About That Vote

The 15-to-0 Security Council vote imposing the toughest sanctions ever on North Korea is still reverberating today. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, whom I admire, was asked this morning on Fox & Friends what turned the tide at the U.N. Security Council to get China and Russia on board.

Haley answered, "It was really me saying, 'How many more ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] tests do we need to have before we do something?"

With all due respect to Ambassador Haley, votes at the Security Council don't happen because an ambassador makes a really compelling argument. Every ambassador on the council votes as they are directed to do so by their government. The Chinese ambassador wasn't moved by Nikki Haley. He answered to his bosses in Beijing.

What turned the tide at the U.N. was the tough, behind-the-scenes diplomacy conducted by President Trump, Vice President Pence and their entire team. Ambassador Haley certainly knows this.

Yet she managed to go through an entire seven-minute interview without once mentioning the words "President Trump." Get ready for tomorrow's front page New York Times report on Ambassador Haley's 2020 campaign.

By the way, the last time there was a unanimous vote at the U.N. Security Council on something that mattered was December 23rd of last year. The Council voted 14-to-0 with one abstention (the United States) to condemn Israel and to declare that the Jewish state had no historic claim to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

What a contrast. Under Obama, the United Nations condemned Israel, a free democratic nation. Under Trump, the U.N. condemns North Korea, a brutal totalitarian regime. Now that is progress!

WWKD?

What will Kim Jong-un do next? His Stalinist regime has outmaneuvered three previous U.S. presidents, and he shows no signs of going quietly into the night.

U.S. intelligence has detected evidence that North Korea is installing cruise missiles on patrol boats -- a clear threat to the U.S. Navy.

The rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang's state-run media is even more belligerent than normal. Reacting to the new sanctions, Kim Jong-un's government warned of a "thousand-fold revenge," saying, "The unwise conduct of the U.S. will only speed up its own extinction."

Far more serious are breaking reports that North Korea "has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles."

Yesterday, the Chicago Council Global Affairs released a poll finding that Americans are increasingly concerned about North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Here are some key findings:
 

• 75% of Americans view North Korea's nuclear program as a critical threat to the U.S.
• 62% favor deploying U.S. troops to defend South Korea if it is attacked by the North.
• 76% support increasing sanctions against North Korea.
• Only 21% of the public is willing to accept an agreement that legitimizes North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

  President Trump responded this afternoon to Kim Jong-un's provocative statements, as well as today's news that North Korea now possesses the ability to arm ICBMs with nuclear warheads. The president said:

  "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement, and as I said they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power the likes of which this world has never seen before."

  Overplaying Her Hand

  The race card is overplayed in society. It is almost universally applied to conservatives in order to shut down any argument the left wants to avoid.

  Mitt Romney was accused of being a racist, even though he has a black grandchild. Jeff Sessions was called a racist even though his daughter is married to an Asian man and Sessions has four Asian grandchildren.

  Of course, Hillary Clinton famously condemned half the country as belonging to a "basket of deplorables." The first adjective she used to describe conservative voters was "racist."

  Guess who else is a racist? Liberal Harvard Law Professor and Hillary Clinton supporter Alan Dershowitz -- at least if you believe Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

  Professor Dershowitz has been critical of the never-ending Russia investigation of President Trump. Referring to the recent announcement that Special Counsel Mueller had impaneled a grand jury in Washington, D.C., Dershowitz said:

  "It gives the prosecutor a tremendous tactical advantage. . . the case now can be brought not in Northern Virginia, which is a swing area, sometimes Democrat, sometimes Republican. . . but the District of Columbia, which is always solidly Democratic and has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump Administration."

  This is the exact same point I made in our report last week. Asked to comment on MSNBC, Rep. Waters denounced Dershowitz as "absolutely racist." I guess Maxine Waters would call me a racist too.

  During a Fox News interview this weekend, Professor Dershowitz hit back, saying:

  "If I had said that race didn't matter, [Waters] would have called me a racist. She throws around the term so loosely and so inappropriately. . . Would she have called Johnnie Cochran a racist when he obviously understood that the racial composition of the jury in the O.J. Simpson case mattered a great deal? . . .

  "You know, being black doesn't give you a license to call people racist any more than being Jewish gives you license to call people anti-Semitic. . . She tossed it around and targeted me for no good reason. She ought to be ashamed of herself."

  A lot of so-called progressives should be ashamed of themselves for constantly overplaying the race card. But they aren't because they keep doing it. Sadly, they will continue doing it because they are exploiting the common decency of the vast majority of Americans and no one wants to be called a bigot.