Interesting take on the resignation idea, Michael. I predicted months ago that Sept 15 would be resignation day, for no actual reason. Fingers crossed, then, eh.

“No idea” is still somehow one more idea than Jared Kushner has ever had.

Nice!

Pleeeze Michael dear, It's Wallingford, not Frelingford!

Breaking news: Manafort is co-operating with Special Counsel. That's huge.

I will take you on a tour of Bellevue, Michael. We can go to...the mercer slough?

Waists, not wastes

Hold strong little Avalon Pier. I'll see you in October.

So long, Miranda from Sex in the City. I wonder how many people wrote in Miranda Hobbs on the ballot?

@9 Is it not sterile? The architecture is Grand Bland, the retail is predominantly chains and mini-malls, cars are dominant, culture is not, wealth is the measure. Sorry if you live there and don't fit the paradigm but denying it is futile.

re: the hula hoops... Anyone remember the "Stop for me It's the Claw" signs?

The hoola hoops are put up by fans of The String Cheese Incident. They hoola hoops at the shows.

@12: oh gawd that explains so much. my sister is a hooper.

@11 Are there any Claws left around?

That video shows that Florence is disrespecting the flag and all the brave men and women who have died defending it. Why is the White House now attacking Florence for being unamerican?

Resignation would be the last act of a sane person desperate to save some shred of integrity. No, sorry to say that Prezinazi Fuckbonkers is gonna continue disgracing and humiliating our nation by spreading megalomanical lies and racist conspiracy theories about election fraud should the Dems win. He’s gonna have to be dragged outta the White Trash House in a straitjacket, no question.

@ 4, From your keyboard to the FSM’s noodles, let Manafort be the bomb that finally blows the Rapist-in-Chief to smithereens.

Shave the beard, dude.

cutting the Palestinians off is sure to work out well. Likud has already turned Gaza and the West Bank into de facto prisons. all they can do is starve to death in protest at this point.

@15,

That was a pretty cool image, haunting & beautiful, especially as dusk set in and it just kept whittling away.

That flag's a damn accurate representation of our country right about now.

@17, I like the beard.

“Nobody is entitled to America’s foreign aid” is a great line that should be implemented. Yet US tax payers continue to subsidies the arms industry by sending Israel 3B of goodies a year, and only 2B to Egypt.

This has been going on for the past 40 years or so with no end at site, enabling abusive regimes to maintain their control and further strengthening their choke on their own people.

The money could and can still be used to cover your healthcare, your education, and your ridiculous, rapidly depleted social security retirement fund.

@21: you tell US how that leads to peace for Israel, and not more misery and death for all. you're the one who thinks its a grand idea, apparently.

“'No idea' is still somehow one more idea than Jared Kushner has ever had."

Thank you for that, I found that pretty funny. I don't even know why, but I got a good belly-laugh out of that one.

Trump won't leave in front of a helicopter like Nixon did, because Trump doesn't have the hair for it. He's not going to want his prodigious bald spot being revealed as the last image of him in charge.

In 1967 Israeli fighter jets deliberately bombed and straffed a USS Liberty killing 37 American sailors and wounding 171.

And yet we continued to give them billions in aid for 40 years.

Hula hoops, claws, skateboards... It goes on

As a proud Wallingfordian I'm a bit miffed that my neighborhood's cachet is being co-opted by those dirty Fremont hippies. Everything east of Aurora is Wallingford and I will not be swayed on this!

trump will not resign; he doesn't have it in him. I expect him to take t rest of us out before/when he goes.

@11/14 - Yes and there's one in West Seattle.

@28 - What about Putin's Russia do you like so much that you want the USA to be like that?

The treachery and underhandedness of Israel is plain for all to see, the idea that we consider that nation an "ally" is such a fucking joke.

It's a rogue nuclear state (still lies about having nukes) which routinely steals state secrets from the US and allies, has committed literal acts of warfare against the US that resulted in multiple US casualties, consistently uses propaganda and direct money/actions to illegally influence US elections, sucks wealth from the US like a parasite, is currently engaging in illegal land grabs and bald-faced genocide, and its leaders demand all European nations eliminate their borders, yet they guard their own borders with walls, strict laws, machine guns, and fanatical, murderous devotion.

Call me an anti-semite if you are that weak brained, but all of those things are demonstrably true and part of the historical record.

I see people liked the "no idea" comment re: Kushner, but for me the money shot was "Our only hope for a change of heart, and it’s a long shot, is that Kushner realizes what the word entitlement means, and how good it’s been to him."

