Month: September 2017

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Spain’s plan to send boatloads of military police to Catalonia to prevent its independence referendum has backfired with dockers in two ports staging a boycott and a third refusing access.

The Express writes Police boats Blocked by Catalan ports as unrest threatens to Rip Spain Apart.

More than 4,000 members of Spain’s Guardia Civil are being dispatched to the troubled region amid concerns over divided loyalties in the autonomous community’s own police force, the Mossos d’ Esquadra.

 

Spanish authorities wanted to house the Guardia Civil officers on four cruise ships – two in Barcelona, one in Tarragona and another in Palamos.

 

But as thousands took to the streets to protest against the detention of Catalan officials, local dock workers joined the backlash.

 

The Assembly of Stevedores of the Port of Barcelona announced that workers would not provide any services to boats carrying security forces, a decision it said was taken “in defence of civil rights”.

 

Colleagues in Tarragona quickly followed suit and the Catalan government then denied permission to dock in Palamos – which, unlike Barcelona and Tarragona, falls under regional rather than national control.

 

More than 40,000 people have gathered in Barcelona to protest over the arrests and the intervention of the Spanish government in the Catalan independence vote.

 

Many of the angry protesters have been waving Catalonia’s red and yellow flag while chanting “We will vote” and “Hello Democracy!”

 

In a television address, Catalan’s President Carles Puigdemont said: “The Spanish state has by all rights intervened in Catalonia’s government and has established emergency rule.

 

“We condemn and reject the anti-democratic and totalitarian actions of the Spanish state.”

 

A spokesman for the Catalan National Assembly said: “They made a big mistake; we wanted to vote and they declared war.”

 

Catalans are split on the issue of independence but support for a vote is high and few are happy with Spanish police arresting Catalan leaders.

 

Tensions have been further fuelled by reports that some of those detained are likely to face charges of sedition, which carries a lengthy prison sentence.

Support for a Vote

The Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia (via Mish translation) notes ‘The Times’ joins foreign dailies asking for a referendum for Catalonia.

The Times joins the list foreign newspapers that support a referendum. Le Monde and the New York Times also support a referendum.

In an editorial, The Times, a historic British conservative daily, accuses prime minister Mariano Rajoy of “repression.”

The text of the British newspaper is especially blunt against the reaction of the Spanish state. The editorial maintains that Spain is in a serious “constitutional crisis” with risk of “rupture”, the greatest since “the end of the Franco dictatorship.”

The editorial also accuses Rajoy of “feeding the crisis”. The Times ventures to ask the central government to allow the referendum even if it is contrary to the Spanish Magna Carta.

Spain Seizes “.CAT” Domain

The New York Times reports In Catalonia, Spain Seizes the .Cat Internet Domain

On the same day this week that the Spanish authorities stormed the offices of the Catalan regional government, detaining at least 14 people, a less-noticed raid took place.

 

The puntCat foundation, which oversees the registry of websites with the “.cat” domain, tweeted Wednesday that its offices had also been raided and that one of its senior executives had been arrested.

 

Given the web’s rich cat history, you’d think that domain names ending in .cat would be another online feline gold mine. [But] almost all sites with the .cat suffix belong to the Catalan-speaking community thanks to the efforts of the puntCAT (“dot-cat” in Catalan), the foundation approved in 2005 to manage its registry by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a global organization. That made it one of the first domain suffixes to explicitly refer to a language and culture, paving the way for others, when it first appeared online in 2006.

 

In a letter to ICANN, the foundation said that the Spanish authorities had asked it to “block all .cat domain names that may contain any kind of information about the forthcoming independence referendum.”

 

“We are being requested to censor content and suppress freedom of speech,” the organization added.

 

The internet naming corporation said, “We are aware of the reports about Fundacio PuntCAT, the registry operator for .CAT, and we continue to monitor the situation.”

