As ridiculous as every moment of Trump's presidency has become, nothing is quite as ridiculous to me as the fact that he could still easily end up as the 'best' modern President to ever represent my far-left interests, through a combination of incompetence, inaction, anger and spite. Or he could destroy the country and/or planet. Everything's on the table.

Do we really think Trump cares about passing any legislature or really governing. It is just a big ego trip. It will get interesting if he gets Sessions and Bannon thrown out. They might have some interesting dirt on Trump but not that it will matter.

Dumbass better start paying attention:North Korea 2nd ICBM test puts much of US in range: experts

Range of at least 10,400 kilometers (about 6,500 miles). That means it could have reached Los Angeles, Denver or Chicago.��

I don't think he cares much about what passes, but he's clearly desperate to sign major legislation and claim a victory. I think he would have been fine with an ACA repeal, a replace plan, or universal care. What it is doesn't matter, but he wants that big signing ceremony so badly he can taste it.

Priebus didn't seem that effective and I do think Trump deserves to make changes as he sees fit. But its not what you do but how you do it, classless.

Re: open warfare with GOP, hopefully we'll see more Rep-Dem working better together.

Trump will play the war-with-NK trump (heh) card sometime to be looked on more favorably in the history books.

Yeah I don't think he cares much about passing legislation. He clearly had no idea what was in the bill yesterday but was eager to sign it. The message put out by the White House yesterday was that the Chief of Staff is apparently a felon for leaking a public document and the Chief Strategist performs fellatio on himself. Not much effort to explain the bill or push the public to support it.

I think he cares way more about political rallies and what cable news is saying about him than any of the governing stuff.

For all the talk on the left about Trump destroying the country, he's really just out of his element and surrounded by incompetent nutjobs. I don't think much gets done.

I expect the Dems to sit back and let the Trumpers and "old guard" Republicans conduct civil war on each other.
Yes I would not be surprised if Trump is advised to use the N. Korea card to look more presendtial. The one issue if North Korea invades and takes over Seoul and bombs Alaska the history books will not view Trump well.

Yeah, there is no good military option with NK. A million dead in SK, a refugee crisis in NK, a cold war(at best) with China....

And that's a best case scenario.

Actually, assassination comes to mind.

Obviously need to point it back to China.

Pretty sure it's highly optimistic to suggest the whole thing comes crashing down in that scenario. There's always another Kim. They probably have a batch of chubby faces clones in the freezer ready to go right now.

I don't care how covert the mission is, if Trump were to take out Kim Jong Un he wouldn't make it a week before bragging about it or someone in his administration leaking it.

I hear this a lot, but really? Is this really on people's minds? Ok, I get that he's a bad guy, and that we take out the bad guy and that's good for us and the world but, do we really want to be the country that starts legitimizing world leader assassination as a means of avoiding war? 'Cause, I'm not so sure that the rest of the world is going to look at it from the same perspective, and I'm not so sure that it doesn't start to destabilize regimes everywhere. Imagine how giddy Putin would be if he could start doing this.

A war with NK would really destabilize the globe. South Korea and Japan are big economies that are important to the world. China would deal with an unprecedented refugee crisis.

Putting pressure on China is probably the way to go. They have the ability to make North Korea stop.

Yeah, that's what we said since at least the GWB days. Hasn't happened and realistically we don't have enough leverage to make it happen.

I didn't mean a public assassination that is broadcast everywhere, I'm not talking legitimizing assassination. Mum's the word, send Arya over there :)

Are there implications or likely unintended consequences, sure. But yes, there are some people that are clear and present danger and should be taken out after other options have been exhausted and/or time has run out.

I had to reread the last ten posts or so several times before I was certain which world leader was being discussed. :confused:

They seemed to avoid military conflicts which is the ultimate goal.

Avoiding military conflicts is not the ultimate goal IMO. We differ here.

On the DL or not, it's going to be the US that ends up taking the blame. No need to even try and prove or disprove it.

But we would still be stuck with Pence...

