SecDef Mattis: There Are No Walmarts In North Korea Only Targets

President Trump canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s latest mission to Pyongyang, North Korea citing the bullheadedness of Rocket Man who continues to produce fissile material and missiles rather than working toward complete denuclearization as agreed to in the Singapore Summit.

The Trump Administration demanded the North move first by providing a complete inventory of its nuclear material and production facilities. Pyongyang countered with the demand that Washington join South Korea in declaring an end to the Korean War. The declaration would commit to initiating a peace process that would include military confidence building measures to reduce the risk of deadly clashes in the contested waters of the Yellow Sea and the DMZ.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers, “We believe that a method involving the balanced, simultaneous, step-by-step implementation of all terms in the Joint Statement, preceded by the establishment of trust, is the only realistic means of achieving success.” He emphasized the North’s “unswerving resolution and commitment to responsible, good-faith implementation of the Joint Statement,” and the “unacceptability of a situation in which we alone are the first to move unilaterally.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis tried to increase pressure on the North by announcing, “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises.” While he clarified that no decision had yet been made, he also noted, “We are going to see how the negotiations go, and then we will calculate the future, how we go forward.”

STATEMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

President Donald J. Trump feels strongly that North Korea is under tremendous pressure from China because of our major trade disputes with the Chinese Government. At the same time, we also know that China is providing North Korea with...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

America is the most powerful nation in the world. Our military is second to none, outspending the next eight countries combined. Our fighting men and women are the best-trained, most technically advanced force in history. We have thousands of nuclear weapons and many more precision-guided conventional bombs. Our warplanes, ships, drones and cyber capabilities are the envy of all. Most importantly, the American experiment─one committed to democratic values and the rule of law─has allowed us to become the world's sole superpower.

North Korea, by contrast, is a totalitarian state that consistently fails to meet the basic needs of its 23 million people. The United Nations World Food Program says 70% of the North's citizens do not have enough food to eat. An estimated 25% of the North's children are physically stunted. The country ranks 213 out of 230 countries in GDP per capita. The North does have a 1.2-million-man military; but an International Institute of Security Studies report found that the North's conventional forces rely on "increasingly obsolete equipment, with little evidence of widespread modernization." In other words, their equipment is old.

Who should be afraid of whom?

For all its idiosyncratic behavior, outlandish threats, actions and gruesome human rights record, the North Korean government is not suicidal. It knows in a large-scale confrontation with South Korea and the U.S. its leadership and the country itself would cease to exist.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Bad Blue Uncensored News.  We are grateful to Doug Ross for linking to this post.

In The News

Low Hanging Fruit

California authorities arrested a man who was trying to obey the state's bewildering array of gun laws and register his firearms. Obeying laws regulating firearms in California now require the same kind of services as filing your income taxes.

A California man had his home raided, guns seized, and will appear in court this week to face a dozen state felony charges after attempting to register a rifle in accordance with state law 

[...]The issues stem from a new California gun law, one of the strictest in the country, which redefined an "assault weapon" and required anyone with a gun that fell under the new definition to register it with the state. Joe Pilkington, a court-recognized firearms expert, told the news station that California's continually changing gun laws can be very difficult to navigate without professional help.

If California is trying to encourage gun owners to obey the law, this is precisely the way to do it. Not.


Our New BFF?
It doesn't contain everything that we would want, but it doesn't involve anything that we don't want.

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed what Trump says is a “very important” and “pretty comprehensive” document after their Tuesday summit in Singapore. Trump and Kim refused to immediately tell reporters what the declaration said, saying it would be handed out later.

It's a pretty good start considering that we are still at war with North Korea.

Better Put Some Ice On That Interview
Former President and lip balm specialist William Jefferson Clinton decided to channel his inner Goebbels while speaking with Judy Woodruff on the the PBS Newshour.

The former president has come under fire once again for comments he made during a recent sit-down — this time noting how “norms have changed in terms of what you can do to somebody against their will.”

Fortunately the former President did not demonstrate to Ms. Woodruff how his "norms" have changed since his encounters with Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones.