We have denounced to @ICANN the disproportionate action of the courts. Committed to freedom on the Internet. http://pic.twitter.com/NkvTMYJ79d

— Fundació puntCAT (@puntcat) September 17, 2017

Spain digs itself deeper into a hole. Most of those previously undecided will now vote for #catalan independence, and rightfully so.

— Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) September 22, 2017

 

The Catalan President says “We Will Vote on Independence Whether Spain Likes it or Not”.

Carles Puigdemont is the 130th president of Catalonia.

 

What follows is Puigdemont’s message in the Washington Post

 

After three centuries under Spanish rule, on Oct. 1, citizens of Catalonia will finally have the chance to exercise their right to self-determination. More than 5 million eligible voters will have the right to decide on a simple question: “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”

 

The way to this historic referendum was paved by a majority decision of the Catalonian parliament. In our last regional election in September 2015, pro-independence parties won 47.8 percent of the vote, which gave them an absolute majority of seats. Unionist parties won 39.1 percent of the votes, a clear defeat, while the rest of the votes went to parties that defend the right to self-determination but are not necessarily in favor of independence. So there can be no denying the democratic legitimacy of our current Catalonian government. For this reason, after making several unsuccessful efforts to agree on the terms of the referendum with Spanish President Mariano Rajoy, I initiated the referendum.

 

In stark contrast to the governments of Canada or Britain, Madrid has refused to accept this democratic challenge, and has opted instead for the path of authoritarian repression. In most parts of the developed world, police protect ballot boxes, polling stations, and voters. In Catalonia today, the situation is the opposite. Spanish security forces are confiscating ballots and ballot boxes, stripping campaign posters from the walls, and intimidating citizens. They have arrested officials of the Catalan government, tapped telephones, raided private residences, and banned political rallies.

 

It seems incredible that this could happen in Spain in the 21st century. One French journalist recently noted that the Spanish government is acting more like Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan dictatorship than a healthy European democracy. And consider the fact that Catalonia, Spain, and other European countries are currently on maximum alert against jihadi terrorism. Instead of working to prevent possible attacks, Spain’s police forces are working to prevent the exercise of democracy. This is profoundly irresponsible.

 

The Spanish government has also gravely violated the freedom of expression and of information. Not only has it prohibited both public and private media from broadcasting advertisements about the referendum, it has also moved to block Catalan government websites that inform the public about the vote. Madrid has even blocked proxy servers, a procedure employed by only the most totalitarian regimes. The Spanish government not only wants to keep Catalans from voting, but also to prevent them from being informed.

 

The Spanish government has to understand that its behavior is unacceptable from the point of view of democracy and civil rights. Four decades after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, we still find that authoritarian instincts rule at the heart of the Madrid government. Respect for minorities is a fundamental human right, and the right of self-determination is an irrevocable right of all nations.

 

Our commitment to the right of self-determination and to the will of the Catalan people to decide its own future remains unshaken. The repression of the Spanish government will not be able to change that. On Oct. 1, citizens of Catalonia will exercise their right to decide whether they want to become a new independent republic, just like other peoples of the world have done before them. This is the moment of the people of Catalonia, but we are not alone in this fight. We call on democrats around the world to give support to this long struggle between freedom and authoritarianism.

 

Carles Puigdemont

I support Catalonia Independence and apparently so do most Mish readers.

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On Friday, we reported that in the latest snub by President Hassan Rouhani to the Trump administration, on Friday the Iranian president said Tehran would continue its missile program in defiance of US sanctions, and to underscore the determination, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard unveiled its newest long-range ballistic missile during a military parade in Tehran.  The newly unveiled missile is capable of reaching most of the Middle East, including Israel, with a range of 1,200 miles. It’s also capable of carrying several warheads.

Rouhani addressed the parade in Tehran, saying that Iran would not halt its missile program but continue to boost military capabilities, despite U.S. demands. “We will increase our military power as a deterrent. We will strengthen our missile capabilities … We will not seek permission from anyone to defend our country.” 

And to demonstrate just that, a few hours later Iran media released footage of the successful test-firing of the ballistic missile that was unveiled just hours earlier,.

