BREXIT: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Shot: “Outside the EU, Britain can fly to new heights as a global trading power,” the London Telegraph predicts.

Chaser: “Defiant Obama tells Britain it WILL be at the back of the queue for a US trade deal after Brexit as world leaders gather at G20,” the London Daily Mail reports.

To be fair, the punitive lame duck president is always looking for new wreckers and hoarders to throw into the back of the bus — or under it.

WELL, GOOD: Turkey Ejects Islamic State Forces From Segment of Syrian Border.

The breakthrough victory deprives Islamic State of direct access to the areas that had been vital to its ability to resupply itself with foreign fighters and bomb-making materials. Losing access to that stretch of the border will likely make it harder for the group to preserve its self-declared caliphate and export terrorism around the world.

But:

Turkey and the U.S. have accused Syrian Kurdish fighters of breaking promises not to seize more land along the border area. Turkey views those Kurdish militias as an offshoot of its own Kurdish insurgent group—the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK—and fears the Syrian Kurds want to create an autonomous Kurdish state in the border region.

Syria remains a multinational powderkeg.

THANKS, FRACKERS! Labor Day Gas Prices Hit 12-Year Low.

The last time gas prices leading up to the Labor Day weekend were this cheap, the world was just moving on from the Olympics in Athens, Greece. Thanks to abundant shale’s depressive effect on global oil prices, gas prices this holiday weekend are hitting a twelve year low. . . .

A global glut precipitated the precipitous collapse in crude prices over the past 26 months, and the bulk of that oversupply has come as a result of resurgent American production, courtesy of fracking. With oil trading today around $45 per barrel—a far cry from those heady $100+ days two summers back—it’s not a stretch to say we’re in a buyer’s market. That’s especially helpful for drivers, one of the biggest consumers of (refined) oil, and it’s being reflected in significant savings at the pump.

For producers, it’s an entirely different story. America’s oil production has flagged over the past year as shale companies have struggled to adjust to shrinking profit margins, though the industry continues to surprise observers with its ability to innovate ways to stay in the black—and keep producing the black gold. The world’s petrostates, however, have had a harder time adjusting, which is why we’re seeing so much talk about a potential deal for a group of these countries to agree to freeze their output at a meeting in Algeria later this month.

Fracking empowers ordinary Americans and weakens American enemies. Naturally, all right-thinking people are against it.

WHY RACE RELATIONS GOT WORSE, as explored by J. D. Vance, the author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

Well for one reason, because it helps the left every other November, which is why…

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: America Is No Longer Exceptional, Richard Fernandez writes.

Read the whole thing.

SHOT:

CHASER: “Who Is He To Confront Me?” – Philippines President Unloads On “Son Of A Bitch” Barack Obama.

HANGOVER: Xi Jinping outplays US as Barack Obama makes last official tour of Asia.

But the G20 meeting in Hangzhou also demonstrates how much the balance of power has turned in China’s direction during the nearly eight years of an Obama presidency. The supposed US “pivot” to Asia has not altered that national momentum. Nor will the lengthy communiqués that came out of this meeting.

For all his talk of peace, President Xi Jinping shows no signs of stepping back in any way from his determination to take aggressive action to expand China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The US under Obama shows no sign of being able to restrain that no matter how many freedom-of-navigation exercises it carries out or stern statements it issues.

Instead China’s militarisation of the various atolls and rocks and islands will inevitably continue, as will its push to extend its influence via investment and trade initiatives like “One Belt, One Road” and the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank.

Obama’s successor is going to inherit quite a mess.

THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIALIZES: Time to take the car keys away from Granny Clinton. “It’s pertinent to ask whether Clinton was just playing dumb during her FBI interview, given that she was potentially facing criminal charges. But maybe she really was that badly out of her league in the job to which President Obama appointed her. And now she is asking voters for promotion even higher?”

Well, to be fair, she’s had a head injury.

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INDIA AND VIETNAM EXPAND MILITARY TIES: Bad behavior in Beijing has consequences. (If you hit a pay wall try this.)

