ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How much mint should be in a Pimm’s Cup?

I love Pimm’s (yes, it’s readily accessible here in Texas), but I do vividly remember being served a Pimm’s that was much more of a liquid salad than cocktail by a London steakhouse. Hopefully this video (perhaps along with this recipe) will reduce the odds of such deplorable decoction disasters occurring in the future.

CHANGE: F.D.A. Bans Sale of Many Antibacterial Soaps, Saying Risks Outweigh Benefits.

LARRY KUDLOW: TRUMP AIMS TO REPATRIATE TRILLIONS IN OVERSEAS CASH AS CLINTON EYES TAX HIKES. “For the life of me I cannot understand Secretary Clinton and her across-the-board tax hikes on individuals, businesses, and investors. I cannot fathom her plans for increased regulatory burdens, which include more government-run healthcare and a halt to the fossil-fuel energy boom. I don’t want to be partisan here. But please tell me how you get out of a business recession by raising taxes and regulations on business?”

As long as George Soros and Goldman Sachs short the right stocks, what difference at this point, does it really make?

WHILE HILLARY SHREDS FILES: Trump claims ‘Party of Lincoln’ mantle in speech at black church. “I’m here today to learn so that we can together remedy injustice in any form, and so we can also remedy economics so African-American communities can benefit economically through jobs and income.”

NOTHING SAYS ROMANCE LIKE THIS: Mating Season For Tarantulas Commences At Joshua Tree National Park.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Or, worse than jilted, ignored.

Related:

Poor Lena. I think she hoped that, like a guy, she could parlay fame into sexual attractiveness. But that doesn’t work nearly as well for women, because men aren’t attracted to status to the degree that women are.

RADIO HOST MARK KAYE SHREDS GARRISON KEILLOR’S HATEFUL TRUMP RANT:

Dear Mr. Keillor,

The hate does not look good on you. It’s a curmudgeon’s hate, with the loud, yet cowardly tone of a demented old Star Trek fan who wandered away from the Senior Center, found hours later by the police wandering around a parking lot and arguing with someone who isn’t there.

What a long strange trip it’s been for you. When you pulled out of the station in rural Minnesota and headed toward the bright lights of “Beloved Author and Storyteller-opolis,” did you ever think you would end up living on the mean streets of “Haters-ville?” Neither did we.

And such an unnecessary departure for you.

No it’s not — Keillor has been a hateful curmudgeon for quite some time, alas.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS AFTER POP CULTURE DEVOURS THE REST OF THE ARTS: Canada: A Tragically Hip Nation, as diagnosed by David Solway.

THEY’RE NOT PAID TO BE REASONABLE: Rex Murphy: The environmental crowd knows no compromise.

ONCE YOU GO ASTRO-MECH, YOU NEVER GO BACK: Evil or emo? The new R2-D2 looking droid in ‘Rogue One’ is black.

FBI DOCS: AIDE DESTROYED HILLARY’S OLD BLACKBERRIES WITH A HAMMER:

Clinton aide Justin Cooper recalled at least two instances where he “destroyed” the secretary’s old Blackberry cell phones, according to FBI documents.

Cooper would destroy Clinton’s old phones by “breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer,” according to investigators.

The FBI released the findings of its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while working in the Obama administration Friday.

Damn, it feels good to be a Clinton! Hey, remember this Ted Cruz video parodying The Office at the start of the year?

And thus, today’s news becomes a textbook example of “Muggeridge’s Law,” as defined by Tom Wolfe:

While Malcolm Muggeridge was the editor of Punch, it was announced that Khrushchev and Bulganin were coming to England. Muggeridge hit upon the idea of a mock itinerary, a lineup of the most ludicrous places the two paunchy pear-shaped little Soviet leaders could possibly be paraded through during the solemn process of a state visit. Shortly before press time, half the feature had to be scrapped. It coincided exactly with the official itinerary, just released, prompting Muggeridge to observe: We live in an age in which it is no longer possible to be funny. There is nothing you can imagine, no matter how ludicrous, that will not promptly be enacted before your very eyes, probably by someone well known.