Footage aired by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on Friday showed the missile launched from an unknown location. The video also featured telemetry camera footage from four different angles, purportedly showing the moment when the missile was discharged. The Khorramshahr missile is the third Iran has purchased, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, according to Mehr news agency. Weighing more than a ton, it has been manufactured in a smaller and more tactical size, and is expected to be put into operation in the near future.

“The 2,000-km-range missile can carry the warhead 1,800km away,” the Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh  told reporters on Friday adding that “The specification of this missile is that it can carry several warheads instead of one to hit several targets.”

The missile was unveiled in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a military parade in Tehran, marking the 36th anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war. The war that began in 1980 and lasted eight years left an estimated 1 million people dead, according to Reuters. Iran has repeatedly stressed that its missile program is purely for defensive purposes.

As we reported yesterday, Rouhani addressed Friday’s parade in Tehran, noting that Tehran would not halt its missile program and would continue to boost military capabilities, despite US threats to scrap the landmark 2015 agreement that capped Iran’s nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions on Iran.

“We will strengthen our defense and military capabilities … whether you want it or not,” Rouhani stressed.

On Wednesday, Rouhani warned that his country will “respond decisively” to any violation of the agreement and called President Donald Trump’s “ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric” about Iran unfit for the United Nations. “It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” the Iranian leader said referring to Trump.

“The world will have lost a great opportunity, but such unfortunate behavior will never impede Iran’s course of progress and advancement,” Rouhani said, adding that the Trump administration is seeking “an excuse” to pull out of the 2015 deal. If Washington walks out of the agreement, “any choice and any option” are open for Iran “that we see as beneficial to our country,” Rouhani said.

“The option that we say we have at our disposal … will never be going towards nuclear weapons,” he said. “Iran has never sought nuclear weapons, will never seek nuclear weapons, is not now seeking nuclear weapons.”

In a report earlier this month, the UN watchdog monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities said that the country is fully in compliance with its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, even as Donald Trump, who labelled it “the worst deal ever,” threatens to scrap it. “Iran has conducted its enrichment activities in line with its long-term enrichment and R&D enrichment plan” agreed with world powers, according to the six-page confidential document, seen by several news agencies, including Iran’s IRNA.

On Wednesday, president Trump said he has decided whether or not to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, but declined to share his decision publicly. “I have decided,” Trump told reporters.

Pressed about his decision, the president responded, “I’ll let you know what the decision is.”

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The Golden State Warriors won their third straight NBA Championship in June, defeating perennial rivals the Cleveland Cavaliers and cementing the Warrior's legacy as the best professional NBA team in recent memory. But since clinching the championship trophy, a dark cloud has been hanging over the Warriors: The traditional visit to the White House. Since June, it's been unclear if the team would accept the invitation because of Curry and Co's well-publicized distaste for the president. Finally, the ambiguity was put to rest on Friday, when Curry revealed that he would like the team to decline their invitation, saying he'd like to "inspire some change in terms of what we can tolerate in this country" by standing up to the Trump Administration. 

Needless to say, President Trump was displeased, and in a classic Donald Trump Saturday morning tweetstorm, the president blasted the star point guard for "hesitating" to accept the White House's invitation, before adding that Curry's invite had been "withdrawn":

"Being invited to the White House is considered a great honor," Trump tweeted. "Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn." As the Associated Press pointed out, it isn't immediately clear if Trump rescinded the invitation to Curry, or the entire team.

Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

Trump also ripped into another Bay Area athlete, former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, last night, implying that the free agent QB is a "son of a bitch" for protesting the National Anthem. Trump's impromptu attack came during a campaign rally for Alabama Senator Luther Strange, who is running in a closely contested special election to keep his seat, to which he was temporarily appointed after Jeff Sessions left the Senate to become the attorney general. During a rant in which he blasted NFL owners and players, Trump said any player who refuses to stand for the anthem "should be fired" for "disrespecting our heritage." He added that the first owner to fire an athlete for protesting would become "the most popular person in this country – for a week."  He urged fans to leave the stadium if they see players protesting, before declaring that American Football "is not the same game anymore, anyway."

