North Korea's launch of ballistic missile over Japan sends clear message to US, allies

North Korea on Tuesday-- in an act of defiance-- fired a midrange ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload over Japan for the first time, sending a clear message to Washington and Seoul.

The distance and type of missile test seemed designed to show that North Korea can back up a threat to target the U.S. territory of Guam, if it chooses to do so, while also establishing a potentially dangerous precedent that could see future missiles flying over Japan.

Any new test worries Washington and its allies because it presumably puts the North a step closer toward its goal of an arsenal of nuclear missiles that can reliably target the United States. Tuesday's test, however, looks especially aggressive to Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.
North Korea will no doubt be watching the world's reaction to see if it can use Tuesday's flight over Japan as a precedent for future launches. Japanese officials made the usual strongly worded condemnations of the launch. There were no immediate tweets from Trump.
"We will do our utmost to protect people's lives," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. "This reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented, serious and important threat."
A U.S. congressman visiting Seoul said Washington is now pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions by shutting down the impoverished country's access to hard currency, the lifeblood of its expensive weapons program.
The Pentagon told reporters that it was investigating the launch over Japan, adding: "North American Aerospace Defense Command determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America." The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said the Japanese military did not attempt to intercept the missile.
South Korea's air force effectively fired back at North Korea's missile launch over Japan by conducting a live-fire drill involving powerful bombs, officials said early Tuesday.
Four F-15 fighters dropped eight MK-84 bombs that accurately hit targets at a military field near South Korea's eastern coast, Seoul's presidential spokesman Park Su-hyun said. Each bomb has an explosive yield of a ton, according to the country's air force.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile traveled around 1,677 miles and reached a maximum height of 341 miles as it traveled over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The North has conducted launches at an unusually fast pace this year -- 13 times, Seoul says -- and some analysts believe Pyongyang could have viable long-range nuclear missiles before the end of Trump's first term in early 2021.
Seoul says that while the North has twice before fired rockets it said were carrying satellites over Japan -- in 1998 and 2009 -- it has never before used a ballistic missile, which is unambiguously designed for military strikes.
Tuesday's missile landed nowhere near Guam, but firing a Hwasong-12 (Hwasong is Korean for Mars, or Fire Star) so soon after the Guam threat may be a way for the North to show it could follow through if it chose to do so. Guam is 2,200 miles away from North Korea, but South Korea's military said the North may have fired the most recent missile at a shorter range.
Another interesting aspect of this launch is that it was the first-ever reported from Sunan, which is home to Pyongyang's international airport. Some outside observers wondered if North Korea had launched a road-mobile missile from an airport runway -- something South Korea's military couldn't immediately determine.
Tuesday's launch comes days after the North fired what was assessed as three short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and a month after its second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say could reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week, said he welcomed the restraint Pyongyang showed by not firing any missiles in July.
“(North Korea) think that by exhibiting their capability, the path to dialogue will open,” Masao Okonogi, professor emeritus at Japan’s Keio University, told Reuters. “That logic, however, is not understood by the rest of the world, so it’s not easy,” he said.

Israel PM Accuses Iran of Building Missile Bases in Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attend a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, Monday , Aug.28, 2017. ( Heidi Levine, Pool via AP)

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Iran of building missile sites in Syria and Lebanon during a meeting with the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu provided no evidence of his claims, but said Iran’ is turning Syria and Lebanon into military bases for its declared goal of eradicating Israel.
Iran has been one of Syria’s biggest supporters during the country’s six year civil war.
Israel fears after an Assad victory Iran will have a permanent military base in Syria, creating a threat to Israel’s safety.
During the meeting Guterres vowed to do everything he could to maintain peace in the region.

Gynecology Pioneer Statue Defaced in New York’s Central Park

Protesters in New York participated in graphic demonstrations in order to rally for the removal of a controversial monument to a doctor who experimented on enslaved women. (Bringing Down America)

Vandals defaced a statue in New York’s Central Park dedicated to Doctor Jay Marion Sims by spray-painting it with the word “racist.”
According to police, the vandals damaged the back of the statue, and covered its neck, mouth and eyes with red paint.
Doctor Sims is known as the “father of modern Gynecology.”
The academic community says he operated on women in catastrophic conditions that he was trying to fix.
However, Sims is said to have performed experimental surgeries on three enslaved women without the use of anesthesia.
Earlier this week, members of the Black Youth Project and Planned Parenthood staged protests demanding that statue be taken down.
The Democrat Mayor of New York Bill De Blasio said a possible removal of the statue is under consideration.

Berkeley Anarchists Cartoons

5 assaulted at Berkeley protests as black-clad anarchists storm rightwing rally

Protesters from the poles of the U.S. political spectrum converged on another American city Sunday as violence erupted when left-wing protesters surrounded and attacked at least five right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley.

The group of more than 100 hooded protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words “no hate” and waving a flag identifying themselves as anarchists, busted through police lines, avoiding security checks by officers to take away possible weapons. 

