A.M. Links: Trump Lawyers Expect Mueller Interview Request, North Korea and South Korea to Hold Talks, Alabama Beats Georgia to Win College Football National Championship

• 

  Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com

  President Trump will meet with congressional leaders today at the White House to discuss the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

• "Lawyers for President Donald Trump are anticipating a request for the President to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller and are discussing how to define the parameters of any interview, according to sources with knowledge of the matter."
• North Korea and South Korea have agreed to hold talks to "relieve military tensions."
• J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: "I regret" calling Bitcoin a fraud.
• The University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia last night to win the college footfall national championship.
• Gayle King on the possibility of her friend Oprah Winfrey running for president: "I do think she's intrigued by the idea. I do think that."

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Gayle King on the possibility of her friend Oprah Winfrey running for president: “I do think she’s intrigued by the idea. I do think that.”

PeeWee Herman? Her running mate.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Soooo, Trump the Nazi managed to get a framework in place getting both sides on board about immigration (to which no President including the moron before him couldn’t do), and then he spoke to farmers and announced, among other things, he killed the estate tax for them.

Yeh. He’s evil alright.

[DiegoF]

getting both sides on board about immigration

So, both the SS and the SA? Damn that is impressive!

[Rufus The Monocled]

YOU GOTTA START SOMEWHERE.

[USA]

I’m trying to understand you. You don’t live in America. You are not an American. You are Canadian and yet you’re obsessed with American politics and seem to be in love with an avowed nativist American president. It’s so weird. Go home.

[DiegoF]

I’m trying to understand you.

Give it up; believe me I’ve tried. They’re the world’s most inscrutable people.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Canadians are people?

We’re 4/5ths American. The dollar is at .80 cents USD.

Get it?

[Zeb]

Well, have you seen Canadian politics?

Funny how the standard for loving Trump is low enough that saying that he isn’t a complete failure or an evil Nazi means you love him.

[Rufus The Monocled]

He clearly is unable to understand that the same crap of how the media and the left judge and attack is the same across the board and we’re in the same boat on that front.

But whatev.

[Hail Rataxes]

Funny how the standard for loving Trump is low enough that saying that he isn’t a complete failure or an evil Nazi means you love him.

Yeahhhhhh you might want to check out more of Rufus’ work on “the other site” before you white-knight him.

[DiegoF]

Well I for one have seen plenty of the other site. And Rufus was one of the first people to welcome me to this one, one of the first people I ever interacted with. He is one of the most courteous, decent, and principled commenters I have encountered here or anywhere else online.

This is not a compliment. I don’t trust those kinds of people. He probably has a freezerfull of stranded-motorist body parts somewhere in that meth lab Canadian house of his.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I don’t understand myself either sometimes.

[Hail Rataxes]

Normally, Tulpa, I’d complain about you, but I hate Rufus even more. I even like your new nickname for him, Retarded Rufus.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

You know, the amazing thing about the internet is…

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Hitler? It’s always Hitler. Unless it’s Trump-Hitler.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Nobody can tell you’re a dog

[loveconstitution1789]

Ernst Rohm hardest hit!

[Bee Tagger]

J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: “I regret” calling Bitcoin a fraud.

This feels a little too cryptic to me

[Drave Robber]

Someone explained assassination markets to him?

[CE]

MOre like a “shared delusion”.

[Fist of Etiquette]

North Korea and South Korea have agreed to hold talks to “relieve military tensions.”

And smoke a cigarette afterwards.

[loveconstitution1789]

North Korea’s strategy is too give South Korean soldiers intestinal worms through close contact.

[loveconstitution1789]

and smoke cigarettes.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia last night to win the college footfall national championship.

WHAT ABOUT TRUMP?

[loveconstitution1789]

He got a standing ovation during the National Anthem.

It would seem that more Americans like Trump than the media is admitting.

[Libertarian]

I call bullshit. It was Georgia, so everybody was already standing for the anthem, not Trump.*

[loveconstitution1789]

It was a joke since everyone typically stands for the National Anthem.

As a Georgian, its clear to me that Trump is popular here. There are plenty of lefties here and old Democrat RINOs too but Georgians can see Trump’s actions are helping Georgia.