Excerpt:

The alliance between India and Vietnam is set to develop further in the wake of Mr. Modi’s visit. India is negotiating to sell supersonic Brahmos cruise missiles to Vietnam, a deal that might also include the stationing of Indian technicians there to maintain the hardware. Defense analysts say the weapons are ideally suited to taking out naval targets.

…ideally suited to taking out naval targets in the South China Sea.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS, or nobody covers all the angles like the Politico:

Shot: Clinton’s advisers tell her to prep for a landslide.

—The Politico, Friday.

Chaser: Trump cuts into Clinton’s lead as crucial stretch begins: Both teams prepare for the biggest moment of 2016 – the Sept. 26 debate.

—The Politico, yesterday.

How can the first debate between Trump and Hillary be “the biggest moment of 2016,” when on Friday, you told us that Hillary could start measuring the drapes?

(Via John Podhoretz.)

ANN ALTHOUSE: “ABC’s Nightline goes after Milo Yiannopoulos and I’ve never bothered with this guy one way or the other… but this ham-handed effort to cut him down made me side with him. Why is the ABC reporter sneering and yelling at the person he’s interviewing?” Because he feels threatened.

Here’s the video:

HILLARY CLINTON’S TERRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD WEEK: More evidence emerges, proving Clinton is incompetent, Ashe Schow writes.

Huh, you spelled corrupt wrong.

BOSTON’S LABOR DAY: Investigators probe how far Mayor Marty Walsh’s administration may have gone in forcing private firms to use union shops.

Boston’s last Republican mayor left office at the start of 1930.

JAMES TARANTO: Trump Goes To Mexico: Sometimes his foes make it easy for him.

In reality, Trump was completely in control. Peña did not insult or bait him, but what if he had? As long as Trump maintained the air of reasonable statesman, he would have benefited from the contrast.

The assumption underlying Marshall’s analysis is that Trump lacks the ability to maintain such an air—or, to put it another way, that the media/Democratic stereotype of Trump as an unstable crackpot not only has some basis in truth but is the whole truth. Marshall calls his heuristic “Trump’s razor”: the assumption of “the stupidest scenario possible that can be reconciled with the available facts.”

Marshall’s view found support across the putative aisle. “There are so many ways this can go wrong that it boggles the mind,” asserted Daniel Drezner in a Wednesday morning Washington Post blog post that favorably cited “Trump’s razor” twice. Back in March Drezner, who teaches international law at Tufts University, was among the signatories on a denunciative “Open Letter on Donald Trump From GOP National Security Leaders.”

Trump has, to be sure, done much to encourage the stereotype that underlay these faulty analyses, and it is a challenge he has to overcome lest Mrs. Clinton win by default. But that’s precisely what made Peña’s invitation so advantageous to him: It gave him an easy opportunity to counter it. . . .

The strangest comment from Team Clinton, though, came from Lanny Davis on CNN: “What you didn’t hear [Trump] do in Mexico in mutual respect is to apologize for challenging a federal judge, born in Indiana, that he can’t be objective because of his Mexican heritage.”

That was a reference to Gonzalo Curiel, the federal trial judge presiding over a civil case against Trump University. This column criticized Trump’s comments at the time, and we wouldn’t disagree that an apology is in order. (Don’t worry, we’re not holding our breath.)

But why in the world would anyone expect Trump to apologize to the Mexican president for insulting an American judge?

I guess Lanny thinks that Americans of Mexican descent are really Mexicans.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: “‘We want to have a [safe space] for people who feel marginalized and face constant attention for characteristics that are immutable—like their skin color or their religion, their immigration status or whether they’re from another country—to be able to heal,’ [Duke public policy school’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion co-chair Kathryn Whetten] told The [Duke] Chronicle. A note of mild criticism: some of the characteristics she describes are not immutable. Skin color is immutable—you can’t change that—but religion isn’t. People change their religious beliefs all the time. In fact, a lot of young people change their religious and political beliefs after they come to college and are exposed to different ways of thinking. One could even argue that many students ought to change their fundamental beliefs once they are exposed to better information—that this is the entire point of college.”

But not from the point of view of its massively growing bureaucracy. For both them, and what Iowahawk accurately calls the screaming campus garbage baby, the Will to Power derives from victimhood, forming a symbiotic relationship that in many cases is deeply destructive to the student.

