How Hannity Was Hanoi-ed (sic) at VietNam Summit

Fox News political commentator Sean Hannity traveled halfway around the globe to cover President Trump's second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the VietNam Summit.  But had Hannity not improvised, he would not have made it to his live spot on time.  

Hannity found himself stuck in Hanoi traffic on the way to the studio for his US prime time show.  To avoid being an on camera no show, Hannity hopped aboard a scooter to make it to the set on time. 

Nate Silver on the Singapore Summit

On The Singapore Summit and Democrat Detractors

Trump Gets Punchy with "Raging Bull" Robert De Niro

On the eve of the US-North Korea Summit in Singapore, actor Robert De Niro used his platform introducing "The Boss" Bruce Springsteen at the Tony Awards to hurl vulgar invectives at President Donald Trump. 

Although this crude message garnered standing ovations from the elites gathered at Radio City Musical Hall, it further alienated many prospective Trump fans as chronicled in Salena Zito's book "The Great Revolt" (2018).   Liberal operatives in the mainstream media also cringed at De Niro's raging B.S. as the over the top attack bolstered Trump's brand.

Now that the Singapore Summit ended in seeming success, President Trump can turn to domestic detractors and put them in their places in his own inimitable way.  On Air Force One, Trump took to Twitter to troll De Niro using the conceit of playing the punch drunk Jake DeMont from the 1980 Academy Award winning film Raging Bull.




No doubt this will stoke additional enmity from De Niro.  De Niro's had Trump Derangement Syndrome for quite a while. In addition, De Niro seems stuck on character acting like Dirty Grandpa. 

But a tete-a-tete with De Niro is much like the NFL Take The Knee issue for Mr. Trump.  It is a cultural issue that reaches audiences who may be otherwise apathetic to politics.  The curt counter-punches feeds Trump trolls who itch for politically incorrect imbroglios but is witty enough to also reach red blooded and blue collar voters who recoil at progressive filth.  

The urge to counter-punch is intrinsic for President Trump. But he and his minions need to mind their English when exchanging Low IQ insults.

On Detente with Dictatorships and Double Standards

Paul Ryan on the Singapore Summit

Ben Shapiro on the Singapore Summit

Donald Trump on North Korea Real Estate Development

Dennis Rodman on the Singapore Summit

Mike Pompeo on the Singapore Summit

Trump and Trudeau Trade Barbs on Fair Trade

President Donald Trump left the G-7 Summit in Charlevoix, early to get to the summit with North Korea in Singapore. After Air Force One took off from Quebec, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a press conference which seemed to go after the aggressive trade positions of President Trump. 




President Trump loves to counter punch and used his favorite medium Twitter to get his message out. 

RIP Anthony Bourdain

Celebrity chef and tv personality Anthony Bourdain, took his own life by hanging himself while on location filming for his CNN show "Parts Unknown" in Paris.  He was 61.


Bourdain was had a checkered past as he worked his way through the New York luxury restaurant scene. Bourdain had to overcome addiction to cocaine, LSD and heroin.  Bourdain quipped that before his first book, Kitchen Confidential, was published in 2000, he was a guy in his 40s who had never paid rent on time, owed ten years of taxes and did not own a piece of furniture. Between his books and food shows, Bourdain's fortunes changed and he amassed a personal wealth of $16 million.

Bourdain's books, Kitchen Confidential (2000) led to a Food TV series A Cooks Tour in 2002 that vaulted him into celebrity chef status.  Bourdain then jumped to the Travel Network for his iconic series No Reservations in 2005, which included a warning for graphic language. 

In 2013, Bourdain began his series "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown" which linked culture with cuisine.  The show won the Peabody Award in 2013 as judges noted that Bourdain expanded our palates and horizons in equal measure. 

While Bourdain traveled the world in search of a good meal, he appreciated how Asian American influence was shaping contemporary American cuisine.  Bourdain also noted that the fact that 50% of Toronto's residents are not from Canada gives it strength for interesting food. 

One can intuit that Bourdain agreed with his observations about Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese food culture:  "[They] see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about- or as a ritual like filling up a car - but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon." 

Despite his prominence on the culinary circuit, Bourdain was not reticent to criticize fellow celebrity chefs such as Paula Dean, Rachel Ray and Bobby Flay. The Smithsonian dubbed Bourdain a rock star of the culinary world and the Elvis of bad boy chefs.    Notwithstanding that articulated antipathy, many celebrity chefs had no reservations in expressing stunned condolences at Bourdain's passing.

