Kimchi Konfrontation: North Korea is once again threatening to call off planned talks after a government leader called Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” and threatened nuclear confrontation.

Choe Son Hui, a vice-minister in the North Korean Foreign Ministry, said

“Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States.”

Speaking on Fox News, Pence had compared North Korea to Libya where the leader Muammar Qaddafi was toppled and killed. “As the President made clear, this will only end like the Libya model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn’t make a deal,” Pence told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum.

When MacCallum said that some people may see that as a threat, Pence said “I think it’s more of a fact.”

Choe said, “As a person involved in the US affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice president.”

Making it Real: The families of four children and two teachers killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook School massacre in Connecticut have sued Alex Jones, the conspiracy nut of Infowars  who has claimed that the incident was a hoax.

Twenty children and six staff members were killed.

The lawsuit quotes Jones as saying on Jan. 13, 2015, “Yeah, so, Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured.” Jones is just one of a pack of people who often claim after shooting massacres that they never happened.

The plaintiffs say that Jones has caused them personal anguish and made them the target of similar nuts.

Kushy Job: After 14 months as one of the closest aides to his father-in-law, President Trump, Jared Kushner has finally been granted a full security clearance. His new status allows him to see the most secret material available to the President, although he was probably getting it anyway.

Getting full clearance would appear to indicate that Kushner is not in danger in the Russia investigation, but no one is likely to publicly declare that. His foreign business contacts at the least made him someone who would need close scrutiny.

Tweet This: President Trump’s Twitter feed is his tool to communicate directly with the public. But he doesn’t like followers who challenge and criticize him. He blocks them.

A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that the President’s Twitter feed is a public forum and blocking certain users is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald did not order Trump to unblock his critical followers. She said of the President and White House social media director Dan Scavino, “Because no government official is above the law and because all government officials are presumed to follow the law once the judiciary has said what the law is, we must assume that the president and Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional.”

She assumes a lot.

Take a Knee: The NFL owners have passed a rule that would penalize teams whose players take a knee during the National Anthem. Players who don’t want to stand for the Anthem will be allowed to stay in the locker room.

The owners didn’t consult with the players about it.

Taking a knee in protest of violence against black men, particularly by police officers, was started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kapaernick in 2016. Then presidential candidate Donald Trump painted it as disrespectful to the flag and anti-patriotic. The owners were caught between the players’ right to free speech and the bombast of Trump.

The title of The NY Times editorial about it is “The NFL kneels to Trump.”

Bad Audio: In what may be a repeat of what was experienced by US diplomats in Cuba, a State Department staff member in China is reported to have suffered a brain injury after experiencing “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure,” according to a statement.

The incident happened in the city of Guangzhou. A State Department warning to employees said, “While in China, if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present.”

The Sports Section: The Washington Capitals beat the Tampa Bay Lightning last night to enter the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1998. They play game one Monday night against the Vegas Knights, who reached the finals in their first year as a National Hockey League team.

The Obit Page: Clint Walker, the 6 foot 6 inch actor who rode tall in the saddle on the first hour-long television western “Cheyanne” has died at age 91 in Grass Valley, northern California.

In his prime, Walker had a 48-inch chest and a 32-inch waist. A lot of scenes called for him to take off his shirt.

A former merchant seaman and deputy sheriff, Walker didn’t know how to ride a horse when he was cast as a wandering loner. He was told, “You’ll either be a good rider, or a dead one.”

Walker also played a gentle giant among the convicts in the classic 1967 war picture, “The Dirty Dozen,” in which Lee Marvin leads a hopeless bunch of criminal screwups to wipe out a partying collection of Nazi officers. Walker’s character got killed.

Scratch, Sniff, Send: You have to be a certain age to remember “scratch and sniff ads” in magazines. Scratch the ad and smell the latest perfume.

The US Postal Service is reviving scratch and sniff with a series of stamps. The first 10 will feature popsicles, although the USPS won’t yet release a description of the scents. We smell a hike in the postage rate.

The Classifieds: 5/24/92