A.M. Links: North Korea Says Nuclear War 'May Break Out Any Moment,' Trump to Declare Opioid Crisis a National Emergency, Syrian Democratic Forces Retake Raqqa from ISIS

• 

  Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com

  President Donald Trump says he will declare a national emergency in response to the opioid crisis.

• "Rep. Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar," President Trump tweeted today.
• The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have reportedly retaken the city of Raqqa from ISIS.
• North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."
• Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a speech at the University of Florida by white nationalist Richard Spencer.
• "The myth of the progressive prosecutor."

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a speech at the University of Florida by white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Scott's no Neville Chamberlain!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Shut the fuck up little fatso Rocket Man.

[Citizen X - #6]

That is a harsh but fair burn on Fist.

[Fist of Etiquette]

My BMI - the universally accepted scientific measure of overweightedness - is well under 25.

[Citizen X - #6]

That is a harsh but fair burn on Fist.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Harsh burning out my fuse up here alone

[CE]

It's all the BMI science you don't understand.

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Donald Trump says he will declare a national emergency in response to the opioid crisis.

That's sure to make things better.

[some guy]

Better for bureaucrats who want to grab power.

[Citizen X - #6]

"Rep. Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar," President Trump tweeted today.

"I just remembered - the job is ANTI-drug czar, man."

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Rep. Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar," President Trump tweeted today.

That's all he tweeted about it? Sad.

[Conchfritters]

It seems like less people were dying when they were popping pills that came in packages with labels that told the user exactly what they were taking. The problem now appears to be people shooting smack from the street that really isn't smack, and might be cut with Michael Jackson's sleep medication.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The market, black or otherwise, really should be cleaning this mess up. Unless it's the CIA killing customers.

[Liberty =><= Equality]

Black markets are not as good at that. No trademark protection, no court system, and extreme risk when changing suppliers lessens competition.

[Liberty =><= Equality]

Which is not what Marino's legislation had anything to do with.

The accusation is that he colluded with drug companies (whose products presumably don't contain impurities) to allow their products into the street market.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I thought libertarians believed that people should be free to abuse opioids if they choose to do so. Now that there's a chance to take a shot at Trump, some "libertarians" will hop on the bandwagon with their leftist pals like Chuck Schumer to spew the outrage.

[Zeb]

Being fort legalization doesn't mean you can't have an opinion on the policies that actually exist and the people who make and enforce them.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""and might be cut with Michael Jackson's sleep medication.""

Would that be the medication Jackson took, or gave to kids?

[Rhywun]

"I will henceforth eliminate the office of 'drug czar'."

Hey, one can dream.

[Rich]

"I will, however, create the office of 'czar czar', to be filled by any available Gabor."

[Rod Flash]

Or Binks

[Don't look at me.]

Or gibbon. Nobody will notice.

[CatoTheChipper]

The idea of the US having a czar of any sort should be repulsive to every American. The US is a republic, not a monarchy. If the propagandists want to use a shorthand historical title to accompany the "war on drugs" metaphor, it should refer to the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as the Drug Obergruppenf?hrer.

[CE]

Or better yet, submit a constitutional amendment to Congress for ratification giving them the authority to start drug prohibition. An amendment was needed for alcohol prohibition.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have reportedly retaken the city of Raqqa from ISIS.

Democratic forces needed a win.

[DJF]

Democratic Forces who have never held an election.

[some guy]

That's the first thing on the agenda right after they seize complete control of the country.

[CE]

Including control of the voting.

[Citizen X - #6]

North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."

I'll take "other things the Norks have been saying for decades" for $200, Alex.

[Bee Tagger]

But, everything is uniquely bad under Trump!

[Don't look at me.]

World's shortest war, 2 explosions.

[Fist of Etiquette]

North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."

Now that's a levelheaded diplomat!

[Rich]

University of Florida officials said Monday afternoon that the order was not made in response to any specific heightened threat.

"But, you know, shit happens."

[Citizen X - #6]

"Kent State was fun, right? Everybody liked that?"

[CE]

Isn't a state of emergency for, you know, actual emergencies? Not for hosting stupid speakers?

[Bee Tagger]

North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."

This isn't going to help my anxiety-induced rash at all.

[Rich]

Not necessarily. Phototherapy can be very good for skin problems.

[Citizen X - #6]

And skin can't get rashy anymore once it has melted off.

[Bee Tagger]

"Rep. Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar," President Trump tweeted today.

