Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Busy Times

Rich Galen

Monday July 1, 2019

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Let's start with Donald Trump's visit to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un. "Visit," being defined as walking 20 feed (according to CNN) across the border.
I tried to get a projectile sweat going about Trump meeting with a crazed despot, but on this overseas trip he also met with Russia's Vladimir Putin, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman so his murdering dictator dance card was pretty full.
The notion of Trump claiming some sort of victory for the brief meeting is pointless. If anything Kim should be smoking cigars and playing the bongos for maneuvering Trump into doing his bidding. Again.
The best part of the North Korea visit - maybe the best part of the whole trip - was the way the new White House Press Secretary/Communications Director, Stephanie Grisham, acted when North Korean security forces tried to block the way of members of the American press pool.
She literally threw a hip check into one of security guards opening a path, told the U.S. media to "Go! Go!," and suffered some minor bruises for the price of it.
EXTRA CREDIT: Compare and contrast Stephanie's first week with Sean Spicer's opening act in 2017.
While we're on the topic of strong women, the U.S. Women's national soccer team (USNWT) beat France 2-1 to advance to the semi-finals later this week.
The captain of the team, Megan Rapinoe scored both goals in the victory over the home-town French team. She had previously declined an invitation to the White House if the team won, an invitation which had not yet been extended.
Never one to miss an opportunity, freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stepped in and offered an invitation for the team to visit the House of Representatives.
The longer I watch her, the more AOC reminds me of a young Newt Gingrich without the advanced degrees.
On the Democratic race for the Presidential nomination, Sen. Kamala Harris was the big winner increasing her share of the vote from 6 percent (in a pre-debate poll) to 12 percent according to a Morning Consult poll. That equals Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 12 percent (down from 13 percent which is not a significant change).
In spite of the conventional wisdom that former VP Joe Biden had done terminal damage to his campaign (with which I did not agree), he still holds a 33-19 lead over 2nd place Bernie Sanders. Pre-debate that lead was 38-19 so Biden's support did soften by five percentage points, but Bernie might be stuck with his support level at about 1-in-5 Democrats.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg went from seven percent to six.
Remember, in their debate Harris took out after Biden over his opposition to bussing back in the mid-1970s. I thought he had done a fair job of fending off her attack - his record is his record - but the bigger problem for Biden is the other candidates will now test their pet complaints against Biden and he'll have to be ready to answer questions about those attacks.
Speaking of busing, during his press conference in Japan last week according to Esquire Magazine,
"When asked by reporters if he sees busing as a 'viable way of integrating schools,' Trump replied vaguely that, 'it has been something that they've done for a long period of time.'"
Trump then added, "There aren't that many ways that you're going to get people to schools."
Alternatively, you could send them all to a boarding school.
Finally, the participants in the Democratic debates, having failed to explain in non-legislative-speak a workable policy to fix it, each made a pilgrimage to the children's detention center in Miami going so far as to stand on ladders to peek over the walls.
Alternatively, they could go back to Washington, do their jobs, and solve the problem.
On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: A lot of links today. The coverage of Stephanie Grisham's work to get the U.S. press into the meeting in Korea, AOCs invitation to the Women's National Soccer Team, Gingrich's advanced degrees, that post-debate poll, and the Democrats' unseemly parade to the child detention center.
The Mullfoto is hilarious if you know binary code. Which I do not.

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