In fact, a surprising amount of Californians travel all the way here to experience the boom in Georgia. Georgia is one for the top locations for Amazon HQ part deux, but who knows for sure.

[Libertarian]

I was trying to make a funny, too. But seriously, I could swear I saw almost your exact wording elsewhere on the intertubes this morning.

[loveconstitution1789]

We are way too serious sounding early in the day.

I think the left was using the whole thing more than the conservatives. especially that there were protesters there to protest Trump. There were like 10 and it was cold as shit for Georgia, so they looked more cold than anything.

I hate politicians going to events as it idolizes them. The presidential motorcades are the worst as they take over roads.

Some people just love their chance to meet a politician just to meet them rather than yell at them about how shitty they are doing. I have been around 3 presidents up close and never cared to shake their hands or meet them.

[CE]

Everyone didn’t stand for the anthem when Mike Pence went to a game.

[Zeb]

He got a standing ovation during the National Anthem.

That seems much more disrespectful of the anthem than taking a knee.

[DiegoF]

Technically speaking you’re not even supposed to applaud after the anthem; it’s not considered a musical performance per se. Let alone the fact that damn hear everyone starts hooting and hollering (post-9/11, at least it seems to be more out of patriotic zeal than at the virtuosity of the performance) at “free.”

I always used to grind my teeth a little at that, especially as a kid, because I’m by nature rather anal and Hank Hillish/ Walter Sobchakish about the rules and details, damn it! But you just gotta learn to chill and appreciate folks’ good intentions. You can’t really blame a guy for running around in American flag undies to show how much he loves America!

[DiegoF]

Obnoxious, unpraiseworthy patriotic zeal: The assholes at Yankees management.

A patriotic pop song, no matter how patriotic, is just a performance. Hooting, hollering, applause, etc., perfectly acceptable and praiseworthy. And on that same principle, there is absolutely no reason to stand except to get a better view–no matter how fervent the song’s patriotic sentiment. It’s not the fucking anthem. Stuff your face with hot dogs if you feel like it. (And what could be more American?)

And yet, at Yankee Stadium, they play “God Bless America” at the Seventh Inning Stretch and force you to stand and stay put in your seat. Fuck that shit; the Stretch is to take a leak if you have to; I ain’t standing for a fucking pop song like it’s the Alleluia at Mass if I got better things to do. Fucking fascists, man. (Look at what you’ve done; you’ve made me become the Dude now.)

Then again, maybe I should chill about this, too. This is not only asinine, but asinine in such a particularly Yankees way that it seems downright unreasonable for me to expect them to be anything else.

[Rhywun]

I thought they all did that? I mean I get it, Yankees, but still.

[Zeb]

No, it’s a special Yankees thing, I think (though I haven’t paid much attention to baseball for several years now). Because 9-11.

[DiegoF]

What? No!!! See, this is what happens when you come from a savage no-man’s land belonging to no discernible baseball-fandom territory. (Surely you’ve been educated on your visits to Cooperstown, though? It’s…somewhere up there.)

My understanding is that most teams did start playing “God Bless America” after 9/11. But they stopped; whereas the Yankees alone, since we are America’s Team (it says so right in the nickname, duh), did not. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is the only real traditional Seventh Inning Stretch song.

[Citizen X - #6]

since we are America’s Team

What’s funny is that “yankee” actually comes from a disparaging term for Dutch Nieu Nederlanders.

[Rhywun]

What’s funny is that “yankee” actually comes from a disparaging term for Dutch Nieu Nederlanders.

We took it back.

[Mickey Rat]

I heard recently that “yankee” meant “people who eat pie for breakfast”.

[Rhywun]

this is what happens when you come from a savage no-man’s land belonging to no discernible baseball-fandom territory

Never followed baseball so *shrug*.

[Zeb]

I don’t actually care personally. But I always feel like if you are going to do patriotism, you should do it properly and respectfully. I feel the same way about religious services, even though I’m not at all religious. If you’re going to do it, it should be solemn and dignified (if that’s the tradition you are part of). And at least put on a jacket and tie, for heaven’s sake.