Pence is a pussy. The people of Indiana could deal with pence.

The real problem is McConnell.
Ryan too.

What is the goal?

It'd leak before the mission was planned (probably on Twitter) and Un would launch whatever nukes he has.

"Of course I ordered it. Wouldn't you? I mean come on, spoiled chubby rich kid with soft hands who demands loyalty to him, not his country? And then he's grandstanding on the world stage while his people suffer? Terrible....and sad! Who wouldnt want that guy taken out?!"

Hmmmm....

We can't even get good intelligence out of NK, how in the hell are we going to assassinate the leader without any traces and in a way that mimics a natural death?

It does seem to be in play for the entire notion of "deficits don't matter" to be the piece that exits the picture as the Administration drifts away from GOP orthodoxy into more pure self-interested kleptocratic populism.

The pending debates over tax reform and possibly infrastructure suddenly take on an entirely different hue if they decide that running up a few more trillion in debt is on the table.

Protect United States?

You would avoid military conflict at any cost?

Valid question.

Didn't think about this but you may be right. Trump knows about debt in his business and not scared about it (just go into bankruptcy, litigate etc.)

I would hope the GOP push back. I'm ready to cut programs to reduce the deficit.

I would be ready for a massive retaliatory strike, but there's no way I'd start anything. If there is a war in Korea, the Norks will have to start it.

War in this case may be a NK nuclear first strike against the US. You would allow this and then do a retaliatory strike?

Because I do believe the NK kid is crazy, I'm all for taking him out (not sure the best way) before he starts threatening us with ICBMs.

I am a little surprised at the seemingly little that Trump has done so far.

NK would not first strike the US, because that would be the end of NK. NK isn't as crazy as they seem, and they are taking advantage of their situation - they know that none of the major powers wants to commit to a war in that region, so they continue to get away with whatever they want... to a point. The real danger IMO is another nation escalating it beyond the stalemate, unintentionally or intentionally to trigger all out war.

This, by posturing like this it props the regime up to the citizens and cements his control. He would be flat out stupid to strike first and knows it.

Are there non-crazy people ready to step in and take control after this assassination? Creating a power vacuum has had disastrous consequences in the past and, if anything, only increases the chances that NK would strike first.

I am curious are you a veteran?

People have been talking about assasinating these Kim's over there ever since I lived there back in the 90s till now. It would have happened if it was possible. Trying to get to him would require China or Russia doing it on our behalf.

I think that if NK gets nukes, they're going to ramp up the criminal activities that they are already supposedly doing (hacking, producing counterfeit money etc...). The Kims know that by getting nukes capable of hitting the US, it's going to raise the bar in terms of what they can get away with.

No I am not. Are you?

I do think you have valid points. See my premise below on clear and present danger and other options/time has run out.

Yes. 1989 to 2003.

It's not over yet:

Senate Republicans to make another attempt at Obamacare repeal - POLITICO

And you agree "avoiding military conflict is the ultimate goal"?

Unfortunately, seeing how Trump has been, he'll keep pushing until he gets some sort of "win". It would be great if he could spend some of his energy and give negotiating with democrats a try.

I'm not quibbling with your general point, but in my opinion, it would be easier to do the assassination than get good intelligence.

We should study the products that Kim likes and then attempt to do a combination product interaction death ala Batman 1.

Not at any cost. But my goal would be to avoid a military conflict. A war with North Korea does not benefit us in any way.

Can we seriously shut down Twitter for the good of America. Maybe we'll get lucky and Trump will OD in the middle of a Twitter rant one day.

No but also see lots of conservatives all to willing to send their fellow citizen soldiers over to fight any and all conflicts long before diplomatic options have been exhausted. I believe need to exhaust all options before we start airdroping marines into a LZ.

It might be easier to kill him, but to do so without any suspicions of U.S. involvement seems unlikely in the extreme.

I don't disagree on first sentence. I just read too much into the "ultimate goal" statement.

I contend there are times when war is needed to protect US.