Immigrants who have fled socialist countries are travelling to schools across the U.S. for free under a new program to teach students about the dangers of socialism. The Dissident Project launched Monday with speakers set to “travel to high schools across the U.S. to speak to students about authoritarian socialism” at no cost to the schools, Dissident Project founder and Venezuelan-born economist Daniel Di Martino told the Daily Caller. The speakers include activists from Venezuela, Cuba, Hong Kong and North Korea who have immigrated to the U.S. and are dedicated to speaking about how socialism has destroyed their countries. (RELATED: Immigrants From Communist And Socialist Countries Spell Out Why The GOP Is The Party Of Freedom)
Grace Jo, a speaker from North Korea, came to the U.S. after almost starving “to death as a child” under the country’s socialist regime. Two of her brothers and her father died from starvation, according to the Dissident Project’s website.
“All of us Dissident Project speakers came to America for freedom, and it is our duty to preserve that love for freedom among the youngest generation. That’s why we’re stepping up and doing our part so Americans never forget that this is an exceptional nation, that free enterprise and the rule of law made it great, and that socialism can destroy it all like it did in our native countries,” Di Martino said.
The project was inspired by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislation recognizing a statewide “Victims of Communism Day” annually on Nov. 7 and requiring Florida schools to teach students about “the evils of communism.”
“Honoring the people that have fallen victim to communist regimes and teaching our students about those atrocities is the best way to ensure that history does not repeat itself,” DeSantis said in a statement about the bill in May.
Starting in the 2023-2024 school year, students in Florida will be mandated to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction in their required U.S. Government class about the evils of communism. Potential topics to cover include “Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement,” according to the bill.
Di Martino began the Dissident Project “after learning about Florida’s new curriculum.”
Daniel Di Martino speaks to students about the socialist regime in Venezuela. Courtesy of Dissident Project
“I thought we needed a unified platform where schools could find immigrants from socialist countries to speak there at no cost to them so we could reach every single American,” he said.
The Dissident Project will focus its efforts in speaking to school districts in Florida, given DeSantis’ legislation, but will also advertise the opportunity to teachers across the country, Di Martino concluded. Teachers who wish to host a speaker can do so for free by filling out a form.
President Joe Biden, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday for the first time since taking up residence in the White House, did what he does best. He embarrassed his country with a foreign policy speech that was detached from reality, full of straw men and false dichotomies, rambling and incoherent at times and — c’mon, man — punctuated by avuncular exasperation and fake bravado.
The 23-second video below captures the tone of Tuesday’s oration before the global body.
Biden, spinning like a centrifuge, stressed that the disastrous removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan will open “a new era of relentless diplomacy.”
“Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past,”Biden said,“we are fixing our eyes on devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future: Ending this pandemic, addressing the climate crisis, managing shifts in global power dynamics, shaping the rules of the world on vital issues like trade, cyber and emerging technologies, and facing the threat of terrorism as it stands today.”
Taking on those problems requires foreign governments to “engage deeply with the rest of the world” and “work together with our partners toward a shared future,” Biden said, according to a White House copy of the speech.
Biden’s flowery verbiage is misplaced, belied by the reality of recent events.
American allies remain frustrated with Biden’s handling — mishandling — of last month’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, including the Pentagon’s acknowledgment that a Kabul drone strike that was touted as “righteous” by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had, in fact, killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
Americans remain trapped in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, even as the Taliban tighten their bloody grip on the country by sweeping away what little opposition remains and killing anyone in-country who worked with the United States and its allies over the past two decades.
More recently, the Biden administration has found itself grappling with an angry French government still smarting over a new trilateral security pact with the United Kingdom and Australia, which saw Canberra reverse course on a multibillion-dollar deal it had brokered with Paris.
Nevertheless, Biden defended his administration’s international engagement over the past eight months. He argued he had “prioritized rebuilding our alliances, revitalizing our partnerships and recognizing they’re essential and central to America’s enduring security and prosperity.”
Biden’s take on other flashpoints around the world evidenced a similar naivete and refusal to acknowledge reality, including returning to the useless Iran nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and putting the North Korean nuclear genie back in the bottle.
“The United States will remain committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. We are working with the P5 plus one to engage Iran diplomatically and to seek a return to the JCPOA,” Biden said, referring to the five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.
“We’re prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same. Similarly, we seek serious and sustained diplomacy to pursue the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Likewise, Biden reiterated his commitment to the pipe dream of a two-state solution regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The commitment of the United States to Israel’s security is without question, and our support for an independent Jewish state is unequivocal,” Biden said.
“But I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish democratic state living in peace alongside a viable sovereign and democratic Palestinian state.”
One glaring omission from the speech was any mention at all of China — the top international rival of the United States and, more importantly, the source of a pandemic that has killed more than 4 million citizens of the countries the United Nations delegates represent. Maybe even Biden’s speechwriters couldn’t find a way to spin a China reference in anything like a positive direction.
Biden’s weakness on the world stage is in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s more muscular approach to foreign policy, including a deal negotiated with the Taliban that resulted in no U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan for 18 months, withdrawing from the JCPOA while making Iran a pariah in its own Middle East neighborhood, easing tensions with North Korea, and ignoring the Palestinian Authority to facilitate the Abraham Accords between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
That’s what effective leadership looks like. Biden’s appearance at the U.N. on Tuesday — a bumbling fool with a fool’s record of failure — was exactly the opposite.
Brett Davis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Western Washington University, has written for newspapers, public policy organizations, a major humanitarian institution and a software company. Brett lives in Federal Way, Washington, just south of Seattle.
North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on Thursday in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The US State Department condemned the missile launch and encouraged North Korea to “engage in dialogue.”
“We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea) and call on them to engage in dialogue. Our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad,” the State Department spox said.
North Korea said Thursday that a railway-borne missile regiment held a firing drill a day earlier, confirming the launches, apparently from a train, of two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea.
“The railway-borne missile regiment took part in the drill with a mission to strike the target area 800 kilometers away from its location after moving to the central mountainous area at dawn on September 15,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The KCNA said the North accurately struck the target in the East Sea. The missiles appeared to have been launched from a train rather than a transporter erector launcher (TEL), according to photos released by state media.
Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said the provocation was “completely inexcusable.”
“This is an outrage that threatens our nation and regional peace and security,”Yoshihide said.
“North Korea’s recent repeated launches of ballistic missiles and other projectiles are a serious problem for Japan and the international community as a whole,” the Japanese Defense Ministry said, according to Kyodo News.
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone Wednesday in the first launches of such weapons in nearly six months, the Japanese Defense Ministry said. The launches came just days after the North said it had tested a new long-range cruise missile, raising fresh alarm in Japan and other countries, including the United States, which has tens of thousands of troops stationed across Japan. While Japan’s Defense Ministry said the projectiles did not enter Japanese territory, they were initially believed to have landed outside Japan’s EEZ. Further analysis revealed they both fell in waters off the Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture, after reaching an altitude of about 50 kilometers and flying around 750 km “on an irregular trajectory,” Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the two short-range ballistic missiles were launched from South Pyongan Province in a central area of North Korea toward the east coast.
North Korea announced on Monday that its military had successfully tested long-range cruise missiles with the ability to strike a target more than 900 miles away.
“The ‘long-range cruise missiles’ were launched on Saturday and Sunday and allegedly hit a target 1,500 kilometers away, officials said on North Korea‘s state-run media,”ABC News reported.
“The missiles flew for over two hours, according to the report,” the report said.
Joseph Dempsey, a defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the development of a cruise missile should be a concern, the BBC reported on Monday.
“The development of a long-range cruise missile could pose additional challenges for South Korea’s missile defenses,” Dempsey said.
He said that a “cruise missile doesn’t have to follow a straight trajectory. Its flight plan may be programmed to avoid defenses or use terrain to reduce detection, but we still don’t know exactly how the North Korean version navigates.”
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said that unlike previous launches by North Korea, the latest missile test did not fly over Japan. But if the missile can fly as far as North Korea reported, he said, “it would be a major concern for us,” according to NBC News.
The missile test follows an August report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that said North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
“Since early July 2021, there have been indications consistent with the operation of the 5MW(e) reactor,” the IAEA report said.
“The DPRK’s nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern,” the report said. “Furthermore, the new indications of the operation of the 5MW(e) reactor and the Radiochemical Laboratory are deeply troubling.’