Maybe even a potential future inhabitant of the White House and/or other federally-owned facility.

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 1213.

FLASHBACK: Remember how Hollywood told us Obamacare was the bee’s knees?

To paraphrase one of Woody Allen’s characters in The Purple Rose of Cairo, sure it’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.

But that didn’t also stop such (allegedly) nonfictional sources as CNN from sending out a children’s choir to sing Obamacare’s praises, and Katie Couric (then host of the CBS Evening News) to read on-air poems about it as well in the months leading up to Obamacare’s shotgun passing by an entirely Democrat vote.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Murky Secrecy Surrounding the Iran Nuke Deal.

There is absolutely no policy justification for these concessions being secret. The Iranians know what they are; so do all the governments involved in the negotiations. The only people these agreements are being hidden from is the public. And it seems unlikely that there is a need to hide the details from the Iranian public—the news that their negotiators got a better deal would presumably be good for the Iranian government’s political popularity.

So on the face of it, the secrecy clause looks like evidence of bad conscience and political squeamishness on the part of the U.S. government—the administration didn’t want the American people to know how many concessions it made to get the deal.

Question: If Obama affirmatively wanted the Iranians to get nuclear weapons, what would he have done differently?

INNOCENT MAN RELEASED AFTER 21 YEARS IN PRISON, disgraced Duke Lacrosse DA Mike Nifong was prosecutor who withheld evidence.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE. Rutgers: to avoid microaggressions, only speak when ‘necessary:’

Students in at least one Rutgers University residence hall are being encouraged to use only language that is “helpful” and “necessary” to avoid committing microaggressions.

The display, photos of which were obtained by Campus Reform, is titled “Language Matters: Think,” and was placed in the College Avenue Apartments by a resident assistant, according to a current resident of the building who does not wish to be identified.

Erected as part of the university’s “Language Matters” campaign, the bulletin board instructs students to ask themselves whether their choice of words is “true,” “helpful,” “inspiring,” “necessary,” and “kind” before speaking out, and also includes a list of potentially-offensive terms, such as “retarded” and “illegal aliens.”

Well, so much for Genesis playing the campus anytime soon. When does Rutgers put up signs that say “Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself,” and refashion the campus architecture to resemble Portmeirion?

KLOBUCHAR: IT’S ‘SEXIST’ TO QUESTION HILLARY’S HEALTH.

Marvin Gaye, call your office.

IT’S ESPECIALLY UNFAIR SINCE THE KKK WAS A DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION: Michael Flynn: Stop KKKing Republicans.

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ASHE SCHOW: Ten takeaways from the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest New York Observer column, Trump’s Mexican Trade Show (bumped). President Pena invited Hillary but she didn’t show. The essay mulls her no-show. Given her performance in the FBI interview she may have feared she’d short-circuit at the press conference.

OBSERVATIONS FROM A FORMER STUDENT OF MINE, on Yoga and Celiac Disease.

TURKEY AND THE EU TALK: Post-coup rapprochement? Diplo-speak riddles this Reuters’ report, but getting back to getting along is the general idea. Just remember Erdogan used the coup to solidify his own power and he’s also buddying up with Putin and making nice nice with China. Here’s Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik speaking diplo-speak: “As a result of the meeting, there is very strong consensus about focusing on a positive agenda and further enhancing cooperation between Turkey and the EU.”

That’s exemplary diplo-speak.

More:

The European Union, which depends on Ankara to keep a lid on the movement of migrants to the bloc, had hoped the meeting would ease tensions with Turkey. Celik said Ankara would stick to the migration accord but that the security situation meant it was not realistic to expect the Turkish government to relax its counter-terrorism laws now, as is required by the EU to grant visa-free travel to Turkey. He did not rule out, however, that that could be done in the future and said Ankara was ready for talks on that with the Council of Europe, a European human rights body of which Turkey is a member.

OBAMA IN TAHOE: ‘NO CONTRADICTION’ BETWEEN ‘SMART’ ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND ‘STRONG ECONOMY.’

And for “smart environmental policy,” read crony socialism (aka graft) to allow fat-cat elitist insiders to clean up — and crippling regulations to punish the rest of us.