Long text I just sent a buddy with the same request:

Carrier fleets have to be somewhere. Might as well go scare North Korea, especially if you're trying to distract people from domestic issues.

10:22

and the GBU-43 is just barely a bomb. It's more like a length of pope full of explosions that you kick out the back of a C-130 with a drogue chute. It's not the sort of thing you use in disputed airspace.

10:22

pipe

10:23

"length of pope" is an awesome phrase

10:23

What we're watching is an administration with no coherent foreign policy attempting to distract the country from very serious, very persistent allegations of corruption by a foreign power. The average citizen doesn't understand how serious this is: Trump isn't a Republican and the Republicans are currently calculating how much they can get done working with him vs. how much they can get done with the shame of an impeachment. It's not a clear nor easy choice.

10:30

And the consequences of impeachment are more dire than anybody is really talking about. If the Trump campaign colluded with Russian intelligence to disrupt a federal election, that's legit high treason. That's still a capital offense on the federal books. Shit can go so sideways so easily for everybody at 1600 pennsylvania and most of the people they know.

10:31

Your mom's friend Gene Lyons pointed out that if the Russians thought it would go this far, they never would have left so many fingerprints. What we're observing is pretty much a colossal scandal with no upside for anyone and an extremely hazy outcome. thus, "send troops to somewhere, if we can keep this out of the news for a couple days we can buy time."

10:32

Don't worry about North Korea. There's no upside for anybody (anybody) by having that war get hot.

But remember - I said Trump wouldn't bomb Syria.

(edit: his question was whether we were trying out the MOAB to see how it worked prior to dropping on North Korea's nuke sites. Which you can kind of solve by inspection. But that's why it's mentioned.)