This Raises The Bar For All Dumb Moves
Let's see. You have an incredibly well recognized international brand and you want to increase your consumer base to raise profits. What do you do?

IHOP stands for International House of Pancakes. The chain has been around for 60 years and has used the IHOP acronym since 1973. So what in the name of a Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity is IHOP thinking by changing its name to IHOb?

What does the "b" stand for? Burgers? Baloney? Ballistic missiles?  Sure, eating a lot of pancakes is not considered a healthy diet choice, but eating burgers is? Go to any burger joint and order a cheese burger with ketchup, that will add 455 calories to your waist line. Order their most expensive burger with all the extras you can ever imagine... that's gonna run you about 700 calories. The average chocolate chip pancake prepared in a restaurant is 185 calories. Even if you eat two, you're still better off with the pancakes.


Bring Out Your Dead!
My affection for Monty Python movies aside, I just don't think that the dead fully comprehend the issues needed to vote intelligently in our elections. Sure, this is a very unpopular opinion among Democrats, but the US Supremes also think that disenfranchising the deceased is a good idea.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday revived Ohio's contentious policy of purging infrequent voters from registration rolls in a ruling powered by the five conservative justices and denounced by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor as an endorsement of the disenfranchisement of minority and low-income Americans. 

In a 5-4 decision in the closely watched voting-rights case, the high court overturned a lower court's ruling that Ohio's policy violated a 1993 federal law enacted to make it easier to register to vote. All four liberal justices dissented, and top Democrats said the decision will boost what they called Republican voter-suppression efforts. But other states may now follow Ohio's lead.

The liberals crow that Hillary won the popular vote in the 2016 Presidential Elections by 3 million. Of course that number includes 5 million dead voters and that's just in the State of Michigan.

Kim Is Skeer’d

Yesterday when news broke through the North Korean state-run Yonhap News Agency casting doubt on next month's summit between Kim Jong Un and President Trump over joint Air Force Max Thunder drills taking place in South Korea, the news agency declared, "This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula."

"The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities.”

Today, the hermit nation decided pissing and moaning about drills, which have taken place for decades, wasn’t a suitable enough excuse and took aim at National Security Advisor John Bolton for remarks he made about “the Libya model” in April on CBS’s Face the Nation.

“I think we're looking at the Libya model of 2003, 2004. We're also looking at what North Korea itself has committed to previously and most importantly I think going back over a quarter of a century to the 1992 joint North-South denuclearization agreement where North Korea committed to give up nuclear weapons and committed to give up uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. Now we've got other issues to discuss as well; their ballistic missile programs, their biological and chemical weapons programs, their keeping of American hostages, the abduction of innocent Japanese and South Korean citizens over the years. So, there's a lot to talk about.”

"In the case of Libya, for example, and it's a different situation in some respects...One thing that Libya did that led us to overcome our skepticism was that they allowed American and British observers into all their nuclear-related sites." (It should be noted Gaddafi allowed certification that his nuclear and chemical weapons program had halted after the U.S. invaded Iraq and deposed the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein.)

The bluster coming from Pyongyang apparently is emanating Kim Kye-gwan, a senior figure in the North Korean hierarchy who has negotiated with the U.S. before. In 2003, North Korea refused to participate in multilateral talks if Bolton was present after he labelled then leader Kim Jong-il a “tyrannical dictator”, a memory which the regime invoked on Wednesday.

"We do not hide our feelings of repugnance towards him," said Kye-gwan, warning the Trump Administration to remember the lessons of the past. 

If the “Libya model” comparison carries dark connotations for the  rogue nation, perhaps someone needs to forcefully remind them Muammar Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011.  Bolton left government service on December 31, 2006.

Who was POTUS? Barack Obama.  Who was Secretary of State? Hillary Clinton.  Who was Secretary of Defense? Leon Panetta.

On August 22, 2011 the cumulative efforts of the international coalition bore fruit when exuberant rebels stormed the Qaddafi compound in Tripoli. The dictator was still at large, but his reign was over.

