What To Do About North Korea

Power Line Blog  "Here’s very interesting news item—if true—from The Independent in the UK:

China ‘tells citizens to leave North Korea’ as tensions with U.S. escalate

The Korea Times reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea began advising Korean-Chinese residents to return to China last month, over fears the country’s military provocations could lead to retaliation from the US.

"If true, this could perhaps be an expression of China agreeing to put pressure on the Norks to behave. Or it could be much more serious than that.

"Our pal Herbert Meyer has offered up a typically astute and creative analysis of the situation over at The American Thinker that is worth taking in. He says: Let’s turn North Korea into East Germany. I know—that may sound odd: isn’t North Korea waaaayy beyond East Germany in a totalitarian awfulness? Yes, but let Herb explain more fully:

Here’s one possible objective that would defuse this crisis and perhaps even bring a few decades of stability: to turn North Korea into a modern version of East Germany.

. . .
 "In other words, we need an active strategy to subvert the regime from within. Read the entire piece for Herb’s walk through the four crucial questions about what would need to be done to make the Norks decide to change their own regime, but I’ll just give you his conclusion:

Don’t bother asking the usual Washington policymakers whether turning North Korea into a modern version of East Germany might actually be possible. They will reply — in unison, within two-billionths of a second — No, this is impossible! Kim Jong-un is crazy, and the North Koreans will never give up their nukes or agree to stop threatening South Korea and the U.S. Well, they may be right. On the other hand, these are mostly the same geniuses who told us, also with 100 percent confidence, that it was impossible to win the Cold War, and impossible for Donald Trump to get elected president. Impossible things sometimes do happen, even in politics — especially in politics. Given the risk we face of nuclear war, this is worth a shot.

State Dept. Ordered to Release Clinton Emails on Obama’s Response to Benghazi

Weasel Zippers

Honorable?

"Watch Hills throw a fit over this…

"Via Free Beacon:

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered the State Department to turn over previously redacted material in Hillary Clinton’s emails that immediately followed the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi to Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.

Judicial Watch announced on Friday that the State Department will need to turn over “eight identical paragraphs” of redacted documents from Clinton emails sent on September 13, 2012, detailing phone calls made by then-President Barack Obama to the Egyptian and Libyan leaders after the Benghazi terror attack two days earlier.

The two Clinton emails, which were housed on the former secretary of state’s unsecured private server, were the same: “Quick Summary of POTUS Calls to Presidents of Libya and Egypt.”

Keep reading…

I'd hate to be in range of her arm right now. 

Barack Obama, international man of interference and manipulation; dispenser of personal pronouns: I, me, mine.

Vanity, thy name is Obama.

Tony Branco

Ethel C. Fenig  "After successfully interfering to deny former FLOTUS and former senator of New York Hillary R. Clinton (D)'s destiny to smash a glass ceiling by becoming the first spouse to become president all by her valiant self in 2008, but endorsing her in her hapless campaign eight years later, after failing to prevent Britain from leaving the European Union despite his desperate trip there to warn them he would be really mad if they disobeyed him, after ignoring his own bloody red line warnings to Syria so Syria did the same, after unsuccessfully spending over $350,000 to twice defeat Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, you'd think former president Barack Hussein Obama (D) would have learned his lesson about manipulating others' election races and just shut up.  You'd think wrong.  (But of course, you knew that!)

"The vain president has once again, via Twitter, informed French citizens he supports Emmanuel Macron in the upcoming race for president of France.  Flattering the always vain French that the outcome of the election will affect not only France, not only Europe, but the world, Obama stated:

I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don't have to run for office again. But the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about[.]" ... "I admire the campaign that Emmanuel Macron has run. He stood up for liberal values, he appeals to people's hopes. And not their fears.

. . .  

Ex-next president Hillary joins the resistance. We dodged a bullet.

americanthinker.com/cartoons

Assessing President Rodham Clinton's first 100 days   . . . " 'The era of the American military being used to intimidate and assault the freedom-loving people of the world is over," Clinton is alleged to have proclaimed." . . .
. . . "Due to the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the precipitous retirement in February of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clinton has been given her golden opportunity to railroad through her picks for the Supreme Court.  As a result, Elizabeth Warren is on track to become the first Native American female justice, with Loretta Lynch not far behind (with the competing double-credential of first black woman – which will triumph?).  Those irritating challenges to the constitutionality of the administration's agenda from freedom of speech to gun control will all be DOA." . . .
. . . "And of course, Obamacare is on the point of being repealed and replaced...with a single-payer system run exclusively by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in close consultation with the Veterans Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs: "America (finally) Cares.' " . . .
. . . "Regardless of any failing of the Trump administration, "bullet" is far too feeble a word to describe what we as a nation have dodged."

Charles Krauthammer sees it differently: Trump: ‘normalized’ but still scary

. . . "Trump is orchestrating a worldwide campaign to pressure North Korea on its nukes and missiles. He dispatches (finally) the USS Carl Vinson strike group to Korean waters and raises the possibility of a “major, major conflict” with Pyongyang. Meanwhile, we are working furiously to complete a THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea to intercept North Korean rockets.

"At which point, out of the blue, Trump tells Reuters that Seoul will have to pay for the THAAD system. And by the way, that five-year-old U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement is a disaster and needs to be torn up." . . .

The Donald's best pals: Barack and Hillary   . . . "It is a relationship that benefits Trump, because every time Obama or Clinton open their mouths, America is reminded of what was rejected in 2016 — Clinton's presidential hopes and Obama's dreams that she'd keep his legacy intact." . . .

"Here's how the Obama Temple should be built: 

"With a series of reflecting pools, and along the edges, statues of Obama at different stages of his life, so that he might stare into his reflection for all of eternity.

"But outside the Obama Temple, Chicago remains a violent bloodbath, innocents and thugs dropping every day in the city's street gang wars. He did nothing about it as president for eight years. There was talk, yes, but no real development, no real jobs, nothing.

"There should be a sign out front: Obama helped Iran more than he helped Chicago." . . .   Emphasis added by TD