WASHINGTON POST: Poll: Public supports strikes in Iraq, Syria; Obama’s ratings hover near his all-time lows.

UPDATE: Jonathan Karl: Obama’s ISIS Speech Tomorrow To Be About Defending Obama.

REDDIT IS A KIND OF GOVERNMENT: It’s just a lousy, un-transparent, full-of-itself government. Reddit was doing a lot of censorship over the whole GamerGate thing, too.

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AMERICA’S NEW CLASS SYSTEM: My USA Today column this week is about Joel Kotkin’s important new book, The New Class Conflict.

THE NYT CATCHES ON TO WHAT INSTAPUNDIT READERS HAVE KNOWN FOR HALF A DECADE: A President Whose Assurances Have Come Back to Haunt Him. “Time and again, he has expressed assessments of the world that in the harsh glare of hindsight look out of kilter with the changed reality he now confronts.” But notice that the White House is still trying to blame Bush for everything.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT: Stimulus bill enabled billions in waste, exploitation of employees. “An in-depth report from McClatchy and ProPublica shows that the ARRA lost billions of dollars to employment fraud, and that government agencies collaborated in the effort rather than crack down on it.”

The fraud was the point.

Plus: “Kudos to McClatchy and ProPublica for this expose’ now, but … where was the media two years ago when voters could have used this information?” Yeah, how about that?

REMEMBER WHEN ONE OF OBAMA’S SELLING POINTS WAS THAT HE’D GET ALONG BETTER WITH THE EUROPEANS THAN THAT DUMB COWBOY BUSH? US efforts to track Islamic extremists reportedly hampered by disputes with Europe.

NEW YORK OBSERVER: Will Orange Be the New Black for IRS Chief Lois Lerner? With five more Computer Crashes, a “pattern of racketeering activity” may be emerging. I very much doubt that she’s the racketeer-in-chief here.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: IG let Veterans Affairs officials alter report to absolve agency in Phoenix deaths.

Crucial language that the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general could not “conclusively” prove that delays in care caused patient deaths at a Phoenix hospital was added to its final report after a draft version was sent to agency administrators for comment, the Washington Examiner has learned.

The single most compelling sentence in the inspector general’s 143-page final report on fraudulent scheduling practices at the Phoenix veterans’ hospital did not appear in the draft version, according to a staff analysis by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

It was inserted into the final version, the only one that was released to the public, after agency officials had a chance to comment and recommend revisions.

Even before the IG’s report on its Phoenix investigation was released Aug. 26, the agency issued a press release touting the bottom-line finding.

It was all about the press release.

ON THE ONE HAND, THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FOR FREE SPEECH. ON THE OTHER, THEY’RE PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY APPARAT. Constitutional Amendment Debate Roils ACLU.

ASHE SCHOW: Ray Rice video shows what Debbie Wasserman Schultz was trivializing.

Last Wednesday, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., accused Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker of giving women “the back of his hand,” which critics claimed trivialized domestic abuse victims.

Wasserman Schultz was, of course, using the strong language to criticize Walker’s policies, but the release Monday of new footage (warning: graphic content) that purports to show Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée in the face is a reminder of why her comments were so offensive.

After the comment about Walker, Wasserman Schultz said that “Republican Tea Party extremists” are “grabbing [women] by the hair and pulling us back.”

The footage of the Rice incident purports to show the NFL star punch his wife in the face, drag her out of the elevator and drop her on the floor of the hallway outside.

That is what attacking a woman looks like, not policies Wasserman Schultz disagrees with.

Yep. Though to be fair, if you look at the video, she strikes him once before they get on the elevator, and then appears to be swinging at him when he hits her on the elevator. I’m surprised no one’s mentioning that.

WHY DO YOU THINK THE POLITICAL CLASS WANTS US ALL TALKING ABOUT RACE? Joel Kotkin: Class Issues, Not Race, Will Likely Seal the Next Election.

JOHNNY ONE-NOTE: In first speech back, Reid blasts Koch brothers.

WELL, THAT’S COMFORTING: Despite Massive Funding: DHS not prepared to handle killer pandemic, IG says.

As specific illustrations of how woefully unprepared DHS is, the IG noted these specific problems:

• DHS has a reported inventory of approximately 16 million surgical masks without demonstrating a need for that quantity.