Trump's remarks elicited a response from the NFL player's association, which said "We will never back down" from standing up to Trump. Predictably, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fired back at President Trump in a statement issued Saturday morning. In the statement, he criticized Trump’s “divisive comments” about team owners firing player for protesting, saying they showed "an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL." Of course, the hypocrisy in Goodell's response to Trump is painfully obvious: After all, Kaepernick has effectively been blackballed from the league for his decision to protest.

Circling back to the Warriors, the question now is, if the White House clarifies that the withdrawal of the invite applies only to Curry, will the rest of the team back their star player and stay home? Or will a few decide to continue with the longstanding tradition of White House visits, potentially creating a rift.

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In what may be the latest major escalation involving North Korea – and potentially the nation’s 7th nuclear test – China’s earthquake administration said it detected a magnitude 3.5 earthquake in North Korea, which it suspects “was caused by an explosion”, raising fears that the rogue state has tested another nuclear bomb. The Chinese administration said in a statement on its website that the quake was recorded at a depth of zero kilometers, while Xinhua said the epicenter was in roughly the same place as a similar shallow earthquake on 3 September, which turned out to be caused by North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test.

However, in analyzing the same earthquake, South Korea came to a different conclusion, and said it was likely to be natural or man-made such as a nuclear test. South Korea’s weather agency assessed the seismic activity as a natural event.

“The quake is presumed to have occurred naturally,” an agency official said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. “A sound wave, which is usually generated in the event of an artificial earthquake, was not detected.”

“We use several methods to tell whether earthquakes are natural or manmade,” an official, who asked for anonymity, told the Independent. “A key method is to look at the seismic waves or seismic acoustic waves and the latter can be detected in the case of a manmade earthquake. In this case we saw none. So as of now we are categorizing this as a natural earthquake.”

Furthermore, all of North Korea’s previous six nuclear tests registered as earthquakes of magnitude 4.3 or above. The last test on 3 September registered as a 6.3 magnitude quake. A secondary tremor detected after that test could have been caused by the collapse of a tunnel at the mountainous site, experts said at the time.

Additionally, the US Geological Survey said that it detected a magnitude 3.5 quake in the area of previous North Korean nuclear tests, but that it was unable to confirm whether the event was natural. North Korea’s weakest nuclear test, its first, which it carried out in 2006, generated a magnitude 3.9 quake.

As shown previously, satellite photos of the area after the 3 September quake showed numerous landslides that were apparently caused by the huge blast, which North Korea said was a hydrogen bomb. It is possible the tremor was linked to ongoing landslide activity.

Nuclear proliferation watchdog CTBTO said on Saturday it had detected two seismic events in North Korea on Saturday but they were probably not deliberate explosions.

“Two #Seismic Events! … unlikely Man-made! Similar to “collapse“ event 8.5 mins after DPRK6! Analysis ongoing,” CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo said in a Twitter post.

Two #Seismic Events! 0829UTC & much smaller @ 0443UTC unlikely Man-made! Similar to “collapse” event 8.5 mins after DPRK6! Analysis ongoing http://pic.twitter.com/DXaDn8TZOf

— Lassina Zerbo (@SinaZerbo) September 23, 2017

Concerns about another North Korea test have been heightened ever since Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who is currently in New York for a United Nations meeting, warned on Thursday that Kim could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific. Ri told reporters that a test of “the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb” was one possible “highest-level” action against the US.

But he said that he did not know exactly what his state’s exact plans were. “We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un,” he added.

The quake comes amid heightened tensions around the Korean Peninsula, as the North has been maintaining a torrid pace in nuclear and weapons tests. The state said its recent nuclear test was a detonation of a thermonuclear weapon built for its developmental intercontinental ballistic missiles. In two July flight tests, those missiles showed potential capability to reach deep into the US mainland when perfected.