[DiegoF]

Yeah, we’re pretty much of the same mind. Like I absolutely no visceral anger towards, say, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refuse to make any patriotic gestures at all. I can’t imagine myself ever getting upset at them. Like I said, it’s more the anal, propriety-loving part of me. But I do think there’s a virtue to it, a general virtue. Do something, do it right, bother to learn and follow the proper procedures, don’t half-ass it. I feel like a lazy or sloppy attitude toward doing something important is actually the most disrespectful and self-indulgent.

[BestUsedCarSales]

And at least put on a jacket and tie, for heaven’s sake.

Sweet, now we know Zeb and Gilmore are the same Person. It’s only January and I have such a big chunk of the site tied in already.

[Citizen X - #6]

BUCS: “Wait, the event isn’t until February? Then why are you putting on a tux now?”
GILMORE: “It’s after six. What am i, a farmer?”

[CE]

What? You’re applauding for the singer, not the song. that thing is tough to sing.

[Conchfritters]

Call him Deacon Blues (minus the scotch whiskey all night long)

[Cyto]

Today Show first teaser headline this morning: Trump attends college football championship and receives a mixed reaction.

Watching the game with the guys at the local BBQ joint (all you can eat wing night!), the consensus was that after the resounding ovation, news coverage would be spit between “Trump gets booed” and “Redneck Georgia and Alabama fans cheer president”.

So I jogged over to HuffPo….. yup, they are all-in on the “redneck hicks” angle. They had a funny line too – said Trump found his “safe space” with all the racist, southern hicks.

[Rhywun]

He was there?! I guess if he wasn’t there the line would have been “Trump too busy playing golf to attend America’s Game(TM)” or some such.

[CE]

Yeah, all the corporate big-wigs who got tickets to the CFP championship game to entertain corporate clients are “redneck hicks”. THe story should have said “elitist 1 percenters applaud President Trump for reckless tax cuts”.

[NealAppeal]

At $2,600 a ticket on the resale market, those are some of the richest, redneck hicks I have ever heard of.

[Drave Robber]

What’s ‘footfall’?

[Overt]

Elephants with guns paragliding into your planet, that’s what it is.

[Mickey Rat]

Fake Championship. Alabama did not earn a spot in the playoff on the field.

[CE]

Yeah, Georgia won the SEC conference championship, and lost to Auburn, who lost to UCF, who was undefeated and the rightful national champion.

[DJK]

Bama also got a ton of favorable calls/no-calls at important moments. The non-ejection for punching the Georgia QB in the head after a play. The false start non-call on the tying TD. Multiple facemasking no-calls. Holding no-calls all night. The phantom offsides call on the blocked punt.

[DJK]

Don’t get me wrong. Georgia screwed themselves by playing way too conservatively toward the end of the game. But the officiating also screwed them.

And why is the Bama freshman QB getting so much love? He completed less than 60% of his passes with a modest yards/attempt number and threw a horrible interception while lining up against a Georgia secondary that was playing with very conservative formations.

[Eek Barba Durkle]

Then who did? Ohio State, with their two losses, and ass-beating by a shitty team less than a month before selection?

I can agree with UCF, but only UCF.

Bama was the clear #1 for almost the entire year, until they lost their final game, on the road, to their rival, who was having a top 10 season. There is nobody with a better claim.

[Bee Tagger]

Lawyers for President Donald Trump are anticipating a request for the President to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller and are discussing how to define the parameters of any interview

Honestly, what would happen if Trump just said “no”? It’s what I want to happen because I want to see what happens next.

[Citizen X - #6]

“I want to see what happens next” is the correct mindset with which to approach the Trump presidency.

[Zeb]

I just wish more people would take that attitude. It would be a lot more fun that way.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Yeah, but you always have to sit through like 20 minutes of commercials before anything good happens.

[loveconstitution1789]

“The White House and the House Select Committee on Benghazi are at a standoff over whether President Barack Obama should answer a series of questions about the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya that left four Americans dead.

Eggleston has encouraged Obama not to answer the committee’s questions “because of the implications of his response on the constitutional separation of powers,” according to a letter sent Saturday to Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) ”

Congress does have enumerated power to impeach all Congressional, Judicial, and Executive officers, including the president. It would only make sense that Congress would have the power to investigate claims of wrongdoing by a president.