Hillary Clinton’s old friend and political adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, who regularly emailed her political advice and vaguely sourced intelligence reports on Libya, urged her to capitalize on the dictator’s fall.

“Brava!” Blumenthal exclaimed. As always, he was thinking about Hillary’s presidential ambitions. “You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment.” She should be sure to use the phrase “successful strategy,” he wrote. “You are vindicated.”

The first news reports of Qaddafi’s capture and killing in October 2011 reached the Secretary of State in Kabul, Afghanistan where she had just sat down for a televised interview with CBS News. “Wow!” she said, looking at Huma Abedin’s BlackBerry™ before cautiously noting that the report had not yet been confirmed. But Hillary Clinton seemed impatient for a conclusion to the multinational military intervention she had done so much to organize, and in a rare unguarded moment, she dropped her aloofness.

“We came, we saw, he died!” she exclaimed.

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer said the biggest mistake of his presidency was the lack of planning for the aftermath of Muammar Gaddafi’s ouster in Libya that left the country spiraling into chaos and coming under threat from violent Islamic extremists. He conceded the intervention “didn’t work”.

A year later four Americans were brutally slaughtered in Benghazi.

He’s A Sleeping Son Of A Bitch

The White House is switching into campaign mode as it seeks to protect the GOP’s congressional majorities in the 2018 midterms.

Ahead of the midterms, with election prognosticators increasingly forecasting a blue wave that could produce the first Democratic-controlled House since 2010, President Trump is gearing up for a fall blitz with aides saying he plans to hit the campaign trail for Republican candidates four, five or even six days a week starting around Labor Day.

President Trump went to Moon Township in suburban Pennsylvania on Saturday for GOP House candidate Rick Saccone, who is running neck-and neck with Democrat Conor “Lamb the Sham” Lamb ahead of next week’s special election. 

The White House says it’s been inundated with candidates seeking the President’s endorsement and aides are eager to get him on the campaign trail. “There’s a desire by these candidates to have the president out on the trail,” said White House political director Bill Stepien. “He takes that responsibility very seriously as the leader of the party and, most importantly, to help elect the people who will advance his agenda.”

The New York Times said of the rally,”[it] seemed to reveal a President happier than he has been in weeks, his mentioning of the new slogan [Keep America Great!], which he had alluded to for months but never before highlighted, pointed to the challenge he will face in 2020. While he will argue that he has done much to restore the country to greatness, he will have to make a case that there is enough left undone that he should be given another term to finish the job.”

“The President said he loved his original ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan, but that he already had to think ahead. ‘I can’t say Make America Great Again because I already did that,’ he said.”

“He emphasized that it was ‘our’ slogan, noting that his supporters helped make everything happen.”

The President went off teleprompter mentioning remarks he made during a 1999 appearance on “Meet the Press” where he talked about North Korea.

“You ever see the story? Where it’s 1999. I’m on ‘Meet the Press,’ a show now headed by sleepy eyes Chuck Todd. He’s a sleeping son of a bitch, I’ll tell you. And they showed it this morning, 1999, and I’m talking about North Korea, ‘You gotta take them out now.’”

“And then they have [Bill] Clinton saying, ‘We are pleased to announce that we have made a deal with North Korea,” Trump continued. “Well, you know how that deal turned out, right? We gave billions and billions of dollars and lots of other things. And we got nothing. But they show me young, handsome. I said, why couldn’t I look like that today? I should’ve run back then, right?”

Of course, this is not the first time Todd has been mocked for his fatigued appearance:

Sleepy eyes @chucktodd -- whenever you mention me unfairly I will likewise mention you.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012

I know @chucktodd. Chuck Todd is a friend of mine. And Chuck Todd is not an SOB.

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) March 11, 2018

So he *is Sleepy though? https://t.co/erXwR0HNws

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) March 11, 2018

Trump The Winter Olympics

South Korean President Moon Jae-in lavished praise on President Donald Trump for making a "huge" contribution to bringing North and South Korea together for landmark talks.