“The continuation of the DPRK’s nuclear programme is a clear violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions and is deeply regrettable.”
In its annual report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea appeared to have restarted a nuclear reactor believed to have produced plutonium for the country's nuclear arsenal https://t.co/gBSeRiJkyvpic.twitter.com/en4cotUcD9
“Yongbyon, a nuclear complex at the heart of North Korea’s nuclear programme,” is the location of the reactor, Reuters reported Monday.
“More plutonium could help North Korea make smaller nuclear weapons to fit on its ballistic missiles, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security,” the report said.
“It appears to indicate North Korea has resumed producing plutonium for its nuclear weapons program,” said Gary Samore, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“While North Korea already has a significant stockpile of nuclear weapons,” Samore added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claps with military officers at the Command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) in an unknown location in North Korea in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 15, 2017. | KCNA/via REUTERS
An inquiry by the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea has found that officials working with dictator Kim Jong Un have committed murder, torture, modern-day slavery and religious persecution, all of which amount to crimes against humanity.
There is evidence of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea officials’ involvement in “murder and killings; torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and sexual violence, sex trafficking, forced abortions and infanticide; modern-day slavery; persecution based on religion or belief; and much more,” the report released last week states.
The report of the inquiry by the informal cross-party group looked at evidence of human rights violations since 2014 when the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK released its landmark report. The 2021 report warns that “[t]here are reasons to believe that some of the atrocities reach the threshold of genocide, particularly in relation to three groups: Christians; half-Chinese children; and the ‘hostile’ group.”
The inquiry cites a 2020 report by the U.S. State Department, saying that executions have been carried out “for possession of Bibles, circulating antiregime propaganda material, and superstitious activities.” The inquiry also cites a 2020 report by Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that researches various human rights situations worldwide.
“Some female detainees reported that they experienced or observed sexual violence, including rape in detention and interrogation facilities,” the All-Party Parliamentary Group report states. “Interviewees said that agents from the police, secret police, and the prosecutor’s office, most in charge of their personal interrogation, touched their faces and their bodies, including their breasts and hips, either through their clothes or by putting their hands inside their clothes. They said they were powerless to resist because their fate was in the hands of these men.”
The report urges the U.K. government to “assess cases of possible genocidal atrocities” and “ensure comprehensive humanitarian assistance to all those affected by atrocity crimes in the DPRK.” The All-Party Parliamentary Group calls for the U.K. government to “review the options for accountability for the crimes in the DPRK” and “make the best of their sanction regimes to target individual perpetrators.”
Mervyn Thomas, founding president of the London-based watchdog group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, called on the U.K. government “to take heed of the report’s recommendations, and continue to call on North Korea to ensure that all human rights are upheld and defended by the government.”
For years, North Korea has ranked as the worst country globally when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USA’s World Watch List, which reports that tens of thousands of Christians are held in North Korean prison camps. Conservative estimates suggest that about 80,000 to 120,000 people are held in labor and political prison camps inside North Korea.
“Individuals can be sent to these prison camps for something as simple as having read the Bible, having watched a South Korean drama, listened to K-pop,” Olivia Enos, a policy analyst in Asian studies at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, said in July 2019 during the release of a documentary film exposing the challenges of North Korean Christians. “These are average, ordinary things that we as Americans take for granted.”
She said the Kim regime “sees religion as potentially threatening to its leadership.”
There are no definitive estimates on how many people have died inside North Korean political camps. But Enos said some believe the number ranges from 400,000 to many millions.
A woman wears a protective mask as she passes a church on February 8, 2020, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. The number of those who have died from the Wuhan coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, in China climbed to 724. | Getty Images
Though religious persecution in China and India is expected to increase in 2021, exposure to the Bible is increasing in North Korea, the world’s most repressive country, according to the annual Persecution Trends survey from Release International.
In its latest report, RI, an international Christian watchdog organization for persecuted Christians worldwide, said that persecution is “thriving” in China and will likely increase in the new year. RI cited the recent passage of tough new laws controlling religion, the shuttering of numerous churches, and the increasing number of registered churches forced to install CCTV cameras and put up posters proclaiming communist ideals and beliefs.
However, the Chinese Communist Party has “bought the silence of the international community” through increased dependence on trade, it said.
“The government of President Xi Jinping is increasing its ‘clean up’ of anything that does not advance the communist agenda. They appear to believe that they can achieve this by systematic opposition,” the group warned.
Corroborating other reports, RI said that China has been exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to tighten restrictions on underground believers. Earlier this year, it was reported that amid the outbreak, impoverished Christian villagers in China were ordered to renounce their faith and replace displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi or risk losing their welfare benefits.
“The Chinese government is trying every way to take advantage of the virus by increasing the crackdown against Christian churches,” said RI partner Bob Fu, of ChinaAid. “It has accelerated particular campaigns, such as the forced removal of crosses.”
The group also predicted that in India, intolerance toward Christians and other religious minorities will continue to grow during 2021, largely due to growing Hindu nationalism. RI noted that incidents targeting Indian Christians have risen steeply since 2014, when Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. It cited statistics revealing Christians suffered 225 incidents of religiously motivated violence during the first 10 months of 2020, compared to 218 incidents in the same period in 2019. Many of these attacks were by vigilante mobs.
In September 2020, Hindu extremists incited mobs of up to 3,000 people to attack Christians in three villages in Chhattisgarh state.
Thomas Schirrmacher, the newly-appointed head of The World Evangelical Alliance, which represents over 600 million evangelical Christians worldwide, previously told The Christian Post that Hindu supremacism is the driver of much of the persecution in that country.
“Elections are won by the prime minister with this topic: ‘India is for the Hindus,’ and suddenly Muslims and Christians find themselves in a country that clearly wants to get rid of them,” he said. “They promote the idea that an Indian by nature is a Hindu. So if he is not a Hindu, he has been stolen, and must be re-converted.”
“This idea was not on the market 10 years ago, and has led to an increase in discrimination and killings of Indian Christians and other minorities,” he said, adding that Christians in Western countries must “speak up” for those persecuted for their faith.
The report was part of RI’s annual Persecution Trends Survey, which was published in the recent edition of Release International’s Voice magazine. In addition to China and India, RI predicted Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Nigeria will also face increased persecution in the coming year. Interestingly, the group said that RI partners have been able to double their distribution of Bibles to Christians in North Korea throughout 2020, despite COVID restrictions. According to Open Doors USA, North Korea is ranked No. 1 on its list of countries where it’s most difficult for Christians to live.
“This has been the most creative year we have witnessed in the underground church to date,” the group said. A previous report found that the percentage of North Korean citizens who are exposed to the Bible is steadily increasing every year despite extreme persecution.
Before 2000, only 16 people claimed to have seen a Bible. After 2000, up to 559 North Korean defectors said they had “seen a Bible,” even though religious literature is banned in the isolated country.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un attends a welcoming ceremony and review an honor guard at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on March 1, 2019. | MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP via Getty Images
The percentage of North Korean citizens who are exposed to the Bible is steadily increasing every year despite extreme persecution, according to a new report that investigates and analyzes the conditions of religious freedom in the Hermit Kingdom.
The annual White Paper on Religious Freedom in North Korea from The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights found that the number of North Koreans who responded that “they have an experience of seeing the Bible” increased by 4% each year since 2000.
Before 2000, only 16 people claimed to have seen a Bible. After 2000, up to 559 North Korean defectors said they had “seen a Bible,” even though religious literature is banned in the isolated country.
Despite limited data, NKDB began its survey on religious persecution in 2007. For this year’s survey, the group collected information from 1,234 people and 1,411 cases of religious persecution. The latest report found that the number of respondents who testified on the ban of religious activities remained the same between 2007 and 2020.
When asked about the level of punishment for religious activities in the country, 46.7% of the respondents answered they have to go to prison camps. About 38.6% of respondents said that they did not know about punishments since they knew nothing about religion.
According to the Center, religious persecution has increased after leader Kim Jong Un issued an order in April 2014 to “arrest people who had contacts with Christianity.” Since then, security forces have actively searched for religious adherents — even in inner China. Employees of the National Security Department, Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the Embassy in China are mobilized to arrest people who have contacted Christianity, the report says.
The report also shared testimonies of several North Korean defectors. One defector who lives in South Korea recounted the story of an unidentified acquaintance who was killed for her Christian faith.
“When we were living [in North Korea], we did not know she was practicing religion. However, when I came back home, I heard she was killed,” the defector recounted.