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Authored by Andrew Karybko via Oriental Review,

Oriental Review is publishing the English original of Andrew Korybko’s interview with an Iranian newspaper from earlier this month.

After only eight months after entering into office, we have witnessed the resignation and dismissal of 15 high-ranked people from the White House. In view of this, do you think that Trump will be able to finish his first term? Some analysts suggest that he won’t, so how unstable do you think the political situation in the US, and how serious of a threat does it pose to Trump’s presidency?

There have been over a dozen high-level and much-publicized personnel shifts in the Trump Administration in the past 9 months, but they shouldn’t be interpreted as signaling that the President himself will be leaving anytime soon. These are all just casualties of Trump’s war with the “deep state” (permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies), whereby the vested power interests in the US are fighting to defeat the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement. Throughout the course of this conflict, Trump has clearly been thrown on the defensive as he’s had to compromise on his promised foreign policy platforms in order to retain a chance at succeeding on the domestic front, but even that looks uncertain right now in some respects as the “deep state”, aided by the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), relentlessly continues to chip away at MAGA in order to retain their power and influence.

If they can force Trump into submission and turn him into their puppet, as they’re trying to do, then there would be no need to attempt to remove him from office; likewise, if he continues to resist in some capacities, as he’s doing on domestic issues, then this scenario because more possible. Even so, it’s unlikely to succeed except in the event that Trump’s enemies can pull off turning him into the “fascist dictator” that they’ve fear mongered he’d become even before he was elected.

The only conceivable way for this to happen is if the domestic unrest in the US between the Alt-Left and Alt-Right becomes so uncontrollable that Trump is forced to implement limited martial law, and if (or likely when) a racial minority or group thereof is killed during this time, regardless of the circumstances, this would be used to swiftly bring about attempted impeachment charges on whatever trumped-up pretext can be made. It’s not being implied that this will succeed, but just that if one talks about the impeachment scenario, then this is the only one out of the wide array that are being bandied about which has any realistic chance of succeeding, though the odds are nevertheless still slim.

“The New Yorker” recently published an article which said that racism and fascism have been on the rise after Trump’s election, pointing to the incident in Charlottesville as proof of that. In your view, what’s the risk that this will spark a war between the left and right in the US?

“The New Yorker”, given its liberal-progressive and endemic anti-Trump bias, shouldn’t be trusted as a reliable source of information, but the fact that it’s pushing the Mainstream Media narrative about Trump coming to power on the backs of racists and fascists deserves to be elaborated on. This is a false stereotype which suggests that “white” (Caucasian) people are racists simply because of their skin color, and therefore voted for Trump on that basis alone, which isn’t the case at all and is condescending to the tens of millions of people who supported him for his policies.

That being said, there are indeed some actual racists and fascists who openly support Trump, but they’re such a small minority of the population as to be statistically irrelevant. For instance, the notorious Ku Klux Klan only has several thousand members nationwide, which pales in comparison to the at least 100,000-200,000 members of the Alt-Left militant group “Antifa”, which has proven to be much more violent and dangerous than their Alt-Right counterparts.

The reason why the “deep state” is trying to link racists and fascists to Trump is to discredit his election victory, so their affiliated Mainstream Media proxies amplify the voices and numbers of a tiny minority of a minority of individuals in order to promote this perception. Nevertheless, they are dangerous and deserve to be condemned, though to be fair, so too should most of their Alt-Left counter-protesters, and for even more urgent reasons.

When “Antifa” is heralded as “heroes” despite their wanton destruction and actual fascist-like violent intolerance for any dissenting views, this lends “legitimacy” to their tactics and “normalizes” them, essentially turning Far-Left street destabilizations into an accepted part of life for the elite because of their weaponized instrumentalization in intimidating the vast majority of Trump’s non-racist non-fascist base.

In turn, this can only provoke a defensive reaction from these people which spikes the chances of Left-Right clashes becoming as common in the future in America’s cities as gangland shootings are today.