Several thousand people had congregated for a “Rally Against Hate” in response to the planned right-wing protest that raised concerns of violence and triggered a massive police presence.
Berkeley police chief Andrew Greenwood defended how police handled the protest, saying they made a strategic decision to let the anarchists enter to avoid more violence.
Greenwood said to The Associated Press: “the potential use of force became very problematic” given the thousands of peaceful protesters in the park. Once anarchists arrived, it was clear there would not be dueling protests between left and right so he ordered his officers out of the park and allowed the anarchists to march in.
There was “no need for a confrontation over a grass patch,” Greenwood said.
Among those assaulted was Joey Gibson, the leader of the Patriot Prayer group, which canceled a Saturday rally and was then prevented from holding a news conference when authorities closed off the public square Gibson planned to use.
After the anarchists spotted Gibson at the Berkeley park, they pepper-sprayed him and chased him out as he backed away with his hands held in the air. Gibson rushed behind a line of police wearing riot gear, who set off a smoke grenade to drive away the anarchists, Fox 40 reported.
Separately, groups of hooded, black-clad protesters attacked at least four other men in or near the park, kicking and punching them until the assaults were stopped by police. The assaults were witnessed by an Associated Press reporter.
Anti-rally protesters chanted slogans “No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA” and carried signs that said: “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate.”
At one point, an anti-rally protester denounced a Latino man holding a “God Bless Donald Trump” sign.
“You are an immigrant,” Karla Fonseca said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Several other people also yelled at the man, who said he was born in Mexico but supports President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the southern border.
Police pulled one supporter of Trump out of the park over a wall by his shirt as a crowd of about two dozen counter demonstrators surrounded him and chanted “Nazi go home” and pushed him toward the edge of the park.

Several people were arrested for violating rules against covering their faces or carrying items banned by authorities. The black clad protesters carried a large banner that identified them as anarchists, according to Fox 40.
The left-wing protesters far outnumbered those who showed up for the largely peaceful rally, which police tried to keep safe by setting up barricades around it and checking people who entered to make sure they did not have prohibited items like baseball bats, dogs, skateboards and scarves or bandanas they could use to cover their faces.
Officers arrested 13 people, most for having prohibited items, Greenwood said.
Berkeley authorities refused to issue a permit allowing Sunday’s event. The city and the University of California, Berkeley campus have been the site of political clashes and violence over the past year.
The deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 during a rally of white supremacists led San Francisco police and civil leaders to rethink their response to protests.
Earlier Sunday, a separate counter protest took place on the nearby Berkeley university campus despite calls by university police for demonstrators to stay away. From the campus, the crowd marched to Civic Center Park and merged with the anti-rally protesters who already had gathered there.
The Berkeley rallies happened a day after a rally planned by a right-wing group fizzled amid throngs of counter-protesters in San Francisco.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared victory over a group he branded as inviting hate.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin had urged counter-protesters to stay away.
The organizer of Sunday’s right-wing event was Amber Cummings, a transgender woman and Trump supporter who has repeatedly denounced racism. Cummings said that demonization by mayors in both cities and left-wing extremists made it impossible for people with other views to speak out.
Cummings has said on social media and in media interviews that Marxism is the real evil and that members of the anti-fascist movement are terrorists.
“I’m not safe to walk down the road with an American flag in this country,” she told reporters last week.
Saturday’s event was organized by a group known as Patriot Prayer. Its leader, Gibson, also repeatedly has disavowed racism.
Fox 61 reported that the group told its members: “No extremists will be allowed in. No Nazis, Communist, KKK, Antifa, white supremacist, I.E., or white nationalists. This is an opportunity for moderate Americans to come in with opposing views. We will not allow the extremists to tear apart this country.”

Harvey flooding ravages Texas as Abbott orders another 1,000 National Guard members

President Trump to Visit Texas Soon

President Donald Trump follows first lady Melania Trump as they board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 25, 2017, en route to Camp David, Md. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

OAN Newsroom
August 27, 2017
President Trump is set to visit Texas as recovery efforts continue in the wake of tropical storm Harvey.
In a tweet Sunday, the president confirmed his travel plans saying he will depart as soon as the trip can be made without causing disruption.
He added the federal government has an all out effort going against what he called a “once in 500 year flood, according to experts.”
President Trump has praised cooperation between state and federal agencies in recent days, during on going rescue efforts in the state.

Pres. Trump Reignites Calls for Mexico to Pay for Border Wall

President Trump renews his pledge that Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall.
The president tweeted Sunday that Mexico is having one its most violent years on record and a border wall must be built.
He then repeated his notorious campaign call to make Mexico pay for the wall or reimburse the United States in the future.
The president also said Mexico and Canada are being difficult in the renegotiation of NAFTA, suggesting he may terminate the agreement if the two countries do not put forth a good deal for the U.S.