factors.  Leader Kim went to China, which suggested the mighty country might have finally decided to reign him in.  There is also talk that his latest nuclear tests might have collapsed the entire research facilities he had in the mountains for them.

Regardless, these factors -and, yes, including Donald freaking Trump- I believe played into the stunning news presented yesterday.

Will Kim continue down this path?

For the sake of the world, one hopes so.