After the first intra-Korean talks in over two years, the President indicated the United States would be willing to speak to North Korea “under the right circumstances,” although it was far from clear whether this would pay dividends.

According to the South China Morning Post, in a joint statement the North pledged to send a large delegation to next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the South, but made a “strong complaint” after Seoul proposed talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

South Korea asked its neighbor to halt hostile acts that stoke tension on the peninsula, and in return, the North agreed that peace should be guaranteed in the region.

South Korea announced it will march under a unified Korean flag, according to Reuters Sports. The BBC reported the two nations have also agreed to field a joint women's hockey team although they will compete separately in other sports.

While the two Koreas have agreed to allow their teams to walk together in the Winter Olympics, North Korea will not be able to field a team for the Summer Olympics having recently lost two of their best sprinters who defected across the DMZ back in December.

President Trump Stumps The UN

Say what you will, President Trump shock rocked the world in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. And he did it without a teleprompter.

Contrary to his mealy-mouthed predecessors, the President called a spade an entrenchment tool and let the world know that he will defend America's interests and that the free ride is over. The UN must clean up its act. Trump also singled out three nations whose activities are of special concern to America.

First, North Korea:

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime."

This is not new. For most of his term in office, President Trump has been warning North Korea's Insane Boy Clown For Life that he is walking on a razor's edge. What is new is that the UN's General Assembly was treated to the harsh clanging of an American President who has brass ones.

Second on Trump's "List of Nations I Want To Bitch Slap" was Iran:

"The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos." 

America owes Iran a severe ass kicking. The terrorists who run the remains of the Persian Empire have been killing Americans for decades without a single cruise missile to remind them that Uncle Sam's beard is not a trapeze. I still remember 241 Marines murdered in their barracks and the US embassy in Beirut destroyed under Reagan's watch.

There's been a shit ton of interest accruing just for these two incidents much less the chaos and death the Iranian government have abetted since then. It's way past time for the US to collect on this debt.

Third, our once friendly neighbor to the south, Venezuela:

"The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure."

Boom chica wow wow. That left a mark on Lenin's ass in Hell. The people of Venezuela are suffering terribly and there is only one reason why their distress is so great…their government. Thank you, Lord Jesus for delivering us from Hillary Chavez.  

More here.

Of course the libs are foaming at the mouth and chasing their tails after listening to the President's UN speech, as expected. What I find really disturbing is Chief of Staff John Kelly's reaction while his boss was delivering the message.

 

Kelly needs to go. If this idiot cannot keep a poker face while his President is addressing the world he should get a paper route to supplement his Army pension. 

Get rid of Kelly Mr. President.

Ooof! Tubby Tyrant Exaggerates The Size Of His Dong

State-run news agency KCNA claimed the United States was to blame for growing tensions stating:

“It is just the US which has pushed the situation on the peninsula to the brink of nuclear war by staging the largest-ever aggressive joint military drills against the DPRK for the past two months after bringing all sorts of nuclear strategic assets to South Korea. No one in the world welcomes a gangster blackmailing the owner with a dagger.” 

“It is an entirely legitimate right to self-defense for the DPRK to further increase its war deterrent to cope with the prevailing grave situation on the peninsula. The present reality clearly proves that the DPRK was so right when it made a crucial decision to strengthen its nuclear force in quality and quantity.” 

“The nuclear force of the DPRK is a treasure sword of justice and reliable war deterrent to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country and global peace from the nuclear war threat posed by the US.”

That “treasure sword of justice” includes half a million women in Nork uniform according to reports from defectors.  Women were forced into service when thousands of male soldiers starved to death or deserted their posts during the 1990s famine.

Kim Jong Un’s Taepodong-1 missile is incapable of reaching the United States.  A successful strike  would require launching Taepodong-2 missiles.  The tiny hermit nation has, thus far, only tested the Taepodong-1.

Seems somebody’s been exaggerating the size of his dong.