Unfortunately I cannot bring myself to be as optimistic as you are that this will precipitate a resignation or otherwise a fall from...grace?...from Trump. If for no other reason, than because it opens him up for prosecution, whereas while still president he can hide behind the Justice Dept's stupid policy to not indict the president.

@17: the internet is full of clean-shaven pornography. Look something up, print out your favorite one, stick it to your monitor, and look at it as you read your Slog AM

In 1987 Naval Intelligence Command analyst Jonathan Pollard was convicted of espionage for and selling NSA operation command signal manuals to Israeli intelligence. Pollard was given a life sentence commuted in 1995 by heavy Israeli lobbying. Israel denied Pollards espionage until 1994 when as part of his sentence communtation Israel admitted to ongoing espionage and spy recruitment in the US. Pollard was given Israeli citizenship on his release in 1995.

Pollards recruitment was known to have been orchestrated by well known Israeli spy master Rafi Eitan.

Rafi Eitan posed as an Israeli chemist and infiltrated a US NUMEC facility where the CIA later found between 200-600 lbs of bomb grade enriched uranium was missing - known as the Apollo Affair. It is believed that uranium was diverted secretly and without US permission to the Israeli bomb program.

And we continued to supply Israel with billion in military and economic aid for 40 years.

It's fascinating to ponder on Trump's life after the presidency.

In 1955 when Egyptian President Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal the French and British essentially bribed Israel to invade Suez in exchange for France building Israel a “research” breeder reactor. The crux of the deal was that Israel allow nuclear inspectors on site to make sure Israel was not producing weapons. Israel later reneged on this deal and betrayed the French souring the relationship permanently. This reactor later was heart of Israel’s bomb program.

Israel has refused to allow inspectors. Israel has refused to be a signatory of any non-proliferation treaty.

So. Who is the greater threat to world peace?

The original border of Fremont was Stone Way on the east and 8th Ave on the west. That was before they put in a divider on Aurora Ave several decades before. Most peole know anything east of Aurora as Wallingford. If you are on the west side of Stone you are in Old Fremont. I went to a Fremont neighborhood celebration in the 80's. It was in the building now called the Fremont Abbey. They still used those borders as recent as then. It really doesn't matter today. One neighborhood cluster of apartments is the same as any other cluster of apartments. Let them have their nickname. They paid a massive inflated rate to live there, let them call it what they want. In another 10 years, someone will call it something else.

The Iraqi reactor bombed by Israel was not and immediate threat to anyone. In fact bombing it drove Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs underground and cemented his anti-west anti-Israel weapons ambitions.

In 2003 Dr. Richard Wilson, a professor of physics at Harvard who inspected the partially damaged reactor in 1982, said that "to collect enough plutonium for a bomb using Osirak would've taken decades, not years". He said:

“the Osirak reactor that was bombed by Israel in June 1981 was explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit.”

@ 41,

At least the retaliatory tariffs will bankrupt the Despicables long before then. A gaggle of them were whining in the news recently that they’ll be ruined by January, so some of those racists that voted for this ongoing Republinazi white supremacist terrorist attack will get what they deserve.

Mr. Mehlman,
This ongoing US “support” of Israel is a gross intervention in Israeli politics as it had enabled a shift to religious right that could have not been so easily supported otherwise. Beyond dismissing any need to compromise and address the Palestinian issues this shift also includes forcing seculars to follow religious rules, tax payers subsidizing religious students, and not to mention the continuous indoctrination of nationalistic-religious ideas.
A prime minister was murdered it 1995 for attempting a compromise.

Israeli involvement in US politics goes way deeper than any Russian interference in recent years. You may recall Netanyahu openly campaigning for Mitt Romney some 6 years ago and using speeches in congress to give him the finger.

In US congress legislators are terrified of the so called “pro-Israeli” lobby, an organization that constantly keeps Israel to be more and more dependent on the US while requiring US policing that often hurt the US like all those UN vetoes and recent pulling out of commitments. Quite a few of them joke that if they really want vast majorities of both houses will support anything they dish at them.

Dismissing any criticism of Israel as “anti-Semitism,” which is basically what the latest Rutgers-related reversal by the US dept. of “justice” is all about, created over the years a temporary political culture where criticizing Israel is impossible.
I wrote “temporarily” because it is unsustainable considering demographics and political changes, waters down the real hate crimes, and will eventually come back to haunt both Israel and US Jews.

And Shabbat Shalom to you too.

@40 who has nuclear weapons? Who invaded and bombed their neighbors more? Who had utilized assassination on foreign territory more?

