WELL, THAT’S COMFORTING: Obama waives ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian opposition.

President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad’s regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah.

The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.” Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): “The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act.

“For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups or willfully aid or abet an individual or groups in acquiring unsafeguarded special nuclear material,” the law continues.

The law allows the president to waive those prohibitions if he “determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States.”

And so he has. Because, you know, the people we’re arming are terrorists. Great.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Just 12 percent think Obamacare will have positive impact on their families.

THE HILL: Republicans look to shake up race for Iowa Senate nomination.

REMEMBERING: Andrew Breitbart’s Sweet, Sweet Victories. If America survives Obamaism — and it will — Andrew Breitbart will be a major reason why.

WHAT IT TAKES to get the New York Times interested in voter fraud. “The truth that the MSM all too often finds it convenient to forget is that widespread voter fraud has been endemic throughout American history. It is such an obvious, cheap and effective method of gaining and holding control over lucrative government jobs that the history of much of urban america was built on great political machines for whom voter fraud was a perfectly normal and ordinary way of doing business. Yet now, even as many us municipalities are run by corrupt and incompetent one party machines, we are solemnly told that vote fraud has disappeared. Except, of course, when those loathsome white males, the dirty dogs behind everything that is wrong with America, are involved.”

AT AMAZON, back-to-school deals in Electronics.

Also, costumes, candy & decor at the Amazon Halloween Shop.

Plus, 30% off select Football Collectibles.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY: Why America Invaded Iraq.

THE INSTA-WIFE’S MEN ON STRIKE GETS A GOOD REVIEW from a college woman who obviously gets it. (Bumped).

BENGHAZI UPDATE: Sharyl Attkisson Spotlights Benghazi Inquiry; First On-Air Report in Over 4 Months.

“SENATOR FROM CANADA:” David Brooks Goes Birther Over Ted Cruz. The apparat really does hate Cruz, even — heck, forget “even,” especially — the GOP apparat.

SO WHILE PIERS MORGAN IS YAMMERING ON ABOUT BANNING “ASSAULT WEAPONS,” NBC News Is Reporting This.

The officials also said Alexis obtained the assault rifle used in the shooting from a gun safe on the naval base. There’s where he may have also obtained a handgun, according to authorities.

So if this reporting is true — and it’s early to be sure of that — the only gun Alexis actually bought was a Joe-Biden-Approved shotgun. The evil assault weapon was stolen from the military. That didn’t stop Piers, of course, but then concern for facts seldom does.

David Frum was predictably witless, too, but at least that got me a Twitchy mention.

A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR in one chart.

OBAMACARE IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE! Congress’s Exemption from Obamacare: Make Congress get insurance the same way the little people do? Hill denizens howl in fury.

REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD BE GOING AFTER STUFF LIKE THIS: Companies Use Phony Earnings to Pay Deductible Performance Bonuses to Executives.

A PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH THE INSTA-WIFE about her book, Men On Strike, and whether the culture has become increasingly hostile to men. There’s a transcript, too.

THEY TOLD ME IF I DIDN’T VOTE FOR OBAMA, FEDERAL AGENTS WOULD INVESTIGATE MY SEX LIFE. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Obamacare will question your sex life. “This is nasty business . . . . an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

(Hat tip to IowaHawk.)

NORTH AMERICAN CITIES — AMONG THE WORLD’S SAFEST: “If you really want to find murder city, you need to get out of North America. The most violent cities in the world are places that used to be small and peaceful, but have very recently become huge cities.”

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER: Five Lessons I Learned From Clarence Bass.

THE FBI IS SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT THE DECEASED NAVY YARD SHOOTER, and has included a pic that will disappoint David Sirota and Brian Ross. I do hear that many media outlets have been calling him “a Texan” without showing the photo. Narrative, you know.

SCIENCE: Nature’s Fourth-Trimester Abortions.

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Also, save 30% or more on Radar Detectors.

And, 20% off select American Standard bathroom products.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Clean Up The IRS: New revelations reveal the truth about the organization’s targeting conservative groups.

SO IF THE REPORT IN THIS PIECE ON BIOTERRORISM IS CORRECT — and it’s in Salon, so who knows? — there’s something interesting:

Just as anthrax had been supplanted by botulinum toxin in October 2001, highly classified intelligence around the time of the first anniversary of 9/11 warned the Bush inner circle of the possibility of terrorists wielding smallpox, a disease that had been eradicated in America and was therefore considered particularly virulent if clandestinely reintroduced. This was actionable intelligence of a different sort — not a connecting of the dots to target some high-level al Qaeda leader or suicidal martyr, but early warning for the executive agents and the XYZ to take action. “We were each informed individually of whether we’d be vaccinated but not told who else was on the list,” recalls Condoleezza Rice. “We were all convinced that it was al Qaeda’s second wave.” Exactly who in the administration and the federal government would be inoculated was known by the executive agents alone.

Now ordinary smallpox vaccines weren’t especially hard to come by in 2002. My secretary, who was getting her MPH and transitioning to a job with the Knox County Public Health Department, got one. (I surprised her by walking into the office, smelling the familiar baking-bread smell, and saying, “So, got your smallpox vaccination, did you?”) So I can’t imagine why smallpox inoculations in the White House would be rationed this way — unless it was a non-standard smallpox vaccine aimed at countering a non-standard variety of the smallpox virus. (Perhaps a weaponized Soviet or Iranian strain?) If that’s the case, then this would be news, and seemingly worthy of more than a single throwaway paragraph.

FREEDOM: Texas Food Deregulation Helps the Little Guy. “In recent years, Texas has improved the regulatory climate for craft beer, small home food entrepreneurs, and farmers markets in the state.”

ESCAPE READING: On the recommendation (as mentioned earlier) of several readers, I’ve been reading through Jay Allan’s Crimson Worlds novels. Set in an America that has become a corrupt state, run by an inbred political class drawn from just a few select universities and overseeing a populace of “cogs” who have no real legal protection against the state, while the civil government is sharply divided from the military, these science fiction books provide an excellent source of escapism from the unpleasant realities of today.