North Korea Is No Biggie: Today's News for August 10th

When you look at the lead stories today for both Fox and CNN, there is only one takeaway: North Korea is no big deal. This begs the question of why the media is hyping this story?

CNN:

Trump's ad-libbed North Korean missile crisis 

President Donald Trump effectively ad-libbed his way into a test of wills with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and an unpredictable cycle of escalation -- largely due to both men's propensity for white-hot rhetoric and a desire to project strong leadership.

And the stakes keep rising.

One day after Trump fired off a blistering and improvised warning to rain "fire and fury" over the communist state if it kept up its own threats, North Korea issued an unusually specific and provocative warning, threatening to send four missiles toward Guam while ridiculing Trump for spouting "a load of nonsense."

Now Trump has a dilemma, whether to hit back in kind or take some other escalatory step or risk seeing his personal credibility and global authority damaged by a defiant Kim.

This is not a "news story". This is news analysis, or even editorializing. Mind you, there is nothing necessarily wrong with a news analysis as your lead. But it proves it is a slow news day when your news analysis is the "news" is just an overhyped non-crisis.

On the other side of the political spectrum...

Fox News:

Guam's governor dismisses N. Korean threat, calls it 'position of fear'

The governor of Guam said Thursday there was no “heightened threat” on the island after North Korea issued a statement that it would develop a plan by mid-August to launch four missiles at the U.S. Pacific territory.

Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo dismissed the North’s statements, saying they came from a “positon of fear,” Reuters reported.

On Wednesday the North Korean state-run media agency, KCNA, released a statement saying the communist nation would complete its plan to attack waters near Guam within just a week, adding that the action against Guam would be "an effective remedy for restraining the frantic moves of the U.S. in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity."

...Calvo went on to say that while there is some concern among the public, there are defense mechanisms in place:

“There is a defense umbrella contained within South Korea, there is a defense umbrella for Japan, there are naval assets between Korea, Japan and Guam, and there is a missile defense system of Guam that make up a multi-level defensive umbrella.”

...Looking to reassure the people of Guam, Calvo said, “at this point, based on what facts are known, there is no need to have any concern regards heightening the threat level.”

Is Calvo really "looking to reassure", or is he pointing out this as just so much trash talk?

Regardless, if we take him at his word (always dangerous with any politician), then this only supports the Left's overhyped non-crisis analysis.

The takeaway from both stories is: Move along folks, nothing to see here.

In other, slightly more interesting news...

CNN:

US embassy employees in Cuba possibly subject to 'acoustic attack'

The US believes several State Department employees at the US embassy in Havana were subjected to an "acoustic attack" using sonic devices that left at least two with such serious health problems they needed to be brought back to the US for treatment, several senior State Department officials told CNN.

One official said the employees could have suffered permanent hearing loss as a result.

The employees affected were not at the same place at the same time, but suffered a variety of physical symptoms since late 2016 which resembled concussions.

...State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Wednesday said that "some US government personnel" working at the US embassy in Havana, Cuba on official duty reported some incidents that were causing "physical symptoms." But she could not elaborate on the nature or cause of the incidents.

"Because there are a variety of symptoms, there could be a variety of sources," one US official said. "That is why we are being very careful here with what we say. There is a lot we still don't know."

For years US diplomats in Havana complained that they suffered harassment from Cuban officials and frequently had their homes and cars broken into. But diplomats said that after the US and Cuba restored full diplomatic ties in 2015, the campaign of harassment stopped.

One of the few things President Obama got right was relations with Cuba. Sadly, that has already backtracked to where we were before.