If Komrade Kim v. 3.0

has really patched things up with Beijing, then that can't be good new for thr USA going into the proposed Korean Summit come May.
I think Kim wants the summit to go up in flaming chunks in a fashion that makes it look like Donald Trump's impulsive fault at which point they can either produce a prior negotiated security guarantee from the PRC and thus hamstring any military response to said summit's collapse.
In effect Beijing becomes Pyongyang's invisible patron in the room, assuming they don't attend the talks themselves at the last minute on Trumpian "impulse".
In such a scenario North Korea still labors under sanctions, but Kim doesn't give a rat's ass about sanctions as long as lobster can be smuggled in & he gets to keep his nukes it's all a big win in his book.
Bluntly put, I think Donald Trump is being lured into a trap, whatever Pyongyang/Beijing have on offer it'll be unacceptable to Trump with no immediate military solution available that doesn't run the risk of war with the PRC.
Thats assuming a security guarantee is in play...I could be wrong.
If Trump is smart (and he isn't believe me) he should downgrade expectations and send in his Secretary of State to see whats on offer and what might be taken up in return. It doesn't help that by May he'll have the help of a brand new foreign policy team basically culled from the ranks of the belligerent...lets hope they at least can sense a trap in the making.

Mitt Romney got up in front of literally his first audience

On the senatorial stump in Utah and announced that on illegal immigration he was in some respects "to the right of President Trump".
In other words "ship the DACA kids out, treat like the Romney Family Dog", pretty heartless for a guy who routinely employed those DACA Kids Parents to clip his hedges in Belmont.
But its hardly a surprise, its not that Romney is a gruesome panderer, he is, it's just that he is so laughably bad at it. No doubt in a week or so he'll insist there were "bad actors on both sides" in Charlotte NC. Just remember Utah, Mitt isn't a conservative or even a republican, he is craven pure and simple.  He'll say whatever he THINKS you wanna hear in a pathetic stumbling transparent fashion, he may agree with out and truckle shamelessly but he is unworthy of your respect.
Quite frankly Utah, you can do better, either go with the democrat or dig up a republican with a shred of self respect.
Your call...

Apparently..

We got some State Police Offices posted to Logan Airport, who are collecting roughly double the Governor's take home pay thanks to untracked and seemingly unlimited overtime.
Sigh...
It seems like every three years or so, we have yet another public sector payroll scandal in the Commonwealth, this time its the State Police, but it does seem to monotonously cycle thru all the departments sooner or later.
This is where I normally wallow in the "sarcastic rant driven chatter" but for once lemme step back and try to describe the Big Picture.
Thanks to the fact that it's the State Police, literally both political parties are uniquely disincentivized from taking quick decision action or even executing due diligence/oversight.
The GOP does not ever want to appear to be "anti-cop" as over the last two generations they've totemized the "Sacred Lawman" to a degree that makes Jesus Christ look like a porch climber.
Now with the democrats, matters are equally complicated, regardless of the low regard most police leadership have for the democratic party, few individual democrats want to be percieved as being "anti public sector union".
Hence the wide open state of affairs at Logan, now already, on the basis of some timely Boston Globe. Reportage, the Governor is bleating away heroically, but for once if stern messages be taken there is gonna need to be some (deep breath now) "Bipartisanship".  Lets not get this one wrong...it counts.

The Great Irony...

that snuck in with Saturday's Gun Control Marches is that while the rhetoric was both clear and even blunt the actual proposals are fairly modest, better background checks, a reinstitution of the assault weapons ban, limited confiscatory powers to local police, a fairly limited agenda, I would say almost "Clinton-Esque" in its inherent moderation.
But alas the "gun worshippers" out there have gotten so besotted and spoiled they regard even a hint of dialogue as an imminet threat to the entire US Constitution.  I applaud the kid's technique they are outplaying their opponents at the game of politics. It is a very simple agenda, well promulgated, when its rejected by the NRA et al, then it's game on come the fall. I think the unwillingness to discuss  anything at all may well doom this lot, but then they've got tons of money and are unburdened by shame so  stay tuned folks.

It Goes Without Saying...

I am in complete solidarity with the marchers in DC and elsewhere today, they have correctly divined that matters related to gun violence in the USA are coming down to sheer survival.  I wish them all well, the boomers who are largely in charge of this country have made a perfect hash of the situation vis a vis gun control, I look to the youth of America for some clarity and purpose.

There is a shit ton of fear and panic out there

About John Bolton's appointment as National Security Advisor to the President...and in truth, there is a lot there to panic about if you care to do even superficial digging.  He is after all, a very well educated simple minded man who regards intervention as the answer to everything, the man's military belligerence is legendary going back over twenty years. On the face of it, I'd say his appointment casts a deep shadow on the outcome of the talks with North Korea, which where already unlikely to produce anything of value given Trump's heavy commitment.
On the other hand, Bolton has made hundreds and hundreds of enemies from within and without the GOP down thru the years, like Trump, he is loud & truculent and unafraid to question his opponents manhood / patriotism.  Par for the course for a foreign policy intellectual who hid from the draft in the National Guard during the Viet Nam War...given that does anyone expect a peacenik in the making?
No, I'm gonna go out on limb and suggest short tenure for Bolton, I think he has too many antagonists laying for him in DC to be an effective NSC Advisor, and his personality is "too trumpian" to ever collaborate effectively with the President.
No, to me, his appointment points to something deeper, most US Presidents, commencing with Dwight Eisenhower have tried to use and or manipulate television to influence voters. Donald Trump seems to be the first US President to be chiefly influened and controlled BY television, he tends to pick people for important offices on the basis of their Fox News Appearances and their innate qualities to grate on liberals.
I think this could be very important down the line, Fox News and the TV News Cycle in General basically control the US President...get control of the new cycle and you can put Trump on the defensive literally instantly....think about that folks.
Stormy Daniels has the entire White House on the defensive simply because she has deployed innuendo & anticipation skillfully to dominate the news cycle.  You notice no one is paying the slightest attention to the Administrations bleating denials regarding her alleged affair with the President...she hasn't said a single thing yet and Trump's credibility in this matter is already shot to hell.
I'd say the lady is onto something....

I don't know what

The alleged mad bomber Mark Conditt's motivations might have been, he may well have been simply psychotic, he was the prime age to be symptomatic after all. Clearly though, he was home schooled and had joined a sort of wingnut boy scouts deviant called "RIOT" where he learned survival skills and the manual of arms etc....
Neighbors of this strict christian family are all shocked at Mark's alleged crimes, given the household's patina of "normality".
Of course only in Texas can teaching an impressionable teenaged boy how to kill people is considered "normal"...thats what I'm still trying to wrap my mind around, motivation or no motivation.