Pentagon Considers Shooting Down North Korea Missile Tests

Zero Hedge

. . . "Both sources said the military was not looking to use the high-profile missile-defense system the US is providing to South Korea, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad). Thaad’s 200km range and sophisticated radar have unnerved China, whose president, Xi Jinping, has been coaxed by Trump into pressuring North Korea. 

"In the past, several US administrations have considered shooting down North Korean missile tests, only to turn away from the option when considering the consequences of escalation against an unpredictable and bellicose adversary. Rumors have circulated since Trump took office that he has been mulling a shoot-down. A US official said the military was discussing a potential shoot-down ahead of Trump’s meeting with Xi on 6 April at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The discussion also preceded Friday’s North Korean military parade, during which Pyongyang displayed advancements in its intercontinental ballistic missile program and anti-ship missiles, as well as a test-launch failure on Saturday. Senior Pentagon officials pondering the shoot-down option are said to have conceded they are unsure how North Korea would respond, especially considering North Korea's comments...

"If the U.S. is reckless enough to use military means, from that very day, there will be all out war. Our nuclear weapons protect us from that threat," Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol told the BBC's John Sudworth. "We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis," he threatened. He said that an "all-out war" would result if the US took military action.

"Neither Pentagon nor US Pacific Command representatives responded to a request for comment. Another factor complicating a shoot-down would be the risk of embarrassment should Aegis interceptors miss a North Korean target, which might embolden Pyongyang and unnerve US regional allies.

"Ken Gause, director of the international-affairs group at the CNA thinktank influential with the Pentagon, said US planners have grown frustrated with coercive diplomacy amid North Korea’s maturing nuclear and missile capability. But Gause said that while Washington might spin a shoot-down as a step below an attack on North Korea or an attempt to overthrow its government, it risked validating Kim’s position that North Korea needs nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to respond to American aggression." . . .

Hollywood Boldly Takes on Trump Era...And it looks as terrible as you’d imagine

If the trailer is any indication of the film as a whole, it’s perfectly illustrative of the Hollywood bubble and their perception of somewhat right-leaning Americans. The evil, white businessman, ignorant to the ways of the little people, feelings, and everything else humane, must be taught a lesson via public humiliation so as to correct his wrong thinking.

Legal Insurrection

. . . "The plotline of the dramatic comedy has been described thusly:

Beatriz (Salma Hayek), an immigrant from a poor town in Mexico, has drawn on her innate kindness to build a career as a health practitioner in Los Angeles. Doug Strutt (John Lithgow) is a cutthroat, self-satisfied billionaire. When these two opposites meet at a dinner party, their worlds collide and neither will ever be the same.

"Sounds riveting, doesn’t it?

"In the official trailer, Lithgow’s character (who owns hotels) first meets Hayek at a dinner party where mistaking her for the help, he asks her for another bourbon. During the dinner toast, Lithgow interrupts Hayek to ask her if she came to the U.S. legally. Later, Lithgow boldly proclaims what America really needs is more jobs, drawing a direct parallel to Trump’s campaign messaging. Several cuts praise Hayek’s character, calling her a “saint.”

"If that’s not ridiculous enough for you, there’s more! Bragging about shooting a rhino, Lithgow passes around his phone, on which is pulled up a photo of himself behind his dead trophy. Hayek throws the phone at him saying, “you think it’s funny?! I think it’s sick!” as she storms off."

The tragic state of American campuses.

The Least Diverse Place in America

Prager University

Sharyl Atkisson: Obama-era Surveillance Timeline

Sharyl Attkisson  "You can find many timelines that follow allegations of Russia tampering in the U.S. election and alleged involvement of Trump officials. But I couldn’t find any comprehensive timelines cross-referencing Obama-era surveillance of whistleblowers, journalists and other U.S. citizens with Russia surveillance allegations. 

"So I built one. Please note: temporal proximity of events doesn’t necessarily imply a connection." . . .

"January 21, 2009:  President Obama takes office; pledges unprecedented transparency."  . . . 