“When I asked why she died, I was told she was arrested alone whereas the whole family left the town as they were practicing religion. I heard she was suffering and prayed until the point she died. She believed in Christianity. I heard she believed in God. She was investigated in the provincial political security department, and I heard they hit her until she shed excrement. I heard they dried her out to death as not giving her a drop of water. I heard she died after suffering like a dog.”
The NKDB report corroborates previous accounts of the religious freedom restrictions in North Korea, which is ranked as the worst persecutor of Christians in the world on Open Door USA’s World Watch List.
A recent report from the London-based Korea Future Initiative identified more than 200 Christians punished for crimes, including religious practice, religious activities in China, possessing religious items, contact with religious persons, attending a place of worship, and sharing religious beliefs. In several cases, prisoners found with a Bible or religious pamphlets were executed by a firing squad, while others were locked in electrified cages and fed watery soup. Others were executed for smuggling Bible pages into the country from China for North Koreans to make prayer books. In one instance, a victim found in possession of a Bible was publicly executed in front of over 1,000 people. The victim was tied to a wooden stake and executed by an MPS firing squad. One witness told KFI, “I saw the flesh fall off. That is how close I was.”
Torture techniques in North Korea
Another man, who had converted to Christianity, was allegedly forced into a metal cage that was just 3 feet high and 4 feet wide.
“There were steel bars on all four-sides that were heated with electricity,” he told KFI. “Usually prisoners lasted only three or four hours in the cage, but I sat there for 12 hours and prayed. I kept praying to God to save me.”
The man eventually soiled himself and passed out before being beaten by guards, leaving him with severe injuries.
Pastor Eric Foley of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, who is awaiting charges for launching Bible balloons into North Korea, said that despite the crackdown on religion, “God is finding ways to get Bibles into North Korea.”
“We’re amazed at the avenues He’s opening,” he said. “Please pray that continues. Pray that God is glorified.”
Christian leader facing charges for launching Bibles into North Korea asks for prayers
People look toward the north through a barbed-wire fence near the militarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, December 21, 2017. | Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji
Pastor Eric Foley of Voice of the Martyrs Korea has asked the international community of believers to pray as he awaits charges for launching Bible balloons into North Korea. Last week, South Korean police recommended that prosecutors charge Foley, who has launched balloons carrying Bibles into North Korea for the last 15 years, on three counts, Mission Network News reports.
“One [count] is related to the violation of an inter-Korean exchange law. [This] is a law that regulates commerce between North and South Korea; anything you might be trying to sell from South Korea to North Korea would need to be pre-approved by the government,” Foley explained.
The second charge relates to national security. “These are laws designed for natural disaster management,” Foley said, “but now they’re being related to balloon launching with a charge that our activity created a national threat to Korea.”
Finally, “the third charge that will come out is one related to the use of high-pressure gas,” Foley added.
In June, South Korean police began cracking down on balloon launches following threats from North Korea. The announcement came after Kim Yo Jong — sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — said balloon senders were “human scum” and threatened to scrap a no-hostility military pact and shut down the North-South liaison office, among other threats.
Since then, Foley, who has been sending the Gospel to North Korea as part of a promise he made to underground North Korean Christians in 2003, has faced increasing harassment for his work. World Magazine reports that in addition to investigating Foley for his work, they have blocked the pastor’s car from reaching the launch site and placed the Voice of the Martyrs Korea leaders’ homes and office under surveillance.
This summer, the Ministry of Unification began investigating 89 groups that address North Korean human rights issues or provide aid to defectors. Three groups, VOM Korea included, have received most of the authorities’ attention.
In July, the Ministry of Unification revoked the nongovernmental organization’s status of the other two groups — Fighters for a Free North Korea and Kuen Saem — claiming they are “seriously hindering the unification policy of the government.”
“We are the only ones that do Bibles,” Foley told MNN. “The other two launchers do flyers that are primarily focused on news events, and too often can be a political commentary on the situation in North Korea because North Korean defectors run both those organizations.”
While two of the groups mentioned above face additional charges related to embezzlement and mismanagement of donations, “we’re not charged with anything related to donations or fraud,” Foley said.
“We’re making a testimony that Christian organizations are different than political organizations. We act differently. We show respect for authority; we follow a higher standard in our current accounting practices.”
Foley explained that police recommending the charges “guarantees” that he will be charged, adding: “it’s just a question of when. Could be tomorrow, could be next week, could be next month; we don’t know.”
“Our case asks, ‘[Should] launching Bible balloons, which has been legal up until this point in time, be considered illegal not just going forward, but related to past launches?” Foley said.
“For 15 years, we’ve had a good relationship with the authorities. We’ve had police, military, even the intelligence services present at all of our launches. This year in a couple of launches, I asked the police, ‘is this illegal?’ And the police responded, ‘well, no, you just can’t do it here in this location,’” he continued.
VOM Korea has so far sent 600,000 Bibles into North Korea by balloon and other methods. World Magazine notes that the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights found that in 2000, nearly 0% of North Koreans said they’d seen a Bible. However, just 16 years later, the number had risen to 8%.
As he awaits charges, Foley has asked Christians to pray that despite the crackdown, the Gospel will continue to reach those in the hermit kingdom, which is ranked as the worst persecutor of Christians in the world on Open Doors USA’s World Watch List.
“The prayer that God will bring glory to His name is already being met; people see that there’s something different about Christians,” he said. “The other prayer is that God would use each of the Bibles that we have for His purpose.’
“God is finding ways to get Bibles into North Korea. We’re amazed at the avenues He’s opening. Please pray that continues. Pray that God is glorified.”
BELOW ARE ACTUAL PICTURES OF NORTH KOREA TORTURE USED ON CHRISTIANS
The North Korean official is bending the fingers backwards until they break.
Even though President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have established some good relations over the past few years, that doesn’t mean that the dictator has gotten any smarter or less evil.
In the Hermit Kingdom, a North Korean mother is facing serious jail time after saving her two children from her house after it caught on fire.
Now, it’s not the saving of the children specifically that has the mother in trouble, it’s what she didn’t do that has caught the eye of North Korean government.
Every North Korean is forced to have photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in their homes. The mother did, but she didn’t save them from the fire.
The woman has been placed under investigation by the country’s Ministry of State Security after a fire broke out in a home shared by two families in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province, close to the Chinese border.
Both sets of parents were out at the time the fire started, but raced back to save their families after seeing smoke. In the process, one set of portraits was destroyed.
North Korea demands that every home display paintings of its past leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, and sends inspectors to ensure that they do.
According to the Hermit Kingdom’s laws, all depictions of the Kim family must be treated with the same reverence as the men themselves – meaning failure to care for the portraits properly is a serious crime.
If found guilty, the mother is facing a lengthy prison sentence with hard labour.
This demonstrates how ridiculous Kim Jong Un really is that he will willing to incarcerate a mother who saved the lives of her children but didn’t save a couple of pictures that could easily be replaced in about 5 minutes.
Venezuela’s National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country’s “acting president” during a mass opposition rally against leader Nicolas Maduro, on the anniversary of a 1958 uprising that overthrew military dictatorship in Caracas on January 23, 2019. – Moments earlier, the loyalist-dominated Supreme Court ordered a criminal investigation of … FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images
The world’s authoritarians used their wealth to display their typical egomania, popping up in celebrity weddings, on mountaintops, and in larger-than-life iconography (paid for by the people, of course). Oppressed people flooded their streets by the millions demanding a better future. Young new world leaders, often by surprise, assumed the direction of their scarred, turbulent countries.
Below, in no particular order, some of the most moving, iconic, baffling, newsworthy, and generally notable images from around the world in the past year.
