FASTER, PLEASE: Here Is the Safety Trick That Will Help SpaceX Fly You to the Moon.

MADE FOR TELEVISION: Trump ‘Assumed the Ratings Would be Far Higher’ Announcing Arpaio Pardon as Hurricane Started.

AN “UNHOLY ALLIANCE” OF SODA COMPANIES AND CERTIFICATION ENTREPRENEURS WANTS TO REQUIRE WEIGHT TRAINERS TO BE LICENSED.

Just say no to shady rent-seeking.

UPDATE: From the comments: “So the same government that forced on us high-carb diets and trans-fats is going to set official doctrine for exercise?”

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: President Big Brother? Years ago, a Zuckerberg-like figure might have been able to run as a stainless nerd-knight, above the culture wars, but Silicon Valley’s enlistment on the liberal side leaves it looking like a creepy cyborg.

ARMY GREEN ON POLICE BLUE: White House reverses Obama ban on police getting military equipment.

Former President Obama put a halt to the so-called 1033 program in 2015 after images of heavily armed police responding to protests in Ferguson, Mo., shocked the nation.

Obama’s initiatives blocked the transfer of armored vehicles, grenade launchers, armed aircraft, bayonets and guns and ammunition of .50 caliber or higher.

Semi-militarizing the police was never a good idea. Their job is to “protect and serve,” not to occupy. That’s a job for the National Guard, on the rare occasion that the need arises.

GEORGE KORDA: Bob Corker and Donald Trump: Will the right thing to say result in the right thing to do?

FRITZ LODGE: Israel and Hezbollah Eye Their Next War.

On August 15, Israel’s Channel 2 news revealed satellite photos of an Iranian missile production facility near the town of Baniyas in northwestern Syria, capable of producing long-range rockets. Iran’s formidable military presence in Syria is nothing new, but the revelation of this production facility underlines how deeply the war in Syria has changed the balance of military power in the eastern Mediterranean.

Faced with the possible collapse of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s regime, Iran and its regional proxies have poured millions of dollars and thousands of soldiers into its Syrian ally. Now, with Russian help, that investment has paid off, and the regime has reestablished control over much of central Syria, and is stabilizing the front along “de-confliction zones” guaranteed by Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

This is a problem for Israel. As the battle lines in Syria begin to stabilize, Iran and its allies will be able to focus more energy and attention on the Jewish state. Nowhere is this threat clearer than in Lebanon, where the Iran-allied and financed group of Hezbollah boasts thousands of soldiers, deep political influence in the Lebanese government, and an arsenal of up to 150,000 rockets.

Israel perhaps will pay the largest price for Obama’s dithering over Syria and his execrable deal with Iran.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Free Speech In The Crosshairs.

YOU DON’T SAY: Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer.

Claude Taylor tweeted fake details of criminal inquiries into Trump that were invented by a source whose claim to work for the New York attorney general was not checked, according to emails seen by the Guardian. The allegations were endorsed as authentic and retweeted by his co-writer Louise Mensch.

The source’s false tips included an allegation, which has been aggressively circulated by Mensch and Taylor, that Trump’s inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking.

The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the “dissemination of fake news” by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that he was already being replaced as president by Senator Orrin Hatch in a process kept secret from the American public.

“Taylor asked no questions to verify my identity, did no vetting whatsoever, sought no confirmation from a second source – but instead asked leading questions to support his various theories, asking me to verify them,” the source said in an email.

After being approached for comment by the Guardian on Monday, Taylor posted what he described as a “mea culpa” on Twitter. “As a ‘citizen journalist’ I acknowledge my error and do apologize,” he wrote.

Mensch denied using the bogus information and said her allegations about Trump’s model agency came from her own sources.

I wonder if this means Mensch stands by her claim that “the Supreme Court notified Mr. Trump that the formal process of a case of impeachment against him was begun” after he’d been secretly indicted, or that “Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is being given security briefings to prepare him for the Presidency.”

ROGER SIMON: Make Harvey a Catalyst for Something Good.

AFTERMATH: Looters Ransack Stores in Houston as Waters Recede.

Meanwhile… Good Samaritans help woman rescue 21 dogs from floodwaters in southeast Houston.

THIS IS NOT NEWS TO INSTAPUNDIT READERS: OPEC-Shale War Could Freeze Oil at $40 to $50.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: VIDEO: Profs bully TPUSA prez while she recruits on campus.

Professors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln harassed the president of the school’s Turning Point USA chapter Friday afternoon while she was tabling on campus grounds.

According to chapter President Katie Mullen, at least three professors circled the table while carrying signs and yelling things like “f**k Charlie Kirk” and “TPUSA Nazis.” . . .

Mullen told Campus Reform that a university administrator eventually came out and told her she could not table because she was in a free speech zone. Campus police were called, however, and after assessing the situation they informed Mullen that she had the right to stay and table.

“I was honestly shocked and scared. I was there for a couple hours and had no real issues but a couple debates,” Mullen told Campus Reform. “They came with posters screaming profanities at me and people passing by.”

“I didn’t even engage, but I kept tabling as I wasn’t going to let them silence me,” she continued, but conceded that after a while, “I got overwhelmed and scared and started to cry,” at which point the professors “screamed [that] I was crying for attention.”