September 21, 2010: "Internal email entitled “Obama Leak Investigations” at “global intelligence” company Stratfor claims Obama’s then-Homeland Security adviser John Brennan is targeting journalists.

“Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources,” writes one Stratfor official to another.

"The email continues: “Note — There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…' ”

“The Wonder Boys” reportedly refers to the National Security Agency (NSA). Brennan later becomes President Obama’s CIA Director." . . .

March 2, 2017: In an interview on MSNBC, Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas says that once President Trump was elected, she urged her former colleagues to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can [about Trump and his associates] before President Obama leaves the administration” and get it to “people on Capitol Hill.”

Then there is Ms. Attkisson's book just available:
The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote  . . . "Attkisson exposes the diabolical tactics of Smear artists, and their outrageous access to the biggest names in political media—operatives who are corrupting the political process, and discouraging widespread citizen involvement in our democracy." . . .

Trump juggles the foreign policy balls Obama dropped

"By the time Obama left office this January, America’s official words meant almost nothing. Take, for instance, Obama’s declaration in 2013 of a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. That gave way to former Secretary of State John Kerry’s Lilliputian assurance that an American strike on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities would be “unbelievably small.' ”

The Hill  "The Trump administration is taking heat for striking a Syrian air base with Tomahawk missiles and hitting ISIS terrorists in Afghanistan with a MOAB, a conventional bomb so big that it has been dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs.” No doubt there are useful debates to be had about the pros and cons, both tactical and juridical. But one sure upside of these strikes is that they are a step toward restoring abroad the credibility of America as a power to be reckoned with. 

"That’s big, in ways that go way beyond the immediate battlefields. In a world grown dramatically more dangerous during President Obama’s eight years of appeasement and retreat, America badly and urgently needs to restore its lost credibility.

"It would be great if diplomats could protect America, its allies and its interests with words alone. But in matters involving aggressive tyrannies, words don’t mean much unless they are backed up by military muscle and the credible willingness to use force. When that threat goes missing, predators take notice." . . .

Fecklessness made manifest:

The rolling debacle in Syria has been just part of a ruinous global trajectory that began with Obama’s 2009 Russia “reset.” This included, in deference to Putin, America welshing on its promise of missile defense for Eastern Europe. When that became an issue in America’s 2012 presidential election campaign, Obama was caught on an open microphone promising Putin that after his reelection he’d have “more flexibility.”

Claudia Rosett is foreign-policy fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, and blogs at PJMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CRosett.

This Is the Best Parody of an Ancestry.com Ad with Elizabeth Warren!

PJ Media  "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made the claim that she's of Native American ancestry and used it to gain admission to college and preferential treatment throughout much of her life. Most fact checkers seem to say her claim is either untrue or blows a very minor statistic out of proportion. During the campaign, Donald Trump nicknamed her "Pocahontas." Well there's an Ancestry.com ad depicting a woman saying that she discovered she's "26 percent Native American." Watch this Media Research Council parody of this ad..."

The Latest Leftist Tactic To Push Political Correctness In Schools? Rewriting Fairy Tales!

Chicks On The Right

"If the Cult of Social Justice was 100% honest with what they wanted society to look like, they would be laughed out of town. The sad thing is, they know it. So, they have to resort to underhanded tactics to make their insane messages more palatable for the general populace – particularly kids.

"Case in point.

"According to that sourcelink, there is a push from a radical social justice group in Australia to turn a program for schools meant to teach about “Respectful Relationships” into some insane brainwashing curriculum about social justice, gender theory, wealth redistribution, and any other insane leftist cause you care to name.

The ideologues in the state government prefer to replace traditional fairytales with a new PC form of fiction; radical gender theory.

The Safe Schools and the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships programs have wonderfully benevolent names and supposedly noble intentions but are nothing more than indoctrination by stealth.

At best they are simplistic gibberish that distract schools from fulfilling their primary objective — the traditional three Rs of writing, reading and arithmetic — and at worst they are destructive programs that seek to brainwash young minds with contentious theories.