Sitcom star Volodymyr Zelensky celebrates being elected to the presidency of Ukraine on April 21 after playing a schoolteacher who suddenly becomes president of Ukraine in the hit comedy Servant of the People. Zelensky was elected on the back of nationwide discontent with decades of corrupt establishment rule and insufficient resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine’s eastern territories. Zelensky has now become a key figure in the Democrats’ attempt to remove President Donald Trump from power without electing a Democrat. (Photo: AFP)
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, attends a working lunch on the first day of the G20 summit on June 28, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. Inset: a photo that surfaced in September of Trudeau in “brownface” at an “Arabian Nights” theme party in 2001. The photo surfaced shortly before Canada’s national election but failed to unseat Trudeau, despite the prime minister admitting he had worn blackface so many times he could not remember them all. (Kiyoshi Ota – Pool/Getty Images. Inset: unknown, released via Time)
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with American President Donald Trump at the G& Summit in August. Macron attempted to organize a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. (Photo via Associated Press)
A Lebanese protester offers sweets to people during ongoing demonstrations to demand better living conditions and the ouster of a cast of politicians who have monopolised power and influence for decades, on October 21, 2019 north of Beirut.(Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan serves as best man to soccer star Mesut Ozil at the latter’s wedding in Istanbul. (Photo via AFP)
Venezuela’s National Assembly head Juan Guaido takes the oath of office of the presidency, following the illegal “inauguration” of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, on January 23, 2019. (Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images)
The aftermath of police raiding Hong Kong Polytechnic University on November 18, 2019. Hong Kong police early November 18 warned for the first time that they may use “live rounds” after pro-democracy protesters fired arrows and threw petrol bombs at officers at a besieged university campus, as the crisis engulfing the city veered deeper into danger. (Photo by YE AUNG THU/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of the Pakistani religious party Jamaat-i-Islami, chant slogans for ousted former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in Hyderabad, Pakistan. Tuesday, June 18, 2019. Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president ousted by the military in 2013, collapsed during a trial session in Cairo on Monday and died. (AP Photo/Pervez Masih)
A little girl throws earth on a coffin during the funeral of a person killed in the Easter Sunday attack on St Sebastian’s Church, on April 24, 2019, in Negombo, Sri Lanka. At least 321 people were killed and 500 people injured after coordinated attacks on churches and hotels on Easter Sunday in and around Colombo as well as at Batticaloa in Sri Lanka. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Church members carry placards reading “self-defence is now the answer” “the jihad will not work,” as they take part in a protest against the killing of people by suspected herdsmen in Makurdi, north-central Nigeria, on April 29, 2018. On April 24, 2018, at least 18 people, including two Catholic priests, were killed in an attack on a church near the state capital Makurdi that was blamed on herdsmen. (Emmy Ibu/AFP/Getty Images)
“Kim Jong Un, the great leader of our revolution who opens up the period of a great leap for the development of the revolution, personally left the sacred trace in the revolutionary battle sites in Mt Paektu area, the source of the lifeline of the revolution and inexhaustible patriotism, through knee-high virgin snow.” (Photo, caption via North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun)
An anti-government protester waves a national flag during a demonstration in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019. Iraqi security forces fired live bullets into the air and used tear gas against a few hundred protesters in central Baghdad on Thursday, hours after a curfew was announced in the Iraqi capital on the heels of two days of deadly violence that gripped the country amid anti-government protests that killed several people in two days. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
People attend a candlelight vigil at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on June 4, 2019, to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, China. Protests against the Chinese regime would begin shortly after this display and have yet to cease. (Photo via Philip Fong/AFP)
Police shelter behind a hospital sign, as they guard a hospital in Butembo, Congo, on Saturday, April 20, 2019, after militia members attacked an Ebola treatment center in the city’s Katwa district overnight. Violence has deeply complicated efforts to contain what has become the second-deadliest Ebola virus outbreak in history. (AP Photo/Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro)
Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez raises the four canonical gospels in the air at the Quemado Palace in La Paz becoming interim president following socialist leader Evo Morales abandoning the presidency on November 10 and fleeing to Mexico. (Aizar Raldes/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump (L), Vice President Mike Pence (2nd L) and First Lady Melania Trump (R) stand with Conan, the military dog that was involved with the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2019. (Photo via Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
A giant portrait of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is carried atop a float at a parade, in front of an electric screen showing another giant portrait of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the violent communist takeover of China on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Pro-democracy protesters take part in a Thanksgiving Day rally at Edinburgh Place on November 28, 2019, in Hong Kong. Protesters gathered to say thank you to the United States after US President Donald Trump signed legislation supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, with new legislation requiring annual reviews of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan has upgraded its estimate of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability in an upcoming annual Defense White Paper, saying it seems Pyongyang has achieved the miniaturization of warheads, the Yomiuri newspaper said in an unsourced report on Wednesday.
FILE PHOTO: North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un supervises a “strike drill” for multiple launchers and tactical guided weapon into the East Sea during a military drill in North Korea, in this May 4, 2019 photo supplied by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS
That compares with the assessment in last year’s report in which the government said it was possible North Korea had achieved miniaturization, the Japanese daily said without citing sources. The report, to be approved at a Cabinet meeting in mid-September, will maintain the assessment that North Korea’s military activities pose a “serious and imminent threat”, the Yomiuri said.
North Korea’s ability to build nuclear warheads small enough to fit on its ballistic missiles has been widely accepted for several years, but the Japanese report highlights the lack of progress on denuclearization talks aimed at curtailing the program, said Vipin Narang, a nuclear affairs expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
“It is Japan that is most threatened, and probably the primary target of such a capability,”he said. “So openly acknowledging it underscores Tokyo’s acute fears that North Korea’s nuclear program continues to grow unabated with no foreseeable plan to slow its growth, let alone eliminate them.”
South Korea’s 2018 Defense White Paper, released in January, reported that North Korea’s ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons “appears to have reached a considerable level.” According to South Korean media reports late last year, the South Korean intelligence agency told lawmakers that North Korea had continued to miniaturize nuclear warheads even after the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim in June 2018.
At that time, North Korea committed “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” and destroyed some tunnels and buildings at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. But a second Trump-Kim meeting in February collapsed without an agreement, and North Korea has since resumed missile tests.
U.S. envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Seoul this week to meet with South Korean officials, and said he was prepared to engage with North Korea “as soon as we hear from our counterparts.”
American officials have concluded for years that North Korea had likely produced miniaturized nuclear warheads. A leaked report by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 concluded that North Korea had successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, according to The Washington Post.
In last year’s Defense White Paper, Japan said “miniaturizing a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on a ballistic missile requires a considerably high degree of technological capacity,” and that “it is possible that North Korea has achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has developed nuclear warheads.”
Reporting by Chris Gallagher and Linda Sieg in Tokyo, and Josh Smith in Seoul. Writing by Malcolm Foster; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
The Media is losing its collective mind over Trump’s historic step on to North Korea ground outraged that he is chummy with a tyrannical dictator while ignoring Obama’s historic visit with Dictator Castro in Cuba.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great El Rushbo, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has announced that the United States will ramp up military exercises with South Korea just days after North Korea sent a hostile letter to President Donald Trump. The United States had previously suspended military exercises with South Korea as a good faith measure when North Korea decided to start the denuclearization process.
However, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, “We took the step to suspend several of the largest military exercises as a good faith measure. We have no plans to suspend anymore.”
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He followed up his comment by saying, “We’ll make decisions on that in consultation with State.”
Mattis also told reporters that he’s working with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that the diplomatic efforts are all “riding on [Pompeo’s] shoulders.”
In June, Trump announced he was suspending “war games”with South Korea and that when it comes to North Korea and denuclearization, Kim Jong Un “wants to get it done.”
The president also said of Kim, “I do trust him.”
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On Twitter, the president said at the time of the decision, “We save a fortune by not doing war games, as long as we are negotiating in good faith — which both sides are.”
Mattis’ announcement comes days after Trump announced that he was canceling Pompeo’s trip to the Korean peninsula.
“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the president said via Twitter.
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It was later reported by the Washington Post that North Korea had secretly sent what many believe to be a hostile letter to Trump. In addition, North Korea’s state-run newspaper accused Washington on Sunday of plotting to “unleash a war” with “a smile on it’s face” while denuclearization talks were ongoing.
Moreover, North Korean media accused the United States of sending special forces and a nuclear submarine to the Jinhae Naval Base in South Korea.
However, the New York Times reports that American negotiators have “confronted” the North Koreans over facilities that they believe to be nuclear. North Korea has since called the accusations “fiction” and led to the “derailing dialogue” between the U.S. and North Korea.
Steven is a husband, father, and follower of Jesus. You can find him enjoying listening to or playing jazz piano, enjoying the Disney parks, or hiking the Arizona landscape.
Donald Trump serves many roles as president of the United States — chief executive, chief administrator, chief diplomat — but when he learned of the dire medical condition of North Korean prisoner and American college student Otto Warmbier, he adopted the role of a father and fought for Otto like he would for his own son.
According to a recent report from GQ, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Joseph Yun learned in early June 2017 that Warmbier — who was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to hard labor in the communist nation — was unconscious.