• Personal protective equipment stockpiles include expired hand sanitizer. Out of 4,982 bottles examined, 4,184, or 84 percent, were expired, some by up to 4 years.

• 81 percent of antiviral drugs acquired by the DHS Office of Health Affairs component will expire by the end of 2015.

• DHS and its components do not know where its personal protective equipment is located, how much it has and the usability of the stockpiles that exist.

Pandemics are relatively rare in the U.S., but the country has experienced some devastating examples, including the flu outbreak in 1918 that killed 20 million Americans before it was contained.

Have you noticed that the more pointless crap the government tries to do, the worse it is at the stuff it’s actually supposed to be able to do?

ZING: Zephyr Teachout: My qualifications? I’m not under federal investigation.

Cuomo and his surrogates have attacked Teachout, a Fordham law school professor, and her runningmate, Columbia law school professor Tim Wu, for lacking the necessary qualifications to run the state. Cuomo on Sunday took direct aim at Wu by saying that experience matters for lieutenant governors.

“You need to know what you’re talking about to do the job, and experience matters,” Cuomo said. “People say, ‘I don’t have any experience but I could be lieutenant governor.’ I don’t have any experience but I think I could be a heart surgeon. Anyone here want to be my first patient?” I don’t want anyone experimenting with the lieutenant governorship of the State of New York.”

But Teachout, appearing on Albany radio Monday morning, said ethics also county.

“When people ask me why vote for you, what are your qualifications? One of them is that I’m not under federal investigation,” she said.

US Attorney Preet Bharara is probing whether Cuomo and his top aides improperly interfered with the governor’s anti-corruption commission and the details of its abrubt disbandment.

Ouch.

I said early on that a poor showing against Teachout would hurt Cuomo’s viability as a national candidate, and regardless of how Tuesday’s primary goes, I think he’s already made a poor showing as a campaigner. He’s looked thuggish but inept, and that’s got to hurt people’s assessment of his chances of future national office. And, of course, if he loses — or even if he wins in anything less than a blowout — that’s going to hurt, too.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Filmmaker dresses as ‘Ebola-infected ISIS terrorist’ to sneak across Lake Erie from Canada to Cleveland and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without being challenged once.

DOUBLE STANDARDS: If She Hit Him, He Probably Deserved It. “Mitchell points out Skoien’s small size – ‘5 feet 4 inches and 110 pounds’ – but as we know, if it were a diminutive man doing the beating, it wouldn’t lessen the crime, just make the bullying somehow more psychologically charged. Should her husband have called the cops on her?”

WHY IS IT WORSE THAN VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN? Obama spokesman: Violence against women ‘cannot be tolerated.’

Plus, from Jezebel, thoughts on beating up your boyfriend. “According to a study of relationships that engage in nonreciprocal violence, a whopping 70% are perpetrated by women. So basically that means that girls are beating up their BFs and husbands and the dudes aren’t fighting back. With Amy Winehouse busting open a can of whupass on her husband last week, we decided to conduct an informal survey of the Jezebels to see who’s gotten violent with their men. After reviewing the answers, let’s just say that it’d be wise to never ever fuck with us.”

CAN WE HAVE HER BACK AS SECRETARY OF STATE INSTEAD? Condi Rice: The one person who could save the NFL.

WITH THE RAY RICE STORY BACK, A REMINDER: The New Jersey Judge and DA who let him go want to put single mom Shaneen Allen in jail for 3+ years for a nonviolent regulatory offense.

STEVE CROWDER: “Louder With Crowder” Returns.

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER GODDAMN THING ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT: Nike Helps Design a Swank Jet for Traveling Sports Teams.

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ANOTHER NARRATIVE FAILS: Raining On Your Parade About Those Women Viking Warriors. “There’s all kinds of other research that really is about gender in Norse society and about women fighters in armies. And there is plenty of evidence that, yes, there were female Norse warriors (and neither I nor the source am saying there were not). But, this paper essentially uses the presence of six female migrants and seven male as evidence that women and children most likely accompanied the Norse armies with the intent of settling the land once it was conquered, rather than migrating in a second wave once the fighting was over. It is, sadly, not at all about female Viking warriors, and not some Earth-shattering evidence that Norse armies were evenly split among women and men. I’m as disappointed as you are.”

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR MARK UDALL (D-CO): Beheaded journalists would have agreed with me.