Never send a child on a mans job.. (Kim Jong Un) #FamilyMotto #Bluehand pic.twitter.com/ZcnIiLBeRi

— James Bond 🌐 (@bluehand007) April 28, 2017

Happy Earth Day From The Hermit Nation (They Really Know How To Celebrate)

The bright lights of Seoul, South Korea (left) as seen from the Hubble telescope stand in stark contrast to the darkness of North Korea. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is the small dot in the center. China is to the far right.

To honor Earth Day, the President ordered that only 10 out of 11 lights be turned on in the Roosevelt Room

— Sean Spicier (@sean_spicier) April 22, 2017

About That ”Super-Mighty” Boast From The Norks

Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper for North Korea’s ruling Worker’s Party wrote, “In the case of our super-mighty pre-emptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas, but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes.”

Some are taking the blustery boasts seriously.  Chickens throughout the tiny hermit kingdom are crossing the road to get away from the tubby tyrant’s long-range missiles.

Sumbahdee Say Chockerat Cake?

Saturday was a super big day for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  State-run television broadcast the hermit nation’s military might during a parade celebrating the birth of the nation’s founder Kim Il Sung.

It was an impressive array of papier-mâché and polystyrene missiles perched on flatbed trucks.  There were even older technology Russian T34 tanks clattering down Kim Il Sung Square.  I hope someone called The Antiques Roadshow.

At one point, goose-stepping soldiers chanted in the direction of Dear Leader “We will die for you.”  It was a rogue’s gallery of starving, indoctrinated slaves.

Looks like a tank had mechanical problems and had to abort the parade. Smoking heavily, then missing in last row of first group of nine. pic.twitter.com/Tz2wTqtbjC

— Martyn Williams (@martyn_williams) April 15, 2017

As #NorthKorea hasn't fought a war since 1953 why do the generals have so many medals ? The look like over enthusiastic boy scouts FFS #US pic.twitter.com/g5llFG9QO2

— Damian Thirsty (@damian_thirsty) April 15, 2017

The braggadocio of North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol was especially entertaining on the eve of the Day of the Sun festivities.  “North Korea will go to war if the US rashly attempts to carry out a military provocation.”  Han added that the sixth nuclear test was a decision to be made by the North Korean leadership and if the leadership decided a test was necessary it would carry it out at a time and place of its choosing.  Ooooh.  Scary dude.

At 5:21 PM ET North Korea launched a missile near Sinpo.  It blew up almost immediately according to US Pacific Command.

I’m sure, like an overweight version of Pee Wee Herman, Dear Leader will say, “I meant to do that!” 

Pudgy Nork Despot Shouldn’t Pre-Pay For Any Magazine Subscriptions

The USS Carl Vinson Strike Group 1 has finally arrived off the coast of the Korean Peninsula according to the Japan Times.

An editorial in the North Korean state-run propaganda rag Pyongyang News blustered:

“Shortly ago, the US Air Force based in Japan conducted the first air-refueling to the latest stealth fighter F-35B. The US should not harbor a foolish daydream that it can stifle the DPRK.  That will lead it to doom.”

And today the mouthpiece newspaper boastfully declared:

The army and people of the DPRK are staging an all-out struggle for building a sci-tech power, economic power and highly-civilized nation despite all sorts of sanctions and war drills of the imperialists. 

Neither nuclear threat nor economic sanctions can hold in check the dynamic advance of the army and people of the DPRK who have turned out in their efforts to build an invincible socialist power under the banner of independence and Songun. 

We urge the new US administration to see the strategic position of the DPRK as a nuclear power, face up to the trend of the times and behave with prudence and self-restraint and make a courageous decision to make a switchover in the approach towards the DPRK after drawing a due lesson from the failed DPRK policy of the Obama administration.

The Special Warfare Development Group, best known as SEAL Team 6, is carrying out drills in South Korea.  This is the team responsible for terminating with extreme prejudice al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 as part of Operation Neptune Spear.

The 33-year-old pot-bellied dictator with daddy issues thought the report in the Japan Times meant trained seals were in South Korea and was emboldened enough to proclaim, “The U.S. imperialists, engrossed in the hostile policy toward the DPRK century after century, should be mindful that the time of nightmare is coming nearer when they will meet the most disastrous, final doom on the US mainland.”