“I was completely shocked,” Yun said. “I came back immediately, and I told Secretary Tillerson … and we determined at the time that we needed to get him and the other prisoners out as soon as possible, and I should contact Pyongyang and say I wanted to come right away.”
When Trump heard the news, he acted immediately. The “strategic patience” methods implemented under the Obama administration were over.
“When Trump learned of Otto’s condition, he doubled down on the order for Yun to rush to Pyongyang and bring Otto home,” the GQ report states.
And he didn’t ask for North Korea’s permission, either.
“The North Koreans were unilaterally informed that an American plane would soon land in Pyongyang and that United States diplomats and doctors would get off,” the report continues.
According to an anonymous State Department official, Trump sounded more like a dad than the president of a country when he heard the news of Otto’s condition.
“The president was very invested in bringing Otto home,” the official told GQ. “Listening to him deliberate on this, he sounded to me a lot more like a dad.”
“We were very scared,” the official continued, explaining that no one knew what kind of reception they would receive from North Korea when they arrived.
“The North Koreans said we could send a delegation to see Otto, but that we would have to discuss some of the conditions of getting him out once we got there,” he explained.
When Yun and the rest of the rescue team arrived in North Korea and they were finally allowed to see Warmbier, he was beyond recognition.
“In an isolated second-floor ICU room, Flueckiger was presented with a pale, inert man with a feeding tube threaded through his nostrils,” the report continues. “Could this really be Otto? Flueckiger wondered, for the body looked so different from the pictures he had seen of the homecoming king.”
Although the team was able to secure Warmbier’s release, he was barely alive. He was reunited with his family and died that June.
Warmbier’s father Fred Warmbier has publicly criticized the Obama administration for failing to take action to rescue his son.
“When Otto was first taken, we were advised by the past administration to take a low profile while they worked to obtain his release,” Warmbier said.
“We did so without result. Earlier this year, Cindy and I decided the time for strategic patience was over. … It is my understanding that (Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Y. Yun) and his team, at the direction of the president, aggressively pursued resolution of the situation.”
Asked if the Obama administration could have done more to save his son, he replied, “I think the results speak for themselves.”
Since President Donald Trump’s first day in office, the liberally biased mainstream media has perpetuated the narrative that Trump is largely despised both at home and abroad, and that in other nations he is almost universally viewed as an embarrassment to the American people.
Thus, it came as no surprise whatsoever when the U.S. media essentially ignored the reception Trump received from cheering supporters upon his arrival Sunday in Singapore ahead of a high-stakes summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Coverage of the cheering crowds greeting Trump would directly contradict the “Trump is hated”narrative the mainstream media outlets push every day, so they simply ignore it and choose not to cover it.
According to a series of photos published by The Daily Caller, the president received a boisterous welcome from not just U.S. citizens who live in Singapore, but also from Singaporean citizens as well.
A couple photos show a pair of young American women wearing red MAGA hats and waving American flags, with one of the girls even wearing a pair of patriotic socks emblazoned with Trump’s name.
Other photos show citizens of Singapore, young and old alike, waving U.S. flags and holding signs expressing support for Trump and appreciation for his efforts at securing peace for the Korean Peninsula and broader Asian region.
Fans of the president had gathered at the airport to greet his arrival, and lined the streets of the route used to transport him via presidential motorcade to the Shangri-La Hotel, as well as the Singaporean prime minister’s residence, the Istana Palace.
According to The U.K. Independent, Trump landed in Singapore at about 8:20 p.m. local time, and proceeded directly to the hotel.
“It’s exciting, but I am also anxious,” a Trump-supporting woman, identified only by her first name as Kim, told the Independent. “Kim (Jong Un) can change his mind at any time. Mr. Trump also likes to get his own way.
“But if it works, it’s for the good of the whole world. It will make history,”she added.
That view was echoed by a 16-year-old U.S. citizen student named Christine McDougal, who lives in Singapore and cheered the president’s arrival with a friend.
“This is a such an important moment,” McDougal told the Independent, in what can only be described as an understatement.
Meanwhile, apart from the cheering crowds and pomp and circumstance of a major geopolitical summit, Christian leaders across Singapore were urging their church members and attendees to pray for God’s will to be reflected upon the high-stakes meeting,according to the Washington Examiner.
Anglican and Catholic church leaders alike asked that God provide wisdom and guidance to both Trump and Kim and prayed that they would find success as they sought to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and bring closure to a state of war that has been technically in effect since the 1950s.
Whether you fall into the category of those wildly cheering for Trump to emerge victorious from the meeting with a fierce communist rival or are praying that God’s hand will touch both leaders and guide them during the meeting — or both — there is no doubt that all eyes are on Singapore right now.
It would be nice if the U.S. media would cover all aspects of the summit — including the warm reception given to Trump — instead of not so subtly hoping for his failure, if only to rob the president they despise of yet another “win” he can tout with voters ahead of the 2020 election.
President Trump was willing to lower tariffs if the other countries are willing to lower theirs, but none are willing, so far, to make trade truly fair for everyone.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday morning that his highly anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been canceled. The president pointed to Kim’s “hostility” displayed in the past month as the reason why going forward with the summit would be “inappropriate.”
Earlier this month, Kim had threatened to pull out of the meeting with Trump set to be held in Singapore on June 12 and also abruptly canceled a meeting with South Korea.
In a letter to Kim on Thursday, Trump called the canceled talks a “missed opportunity” and “a truly sad moment in history.”
“Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.”
Leading up to Trump’s decision, North Korean officials had been threatening to not go through with the summit.
On Thursday, Vice Minister of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, Choe Son Hui, said that whether the U.S. “will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
Choe also made a disparaging comment about Vice President Mike Pence who had said that North Korea asked to have the meeting.
“As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice president,” Choe reportedly said.
According to Fox News, however, Trump officials said the threat of nuclear war, not the insult to Pence, was the reason for the summit pullout.
“I felt a wonderful dialogue was building between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you,” Trump wrote in his letter to Kim.
“If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write. The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.”
On Monday, Pence noted in an interview with Fox News that unlike former presidential administrations, Trump will not be “played” by North Korea.
“Truthfully, the Clinton administration, even the Bush administration got played in the past,”Pence said. “It would be a great mistake for Kim Jong Un to think he could play Donald Trump.”
Pence also made clear that Trump was completely willing to walk away from the negotiating table if North Korea backs away from its promises.
“There’s no question,”he said.
When asked whether Trump was concerned about the possible embarrassment that could result if this process with North Korea fails after so much progress, Pence replied, “I don’t think President Trump is thinking about public relations. He’s thinking about peace.”
Much has been said and written about the use of polls and polling data over the past few years, particularly as it related to candidate-turned-President Donald Trump and typically in regard to how poll samples are skewed to disfavor him and marginalize his support.
According to Breitbart, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday contained results that were so against the grain of that poll’s usual results that the pollsters actually added in a sort of disclaimer when the results were released, seemingly disavowing the results of their own poll.
The openly stated reason for that disavowal was that the poll showed a sudden spike in support for the president and a number of his policies over the most recent polling period.
That would be the latest weekly approval numbers compiled by the Reuters/Ipsos polling team, which placed Trump’s approval rating at 48 percent and disapproval at 49 percent among all adults — with a 49-49 tie among registered voters — for the period of April 27-May 1, a significant uptick in approval over the prior week’s results.
That sudden surge in Trump’s approval compelled the pollsters to preface their report with an explanation that cast the shocking results as an outlier they refused to accept as reality, but would report to the public nonetheless.
“This week’s Reuters/Ipsos Core Political release presents something of an outlier of our trend,” cautioned the pollsters. “Every series of polls has the occasional outlier and in our opinion this is one.
“So, while we are reporting the findings in the interest of transparency, we will not be announcing the start of a new trend until we have more data to validate this pattern.”
Interestingly, when Trump’s approval rating was broken down by party line, it showed the president received 20-79 approval versus disapproval among Democrats, 81-18 approval among Republicans and a 51-45 split in his favor among independents.
A breakdown of the issues shows where Trump’s support is strong, as he cleared the 50 percent approval threshold on a number of incredibly important issues, including the economy (57-39), employment and jobs (59-35), dealing with the Islamic State group (58-35) and taxation (52-42).
Even on the hot-button issue of immigration, Trump came out ahead with a rating of 50-47 percent in his favor.
