TELL CFAKENN HIS RHETORIC IS MUCH COOLER THAN OBAMA’S BECAUSE HE DOESN’T DRAW A RED LINE: Trump says North Korea will receive “some pretty severe things” for its bad behavior.

President Donald Trump, speaking on Thursday in Warsaw, Poland, said he was considering “some pretty severe things” to respond to the North Korean nuclear threat.

Trump made the comment during a press conference after holding a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda. Pyongyang on Tuesday said it conducted a successful intercontinental ballistic missile test.

“We’ll see what happens — I don’t like to talk about what we have planned — but I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinking about,” Trump said during the press conference. “They are behaving in a very, very serious manner, and something will have to be done about it.”

North Korea is responsible for this very dangerous situation. China has been its silent partner. That makes the dangerous situation even worse.

TRIGGERED: Police arrest man for allegedly threatening Sen. Flake’s staff.

Law enforcement officials arrested a man Thursday who allegedly made threatening comments toward Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s staff that referenced the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

The Pima County Sheriff’s office confirmed that Mark Prichard, 59, was arrested on Thursday at Flake’s Tucson office.

According to an aide to Flake, Prichard told a staffer:

“You know how liberals are going to solve the Republican problem? … They are going to get better aim. That last guy tried, but he needed better aim. We will get better aim.”

Heads up.

ARTHRITIS: A Byproduct Of Adapting To Cold Climates?

BUT IT WAS HER TURN! “WAS THE ELECTION RIGGED AGAINST BERNIE SANDERS? DNC LAWSUIT DEMANDS REPAYMENT FOR CAMPAIGN DONORS”.

Jared Beck, a Harvard Law graduate and one of the several attorneys who filed the suit against the DNC and its former chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, wants retribution for donations made by supporters to the Vermont senator’s campaign, citing six legal claims of the DNC’s deceptive conduct, negligent misrepresentation and fraud. The DNC violated Article 5, Section 4 of its own charter by working with a single campaign to effectively choose who would win the Democratic ballot, the attorneys stated in the suit.

Oh dear Lord, we beseech thee, let this case survive a motion to dismiss and go to discovery.

PUHLEEZ: Maryland AG Says Commission To Investigate Voter Fraud Is a Way to ‘Stop People From Voting.’ If voter fraud is such a nothingburger, why are Dems pulling out all the stops to prevent an investigation?

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RATINGS COLLAPSE: CNN NOW LOSING TO NICK-AT-NITE IN PRIME TIME RATINGS WAR. “Last week, more Americans tuned in to watch re-runs of ‘Yogi Bear,’ ‘Full House,’ and ‘Friends’ on Nick At Nite than to watch Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon’s shows on CNN.”

To be fair, Yogi’s smarter than the average CNN newsreader. He’s never appeared in a New Year’s Eve broadcast with Kathy Griffin, or speculated that a black hole may have caused a picnic basket to disappear in Jellystone Park.

UPDATE: Iowahawk is having fun with Chris Cillizza’s freakout today:

OUCH! Brazilian wax test question nets Howard University professor a 504-day Title IX investigation, sanctions.

IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL ONLY BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE: Controversial Professor’s Crowdfunding Success.

Jordan Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and an outspoken critic of what he calls “compelled speech,” is making nearly $39,000 U.S. per month through crowdfunding, the Toronto Star reported. Donors support the professor’s opposition to politically correct speech, such as the mandatory use of the gender-neutral pronoun “they.”

Peterson has been using the fund-raising platform Patreon since last year to subsidize the costs associated with making his YouTube lectures on such subjects, according to the Star, but donations have surged as he’s faced public criticism for his views — including being shouted down during a talk at McMaster University in March. He now plans to offer an online university degree in the humanities that is free, except for exam fees.

As we saw first (I think) with the Memories Pizza case, crowdfunding support is an excellent way to neutralize the Alinskyite freeze-and-personalize tactic.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Photo ‘showing Amelia Earhart boarding a ship on a Pacific island after crash landing’ is not the aviator because it was taken at least three years after she disappeared, investigators say.

C’mon – it’s the History Channel that was pushing this. We all know how their “documentary” will really end, right?

BRINGING NEW MEANING TO OUR HEADLINE, “DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:” Manchester attacker used ‘student loans’ to buy bomb materials, cops reveal.

He said planning ahead of the attack had taken “many months”, telling media that the bomber had access to student loans and other resources to fund his travel and rent.

Mickey Kaus, call your office.

Related: ‘We have to stay outraged!’ Linda Sarsour endorses ‘jihad’ in anti-Trump tirade.

“Oh, nothing to see here. Just ‘women’s rights’ leader — and terrorist apologist — Linda Sarsour railing against the Trump administration and Muslim assimilation, complete with mentions of jihad.”

WELL, DUH: The Story Of Beer Is The Story Of America.

GEORGE WILL: What if Major Causes of Poverty Are Behavioral?