To tie all of this in with the previous question, the reason why the “deep state” and Soros-affiliated Alt-Left groups want to spark such pronounced disorder and chaos in the US is to fuel a Color Revolution which would then rapidly descend into an Unconventional War of urban terrorism and political killings, all with the intent of driving Trump to become the “fascist dictator” that they fear mongered he’d become so as to have a basis for pushing through impeachment proceedings against him should racial minorities be killed if he implements limited martial law in response.

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In a country where over 70% of unmarried men between 18 and 34, and 60% of women, have no relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and where birthrates are among the lowest in the world after Japanese women gave birth to fewer than one million babies in 2016 for the first time since the government began tracking birth rates, Bloomberg reports on an industry that’s profiting off the reluctance of young Japanese men and women to find a human partner.

What Bloomberg calls the “virtual love industry” in Japan has blossomed into a multi-million-dollar concern as unmarried men and women increasingly turn to simulated digital offerings for companionship.  Inventors create applications that essentially allow users to build a ‘virtual wife’ or ‘virtual husband’. While we imagine virtual companions bring badly needed comfort to millions of lonely Japanese, as Bloomberg notes, the industry does have a dark side: Some virtual-reality offerings promote unrealistic and even damaging portrayals of women as submissive. And men as domineering and menacing.

“Starting today, you live here now, with me,” he snarls. “I expect you to keep me entertained.” Wait, isn’t that his job?

 

A real young man on the streets of Akihabara, a district of Tokyo known for its anime and manga culture, is impressed by a demo of the game but declares, cringing, “Getting hit on by a man—it was pretty embarrassing.”

 

Simple companionship isn’t Takechi’s only vision. His virtual world of husband and dutiful wife, he says, “could develop into love, if we keep investigating further.”

One inventor who build a virtual-reality platform said he aims to create a virtual partner who brings greater satisfaction to Japanese men and women than a human companion would. That’s bad news for the Japanese economy, which, thanks to the looming demographic crunch as the population rapidly ages, will need to increasingly rely on the Bank of Japan’s “stimulus” to avoid a deflationary spiral.

“She’s always there, always listening, ready to cater to her husband’s every whim. Meet Azuma Hikari, Japan’s digital “wife of the future,” according to her inventor, Minori Takechi, who believes his AI construct can go some way toward solving Japan’s problem with loneliness.

 

Hikari lives in a bubble—like, an actual bubble, or a little transparent cylinder at any rate—in a skimpy outfit, lending a sympathetic ear to her man’s troubles, responding to commands, and flirting (“bath time—do not peep!”). Age: 20. Height: 158 centimeters. Specialty: fried eggs. Dislike: insects. So, less like Siri, more like Offred.

 

Takechi set out to create a partner who “brings greater satisfaction than human interaction.” Best of all, Hikari is bashful, so her owner “doesn’t have to communicate with her all the time,” Takechi says with a shy grin, in the second video in our Love Disrupted series. He is selling his prototype for $2,700 and reports 300 pre-orders, mainly from men in their 20s and 30s.”

At any rate at matter, should North Korean Leader follow through with his threats to “sink” Japan with nuclear weapons, a decision that, using the logic of certain investment banks, would represent an unprecedented economic stimulus.
 

* * *

Meanwhile, we recently noted that the thriving market for lifelike sex dolls may have jumped the shark after a company offering sex doll rentals shuttered its new venture after less than a week after it inspired a storm of controversy. But we doubt that setback will forestall more advances in sex doll technology. For a look at what's to come, the Daily Star recently published a look inside the sex doll workshop of Spanish scientist Dr Sergi Santos, who recently produced a talking sex robot named Samantha.

The Daily Star published some exclusive photos of Santos's "works in progress"…

Many of the images of the dolls mimicking real-life situations are simply uncanny…

It's a silicone angel…

And here's video from inside the workshop…

 

 

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Amid ongoing fallout from the negative media attention and student (and faculty) protests that rocked campus in 2015, the University of Missouri recently welcomed its smallest student body since 2008.