Nope.  Those are highly trained, lethal Navy SEALS, you nimrod.

With today’s announcement that Air Force Special Operations Command unleashed hell in the form of a 21,000-pound MOAB bomb in Afghanistan packing a mile-wide blast area in all directions must have made the “crazy fat kid” plotz his black pantsuit and no doubt cast a pall on Saturday’s Day of the Sun celebration. 

Talk about pissing in somebody’s cornflakes.

The bomb is equivalent to the power of 1 trillion Obama administration hashtags. https://t.co/r3cJNP6Z0e

— Sam Valley (@SamValley) April 13, 2017

Since you'll ask, yes the President was eating chocolate cake while the bombs were being dropped in Afghanistan

— Sean Spicier (@sean_spicier) April 13, 2017

Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un To Miss Annual Mongolian Ice Festival

10,000 Person Pillow Fight "Juche Feather Battle" in Nampo postponed indefinitely.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) April 11, 2017

The Hermit Dictator Vs The Chastised Donkey

North Korea has been a on war footing with the United States for more than 50 years.  Its hermit dictator, 32-year-old Kim Jong-Un, is defiantly hailing a successful fifth nuclear test which created a 5.3 magnitude tremor at its Punggye-ri test site.  The 30 kiloton blast was more powerful than the DPRK’s previous detonations.

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer called the latest nuclear test a “grave threat” and vowed to take “additional significant steps,” including sanctions against the rogue state.  Oooooh.  That’ll leave a mark.

The test happened just a few hours after the president’s plane stopped in Japan to refuel on his way home from Laos, where he attended a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and called Americans “lazy”.  Then he talked to South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, who was still in Laos, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to White House paid liar Josh Earnest.

Some have suggested the detonation celebrated The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Foundation Day, but the truth is more likely the squatty little megalomaniac has nothing to fear from The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, China or the impotent UN.

Apparently North Korea is pushing for its own $400 billion pallet of cash.  Just sayin’.

North Korea's regime will be this weird, giggle-inducing, faraway, easy-to-ignore problem up until the day it isn't.

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 9, 2016

BHO says the $5 billion N. Korea received from Bill Clinton for promising never to go nuclear was naive. They're not trustworthy, like Iran.

— WH PRESS SECRETARY (@weknowwhatsbest) September 9, 2016

DPRK demonstration of ballistic might and prowess before so-called world powers leads to many pairs of besoddened trousers in Hangzhou.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) September 5, 2016

Kim Jong Un Personally Joins Hunt for Missing North Korean Submarine, But Mystery Remains

Washington (CNN)The North Korean regime lost contact with one of its submarines earlier this week, three U.S. officials familiar with the latest information told CNN.  Read more at CNN.

Scorching John Kerry

In response to Tuesday’s North Korean nuclear test in which Pyongyang claimed to have detonated an H bomb, Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted:

The United States and nations around the world unequivocally condemn North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) January 6, 2016

Kerry, like many leaders across the globe, use Twitter as their soapbox—twiplomats practicing twiplomacy.

North Korea has conducted four nuclear tests since 2006 while paying little heed to international pressure including the State Department’s feckless, toothless, cowardly hashtags on Twitter.

Immediately after Kerry’s tweet the snark and James Taylor punchlines began scorching Kerry: 

@JohnKerry I applaud the Obama admin. for this devastating tweet, 140 tough characters that will surely bring Pyongyang to heel.

— Gabriel Schoenfeld (@gabeschoenfeld) January 6, 2016

Oh, shit, he's sending James Taylor https://t.co/wHvyyudcYQ

— Live, Freely. (@BruceNV) January 7, 2016

.@weeklystandard @JohnKerry A firm finger wagging will he coming their way!