“It shocks me that these are professors that are supposed to teach and support students and they were bullying me,” she remarked.

It wasn’t “bullying,” it was “peace through violence” because shut up you Nazi. It may also have been a conspiracy to deprive her of her civil rights, a federal felony.

BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL: Amazon slashes Whole Foods prices by up to 43 percent on first day.

Amazon had said last week that it would cut prices when the deal closed so that Whole Foods — whose natural and organic products often carried premium prices that resulted in the upscale chain being derisively dubbed “Whole Paycheck” — would instead start to become “affordable for everyone.”

“It’s impressive they would execute the pricing strategy so quickly,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

More price cuts on more items are expected at the 470 Whole Foods stores in the United States, Canada and Britain, and Whole Foods said the price cuts were not temporary.

It’s that aggressive approach to pricing, a hallmark of Amazon, that has sent shock waves through the $611-billion U.S. grocery industry.

Whole Foods had experimented with cutting prices to drive more food traffic, but without much success. I suspect part of the reason may have been a consumer expectation that, Whole Foods being Whole Foods, the cuts would be short-lived. With Amazon in charge, the expectation game might change.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT, BLACK INTELLECTUALS WOULD HAVE TO WALK ON EGGSHELLS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Black professor suspended for controversial statement against Black Lives Matter.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: President Big Brother? Years ago, a Zuckerberg-like figure might have been able to run as a stainless nerd-knight, above the culture wars, but Silicon Valley’s enlistment on the liberal side leaves it looking like a creepy cyborg.

UPDATE: Yeah, there’s some kind of coding glitch so only the first paragraph shows. I blame Zuckerberg! Should be fixed in a few minutes.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest Observer essay — the Trump Administration takes on the Afghanistan mess Obama left.

J CHRISTIAN ADAMS: NBC’s Jane Timm Sparks Outrage in Attacking Trump’s Election Commission.. “The former fact checker needs a fact checker.”

Ouch.

ENJOY YOUR ANTIFA PROTESTS, BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO GET AWKWARD SOON.

You see, there are quite a number of Democratic senators in Congress who are up for re-election next year. Our very own U.S. senator Bob Casey is considered vulnerable being located in a state that voted for President Trump. One of the most vulnerable Democratic senators in Congress is Missouri senator Claire McCaskill. Her state voted for Donald Trump by 57% to Hillary Clinton’s 38%. She has to desperately look as moderate as possible, her Republican attackers will put up ads “Clare’s people think every last one of you is a racist Nazi,” and pair photos of her in ballrooms with Nancy Pelosi set to dramatic music. See how this works?

This obviously has Democratic strategists in a pickle.

It’s very obvious what next year will be like. The worst footage from protest demonstrations will be put on display in campaign advertising and all the claims that Democratic pundits and authors have made claiming America is festooned with 64 million gas-chamber-murdering Nazis. Everyone who voted for Donald Trump is a Nazi. They’re all Nazis. Every fucking last one of them is a motherfucking Nazi.

There are few Republicans up for re-election in 2018 who are really vulnerable. Those 64 million Trump voters still have access to ballot machines and they can still vote. Calling every Trump voter a Nazi, as so many of you have done, is not going to be forgotten. That projection is going to come back to haunt people. It terrifies people who actually do politics as part of their career; namely pundits, campaign strategists and party officials. . . . You don’t need any more embarrassing YouTube video clips of AntiFa protestors chanting “NO USA AT ALL“.

I’ve noticed a sudden media pivot against Antifa in the last couple of days, which I assume means that someone has polled this stuff and it’s electoral poison for Democrats. Which should come as no surprise, unless you live in a Media Bubble.

THE WHITE GIRL’S BURDEN: “A large part of the scandal in Rotherham, and other similar scandals in Oxford, Newcastle etc., was that many (most? all?) of the girls who ended up being groomed and abused were in the care of the local authorities and were in foster homes or institutions. When these girls attempted to report their abuse the various officials tended to ignore them or even do the victim blaming that feminists get worked up about when the alleged attacker is a white male frat boy. Needless to say, despite all the official inquiries and reports and so on, these officials and their superiors have all faced minimal punishment.”

The victims were less intersectional than the perpetrators.

UNDERWRITER UNDERWATER: Key flood insurance underwriter already $23 billion in debt.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the singular source of flood insurance for most Americans, is already $23 billion in debt after servicing prior natural disasters, including Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina. Costs from Harvey are expected to increase that debt by billions of dollars. The NFIP, which is overseen by FEMA, has borrowed money from the U.S. Treasury, and thus from taxpayers, in order to keep itself running. That debt is due next month, when the program is also up for reauthorization in Congress.

The government has already said it would be impossible for the flood program to repay such a staggering amount of dues, causing some to believe the program needs a major overhaul to prevent structural debt accumulations every time there is a disaster situation.

Stay tuned.

“I’M GONNA TRY TO SAVE SOME LIVES:” Reporter Asks Texan What He’s About To Do With His Boat. His Next 7 Words Define Being a Texan.

Related: Message From Hurricane Harvey: Americans Helping Each Other.