The president was also winning support, albeit with slimmer margins, on the issues of foreign policy (48-45), dealing with Congress (47-46) and international trade (49-43).
On a separate but important note as we approach the midterm elections, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Democrats held only a slight five-point lead over Republicans on the generic Congressional ballot — 39-34 percent — with 14 percent undecided.
Unfortunately for Democrats, while their base was a bit more solid than Republicans in this measure, the poll showed independents leaning more toward the GOP — 22-19 percent — with 19 percent supporting a third party and 31 percent still undecided.
The poll of 1,548 Americans doesn’t appear to be as skewed toward the left as we have seen with other polls. Samples included 556 Democrats, 579 Republicans and 163 independents — though as a whole the respondents appeared to identify slightly more as Democrat than Republican.
If the Reuters/Ipsos poll is truly an outlier, we’ll know for sure in another week or two if those numbers remain reverse dramatically.
That said, there is no denying that Trump has recently been gaining steam — particularly in regard to the economy, jobs and potential peace with North Korea, to say nothing of a possible “Kanye bump”— so much so that even the pollsters have to admit that more Americans view Trump as “winning” than they would have imagined.
It is obvious the Democrats care more about hurting trump than they do about their own country. It’s an all-out effort to sabotage the president and his efforts foreign and domestic.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
Trump does it again! He deserves a peace prize for just this! The talks with North Korea may be going better than expected as, at the request of our President, North Korea has allegedly released three U.S. prisoners who had been held there for years forced to work their labor camps.
Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk and Kim Hak-song are three U.S. citizens who were arrested in North Korea last year and accused of “hostile acts.”
Some experts suggested that the move was meant to facilitate upcoming talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“We heard it through our sources in North Korea late last month. We believe that Mr Trump can take them back on the day of the US-North Korea summit or he can send an envoy to take them back to the US before the summit,” said Choi Sung-ryong, who campaigns for the release of detainees in North Korea.
Kim has time and time again committed himself to denuclearization and not called for the withdraw of US forces from the peninsula, nor has he demanded the US stop military drills with South Korea in exchange for a freeze in his nuclear and missile testing.
“Detainees face deplorable conditions, sexual coercion and abuse, beatings and torture by guards, and forced labor in dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions,” a 2016 report by Human Rights Watch detailed.
“Those accused of serious political offenses are usually sent to political prison camps, known as kwanliso, operated by North Korea’s National Security Agency. These camps are characterized by systematic abuses, including meager rations that imperil health and can lead to starvation, virtually no medical care, lack of proper housing and clothes, regular mistreatment including sexual assault and torture by guards, and public executions,” the report continued.
Most people know that although Trump’s policies would be responsible for a permanent peace solution with N. Korea, it’s doubtful he would receive any credit from the media.
Trump may have just out-done Obama yet again. This time, in regards to that Peace Prize. You will remember that about a month after he was elected, Obama was granted a Peace Prize. Why? Who knows? Probably because he checked all the right boxes ideologically and the things he claimed he would do lined up with their worldview.
Would he still have gotten that prize if they knew he would destabilize Libya, be accused of staging a coup in Turkey, break that promise to close Gitmo, etcetera? He was given an award for who he seemed to be, and what he seemed to do.
Fast forward one Presidency. What do we see?
We see basically the opposite. Instead of a smooth-talker with grandiose promises about making the oceans recede and the earth heal, we got a bold and brash New York Corporate mover and shaker. For all the Media(D) handwringing about Trump having that Nuclear Football, their fever-dreams about Trump dragging the world into a Thermonuclear Holocaust and World War III, we’re actually going the other direction.
President Trump had a serious problem on his hands, one he inherited from decades of placating North Korea. ‘Little Rocket Man’ was testing more and more dangerous missile tech, and daring anyone to do something about it. Experts were predicting he could pose a serious military threat capable of hitting civilian US targets within a year.
Less than one year later, Kim Jong Un, who had been openly threatening and defying the world, suddenly changed his tune.
He is openly talking not about a nuclear freeze — which is what other Presidents had talked about. He is talking about DENUCLEARIZATION. This is big. It’s easy to forget.
Do you think that’s why Trump cracked that joke to the press when asked about ‘to what do you owe this recent openness to talk?’ — “Me. No I think that… Nobody got that.”
But in that joke is a kernel of truth. The President drives foreign policy, and Trump’s hardline approach with dictators is doing what the ass-kissing of President ‘Peace Prize’ ever could. Getting results.
Will the little dictator stand down and truly denuclearize? We don’t have the answer to that yet. But we do know this is the best shot at peace the region has seen yet.
Vice President Mike Pence sat only a few feet away from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics, but he ignored her and purposefully so, he revealed Wednesday. Kim Yo Jong, sister and confidant of the North Korean dictator, is a prominent figure in a brutal regime and is blacklisted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for gross human rights violations.
The media, fascinated by Kim’s little sister, embarrassingly heaped praise on the woman.
Pence, though, ignored her to send a message.
His answer probably has several media outlets — which enthusiastically wrote about Kim’s smile, warmth, and beauty while comparing Kim to Ivanka Trump — feeling a little ashamed of their coverage.
“I didn’t avoid the dictator’s sister, but I did ignore her,” the vice president told Axios.
“I did not believe it was proper for the United States of America to give any attention in that forum to someone who is not merely the sister of the dictator but is the leader of the propaganda effort,” he added.
Kim Yo Jong has served as the chief of North Korea’s propaganda department, helping to shape her brother’s cult of personality at a time when he was purging officials and their families by the hundreds.
“You have to remember this is a family who very recently ordered their brother be murdered using chemical weapons,” Pence said, referring to the horrific murder of Kim Jong Nam at an international airport in Malaysia last year.
The assassination, which was carried out with VX, a deadly nerve agent, is believed to have been orchestrated by the North Korean regime.
“This is a regime and a family that also ordered that their uncle be executed with artillery fire in the presence of ten thousand people,” he remarked, calling attention to the execution of Jang Song Thaek shortly after Kim Jong Un seized power.
“This is evil the likes of which we have witnessed rarely in our time around the world,” the vice president told reporters,
“I wanted to send — by my silence — a very clear message, that the people of the United States know who we are dealing with and that we are going to continue to stand firmly and stand strong and with resolve with our allies until the regime in North Korea ceases to threaten our country and our allies with nuclear and ballistic missiles, and we will continued to hold them to account on their appalling record of abuse of human rights of their own people.”
Pence has said that the U.S. is open to talks with North Korea, but the maximum pressure campaign will continue until North Korea decides to pursue denuclearization.
As long as North Korea continues to threaten the U.S. and its allies, the U.S. and its international partners will continue to pile sanctions on the rogue regime, the implication appearing to be that Kim will either be brought to his senses or brought to his knees.
Their brother – the one little rocket man murdered with nerve gas — was not available for comment. If Stalin were alive today, our guess is that CNN would pick his side over Trump. They’re not even TRYING to hide it anymore.
Before we go further, we may want to remember just who we are talking about. This isn’t some Mugabe-level tinpot dictator. North Korea is a whole other level.
His country is the world’s largest prison camp, which an Auschwitz survior (and judge on the International Court of Justice) has described as ‘WORSE’ than Nazi Germany.
Read More here
Not only did Kim Jong Un kill his brother with Nerve Gas in an Airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but he killed his Uncle, too. He’s also been known to shoot those who displease him with anti-aircraft guns.
Kim Jong-un had 11 musicians executed with anti-aircraft guns and orders aides to pick out sex slaves from North Korea’s schools, a defector has claimed.
…They were lashed to the end of anti-aircraft guns. Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere.
“And then after that military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay.”
Source: Independent
THAT is who we are dealing with. And the Media(D) STILL loathe Trump (and in this case, his proxy, Pence) so bitterly that they cannot help but praise his sister… who may have run things briefly while he was ill some years ago.
Here’s what they said about his sister:
If “diplomatic dance” were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold.
With a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea’s presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public just one day into the PyeongChang Games.
Riiiiight. And ‘maybe Mousellini had a great sense of humor — when you really got to know him’.
Nope. We’re not buying what you’re shoveling.
And neither were ‘the interwebz’.
He wasn’t done calling out the media in their fawning over dictators.
Brit Hume’s reaction was a lot like ours:
And rounding out the Stalin and Moussilini references…
Ouch.
Good thing they’re the ‘most trusted name in news’ or people might start to suspect there’s something a little bit ‘Pravda-ish’ about these guys.