@1 & @4 originalcinner: Oh gawd let's hope so!! I am ecstatically awaiting the day the entire RepubliKKKan neofascist regime goes down in flames.
@16 Original Andrew: I'd love to see Mein Trumpfy dragged out by its ugly, fat ass in a straitjacket, and have the entire event globally televised with a film update at 11. I'll bring drinks and popcorn.
@23 CMDwannabe: Thank you and bless you--SO spot on. Can I buy you a beer?
@28 Doofus in Shoreline: I'll be among those of us laughing hysterically when your rapist-in-chief sticks it to you in taxes and loss of health coverage, dumbass ("pre-existing conditions" are a bitch, aren't they?). Trump ad nauseum for Prison 2020 = true justice finally served.
@31 Pridge Wessea: I knew I liked you! I also like @16 Original Andrew's scenario of Mein Trumpfy being hauled forcefully out of the White Trash House in a straitjacket. It would have to be hot air balloon-sized to support its gross tonnage, though. Do straitjackets even come in so YUUUUUUUUUGE a size?
@41 blip: Let's certainly hope so before even more irreparably criminal damage is done.

WALLIMONT is the original, and superior name. Not least because that area is on the Wallingford side of Aurora. ahem.

Incidentally, there is a house (formerly?) named THE WALLIMONT, located at 4037 Woodland Park Ave. N.

It may be called something like "Kings Channels" and be some sort of BnB now... idk. It's been awhile.

It is the oldest house on the block, and in that neighborhood generally, built somewhere around 1880 when that hill was all orchards.

So this "frelingfordmontbullshit" can be summarily dispensed with.

kthxbai

@11 - Yes!
Stop for me, IT'S THE CLAW!
was an absolutely brilliant and impressively sustained campaign.
My hat is off to whomever(s) did that.

Mehlman- I’m not here to defend the Palestinians. And when it comes to peace with them, or any of the other neighbors for that matter, was Israel ever serious about it?

Israel violated the Camp David agreements that called for a Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, teaming up with the Reagan campaign to ensure none of the Tehran embassy hostages will be released by Iran before the 1980 election, and went on to supply arms to Iran for the next decade or so. Simple “national survival,” ha?
The Reagan administration, knowing that any disagreement with Israel could lead to some interesting revelations in the NY Times or Washington Post also supported Israel breaking a ceasefire agreement with the PLO in Lebanon, invading the country and encouraged Christian militia allies to slaughter Palestinians in Beirut in order to encourage all others to flee to Jordan.

Oh, and guess where those famous Colin Powell UN slides were produced.

The similarities to today’s politics are striking. What makes Trump so devoted to Israel when he is so eager to hand Europe to the Russians? Is it possible that right-wing Israelis, fearing Carter will demand implementation of a signed agreement 40 years ago were also worried Hillary, who already knew all of Netanyahu shticks, will be elected? Is it possible that Israel had a hand of some sort, possibly teaming with up with others, in handing the trump campaign information about the competition?

Now before you give me any of Netanyahu's empty sound bites cliches you should seriously look at the similarities between himself and Trump: both leaders are under corruption and possible treason investigations, both are catering carelessly to the “base” in order to stay in office, both are inciting people against the media, both are trying as hard as they can to water down and pervert the judicial system and water down law enforcement branches.

Yes, I know, nothing but "simple national survival."

On Israel and Palastine:

Those with the greatest power... have the greatest responsibility to promulgate peace.

@46 you’re avoiding answering simple questions because you know the answers defy your propaganda.

Saddam Hussein was a murderer and dictator. And like many murdering tin pot dictators the world over, the US supported him when he acted within the interests of US corporations or Cold War strategic aims.

Your claims of good guys and bad guys simply ring hallow and hypocritical.

The fact is the US and it’s western allies have sought to dominate oil production in the Mideast since Balfour agreement. We have murdered leaders and sponsored coups throughout the Mideast and used Israel as a proxy to throw our weight around.

The reason the US invaded Iraq had nothing to do with Hussein’s military threat. But that he was going to switch from the petro-dollar to the Euro at a time when the US was recovering from a deep recession.

If Hussien was such a threat to world peace ask yourself then why was it so easy to completely decimate his entire standing military of almost 1.2 million soldiers and 66 modern divisions with less than 200,000 troops?

Because he was a paper tiger. A joke.

Why is it that Iraq and Iran wanted nukes? Because Israel has nukes and because the US has repeatedly demonstrated that we will not push around countries with nukes.

We KNEW Pakistan was harboring Osama Bin Ladin. But the have nukes. We knew Pakistan (A Q Khan) sold nuclear technology to North Korea. But we left them alone because they have nukes.