More American Silliness, April 18, 2017

Professor: ‘The English language is sexist’  . . . "Anne Curzan, an associate dean of humanities and professor of English at Michigan, made her remarks in a talk titled “Politically Correct: Do Our Language Choices Matter?” During the lecture, she reportedly discussed “everything from sexist language to preferred pronouns in order to dispel the stigma against politically correct speaking,” according to the Iowa State Daily."

Moonbats Call For Attacks On McDonald’s And Its Customers For Being The “Largest Murderer Of Cattle”… 

Army Ranger Has Message For College Students Triggered By Chick-fil-A On Campus 

Video: Maxine Waters Falsely Claims That Trump Pays “Nothing” In Taxes…

College Student Rep Resigns Citing “White Privilege,” “Hostile Environment” From “White, Straight, Cis, Upper-Class Men”…

It's political correctness gone Psycho! Remake won't show the killer cross-dressing in a shower scene in order to avoid 'transphobia'   . . . "Bates is no longer wearing women’s clothes – for fear of damaging the image of the transgender community.

"This is despite the fact he wears his mother’s dresses at other moments in the series." . . .

Notre Dame students 'feel unsafe' about Pence giving Commencement
"#NotMyCommencementSpeaker' ” ? 

Tucker Confronts Researcher Who Claims Babies are Racist  . . . "The flip side of this study erroneously concludes racism is at the root of these infants’ inability to bond with or otherwise fail to respond positively to people of races other than their own.  Note that it’s not clear how the researchers determine what race the babies in the study believed themselves to be." . . .



Federal Judge Denies Democrat’s Lawsuit Seeking To Re-Hang ‘Cops As Pigs’ Painting In Capitol  "Dems lose again, as they continue to hate cops and push it on the public."

"Since when did people start going to college to get stupid?"   "Wellesley has demeaned itself by printing a fascist screed by a student who writes poorly and has not a clue about what our Constitution says or means.  She is opposed to freedom of speech." . . .
. . . "Stanford just admitted an applicant who is not black but who wrote "Black Lives Matter" a hundred times on his application.  Forget all the serious students who took the application question – "What matters to you and why?" – seriously."

Student government votes to allow the American flag to be removed from meetings   The University of California-Davis's (of course!) student senate voted to allow the removal of the American flag from its meetings. 

"Saying "patriotism is different for every individual," the senate voted to make displaying the flag optional.

"Any idiot can see where this is headed" . . .

Sources:  Weasel Zippers, UK Daily Mail, Campus Reform, Legal Insurrection, American Thinker

Doctor dragged off flight was convicted of trading drugs for sex

NY Post

"The passenger hauled off a United flight is a lung doctor with a taste for gambling, a history of angry outbursts — and a conviction for trading narcotics prescriptions and cash for gay sex in motels." . . .

The Dao home in New Jersey

. . . "Dao’s own medical license was suspended in 2003 following his arrest on charges including unlawful prescribing and trafficking in a controlled substance.

"He was accused of providing prescriptions for Vicodin and other narcotics to a former patient he later hired as his office manager, who was identified in news reports at the time as Brian Case.

"The men repeatedly hooked up in motels, with Dao paying Case around $200 each time and also sharing in the drugs, according to a 130-page file compiled by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.

"On the day he was busted, Dao was secretly videotaped with Case in a Red Carpet Inn in Jefferson County, Ky., “with his shirt off and his pants undone,” the records say." . . .

The famous photo from WW2: Hans-Georg Henke – 16 Year Old German soldier crying

World War 2 - Gravestone

Hans-Georg Henke - 16 year old German soldier crying after
 being captured by the Allies, 1945

"As a son of a former Communist sympathiser, Hans-Georg himself joined the Communist party and went to live in Finsterwalde in East Germany after the war. Unlike the hordes that crossed from East to West Germany during the period before the erection of the Berlin Wall, Hans-Georg did the exact opposite. Perhaps it is for this reason that he changed the story of why he was crying so inconsolably in these photographs.

"According to the story that Henke maintained throughout his life – he died in 1997 – he was based in Stettin with a battery of 88mm guns. As the Russians advanced so the German forces were pushed back towards Rostock. It was here where the Russians finally overran their unit, that these photographs were taken.