— Take Responsibility (@Booo_government) January 7, 2016

Major New Problems For Madame Mao’s Presidential Campaign (Besides Possible Indictment By FBI)

Via Breitbart:  As Secretary of State in President Barack Obama’s first term, Clinton led a policy that sought new outlets for talks with North Korea while promising “to speak out forcefully” against the regime. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, traveled personally to North Korea to free U.S. journalists in 2009.

In 2007, then-candidate Obama had promised to meet with North Korean leaders, among others, “without preconditions,” saying that “the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them—which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this [Bush] administration—is ridiculous.” In his campaign manifesto, Obama went further, promising to “eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program” through diplomacy.

In his 2010 State of the Union address, delivered while Hillary Clinton was in charge of his administration’s foreign policy, Obama boasted that he was succeeding in diplomacy with North Korea, as well as with Iran–that his diplomatic efforts had “strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons.” He repeated the claim in his 2011 State of the Union Address, stating that his administration continued to “insist that North Korea keeps its commitment to abandon nuclear weapons.”

In 2013, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on the day President Obama was to give his State of the Union address, putting an atomic stamp on the administration’s failure. In 2014, the administration struggled to respond to North Korean hacks that targeted Sony Pictures and its film, The Interview, which lampooned the regime.

Experts are skeptical that Wednesday’s test was a hydrogen bomb, but agree that it was a nuclear explosion, and not a natural earthquake.

Already, Clinton’s rivals are pouncing. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Fox & Friends Wednesday that “three out of the four nuclear detonations that the North Koreans have done have happened on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s watch, and they have just not acted strongly at all around the world. It’s just another example piling on top of Iran, on top of Syria, on top of Crimea and Ukraine. This is what weak American leadership gets you.”

The fact that Bill Clinton, as well as Hillary Clinton, was involved in recent diplomacy with North Korea may also tempt GOP frontrunner Donald Trump to renew his attack on the former president. Recently, Trump has revived the issue of Bill Clinton’s conduct towards women–and his wife’s alleged enabling behavior.

You Risten Now To Grorious Reader!

CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that Sony execs got a little something in their emails Thursday night.  It seems the hackers who have whipsawed them for about a month decided to take a victory lap:

"It's very wise that you have made the decision to cancel the release of The Interview. It will be very useful for you. Now we want you never [sic] let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy. And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately. We still have your private and sensitive data.  We will ensure the security of your data unless you make additional trouble."

How humiliating it must be to surrender to a half-pint tin pot dictator of a hermit state. 

You humiriate Grorious Reader no moor, okay?

UPDATE:  And from the parody Twitter account comes this hilarious tweet:

Culture and Film Minister Roh Nam-Hon warns reactionary film studios of Japan and U.S. to increase respect for DPRK, or face obliteration.
— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) December 18, 2014

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Pyongyang’s Pillsbury Doughboy Threatens “Merciless Strikes” Against U.S.

Impoverished Hermit State Mourns Loss Of Comic Buffoon

Kim Jong Il, the jumpsuit and platform shoe-wearing tyrant died of a heart attack while on a train trip according to state television—that’s the apparatchik to you and me.

Reportedly a diabetic, the little man with a towering ego, amassed a wine cellar with more than 10,000 bottles and greedily scoffed down prodigious amounts of lobster and expensive cognac.

Lobster ranks as one of the most decadent items on a menu and is also known to be high in cholesterol.  What condiment usually accompanies lobster? Butter. Butter is also high in cholesterol, with about 35 mg of cholesterol per tablespoon.  One in four people with diabetes will suffer a heart attack or stroke.

If you drink cognac regularly (around 15 ml a day), it is said to protect you against heart disease.  Perhaps after suffering a stroke in 2008, Il who is now no longer ill, thought his excessive consumption of the stuff would allay another stroke.  Looks like his plan was flawed.

On a serious note, South Koreans are naturally extremely nervous since, despite there being 26,500 US troops in the country; North Korea has thousands of artillery rockets aimed at Seoul which is only 70 miles from the internal border. North Korea is also nuclear armed, the main reason why everyone treats this nightmare of a state so gingerly. The Japanese government will be monitoring the situation closely.  Indeed they will.