He prefers the ts spelling

[Fist of Etiquette]

The correct spelling.

[Rat on a train]

End the Russian influence! It shall now be drug kaiser.

[Rhywun]

"Drug Caesar" has a nice ring to it.

[Timrekgrun]

Drug Chief anyone? (Offer not valid in Canada)

[CatoTheChipper]

Drug Obergruppenf?hrer is more appropriate for a republic.

[Rat on a train]

Let's go all the way to Reichsf?hrer.

[Rich]

President Donald Trump says he will declare a national emergency in response to the opioid crisis.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a speech at the University of Florida by white nationalist Richard Spencer.

It's emergencies all the way down!

[some guy]

The better to rule you with, my dear!

[Bee Tagger]

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have reportedly retaken the city of Raqqa from ISIS.

Are you sure this isn't just a raqqa con?

[BYODB]

Khaaaaaaaan!

[Rufus The Monocled]

"North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."

/Smirking Nork.

Riiiight about....NOW!

(long pause)

I said......NOW!

(mumbles angrily in Commie Korean. Looks at watch)

NOW!

(Pan over to Marvin the Martian)

[Rhywun]

Lot of emergencies today. Should everyone shelter in place?

[Rich]

Gimme Shelter

[Fist of Etiquette]

Gimme Shelter

[Rich]

hockey porn at it's finest?

[John]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNOvgRf0_Ck

I dare anyone to watch this and tell me the Hell's Angels didn't have a point.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The first iteration of the libertarian dream of private police forces?

[John]

They were that. You watch that movie and it is just one scene after another of some guy completely freaked out and totally unmanagable and the Angels beating said idiot with pool ques. Beating people is not okay but what the hell else were the Angels going to do? There were thousands of these idiots.

[Bee Tagger]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a speech at the University of Florida by white nationalist Richard Spencer.

And to think I was worried guys like that may get an exaggerated sense of the power of their opinions.

[Jerryskids]

Trump's got his bennies, downers are for sad losers.

[Morbo]

"The myth of the progressive prosecutor."

"Prosecutors who are progressive do things that embarrass progressives, therefor they're not really progressives!"

-Shorter NY Times

[John]

Just like communist governments are not "really communist" when they inevitably start murdering and enslaving their own people.

[Conchfritters]

So he wasn't progressive in the vein of Teddy Roosevelt? Or he wasn't a Henry Wallace progressive?

The problem with progressives is they become more progressive over time.

[CatoTheChipper]

TD Roosevelt and W Wilson style progressives started calling themselves "liberals" after CPUSA style progressives appropriated the term in the US.

Commies have always styled themselves as 'progressive'. The CPUSA endorsed Henry Wallace's run for president.

Having completely destroyed the the label of "liberal", Democrats have only recently begun to refer to themselves as "progressive" again, and now they're Henry Wallace style.

[colorblindkid]

Can we stop reporting on what North Korea says as if any of it is new in any way? Report on new missile and nuke tests, sure, because those are new. However, nothing North Korea has said, or any official policy announcement they've made, since Trump became president is in any way different than what they've been saying for decades;

[Rich]

Can we stop reporting on what North Korea says as if any of it is new in any way?

What if the speaker exhibits a trickle of sweat this time?

[John]

Or asks us if we would like to play a game of solitaire?

[BYODB]

Look, do we need to send an aging Matthew Broderick over there to play tic-tac-toe with them?

[Rich]

Why the unknown motive in the Las Vegas massacre is so unsettling

"Man gotta tell himself he understand."

[Don't look at me.]

It is what it is. Deal with it.

[Domestic Dissident]

He was an unstable far left-wing Obama Momma who got pushed over the edge by the election.

[Domestic Dissident]

I saw a story a few days ago that the Filipino girlfriend has been put on the permanent TSA watch list.

That really sucks for her if in fact she's completely innocent, but I'm still not buying that she could be that clueless.

[Rhywun]

Trump's characterization of Paddock as mentally ill may help the president feel better by providing a simplistic motive for the shooting, said Dr. David Spiegel, a Stanford University psychiatrist. But it is a poor response to a phenomenon that is actually quite easy to explain.

The reason Paddock could kill so many people in a 10-minute span is that he had ready access to the means to do so, Spiegel said. The real explanation, he said, lies with guns and a culture that puts "ridiculous firepower" in virtually anyone's hands.

"There's nothing sick about him," Spiegel said of Paddock. "As a psychiatrist, I deeply resent the inference that anybody who does something like this is mentally ill. It's untrue and deeply unfair to people with mental illness."