While North Korea has frequently threatened to launch nuclear missiles at the United States, the U.S. has vowed to defend itself at all costs. As such, many may not be aware of how powerful and deadly a nuclear attack would be if it ever occurred, especially on our own shores.
The website NuclearSecrecy.com features an interactive nuclear map that allows viewers to visually see the effects certain nuclear attacks would have on an area.
On the website, there’s an interactive map of the United States. A column on the right side of the page allows users to fill in certain information to visualize how deadly and powerful a nuclear attack would be. Users can fill in a location and select a certain type of nuclear bomb, as well as other effects associated with the aftermath of a hypothetical attack. After imputing the information in the three sections, the user clicks the “detonate” button. Then, a visualization tool will show the full effects of the explosion.
For example, plugging in New York City, New York, “North Korean Weapon tested in 2013 (10 kt),” and “casualties,” the interactive map indicates that an estimated 181,770 fatalities and 504,940 injuries could occur from the bomb. It will also display the scope of the bomb in terms of how far it will expand, which provides a chilling inside look at how powerful nuclear weapons can be.
While the interactive map is for fun and allows users to plug in a variety of information to see how forceful certain nuclear attacks would be, it provides a very interesting perspective on the importance of preventing the use of such devastating devices.
If a nuclear bomb North Korea tested in 2013 can kill nearly 200,000 people, imagine what they may be capable of launching today. This underscores why President Donald Trump has taken a tough approach with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who has advanced the rogue regime’s nuclear capabilities for years.
Trump has made it clear that while the U.S. wants to avoid a conflict, we are determined to remain the most powerful nation in the world.
Our president has promised to rain down “fire and fury” against North Korea and has vowed to protect the U.S. at all costs. This has come as North Korea has issued several threats to attack the U.S. and our Pacific territory of Guam.
After months of North Korean missile launches and Kim Jong Un’s promises to destroy the United States, Trump has made it clear to North Korea that he will protect the U.S. and its allies.
Hopefully the interactive nuclear map will inform people just how devestating a nuclear attack would be if it were to ever hit the United States, and liberals will finally understand why Trump is doing everything he can to put “Rocket Man” in his place and ensure the U.S. will always be protected.
Several reports out of the China-North Korean border area indicate that Beijing is massing People’s Liberation Army troops on the frontier and has told them to prepare for war.
“Columns of (People’s Liberation Army) trucks have been pictured on the move near Yanji City which is close to the triple border between China, Russia and North Korea,” the U.K. Star reported Tuesday.
According to a computer translation of the Korean-language Daily NK, military trucks have been moving into position at night so as not to attract the attention of locals.
“There were so many soldiers in (vehicles) that there was a traffic jam,” a source reportedly said on Dec. 30. “We have not seen so many soldiers trucking to Yanji so far.”
Sources in the Chinese media have said that the PLA is “preparing for war on the Korean Peninsula” and that army commanders have participated in a “war ceremony”urging their troops to be ready for war. Pictures of the ceremony, shot last month, show massive gatherings of Chinese troops, all of whom were purportedly swearing oaths only given during wartime.
Meanwhile, residents of the area have apparently been told that “Trump (is) to hit North Korea in the New Year, we are preparing for war on the peninsula,” a source said. China’s move comes as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year’s Day address that he has a “nuclear button” on his desk and that North Korea would continue its development of atomic weapons in 2018.
“The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat,” Kim said, according to NBC News.
“This year, we should focus on mass-producing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles for operational deployment. These weapons will be used only if our society is threatened.”
The troop movement also comes as President Trump accused the Chinese of selling oil to North Korean tankers at sea.
“Caught RED HANDED – very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea,” the president tweeted. “There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”
The tweet came after it was revealed that the South Koreans had intercepted a Chinese-flagged vessel accused of selling oil to the North Koreans in violation of United Nations sanctions imposed after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test. However, reports have also indicated that the incident wasn’t isolated, with Chinese-flagged vessels spotted transferring oil to North Korea 30 times since October.
There have been three possible reasons postulated for China’s massive buildup on the North Korean border. The first is to guard against an influx of refugees should a war break out in North Korea. The second would be to seize assets in the hermit state should the Kim regime fall. The third — and most ominous — is that China could be prepared to join any possible war on North Korea’s side.
While China has shown support for imposing sanctions against North Korea, it’s shown less enthusiasm for actually enforcing them. Beijing is also Pyongyang’s closest ally and trading partner, something that the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to leverage to get Kim Jong Un under control during this latest spell of bellicosity.
Would Beijing be willing to spark a world war over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, particularly if the first move comes from Pyongyang? It’s not entirely implausible, especially given this latest buildup. Bottom line: If you were worried about Chinese military intervention in North Korea before, this is not a pleasant augury.
Chinese officials continue to supply North Korea with needed supplies such as oil and promise to give the dictatorial regime on its northeast border more nuclear missiles, according to a secret government document obtained by an American journalist and published Tuesday by the Washington Free Beacon.
“The document, labeled ‘top secret’ and dated September 15 — 12 days after North Korea’s latest underground nuclear blast — outlines China’s plan for dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue,” according to WFB’s national security reporter, Bill Gertz.
“It states China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing’s public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean peninsula. Chinese leaders also agreed to offer new assurances that the North Korean government will not be allowed to collapse, and that Beijing plans to apply sanctions ‘symbolically’ to avoid punishing the regime of leader Kim Jong-un under a recent U.N. resolution requiring a halt to oil and gas shipments into North Korea.”
In return, China only asked North Korea to halt its current nuclear testing program, while waiting for times to become “ripe” to make genuine moves toward “denuclearization.” In the context of Beijing’s assurance that it will not allow the North Korean regime to collapse, such denuclearization might mean nothing more than China promising massive retaliation in the event the regime is attacked.
“Your department should at the same time seriously warn the Korean authority not to overdo things on the nuclear issue,” the document said. “Currently, there is no issue for our country to forcefully ask Korea to immediately and completely give up its nuclear weapons.
“Instead, we ask Korea to maintain restraint and after some years when the conditions are ripe, to apply gradual reforms and eventually meet the requirement of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.”
Gertz said he obtained the Chinese government document “from a person who once had ties to the Chinese intelligence and security communities. An English translation can be found here. (See below. Pasted it for your review)”
Gertz was unable to secure comment from either the U.S. CIA or the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Public exposure of the document will almost certainly draw an angry response from President Donald Trump, who has previously touted his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump said last year that he had been “going easy” on China.