There is a separation of powers for a reason. On that note, a federal judge should hear probable cause and issue an order before a president has to talk to a Congressional special investigator.

[Cyto]

These guys love to play the “perjury trap” game.

Trump has an utter inability to stay on point and limit what he says.

It would be amazing to see an interview with Trump take that turn.

[loveconstitution1789]

To quote Dave Chappelle: I plead the FIF!

1….2….3…..4….FIF

[Jerryskids]

First parameter – no multi-syllabic words like “parameters”.

[loveconstitution1789]

Outstanding!

[Ron]

why not say no since Comey said no to Congress

[Citizen X - #6]

Gayle King on the possibility of her friend Oprah Winfrey running for president: “I do think she’s intrigued by the idea. I do think that.”

Gayle is expecting to be offered the position of veep, but she will be disappointed yet again.

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Trump will meet with congressional leaders today at the White House to discuss the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

So I guess this means Congressional Democrats just to get what they want are good with normalizing Trump as president.

[Domestic Dissident]

The University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia last night to win the college footfall national championship.

Dipshit Dave Weigel has a major sad.

(Of course, he really doesn’t, because pretending to be a bigshot investor living in rural Georgia is just his absolutely ridiculous schtick, he doesn’t actually give a crap about UGA).

[Citizen X - #6]

Your insistence that Weigel is shreek, based on no evidence whatsoever, continues to fascinate.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

It’s a Tulpa thing. We all understand it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Lawyers for President Donald Trump are anticipating a request for the President to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller and are discussing how to define the parameters of any interview…

“DM me.”

[Libertarian]

Perhaps, in the spirit of transparency, they could just partake in an epic tweet storm.

[Rhywun]

So Ivanka tweeted some kind words about Oprah and of course this sent the MSM into a tizzy. My morning DNC-outlet/news-show anchors were in mock-shock that Ivanka would praise Oprah’s speech, given that Oprah obviously stands for everything that Ivanka’s father hates. “I just don’t get that she would say that! zOMG!”

[A Cynic's Guide to Zen]

“Doesn’t she know her dad is Literally Hitler? snickers How deliciously embarassing!”

[Rhywun]

Then they showed a picture of Ivanka and reluctantly admitted to the audience that she does not, in fact, have horns and a tail.

[DiegoF]

Though that would be incredibly hot.

[Libertarian]

“Oprah would always be my first choice,” Trump told talk-show host Larry King on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 1999.

When King asked, “Do you have a vice presidential candidate in mind?” Trump responded: “Well, I really haven’t gotten quite there yet. Oprah, I love Oprah. Oprah would always be my first choice. Oprah, your competitor, right? She’s really a great woman, though, she is a terrific woman. She’s somebody that’s very special. I think, if she’d do it, she’d be fantastic. She’s popular, she’s brilliant, she’s a wonderful woman.”

Trump’s comments suggest that, along with much of the country over the past 30 years, the president has not been immune to Oprah’s magic. And it’s not the only time he has voiced his love for her.

In 2012, not long after Oprah had debuted her television network, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Trump tweeted, “Oprah will end up doing just fine with her network–she knows how to win.”

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-…..ate-774130

[loveconstitution1789]

She turned Trump down to be his VP 🙂

Oprah still vacations with the Obamas. She still considers the Obamas as achievers, so I give Oprah massive minus points for that.

[Ron]

doens’t Trump say everyone is great until he changes his mind

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

President Trump will meet with congressional leaders today at the White House to discuss the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

“Gentlemen, as I see it you have three choices regarding DACA: deport them, or gas them!”
“Uh, sir, that’s just two choices.”
“Don’t tell me what it is! I’m a stable genius after all!”

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

When the time comes to build the Trump class of super-duper aircraft carriers, the lead ship’s motto better be, “firmum ingenio nimis”.

[Stormy Dragon]

The University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia last night to win the college footfall national championship.

FAKE NEWS. UCF won the National Championship January 1.

[CE]

Yup. Beat Auburn who beat Georgia AND Alabama previously.

[Rebel Scum]

“I do think she’s intrigued by the idea. I do think that.”