Bourdain did not have reservations about trash talking people outside of chef circles who did not simmer well with him.  Last fall, when asked what he would serve at a prospective North Korea-US Summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, Bourdain blurted out: "Hemlock".  Trump fans got up in arms about this verbal assault instead of understanding it like some of Mr. Trump's barbs -- to take it seriously but not literally. 

Sadly, Bourdain's apparent suicide moots his daydream of retirement: "I'm definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working - if I ever stop working.  I like the idea of kneeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy." 

John Bolton's Blunt Diplomacy

John Bolton, who served as one of President George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, has been named as President Donald Trump's new National Security Adviser to replace General H.R. McMaster. There had been chatter in the District of Calamity that McMaster was on the outs this week, but this personnel change followed a leak of details of President Trump's telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 



  Bolton has been known as a no-nonsense diplomat who strongly believes in US national interests.  Bolton is seen as a being hawkish towards nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea  This would seem to align with the desired approach in the Trump Administration. 

NBC Shame Faced for Parade of Ignorance Displayed During Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

The 23rd Winter Olympiad in Pyeongchang, South Korea had a reoccurring theme of Peace, as was evident from the Opening Ceremonies.  It was well known that athletes from North and South Korea would march as a unified team into Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium.  

One of the draws for casual sports fans to watch the Olympics is the Opening Ceremonies. The pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies, as expressed through artistic expression as well as thematic choice sets the mood for the Olympic Games.  Afterwards, there is the Parade of Nations, when all of the competitors gather in a gesture of unity and good will.  During this long march of nations, television viewers often have to endure commentary from NBC announcers to add color and context to the visuals.  Often this dialogue is pap or seems scripted.

However, when the Japanese team made their debut at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, NBC Asia correspondent Joshua Cooper Ramos offered an incredible generalization.  Ramos claimed that Koreans looked with admiration to Japan as an important example of cultural, economic and technological transformation.




Several hours after uttering this insensitive and insulting insinuation, NBC Sports issued a hasty apology.

NBC paid $967 million for broadcast rights for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and it would seem that they did not want to insult their hosts.

With that in mind, one wonders why NBC keeps pushing North Korean propaganda while covering the Winter Olympics.  No doubt that a unified Korean team marching during the Parade of Nations was a big story.  It epitomizes the international aspiration of brotherhood and exemplifies the Pyeongchang Game's theme of Peace.  

[Front Center] Vice President Mike Pence [Back Center] Kim Yo Jung, sister of DPRK dictator Kim Jun Un

It is understandable that an Olympic broadcaster would want to capitalize on controversy by showing how close Vice President Mike Pence was seated to North Korean Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong during the Opening Ceremonies.




The coverage of the North Korea cheerleaders during the womens' hockey game between Korea and Switzerland does raise eyebrows.  It was a cute featurette to have a piece about the some of the 200 woman squad of  the North Korean "Army of Beauty" cheerleaders leading chants during the 0-8 rout of Korea.  Some say that the synchronized chants of the North Korea Beauty Cheerleaders stole the show. But what what telling is what they chanted and how they performed.  These NPDK cheerleaders chanted "Unity" waving "neutral" flags of a unified Korea. After each goal by their opponent, they chanted: "Cheer up!".  Perhaps that exemplifies a cultural trait.  


What has been shown but little explored are instances in which the female Beauty Squad use big heads of a Korean man.  Hmm.  Who could this be?  


It is dubious that it was an everyman Korean.  The Big Head looks rather like an idealized image of North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un. What does it say about the consequences of  "Unity".  Is that something that all Koreans also believe?

UPDATE 02/12/2018  BBC News quotes Korean media that the DPRK Army of Beauties cheerleaders were holding up big heads of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (the first of the Hermit Kingdom's Juche post World War II dictators).  Yet the South Korean Unification Ministry insists that the cheerleaders were just holding up cut outs of "a good looking man". 

Vice President Mike Pence on the Winter Olympics

Burger Brinksmanship?

In a parody of the nuclear button brinksmanship between President Donald Trump and North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, UK KFC tweaked McDonalds about a better burger.

   

 One wonders how a mere Colonel has access to "the button".

President Trump Touts Oval Office Nuclear Button

Kim Jong Un Brags About His Nuclear Button

Dennis Rodman on Chatting with Kim Jong Un

Nikki Haley on Trump De-certifying the Iran Nuke Deal