NO. 000003 TOP SECRET
Document of General Office of the Communist Party of China
GOC Issuance (2017) No. 94
_______________________________________________
The Decision of General Office of the Communist Party of China on Conducting Communication and Coordination Work between Our Country and The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for Further In-depth Solution of Its Nuclear Issue
International Liaison Department of CPC,
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (abbreviated as Korea hereafter) is not only an important military buffer zone for our country to fend off the western hostile forces, but also, for socialism with Chinese characteristics led by our Party, its important position in our political strategy is also irreplaceable. Therefore, our Party and country, must defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Korea at all costs and really ensure the stability and continuity of the Korean government, and unwaveringly stick to our position to firmly maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula. Given the fact that the Korean ruling authorities recently acted arbitrarily again to conduct the sixth underground nuclear test without fully consulting with us and created a huge negative impact on the international community because of this, the Security Council of the United Nations unanimously approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 2375 (referred as the Resolution hereafter) on September 11, 2017 local time to further punish and isolate the Korean ruling authorities. The result of the Resolution appropriately strengthened the punishment against the Korean ruling authorities. However it also aggravated the suffering of the general population inside Korea and further made the situation on the peninsula tending to be more complicated and ambiguous. In any sense, historical experience shows that terms or resolutions as such will not and are impossible to force the Korean ruling authorities to suspend or completely give up conducting nuclear tests. On the contrary, because of huge double pressure from both domestic and foreign sources, based on its own political and security concerns, the Korean ruling authorities will further consolidate its will and determination to continue its development of nuclear forces, and that will aggravate the vicious cycle of the situation on the Korean peninsula. Now, to further broaden and strengthen coordination and effectively deepen the solution of the Korean nuclear issue, according to the related decisions and arrangements for the Korean nuclear issue by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and with the guiding spirit on handling the Korean-related issues from various meetings of the National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China, after research and assessment, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to authorize your department to lead and organize the communication and coordination work with the Korean ruling authorities on its nuclear issues. The specific requirements are as the following:
Your department should further emphasize to Korea about our determination to protect the Korean government on behalf of the Central Committee of CPC and reiterate and confirm the related assurance made by us. At the same time, your department should make further specific, profound, and detailed analyses for Korea on the current situation of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for Korea to make substantial compromises on its nuclear issues. According to the current deployment of world forces and the geographic position of the Korean Peninsula, to prevent the collapse of the Korean government and the possible direct military confrontation with western hostile forces led by the United States on the Korean Peninsula caused by these issues, our country, Russia, and other countries will have to resort to all the effective measures such as diplomatic good offices and military diversion to firmly ensure the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and to prevent “chaos and war,” which is also the common position held firmly by our country, Russia, and others. Meanwhile, considering if the United States rushes to war against Korea, it will certainly have a huge influence and impact on the political and economic structure of the Asian Pacific region and even the whole world. At such a time, the security of Japan and (South) Korea can be hardly taken care of, especially the security of Seoul, the (South) Korean capital. Also, our country, Russia, and others will absolutely not look on the chaotic situation on the Korean Peninsula without taking any action. So taking the factors of various aspects into comprehensive consideration, theoretically the possibility does not exist that western countries led by the United States will carry out armed provocations and even overthrow the current Korean government via military means in order to solve Korean nuclear issues. However, international provocations by Korea via repeatedly conducting nuclear tests has imposed huge international pressure on our country which is continuously accumulating and becoming unbearably heavy. To show the position of our country as a responsible world power to firmly support the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and maintain the authority of its signed Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, while your department gives Korea a stern warning, you should also make further related assurances to Korea at the same time, that is, currently Korea will not have to immediately give up its nuclear weapons, and that so long as Korea promises not to continue conducting new nuclear tests and immediately puts those promises into action, our country will immediately increase economic, trade, and military assistance to Korea, and will add or continue providing the following benefits:
1. To greatly promote increasing trade with Korea to ensure the normal operation of the Korean government and raise the living standard of the Korean people. As for products under international sanctions such as crude oil products (except for the related products clearly defined as related to nuclear tests), under the condition of fully ensuring domestic demand of Korea, we will only make a symbolic handling or punishment.
2. After closing down Korean businesses in China according to the terms of the Resolution, our country will not for the moment restrict Korea from entrusting qualified Chinese agencies from trade with Korea or conducting related trade activities via third countries (region).
3. To further strengthen and increase assistance for the daily life and infrastructure building of Korea, 2018 related assistance funds will have a one-time increase of 15% more than 2017, and in the following five years, they will be increased each year by no less than 10% over the previous year.
4. Regulations that our country would suspend all banking business with Korea will only apply to state-owned banks controlled by the central government and some regional banks.
5. To increase investment in Korean defensive military construction and further provide Korea with high-level military science and technology, such as more advanced mid- and shortrange ballistic missiles, cluster munitions, etc., assisting in strengthening Korea’s ability to maintain stability according to the stability maintenance experience of our country and Korean characteristics.
Your department should at the same time seriously warn the Korean authorities not to overdo things on the nuclear issue. Currently, there is no issue for our country to forcefully ask Korea to immediately and completely give up its nuclear weapons. Instead, we ask Korea to maintain restraint and after some years when the conditions are ripe, to apply gradual reforms and eventually meet the requirement of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. If Korea insists on acting arbitrarily, our country will further assess it and unilaterally impose specific punitive measures against Korean senior leaders and their family members.
This issue is about the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the fundamental interests of our Party, our country, and all Chinese people, so your department should quickly cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, etc. according to the requirements of this decision and related spirit, to carefully make a related working plan, to ensure the sense of responsibility, to strictly maintain related confidentiality, and to seriously accomplish the heavy tasks entrusted by the Central Committee of CPC.
General Office of the Communist Party of China (seal)
September 15, 2017
Copied to: General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, General Office of the State Council, and General Office of the Central Military Commission.
Printed and distributed by the Secretariat of General Office of the Communist Party of China on September 19, 2017.
Last month, the world saw an extremely well-documented flight by a North Korean soldier from his home country to the South. He was shot at by his former comrades, and severely wounded.
More recently, however, another defector made the dash across the DMZ and the elite troops meant to protect the most isolated nation on earth from southern invaders gave a reaction that is even more telling, and possibly indicative of major change to come.
At the time of the defection, which took place Thursday, according to the U.K. Daily Mail, the elite guards of dictator Kim Jong Un’s regime did nothing. Not a single shot was fired, and according to writer Don Surber, such mild reaction could well be indicative of major change ahead.
“I ask this because it seems like Kim Jong Un’s most elite troops — the ones he places along the border with South Korea — no longer protect that border,” he continued.
“If people figure that out, they will start walking south by the dozen, then hundreds, then thousands. We saw that happen in 1989 when East Germans began crossing the Austro-Hungarian border to freedom unmolested.
“Two years later, the Soviet Union — which had survived World War II — was no more.”
What followed then could well follow now. North Korea certainly doesn’t possess the collective will of Great Patriotic War-era Russia. This man isn’t the only one to escape peacefully month, either. As The Daily Mail reports, two North Korean fisherman were found requesting asylum in waters off South Korea.
It’s worth pointing out that the most recent defector escaped under cover of fog. Also, the North Koreans did mount a search for the man — and drew warning shots from South Korea in the process. But there’s no getting around the fact that the defection took place without injury to the defector. And that can’t make the dictatorship in Pyonyang very happy.
But let’s put all of that in context, here.
North Korea is speeding up its work on gaining the ability to launch a nuclear attack against the United States. President Donald Trump and our military are fully aware of that, and will take action to protect the United States as necessary. There have to be some elements of the North Korean military who are aware of that.
Could it be that this uncontested defection is an indication of something bigger— something representative of the mindset of a portion of the North Korean military? It might be sloppiness. It might be something deeper.
It’s no secret that North Korea is an extremely strange place… but the Hermit Kingdom just got even more bizarre.
A spike in the number of so-called “ghost ships”being found washed up on Japan’s coast are an eerie clue that the regime may be teetering on the brink of collapse. The name “ghost ship”is being used to describe fishing vessels that drift into Japanese waters with their crews dead or dying… and experts believe the disturbing trend means that North Koreans are becoming increasingly hungry and desperate.
“Police said 28 North Korean boats had washed ashore or been found adrift in November, a steep rise on the four vessels discovered in the same month last year,” reportedThe Guardian.
“Of the total, 42 people, all claiming to be fishermen, were found alive in November, while police discovered the decaying corpses of 18 others.”
Socialism: So great, only half your crew ends up dead in a drifting boat trying to escape. Sign us up!
“(T)he sudden increase during November suggests civilian and military fishermen are taking greater risks after calls by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to catch more seafood to feed its million-strong military and for export to China,” the report continued.
That could well mean that the sanctions against the rogue nation are biting deep. Both the United States and the United Nations have worked to stop other countries from trading with North Korea in response to Kim Jong Un’s growing nuclear weapons program. Kim Jong Un could end the problems tomorrow by listening to the U.N. Security Council and ending his missile programs. He continues to refuse.
The reclusive country is known more for its military displays and martial attitude than diplomacy and sanity, but a strange quote from a propaganda newspaper inside North Korea suggests that the nation is starting to realize that it can’t eat its nuclear warheads.
“Fishing boats are like warships, protecting the people and the motherland,” boasted The Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper of the socialist Workers’ Party.
“Fish are like bullets and artillery shells,” it declared. Well, that would make for a very strange war.
As the glorious leader’s fish warriors — er, fishermen — desperately push out farther and farther away from the struggling country’s waters, the fragility of North Korean boats becomes a life and death problem.
“To reach their quotas, fishermen and soldiers are steering their small, poorly equipped boats further out to sea to exploit rich fishing grounds close to Japan’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone,” explained the Guardian.
“Those that encounter mechanical problems or run out of fuel simply drift, with fierce currents and a strong prevailing south-westerly wind taking them to Japan.”
In socialist Venezuela, grocery stores are stripped of food and basic supplies. In communist Cuba, an everyday item like toilet paper has become a luxury. In dystopian communist North Korea, illness and starvation force people to risk their lives for a small chance at escape. If there was any doubt that socialism and its evil twin communism were disastrous, this should end the argument.
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He wasn’t done calling out the media in their fawning over dictators.
Ouch.
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