Israel bombed our navy, killed our sailors, spied in us, stole technology, screws our relationships with Arab states does all sorts of aggressive shit. But they have nukes.

Of course Iraq and Iran would want nukes.

We used to use Israel. Now ironically Israel uses us. Because of the extremity of right wing politics in the US we are thier puppet. And it is at the detriment of world peace and stability. Notice how ISIS wasn’t a threat to Israel. But brought Israel’s enemy Syria to its knees? Notice how Syrian refugees were driven north from their homes not to Israel (or Saudi Arabia) but to Europe thousands of miles away. To countries critical of Israeli human rights abuses. To countries with rightwing anti-Arab pro-Israel parties. Destabilizing the EU leading the rise of dangerous white nationalist parties.

The far right in Israel and the US have perverted the once practical Realpolitik nature of our strategic relationship to the point of total disfunction. It’s more religious fetish than strategy.

Who is it that assassinated Yitzhak Rabin the prime minister of Israel?

A far right Israeli extremist. Not a Palestinian. Not an Iraqi.

Who runs that country now? The same far right party that assassinated Rabin.

Who wants invaded and bombs thier nieghbors? Who has apartheid? Who regularly murders and oppresses their own citizens as matter of policy?

Israel.

Now I’m not claiming the Arab states are any better morally. They are not. This isn’t about who is good and who is bad.

It’s about who is dangerous.

And the Palestinians and Arabs are sure as fuck not as potentially dangerous to world stability as Rightwing Israel.

@52 that’s the same justification that Hitler used to invade Russia, Poland and France. Exactly the same.

So they HAD to murder US sailors? They HAD implement 50 years of apartheid. They HAD to steal US nuclear secrets?

No. No they did not.

They don’t get a buy on every crime they commit for eternity because the Arabs hate them or because of the holocaust.

Every single totalitarian society in history could (and generally has) use(ed) their past victimization as an excuse for wanton present aggressions.

We either have a civilized international order -or- we just say “might makes right” and just choose sides.

And if so. If might makes right? Then shut your fucking mouth about right and wrong and good and bad. Shut your stupid mouth with your lying justifications.

Just kill innocent people if it serves your selfish interests and then accept the fact those people will do the same to you.

@53

Fuck Israel and all of the insidious bloodsucking kikes both within and abroad. I agree wholeheartedly brother 14/88!

@ 54
The "antisemitism" hand has been overplayed time and again.

Mehlman- Arafat was always full of shit indeed though not the only one.

@28:

Considering the Democrats are on-track to retake the House, and stand a strong chance of gaining back a majority in the Senate, I'd say the odds are getting better by the day that he'll have been impeached long before then - assuming Mueller hasn't already had him indicted in New York State court.

So, care to put really money down?

And of course the racists and Nazis come out of the wood work.

The extremist rightwing political state of Israel is not the same as the Jewish state of Israel. Recognizing Israel’s right to exist - which I do - is not contingent on eternal and uncritical US taxpayer support for every illegal act internal Israeli political communities commit.

Netanyahu, currently fending off multiple corruption investigations, is a corrupt scum bag and part of growing and loosely affiliated network of far right thugs (including Putin) that have hijacked anti-Muslim sentiments, Zionism and, ironically, white nationalism for thier own personal profit. It is only incidental that he is Jewish.

All I ask is for Israel to be a responsible part of the international community and to atone for the crimes that state has committed. Just like I ask of every state. Including America.

If Israel wants to be our ally and get billions in aid then it must stop undermining efforts at peace in the region.

Dr.Z @ 58
“Netanyahu, currently fending off multiple corruption investigations, is a corrupt scum bag and part of growing and loosely affiliated network of far right thugs (including Putin) that have hijacked anti-Muslim sentiments,”
Indeed. That network includes Hungarian PM who’s leading an extreme right wing anti-immigrant government with disregard to EU rules, one that threatens the stability of the entire European union.
Another is dt’s own inspiration Duterte of the Philippines, a Hitler admirer, rape enthusiast, firm believer in executions on the spot.
Both were hosted by Netanyahu in recent weeks and enjoyed a high profile visit.

This is one of those shortsighted deals that will eventually haunt Israel and possibly Jews outside the country.

@57 COMTE: I knew I liked you! Isn't it delicious to triumphantly take down the RepubliKKKan neofascists and their idiot dupes like Doofus in Shoreline (@28)? Here's to a Democratic House and Senate in 2018, Mueller sticks a fork in Mein Trumpfy's ass and calls it done. You know the GOP is in major trouble when their most loyal marching in lockstep start bailing out.