"The alternative story is given by an American photo-journalist John Florea. He alleges that he took these photographs in Hessen, in the village of Hüttenberg-Rechtenbach, which is just north of Frankfurt am Main.

"The area in which the photos of Hans-Georg were taken is incontrovertibly Hessen. A number of photos taken clearly show areas of the town which still exist today. Furthermore as these photos indicate, he was bearing boots when captured and not, as he alleged later, with rags on his feet. " . . .

Coming? Obama Signs in North Korea Saying, "Miss Me Yet?"

North Korea: Say, that’s a vicious leader you have there, America  "North Korea is discovering what Joni Mitchell once sang about: You don’t always know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. With Barack Obama gone, the US has taken a new approach to dealing with Pyongyang, and they’re not happy with it. The Kim regime’s “vice minister” told the Associated Press that they see Trump as less friendly and reasonable than Obama — whom they spent the last eight years provoking and threatening, too:" . . .

North Korea Displays New Missiles During Military Parade  "North Korea is celebrating the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung, with the usual pomp and circumstance, including a gigantic parade showing off all the military hardware North Korean rulers have purchased while their citizens have gone hungry.

"But western analysts noticed that there were several missiles that no one had seen before, demonstrating that Kim Jong Un's regime is making steady progress toward developing missile systems that can hit any target in the world -- including the U.S." . . .

NY Times gives credit to Obama!  . . . "Kim Jong Un almost surely will redouble his nuclear efforts in order to overcome the embarrassment of Saturday’s failure. Thus, we should all hope that the U.S. has developed the ability to sabotage North Korean launches.

"However, the Times’ suggestion that the U.S. sabotaged today’s, or any other, launch is speculative. Neither the Washington Post nor the Los Angeles Times raises this possibility in its account of the failed launch.

"The Trump administration’s response to North Korea’s failure was unusually matter of fact. Defense Secretary Mattis stated: “The president and his military team are aware of North Korea’s most recent unsuccessful missile launch. The president has no further comment.”

30 Seconds Over Tokyo: How the Doolittle Raid Doomed the Japanese Empire

On this date in 1942, three captured American airmen who had bombed Japan in the Doolittle Raid were shot in Tokyo.

National Interest

"At noon on April 18, 1942, the citizens of Tokyo looked up into the sky and saw the impossible.

"Zooming low over the imperial capital was a flight of twin-engined bombers. Nothing surprising about that in wartime Japan. Except that these aircraft were painted olive-drab, with red-white-and-blue stars on their wings and fuselage.

"They were American planes dropping bombs on the sacred soil of Japan. As the crump of explosions and the drone of aircraft motors faded, and the air raid sirens belatedly wailed, Tokyoites asked themselves a fateful question:

"What just happened?

"The Doolittle Raid seventy-five years ago was more than one of history’s most momentous air attacks. It was also one of the most economical. The Allies dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Germany, and the United States dropped seven million tons on Vietnam. And still the Nazis and the Communists continued to fight. Yet sixteen B-25 bombers carrying perhaps sixteen tons of bombs managed to change the course of history.

"It was a stunning reversal. In war, momentum is everything, and Japan was the one that had it in the early spring of 1942. Within four months, they had decimated the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, conquered Southeast Asia, the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and the islands of the Central Pacific, and were about to compel the last battered U.S. defenders in the Philippines to surrender.

"America needed to reverse the momentum with a victory—any kind of victory—to bolster morale and take back the initiative. President Roosevelt had the right idea: days after Pearl Harbor, he called for the Japanese homeland to be bombed in retaliation. But how? " . . .

Last Doolittle Raider standing: WWII vet to attend homecoming, 75th anniversary event

Doolittle Raiders crew from left: Lt. Henry Potter, navigator; Lt. Col. James Doolittle, pilot; Staff Sgt. Fred Braemer, Bombardier; Lt. Richard Cole, copilot; Staff Sgt. Paul Leonard, engineer-gunner. Cole, the last standing Doolittle Raider left standing, is set to attend a 7th anniversary event in Ohio in April 2017.