HILLARY PROMISES TO GO WHERE THE MONEY IS… AND KILL THAT GOLDEN GOOSE DEAD: Byron York: Clinton promises major wealth redistribution — starting with Trump.

OUR LITTLE BOYS GROW; IF WE LET THEM: Lefty Parenting Blogs Finally Discover Boys Have Feelings Too.

BEHIND THE PUTIN CURTAIN: Inside the radical ‘war camps’ where Russian fighters are born.

NEWS FROM THE CULTURAL BATTLEFRONT: Screwtape and Human Wave.

IF YOU ARE AT ALL SENSITIVE TO LANGUAGE (APPROPRIATE TO THIS SUBJECT) DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK: But this is what Nicki Kenyon thought of Madonna’s offer to… ah… reward Hilary voters. No, seriously – WHAT THE F*CK?

TAKE A DEEP BREATH, STEP OFF THAT LEDGE: Yes, America is great.

CARTHAGE… THAT DIVERSE MULTICULTURAL UTOPY? Why Carthage Failed and Rome Succeeded.

HELL, AL GORE CONCEDED AFTER THE ELECTION, AND THEN UN-CONCEDED LATER: Mickey Kaus: “Imagine asking Gore in Oct 2000 if he’d accept the result of the election. What would it mean? Rightly not enforceable.”

JOURNALISM: Reporters at Vegas Debate Caught Cheering for Hillary.

FACT-CHECK: Hillary Clinton claimed the Heller decision was about toddlers. It was actually about whether a 66-year-old police officer had the right to keep a gun at home.

Related: ‘Protect Toddlers From Guns’ — Hillary Goes On Nonsensical Gun Control Tear At Debate.

IN THIS LAST PUBLIC DEBATE DID HILLARY GIVE US HER PUBLIC POSITION OR HER PRIVATE POSITION?: It’s a reasonable question to ask. In an extremely well-paid speech Hillary delivered to the National Multi-Housing Council, she said “you need both a public and a private position.” Check it out. April 24, 2013.

LEFTIST VIOLENCE: Two Journalists Were Held Hostage by Environmental Activists Inside Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp. “The message is you can only ask softball questions. If you ask difficult questions you will be met with violence and intimidation.”

I AM OF COURSE DRUNKBLOGGING THE FINAL DEBATE over at the PJMedia home page.

AT AMAZON, savings in Herbs, Spices & Seasonings.

Plus, deals on Office Supplies.

UNTRUSTWORTHY COMPUTING: Study finds ‘lurking malice’ in cloud hosting services.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Madonna pledges oral sex for Clinton voters.

Madonna is pledging to perform oral sex on voters who cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.

The pop queen, known for her shocking antics, made the remark Tuesday while opening for comedian Amy Schumer in New York.

“If you vote for Hillary Clinton,” Madonna told the crowd at Madison Square Garden, “I will give you a blow job.”

“And I’m good,” the 58-year-old “Like a Virgin” singer, an outspoken supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, said to cheers from the audience.

I’m glad someone is standing up against Trump’s coarsening of the culture.

WILL PAULA JONES, KATHLEEN WILLEY, AND JUANITA BROADDRICK BE THERE THIS TIME? Ex-reporter who accused Bill Clinton of groping will attend debate.

IF IT WEREN’T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: When Democrats say the ‘system is rigged’ the media doesn’t seem to mind.

HMM: Long-forgotten research suggests a secondary bacterium behind Lyme disease.

JAMES COMEY COULD NOT BE REACHED TO IGNORE THIS ACCUSATION. Newt Gingrich on Veritas Videos: ‘Where’s the FBI?’

HE PLAYS IT VERY WELL, BUT PUTIN FUNDAMENTALLY HOLDS A WEAK HAND: Putin’s Boasting Hides His Fear of Sanctions:

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Goa, India this weekend at the annual BRICS summit, where the big announcement was that Igor Sechin’s Rosneft had bought a controlling stake (49 percent) in the Indian Essar Oil company. At a press conference for the announcement yesterday, Putin was asked if Russia would consider softening its counter-sanctions against the United States and the European Union. “Screw them,” he said. . . .

The bravado was surely music to the ears of his Russian audience. But Putin was sounding a distinctly different note two weeks ago, when he submitted a law to the Russian Duma withdrawing Russia from a long-standing plutonium disposal agreement with the United States. Among the preconditions for the resumption of the treaty named in the document one in particular stands out: “The United States must pay for the damages incurred by the Russian Federation as a result of the aforementioned sanctions, including any costs born from counter-sanctions the Russian Federation was forced to undertake.” (This language was of course not mentioned in Russian coverage of Putin’s bill. What the Russian people instead heard on TV was that Putin Almighty was sticking it to the United States.)

The economic reality is harsher. The Russian Government, looking ahead to a future where oil prices stay at around $40/barrel, recently announced that it will slash its budgets for next year, including a cutting its health care budget by one third, down to $6 billion for 126 million people, which includes spending on research. And yet all these budget cuts still have the Russian Government running a deficit well into the future. Russia’s reserve fund is expected to drop to $15 billion by the end of the year by some analysts, and could run out as early as mid-next year. Though the IMF is predicting that the Russian economy will return to growth next year, it maintains a gloomy outlook for the next few years out, arguing that growth “remains subdued given long-standing structural bottlenecks and the impact of sanctions on productivity and investment.”

EU Foreign Ministers are meeting this week, and Russia is on the agenda. New European sanctions seem unlikely—Austria today joined Hungary, Cyprus, and Greece in signaling opposition—but recent developments in Syria appear to have forestalled any talk of easing the sanctions currently in place. For his part, Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday announced that the United States was mulling imposing additional sanctions on Russia in connection with Syria. We will see if anything comes of it.

President Putin is indeed screwing someone over, but it’s not the West; he is screwing over his own people, over and over again, millions of whom are paying the price for their leader’s personal ambitions and interests. Critically, however, Putin’s decisions are also hurting those in his inner circle, and his regime is suffering and weakening.

We, on the other hand, hold a strong hand and are playing it badly. That’s called “smart diplomacy.”

JIM TREACHER: If You Think YOU Hate Hillary Clinton, Try Working For Her.

TUBERCULOSIS: True Scale’ of India’s Tuberculosis Problem: 2.8 Million New Cases.

OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES: Journalist emails Jennifer Palmieri to give her a “heads up” on coming sex scandal story. “I need to give you a heads up on something Menendez-related that will affect your new boss so you have time to put together a plan for it. . . . Won’t be breaking news until next week, but likely to be big enough that you’ll want to plan for it in advance. And good luck with today.”

UPDATE: From the comments:

So far, the biggest thing I’ve learned from these Wikileaks documents is that big-shot journalists in New York and D.C. regularly take a big, steaming dump all over the standards and ethics that were drilled into my head back in journalism school like they were the Ten Commandments. Seriously, a lot of this stuff would get your ass fired in a heartbeat if you were a regular reporter at a TV station or newspaper out in flyover country.

So: One set of rules for them. Another set of rules for everybody else.

Noted.

Or as they say, “It doesn’t matter what the legal and ethics people say, we need to win this mother***er.”

UPDATE: Oops, actually I think I have the wrong Matthew Miller. I thought it was this guy, but it’s this guy. He publishes in high-level places sometimes, but he’s a PR guy, really, not a journalist, though the difference grows ever more elusive.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME… Hot dogs ‘must be renamed’ in Malaysia, says religious government body.