ASIA PIVOT: North Korea fires three ballistic missiles; China opposes THAAD.

The missiles were fired from areas around Hwangju county, in North Hwanghae province, towards the Sea of Japan, South Korea’s military said in a statement.

Officials said the launch was believed to be of mid-range Rodong missiles, and flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) “without giving any prior navigational warning.”

It comes just under two weeks after Pyongyang test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

That missile entered Japan’s air defense identification zone, the first time that has happened. Monday’s launch also fired missiles into the Japanese defense zone, again without warning.

THAAD is the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile missile, designed to shoot down missiles like North Korea’s, and which Japan and South Korea have expressed interest in hosting on their territories. Beijing says THAAD deployment would harm “China’s legitimate national security interests,” even though it is a strictly defensive system.

WHILE OTHERS IN HIS ADMINISTRATION PLAY THE DILETTANTE, PRESIDENT ASH CARTER STAYS RESOLUTE.

Shot: Ash Carter Calls on Turkey to ‘Stay Focused’ on Islamic State.

—Voice of America, August 29th.

Chaser: Obama To Host White House Festival Called ‘South by South Lawn.’

—The Wrap, September 3rd.

(Classical reference in headline.)

OUT ON A LIMB: Roll Call: Rubio’s Career Depends on Winning Re-Election to Senate.

IF SHE’D USED THE N-WORD SHE’D BE UNEMPLOYABLE EVERYWHERE: Gonzaga hires Melissa Click, Missouri professor fired after calling for ‘some muscle’ to remove student journalist at protest.

EUGENICS: THE SKELETON THAT RATTLES LOUDEST IN THE LEFT’S CLOSET.

Far too literally so, considering its body count. But to be fair, there’s lots of skeletons to be found in that closet, for those who bother to look.

ANNALS OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama plays down China airport row.

Related: US spy agency tweets China ‘classy as always,’ apologizes.

For an administration whose foreign policy motto was supposed to be “don’t do stupid shit,” they sure seem to do a lot of stupid shit.

UNEXPECTEDLY:  “‘CNN is so supportive of Clinton, network honchos acted like the Mafia when confronting [Dr. Drew Pinsky]’ a source told me. ‘First, they demanded he retract his comments, but he wouldn’t.’ What followed was a series of nasty phone calls and e-mails. ‘It was downright scary and creepy,’ a source close to Pinsky said.” Which is why “Dr. Drew loses show after discussing Hillary’s health,” the New York Post reports*.

Flashback: David Shuster suspended at MSNBC in early 2008 — a channel that was then at the height of its raucous Keith Olbermann slurring Bush nightly phase — for uttering the innocuous phrase, “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” by the Clinton foundation. Chelsea was then 27 years old, and on her way to be being paid $600,000 by MSNBC’s parent network for filing less than two dozen stories, one of which was a hard-hitting take no prisoners interview with…the Geiko gecko.

Just think of the network executives as Democrat operatives with bylines – and in both cases, financial contributors to the Clintons’ slush fund – and it all makes sense.

MARK STEYN ON LABOR DAY: “Even today, when your average union leader issues his annual Labour Day address, you can tell at heart he still thinks it’s 1926 and Metropolis is just around the corner.”

JOURNALISM:

Anyway, the political use of the old Ginger Rogers line goes back to at least 1988, when the future governor of Texas, Ann Richards, gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention: “[I]f you give [women] a chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” (The pre-political use came not from Ginger Rogers herself, but from Frank and Ernest.)

But, I’m sorry, I sure don’t see Hillary getting judged by a tougher standard than Donald Trump. It’s the other way around. It’s quite obvious. So it’s a cliché, which is another reason not to say it. But it doesn’t even serve your purpose, Matthew Dowd, because it’s patently inapt and only draws attention to the fact that the backwards here is the bending over that the media have been doing for Hillary.

Indeed.

NEWS FROM THE CULTURE WARS, WHEN THE WAR IS ON THE STREETS: SJWs, Lyft Drivers and the heartbreak of the continent of Hawaii.  (I hope you know I resisted introducing this with “incontinently defending Hawaii.”  I want a medal, yes.)