So the guns made him do it. That's not crazy at all.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Guns are the new devil

[Zeb]

The reason Paddock could kill so many people in a 10-minute span is that he had ready access to the means to do so

No shit. We already know how it was possible to do it. The question is what motivated it.

[Rhywun]

progressive prosecutor

I don't even know what that is supposed to mean. But coming from the NYT I'm going to guess it means they've crunched the numbers and determined that "too many" of one sort of folks are in his radar.

[CatoTheChipper]

Andrey Vyshinsky was the ideal progressive prosecutor, but I don't think that he's quite the model that the NYT has in mind.

Instead, I think that their ideal progressive prosecutor will convict and imprison felons in a manner analogous to the way a progressive college administrator approves applications for college admittance.

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/278522/

Apparently, you cannot buy the Presidency for $100,000. Who knew?

[Conchfritters]

So that's why Deez Nutz never got much traction, aside from his endorsement by Warren G.

[CE]

And not being old enough to take office legally.

[some guy]

this Russian ad buy, mostly after the election anyway

If only all of our "enemies" used poorly planned and executed strategies that benefit our own economy.

[John]

It is almost like Russia created the "Russia stole the election" meme to sow chaos or something!

[TrickyVic (old school)]

I've been curious about that. I think Russia is the biggest winner in all this because it makes them look like they own us.

[Rich]

Trump says he will declare a national emergency in response to the opioid crisis.

How about a national emergency in response to the inner-city shootings? "Stop the American carnage!"

[Rhywun]

Guns are already illegal there duh.

[Don't look at me.]

Put them on double secret illegal or something maybe.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

When that fails, go triple.

[CE]

Has he cleaned up Chicago yet?

[John]

http://thehill.com/policy/nati.....ration?amp

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin's atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.

They also obtained an eyewitness account - backed by documents - indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

[John]

And the money quote

Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin's commercial nuclear ambitions.

Well, that doesn't fit the narrative now does it?

[John]

And there there is this

The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump's deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.

Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign during the 2016 election. McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife's Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.

The connections to the current Russia case are many.

How does Rob Reinstein still have a job?

[BYODB]

Caesar never saw Brutus coming, I'd suppose.

[Juice]

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have reportedly retaken the city of Raqqa from ISIS.

Well, what little is left of it, anyway.

[Sevo]

"Brown vetoes tax-disclosure bill for presidential candidates"
http://www.sfchronicle.com/new.....281231.php

It's obvious that this was nothing other than a 'Trump is a big poopyhead' effort, and Brown claim the high road in vetoing it.
Which might be more believable if HE hadn't consistently denied access to his tax returns forever.

[Rhywun]

the Second Avenue line is the priciest subway extension on the planet

Democrats gather in NYC to express complete bewilderment as to know why it costs 10x as much to build a subway there than in Paris or London.

[Rhywun]

know

[John]

Big progressive government that builds pyramids and public monuments or unionized public workers, pick one. Progs are starting to figure that out and they don't seem to like it very much.

[Rhywun]

I'm going to pick unions - even as most of the work for these projects is funnelled to private contractors, they are just as unionized up their eyeballs. But FFS... when our unions are out-grafting unions in France, you know it's gotten completely out of control.

[Citizen X - #6]

I've read that early unions in America tended to focus more on money, while unions in Europe tended to focus more on leisure time. That's why American unions now have crippling pension debts and hands all up in the kitty while European unions get the whole summer off.

[Rhywun]

Ah, interesting, but... if time == money it seems like Europe should be just as crippled financially by this stuff.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

I think they are crippled in time.

How long does it take to get anything fixed in Europe?

[Don't look at me.]

Bunch of idiots that couldn't run a lemonade stand.

[Bubba Jones]

Trump has several examples of this in the art of the deal.

[Rhywun]

Too bad he didn't run for mayor first. We have a swamp that needs drainin' too.

[Inigo Montoya]

North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations says that nuclear war "may break out any moment."

I think Roy Batty said it best. "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave."

[TrickyVic (old school)]

I see Hillary fell and broke her toe.

Friggin Russians.

[Domestic Dissident]

That brain damage she suffered a while back is obviously permanent. The country sure made a good decision keeping the old witch who can't walk or stand for more than 30 minutes without collapsing out of the White House.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I like how NPR is discovering that deals made by guys are non-binding.