Story from the New York Times. (H/T Stop the ACLU)

Excerpt:

North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and drastically raising the stakes in a global effort to get the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Word of the test sent a shudder through Asian financial markets and clearly caught South Korea and the United States off guard. The news hit just as South Korea’s government and people were mourning the suicide of former President Roh Moo-hyun. And hours after the test was reported, South Korean state media reported that the North had fired a short-range missile.

Stop the ACLU has reactions from around the blogosphere.

• Michelle Malkin: Emergency wrist-slap to follow.
• Ameripundit: Clearly this situation calls for additional appeasement. Oh, and a speech on how the United States should eliminate its nuclear weapons stockpile.
• Ace of Spades: This failure of diplomacy clearly shows the need for more diplomacy…. missile defense remains unproven.

Obama who recently cut missile defense funding, and defunded our nuclear weapons program, has issued this sternly-worded statement of appeasement to the communist dictator. Democrats, what did you expect? Did you even try to assess his voting record and qualifications during the election? This was all as plain as day to anyone who could be bothered to read about Obama before his election.

What about Hugo Chavez?

The Washington Post also reports on Obama’s very good communist friend Hugo Chavez. (H/T Stop the ACLU, Nice Deb)

Excerpt:

WHILE THE United States and Venezuela’s neighbors silently stand by, Hugo Chávez’s campaign to destroy his remaining domestic opposition continues. On Thursday night state intelligence police raided the Caracas offices of Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of the country’s last independent broadcast network, Globovision. They claimed to be looking for evidence of irregularities in the car dealership that Mr. Zuloaga also runs. In fact this was a thinly disguised escalation of an attack that Mr. Chávez launched this month against Globovision.

In February Mr. Chávez eliminated the limit on his tenure as president after a one-sided referendum campaign that included ugly attacks on Venezuela’s Jewish community. Since then he has imprisoned or orchestrated investigations against most of the country’s leading opposition figures, including three of the five opposition governors elected last year. The elected mayor of Maracaibo, who was the leading opposition candidate when Mr. Chávez last ran for president, was granted asylum in Peru last month after authorities sought his arrest on dubious tax charges. The National Assembly, controlled by Mr. Chávez, is considering legislation that would eliminate collective bargaining and replace independent trade unions with “worker’s councils” controlled by the ruling party. Another new law would eliminate foreign financing for independent non-government groups.

Obama can’t object, because that’s what his Democrat constituents approve of doing with the right in this country.

What about Ahmadinejad?

If you can’t remember his name, think of “I’m mad in a Jihad”. Remember, Iran recently tested medium range missiles capable of hitting Israel.