As Campus Reform has repeatedly reported, the embattled university has taken hit after hit, starting with a $32 million budget shortfall and a five-percent budget cut, followed by a seven-percent drop in freshmen enrollment heading into last school year.

As some may remember Mizzou hit the headlines after Melissa Click, a journalism professor, won infamy nationwide for her behavior during race-related protests at MU in November 2015.

When a student journalist tried to cover the public protests, Click physically confronted him, saying he had no right to be there and needed to “get out.”

When the journalist resisted, Click called for “some muscle” to try forcing him back.

The student’s video of Click quickly went viral, and attracted the attention of Missouri lawmakers, more than 100 of whom signed a petition demanding Click’s termination. Click herself was eventually hit with misdemeanor assault charges, which were dropped after she agreed to perform community service. Initially, the school said Click’s fate would be decided during her tenure hearing in August, but in February the school’s board gave in to outside pressure and fired her.

And, as Campus Reform's Anthony Gockowski reports, since then it has been downhill for the University…

More recently, Mizzou shuttered seven residence halls due to a drastic drop in enrollment, renting some of the vacant rooms out to sports fans to help make up for the school’s many financial woes, and cut 474 jobs.

Now, The Dothan Eagle reports that the university is facing the lowest levels of enrollment since 2008, with official numbers showing that enrollment is down 12.9 percent.

Additionally, the Eagle notes that, with the exception of the senior class, every incoming class is smaller than last year’s, and even international enrollment fell by 12.1 percent.

This year's freshman class is the smallest since 2008, with enrollment down about 33% from its peak in 2015.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unwittingly set the internet on fire Thursday night when he proclaimed that US President and purported Kim BFF Donald Trump was a “mentally deranged dotard” and a “rogue and a gangster.”

Kim’s usage of the arcane vocab word prompted hundreds of thousands of people ask Google what exactly is a dotard? (for the record, it’s a pejorative term for a senile old man).

As the Sun newspaper points out, Kim’s latest viral proclamation follows a pattern of North Korean media serving up memorable – if sometimes nonsensical – soundbites in their attacks on American politicians.

And in a list dating back to the Bush Administration – when Kim Jong Un's father Kim Jong Il was still running the country – the Sun recounts some of North Korea's most memorable missives to their American “imperialist” adversaries.

Cory Gardner:

When Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a “whack job” in May, the dictator was less than pleased. State media quickly responded, saying that Gardner was “human dirt”.

A statement said: "It is a serious provocation that Gardner, like a psychopath, dare to bear the evil that dares our highest dignity.

"It is America’s misfortune that a man mixed in with human dirt like Gardner, who has lost basic judgement and body hair, could only spell misfortune for the United States."

Obama:

In 2014, North Korea branded then-US President Barack Obama a "juvenile delinquent", a "clown" and a "dirty fellow.” The North’s remarks verged on outright racism when they said Obama "still has the figure of monkey while the human race has evolved through millions of years."

KCNA added that Obama "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being" and, in a particularly vile statement, called him: "a wicked black monkey".

John Kerry:

Also in 2014, an unidentified North Korean spokesperson poetically described then-Secretary of State John Kerry a "wolf donning the mask of sheep" who had a "hideous lantern jaw.”

Hillary Clinton:

Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was described in 2009 as "by no means intelligent" and a "funny lady".

"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," an unnamed North Korean source said.

Park Geun-Hye:

The reclusive regime has also made former South Korean President Park Geun-hye a popular target, alternately naming her as a "senile granny", a "tailless, old, insane bitch", and "a traitor for all times".

George W Bush:

North Korea famously labeled Bush a “hooligan” who “looked like a chicken soaked in rain.”

Dick Cheney:

The former vice president was accused of being “a most cruel monster and bloody-thirsty beast.” Yet no jokes about his aim.

Donald Rumsfeld

The North blasted Rummy, labeling him a “political dwarf” and “human scum.”

If there’s an upside to the US’s reluctance to foment regime change in the North, it’s that North Korea’s leader, and its ministry of propaganda, will probably keep churning out these colorful little nuggets.
 

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