How the left would handle it
How do former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice and grumbletarian Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., believe the U.S. should handle North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons?
Just let 'em have them, they've said.
"History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea - the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War," Rice wrote in a New York Times op-ed.
Rice further criticized President Trump for "whipping up Cuba missile crisis fears," she said.
What she apparently failed to remember was that President John F. Kennedy, countering the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, established a military blockade to prevent further missiles from being delivered and demanded the ones there be dismantled and returned to the U.S.S.R., which was done.
Waters, meanwhile, said the U.S. should give North Korea whatever it is asking for and hope for the best.
"I think there's some things that they want from us," she said, "and we have to find out whether or not we can work with them on the things that they're asking for."
What's a few nuclear missiles in the hands of an unhinged dictator, after all?
Geography R'nt Us
Lefty late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel sent his team out to schmooze with his fellow Californians recently to find out if they thought there was much ado about North Korea's recent sabre-rattling and its threats against the United States.
Surprisingly, they all answered "yes" without reservation.
Kimmel told his late night audience North Korea was "the bigly story of the day, if not the year." He said a majority of Americans (75 percent), even before President Trump's recent tweets, thought the country's nuclear program was a threat to the U.S.
Now, his team asked interviewees, could they find North Korea on a map? That, as it turns out, was a bit more difficult.
"I don't know," said one woman. "I'm horrible at geography." She then placed it in eastern Canada, as did another woman.
Two others interviewed placed it in the Middle East, another "up top," another tried South America, Australia and several other locales, and still another Vietnam. Well, said the last one, he had an excuse. He wasn't a "geographer."
One man did point to the general area of East Asia. Give that man a star!
I couldn't have meant what I meant
A letter has been sent to parents of students at John Handley High School in Winchester, Va., saying future advanced placement (AP) classes would be populated according to race than by demonstrated performance.
"American demographic trends indicate that America will be a majority minority nation in the next 25 years," the letter read. "Therefore, the new work of American public schools is to develop systems to address disparate outcomes."
So, it said, "advanced classes such as AP and Honors will have proportional representation," a Fox News report said. "Proportional representation is 40 percent white, 35 percent Hispanic, 12 percent African-American, 10 percent mixed race."
When it was pointed out that the proportional representation would lower standards and keep out students who earned the right to take such classes, a district spokeswoman denied the letter said what it said.
"Our school division does not have, nor has it ever had, any policy that utilizes race for enrollment into honors or AP courses," spokeswoman Erica Truban said. "All students, regardless of race, must meet academic criteria to enroll in advanced level coursework. The School Board has not contemplated, nor adopted, any policy or practice that utilizes race in determining which students can or cannot take such courses, or any other courses for that matter."
When pressed, she doubled down on her denial by referring to the actual letter.
"I disagree that those statements [in the letter] mean that students will be placed in classes based on race," Truban said.
Apparently, she never took AP communications courses.
Let's all vote
The city council in College Park, Md., will consider next month allowing noncitizens to vote. Officially, that is. Noncitizens can't officially vote in federal elections (wink, wink), but municipalities apparently can make their own decisions when it comes to such a sacred privilege.
The proposal would allow those with green cards, students with visas and illegal immigrants the opportunity to vote in local elections for the likes of mayor, city council and other local offices.
"The feedback that I've gotten from my residents in District 4 has been almost overwhelming against the proposed change in our charter," Councilwoman Mary C. Cook told The New York Times, noting her husband and brother were naturalized citizens.
Many of her constituents, she said, believe that before voting, people should "be in the country for a certain length of time so they can acquire a familiarity with the city, the country, the language, and pledge their allegiance to America."
Voting on the College Park proposal was postponed to Sept. 12, but four cities in Massachusetts already have passed similar measures (which can't go into effect until the legislature passes a new law).
Does anyone doubt this could become a trend in blue states and, more specifically, in sanctuary cities?