Well yes. Thomas Sowell and Theodore Dalrymple have been saying this for decades. As Sowell wrote in 2015, in a piece headlined, “The Inconvenient Truth about Ghetto Communities’ Social Breakdown,” “Such trends are not unique to blacks, nor even to the United States. The welfare state has led to remarkably similar trends among the white underclass in England over the same period. Just read [2001’s] Life at the Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician who worked in a hospital in a white slum neighborhood.”

ANDREW KLAVAN ON DOIN’ THE CNN TWO-STEP: “There is little in the news today quite as delightful as watching the mainstream media do the CNN Two-Step. The CNN Two-Step is a simple dance. Step One: Put your foot in your mouth. Step Two: Shoot yourself in the foot. The results are bloody but hilarious.”

Mosey on over all y’all* and read the whole thing.

* Note blogger’s masterful use of Official Texas Lingo.™

VIRTUE SIGNALING: Many States Praised For Defying Voter Data Request Aren’t Doing That At All.

OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD — or, question asked and answered.

Shot: “How is CNN Not Embarrassed” [by its doxxing of an anonymous GIF maker]?

—Melissa Mackenzie, the American Spectator, yesterday.

Chaser: The embarrassment emotion is surgically removed when you join the DNC-MSM: “CNN’s Chris Cillizza embarrasses self over Trump/Agata Kornhauser-Duda handshake. Is this his worst tweet yet?”

—Twitchy, today.

Heckuva week, CNN — as Jon Gabriel noted yesterday at Ricochet, “Trump Has Driven CNN Stark, Raving Mad.” And the fakery never stops at CNN:

Heh, indeed.™

Related: Fake News: Journalists Invent ‘Awkward’ Handshake Snub of Trump.

I’M SURE THERE WERE A FEW PROFESSORS WHO RETIRED EARLY RATHER THAN HAVE TO TEACH BLACK STUDENTS, TOO. BIGOTRY IS EVERYWHERE. Another Professor Leaves Over Campus Carry.

BIG DEAL, I THINK MY HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA HAD THOSE: 10,900 Year-Old Mashed Potatoes Found in Utah by Archaeologists.

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THE FRUITS OF LEFTIST INCITEMENT: Protester Arrested at Sen. Flake Office: “You know how liberals are going to solve the Republican problem? They are going to get better aim.”

Related: Condition of Rep. Steve Scalise, shot by Dem activist, worsens.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: President Trump’s Remarkable Speech.

President Trump delivered one of the most important speeches of his young presidency on Thursday. Billed as “Remarks to the people of Poland,” the address was as clear a statement we’ve heard of Trump’s nation-state populism. This philosophy, which differs in emphasis and approach from that of other post-Cold War Republican presidents, is both enduring and undefined. Reaching as far back as Andrew Jackson, and carrying through, in different ways, William Jennings Bryan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Spiro Agnew, Ronald Reagan, Ross Perot, Patrick Buchanan, James Webb, and Sarah Palin, the nation-state populist tradition has suffered from its lack of intellectuals, professors, and wordsmiths. But that is beginning to change.

The most important concept in nation-state populism is the people. These are citizens of the folk community, membership in which crosses ethnic, racial, and sectarian lines. Note, for example, Trump’s reference to the Nazis’ systematic murder of “millions of Poland’s Jewish citizens, along with countless others, during that brutal occupation.” Or as Trump put it, in a different context, in his Inaugural Address: “Whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.”

Some idiot at Vox — but I repeat myself — is calling it an alt-right speech. You want to ensure the alt-right wins? Define three-fourths of the country as alt-right.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PRIME: Amazon expands its wine lineup with three semi-exclusive bottles.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Global debt reaches US$ 217 trillion. Something that can’t go on, won’t. Debt that can’t be paid won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. Plan accordingly.

MARK PENN AND ANDREW STEIN: Back to the Center, Democrats.

In the early 1990s, the Democrats relied on identity politics, promoted equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity and looked to find a government solution for every problem. After years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening health care. Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.

But the last few years of the Obama administration and the 2016 primary season once again created a rush to the left. Identity politics, class warfare and big government all made comebacks. Candidates inspired by Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren and a host of well-funded groups have embraced sharply leftist ideas. But the results at the voting booth have been anything but positive: Democrats lost over 1,000 legislative seats across the country and control of both houses of Congress during the Obama years. And in special elections for Congress this year, they failed to take back any seats held by Republicans.

Central to the Democrats’ diminishment has been their loss of support among working-class voters, who feel abandoned by the party’s shift away from moderate positions on trade and immigration, from backing police and tough anti-crime measures, from trying to restore manufacturing jobs. They saw the party being mired too often in political correctness, transgender bathroom issues and policies offering more help to undocumented immigrants than to the heartland.

There currently doesn’t seem to be much inclination among the party faithful to move back towards the center, but a few more losses might help shake off the stupor. And if Democrats do pick back up the mantle of the DLC, that would be the final repudiation of Barack Obama’s legacy.