Hermit Kingdom: Following North Korea’s test of a long-range missile, the US warned yesterday that it would use “the full range of capabilities at our disposal against the growing threat.”

In an exercise of muscle, the US conducted a joint firing of ballistic missiles with South Korean forces. But North Korea said it would not back down from its development of a nuclear threat so long as it faces the “hostility” of the US.

North Korea’s latest missile test shows that the US, or at least Alaska, may already be in range. In a few years, when the North is capable of tipping that missile with a nuclear weapon, it becomes a threat to the world.

So far, no amount of economic sanctions or diplomacy have swayed North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un from his plans to become a nuclear power even though actually using a nuclear missile would be a suicide mission.

The US statement is a big threat. “Full range of capabilities” includes the use of nuclear weapons, and a potential bloodbath on the Korean peninsula.

Permawar: Still fighting fiercely, the Islamic State is shrinking rapidly.

  Iraqi troops are about 1,000 feet from the Tigris river as Islamic State forces fight a last desperate battle in the Old City sector of Mosul. With civilians trapped in the middle, ISIS is fighting to the death, often sending suicide bombers into Iraqi lines. Although Iraq’s prime minister has declared victory already, it’s not over.

In Syria, US-backed anti-government militia have breached the wall of the Old City in Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State. The US military said warplanes hit “two small portions” of the 1300-year-old wall to allow the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic forces to punch through.

Econ 101: President Trump tweeted over the weekend that the economy is doing great things under his stewardship. “Really great numbers on jobs & the economy!” He wrote. “Things are starting to kick in now, and we have just begun!”

While Trump correctly points out that the stock market is at an all-time high, that’s more a measurement of the elusive notion of economic “confidence” than it is of employment and production. “Confidence” doesn’t sell widgets; market demand does.

Neil Irwin writes for “The Upshot” in the NY Times that, if you look at the actual numbers, “The economy is plodding along at the same modest rate it has for the last eight years.”

Irwin says, “The Trump economy so far looks an awful lot like the Obama economy.” He writes, “For all of business executives’ apparent enthusiasm, the nation is adding jobs more slowly in 2017 than it did in 2016, and investment spending by businesses is growing modestly; new orders for capital goods are up only 0.7 percent so far in 2017.

Irwin says, “The postelection confidence surge was about conservatives feeling more giddy about their side winning than about the broad mass of Americans picking up on improving economic fundamentals not yet evident in the data.”

Hot Dog!: Tubesteak-eating champion Joey Chestnut, who won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Brooklyn for the tenth time yesterday, admits that he’s a little off his game.

Chestnut once ate 73-and-a-half hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Yesterday he put away only 72 hot-dogs in the 10-minute limit.

“I was sweating like a mad dog,” he told the NY Daily News. “I slowed down quite a bit. I know I can do better. Next year, if I come back, I’ll be pushing hard.”

Swamp Gas: Two years after marijuana was legalized in Washington, DC, Maia Silber observes in The Washington Post that you can smell herb all over town.

“On H Street downtown, as you wind your way between office workers rushing back from lunch.

At 10th and E streets NW, in the shadow of the FBI headquarters.

In the hallway of your apartment building. In the foyer of your gym. In Aisle 9 of the Walmart, wafting in through the beach towels.”

The Rooney Report is considering moving to Washington.

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