I hope you are all ready to be labeled simultaneously “racist” AND “sexist/misogynist” for expressing even mild disagreement with the next light-bringer.

[Rebel Scum]

“Lawyers for President Donald Trump are anticipating a request for the President to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller and are discussing how to define the parameters of any interview

It’s only a matter of time. Dotard Drumpf is going down. //sarc

[Domestic Dissident]

The same leftard scumbags in the JournoList who used to constantly lecture people that it was unpatriotic to root for a bad economy when their Obamessiah was president are now rooting for the economy to go in the tank. How classic and shameless.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

And it’s interesting that nobody was rooting for a bad economy during the awful Obama years. They were pointing out the fact the recovery was very slow due to increases in regulation and overall uncertainty in the market, yet some pro-Obama or leftist pundits were accusing the less enthusiastic analysts of being right-wing kooks hell-bent on seeing the first black president fail because of racism, or something. While Obama lovers were touting the levels of growth in the stock market during the slow recovery as evidence that Obama’s economic policies were doing a lot of good, they weren’t as emphatic about mainstream not getting a share of this new wealth as they are today now that growth is much faster and Trump The Stavle Genius is the one wearing the crown.

Not that the current growth is of the Stable Genius’ doing. Entrepreneurs and business growth DESPITE government, not because of it. Credit is due entirely on them. But one has to concede that, at least when it comes to removing burdensome regulation, Trump’s administration has so far shined.

[loveconstitution1789]

Any good journalist reporting on economies would point out that boom and recession are part of the cycle and there will be another recession someday.

The big lie is that the US was out of the Great Recession before 2017. If anything 2017 was the first year but maybe not until 2018 will the economy be booming.

Georgia has been booming for two years now which is why a bunch of people are moving here. Not every region in the USA is recovering though. I don’t think GDP alone is the best way to measure recessions and recovery from recessions.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

Steve Bannon Is Gone But Already Too Late.
By David Stockman.

Good riddance to Steve Bannon. The last thing America needed was a conservative/populist/statist alternative to the Welfare State/Warfare State/Bailout State status quo. Yet what Bannonism boiled down to was essentially acquiescence to the latter—even as it drove politicization deeper into the sphere of culture, communications and commerce.

[…]

Besides, the Donald’s dogs’ breakfast of protectionism, nativism, xenophobia, jingoism and strong-man bombast didn’t really need an ideological framework in the first place.

It was never anything more than a wrong-headed mishmash of ersatz nationalism—a pig that even one like Steve Bannon couldn’t powder.

[Jerryskids]

That’s at least the third “we’ve always known Steve Bannon was a piece of shit” column I’ve seen from people who, oddly enough, somehow failed to warn us Steve Bannon was a piece of shit before now.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

That’s because you hardly read. Robert Wenzel, Ben Shapiro, many others were warning us at least two years before that Bannon was a Fascist kook. *I* warned you about Bannon.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

And Stockman has focused mainly on economic matters, not so much politics. Nevertheless you cannot claim you weren’t warned.

[Sevo]

“Oil giant ExxonMobil counters climate-change suits by SF, other governments”
[…]
“The document said the so-called La Jolla playbook was politically motivated and an abuse of power. It said that if the communities were genuinely concerned about the costs of climate change in their jurisdictions they would have disclosed the threat in their bond reports, which they did not do, according to the filing.”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/…..483217.php

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

That’s a very ingenious response. Well played, sirs. Well played.

[Tony]

Lawyers for President Donald Trump are anticipating a request for the President to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller and are discussing how to define the parameters of any interview

The President requests that all responses be supplied in the medium of finger paint.

[Old Mexican's Speedos]

Actually the request says to use anatomically-correct hand puppets.

[loveconstitution1789]

Obama is no longer president, so Americans will no longer receive Obama’s socialist nonsensical messages in bright swaths of blue, yellow and green paint.

[Tony]

I’m really sure this Trump thing is gonna work out great for you.

[Sevo]

“I’m really sure this Trump thing is gonna work out great for you.”

“DOW JONES INDU AVERAGE NDX: 25,391.11”
http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/dow/
Stuff it, Tony.

[Libertarian]

Don’t forget, when describing the DOW index under Obama that, in addition to points gained, you have to include points “saved”.