WHAT JOB PAYS THE MOST FOR DOING THE LEAST WORK? Try running a local public housing authority in a small town like Linden, New Jersey, Clayton, Oklahoma or Mabank, Texas. Your paycheck is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and odds are you’ll only have a handful of housing units to oversee.

“The executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Linden, New Jersey, for example, drew $295,000 a year for overseeing 200 government-owned housing project apartments and 350 Section 8 vouchers redeemed with private landlords,” reports Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

“That’s more than the same position makes in poverty-plagued Newark with 25 times as many residents, and more than the position in major cities like Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, according to HUD’s Public Housing Authority Executive Compensation database covering 2014, the most recent available year.”

The Mabank ED’s salary is only $47,005, but then overseeing a mere 16 public housing units means the job pays nearly $3,000 per unit managed. It’s not a time-consuming job, why not have a second job? Down in Marietta, GA., the ED got $242,000 in salary, plus a $50,000 bonus!

Rosiak’s story is only the latest in a long line of exposes of waste, fraud, venality and outrages at HUD that puts it in the same infamous league of Big Government incompetence as the Department of Veterans Affairs.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Poop Pill’s Surprise Failure Shows That the Microbiome Is Still a Mystery.

SER-109’s surprising flop is a humbling reminder of the microbiome’s complexity. But even if the treatment had been successful, its creators would’ve been hard-pressed to present a concrete reason why. Many microbiologists have called for a healthy dose of skepticism in microbiome studies. Its potential may be great, but for now it looks like the good old-fashioned fecal transplants still have the drugs beat out.

I’m so old, I can remember when fecal transplants were new and innovative, not good and old-fashioned.

OUT ON A LEDGE: I’m Taking a Stand for Cargo Shorts and Their Big, Gaping Man Pockets. Pockets Filled With Stuff. Like Freedom.

Nobody tell Ann Althouse!

AT AMAZON, soak up savings at the Summer Sales Event.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Delphi to Test Self-Driving Taxi Service In Singapore. But where will Tom Friedman get his stories?

OH, THAT LIBERAL MEDIA: Khizr Khan Receives 50x More Coverage Than Pat Smith on ABC, CBS, NBC.

UPDATE: Khan-flict: Freedom Fighter Son, Sharia Supremacist Father.

A NOTE TO NANCY PELOSI FROM A ‘NON-COLLEGE-EDUCATED’ WHITE MALE.

Nancy will sadly never see it, but you should read the whole thing.

Earlier: J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy writes, “As a Teen Cashier Seeing Food Stamp Use, I Changed My Mind About the Democrat Party.”

Vance’s writing tracks exactly with what I observed working as a cashier in the late 1970s, an experience that went a long way towards my drift from being a skull full of mush teenage lefty who didn’t care much about politics, to becoming a small government conservative-libertarian VRWC type by the end of the following decade.

GOOD: With Room Service and More, Hospitals Borrow From Hotels. Increased amenities aren’t just good for patients, they’re a godsend for family members who have to spend extended periods of time there, something that I, sadly, have all too much experience with.

UNSKEW! Trump: There’s something ‘phony’ about these polls.

“I see some great polls — I see one from the Los Angeles Times, just came out, where were ahead by 4 or 5 points. I see one from CNN where we are down,” the Republican presidential nominee told the crowd at a rally in Ashburn, Va., on Tuesday.

“I think these polls, I don’t know, there’s something about these polls, there’s something phony.”

Just last week it was Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook making the same complaint.

THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORMHOLE: Life On Earth May Have Been ‘Premature’ In The Cosmic Scale, Researchers Say.

DOUBLE-PLUS UNGOOD CRIME THINK! DOUBLE-PLUS UNGOOD CRIME THINK! REPENT! REPENT! MSNBC Host Shouts Down Guest for Saying that 33,000 of Hillary’s E-Mails Are Missing.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Obama approves 30-day airstrike mission against ISIS in Libya.

I’m old enough to remember when it was Congress that authorized the use of force.

REPUBLICANS BUY MOVIE TICKETS TOO, LADY GHOSTBUSTERS DIRECTOR PAUL FEIG: “In these increasingly polarized times, it is undoubtedly tempting for entertainers to pick a side and try to rally their base in order to turn a profit. But it’s still unwise. People on the other side of the political aisle buy stuff too, you know.”

And elephants have very long memories.

PUTTING THE DISS IN DYSFUNCTIONAL POLITICS: My USA TODAY column: Who’s to blame for Hillary and Donald?

NO ONE’S JOB IS SAFE IN ERDOGAN’S POST-KEMALIST TURKEY:

#BREAKING Turkey fires 94 football referees, other officials after coup – federation

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 2, 2016

It wasn’t a failed coup; it’s a successful purge.

THE GHOST OF NEWTON MINOW SMILES: The Seven Most Overrated TV Shows of the Last 20 Years.

Not sure I agree at all that number two should be on the list, despite a weak few seasons in later years.

WIPED? LIKE WITH A CLOTH? EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Completed No Security Briefings Or Courses At State Dept.

AFTER ALL, IT WAS YOU AND ME: My USA TODAY column: Who’s to blame for Hillary and Donald?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1181.

OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ObamaCare’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week.

And it’s only Tuesday.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Japan Cabinet Approves $274 Billion Stimulus Package.

This time it will work.

DEMOCRATS TO FLORIDA: DROP DEAD. As Zika Spreads in US, Obama Holds Back on Available Funding.

As mosquitoes seem to be spreading Zika inside the United States, the Obama administration has been sitting on some of the resources intended to fight the virus.

The administration has spent or obligated less than half of the $589 million that it has available, Congressional Quarterly reported, citing numbers from the Office of Management and Budget. In April, the administration reallocated money originally designated to fight Ebola.

Despite its failure to spend the money it has available, the White House continues to demand Congress approve $1.9 billion to fight Zika. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are filibustering a bill that would provide $1.1 billion in funding.

Shameful.

QUESTION ASKED: Why Did Russia Send ‘The Terminator’ on a Humanitarian Mission in Syria?

The Mil Mi8-AMTSh, nicknamed “the Terminator,” is an assault variant of the veteran transport helicopter, equipped with multiple hard points for carrying missiles and unguided rockets. In several videos of the wreckage we can see a B-8V20A rocket pod.

Nic Jenzen-Jones of Armament Research Services (ARES), an Australia-based weapons monitoring group, told The Daily Beast:

“In this case, the Mi-8 AMTSh appears to have been fitted with two B-8V20A rocket pods, each capable of carrying 20 80 mm S-8 rockets. From the images available so far, it is not clear whether the rocket pods were loaded. The helicopter in question was also equipped with the Prezident-S electronic countermeasures suite, designed to warn and protect the aircraft against anti-aircraft threats emanating from the ground, as well as naval and aerial platforms.”

If the rocket pods were empty, then the helicopter either took off unarmed—rather inadvisable in a war zone—or had fired all of its munitions before crash-landing.

Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not, but the Mi-8 in question was shot down over the same rebel-held Syrian town which may have been subjected to a helicopter-delivered chemical attack last night.

WELL, THAT’S ONE WAY TO BEGIN AUGUST: Trump in Columbus: Afraid Election Will Be ‘Rigged.’