FAILED COMEDIENNE UPDATE: Kathy Griffin says she is no longer friends with Anderson Cooper. Poor, dimwitted, Hollywood leftist Kathy — how could she know that imitating an Islamic State execution snuff flick would have an emotional and professional downside? Note she still blames President Trump for her predicament — instead of herself.

BYRON YORK: Next stop for Trump dossier probe: the FBI.

In late July, the Justice Department refused a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee — a bipartisan, joint request from Chairman Charles Grassley and Ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein — to make two top FBI officials available for an interview in the committee’s investigation of the Trump dossier and other matters related to the Trump-Russia affair. Citing the Mueller special prosecutor investigation, Justice stated “confidentiality” and the “sensitivity of information relating to pending matters” made it impossible for the two officials, Carl Ghattas and James Rybicki, to talk to the Senate committee that oversees the FBI.

Grassley and Feinstein are still trying — they sent another, more strongly worded, request last Friday. Their efforts show the importance of the FBI in Congress’ quest to learn more about the “salacious and unverified” dossier (the words of former FBI Director James Comey), and could signal the FBI will play a key role in Congress’ dossier investigation as it plays out in coming months.

Just last week, Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that handled the Trump dossier, refused to tell Grassley’s and Feinstein’s investigators who funded the effort. But there are other ways to get at the story — and the FBI is the number-one possibility.

That’s because the FBI played a role in the case as it happened. Sometime in the process of collecting anti-Trump allegations from paid, Kremlin-linked Russian informants, Christopher Steele — the former British spy hired by Fusion to dig dirt in Russia — decided to take his information to the FBI. That appears to have been in the fall of 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign. . . .

It was a mind-boggling development: Federal law enforcement agreeing to fund an ongoing opposition research project being conducted on behalf of one of the candidates in a presidential election. In the end, the FBI reportedly did not pay Steele, possibly because of publicity concerns.

This stinks.

INTERVIEW: Sebastian Gorka on Trump and the China Agenda.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela Eyes Censoring Social Media After Public Shaming Wave.

Venezuela is considering banning messages that promote “hate” and “intolerance” on social media and messenger services, according to Delcy Rodriguez, the president of the country’s all-powerful constituent assembly.

Rodriguez told reporters on Monday that the South American nation is looking to limit messages that fuel bigotry and confrontation between Venezuelans in a so-called anti-hate law, which is currently being debated by the legislative super body, known as the constituyente.

“We’re going to regulate and control because, in recent years, Venezuela has been victim of laboratories of physiological war that, through messages and social medial, promote a fratricidal war between Venezuelans,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not going to allow what happened in Rwanda repeat itself in Venezuela.”

Comrades, we must protect the Revolution from wreckers, hoarders, and… tweeters.

FREE FALL PARACHUTE EXERCISE IN QATAR: U.S. and Qatari special forces personnel have some fun. The USAF photographer snapped a heckuva shot.

JOHN BOLTON: How to Get Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Although candidate Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement, his administration has twice decided to remain in the deal. It so certified to Congress, most recently in July, as required by law. Before the second certification, Trump asked repeatedly for alternatives to acquiescing yet again in a policy he clearly abhorred. But no such options were forthcoming, despite “a sharp series of exchanges” between the president and his advisers, as the New York Times and similar press reports characterized it.

Many outside the administration wondered how this was possible: Was Trump in control, or were his advisers? Defining a compelling rationale to exit Obama’s failed nuclear deal and elaborating a game plan to do so are quite easy. In fact, Steve Bannon asked me in late July to draw up just such a game plan for the president — the option he didn’t have — which I did.

Here it is. It is only five pages long, but like instant coffee, it can be readily expanded to a comprehensive, hundred-page playbook if the administration were to decide to leave the Iran agreement. There is no need to wait for the next certification deadline in October. Trump can and should free America from this execrable deal at the earliest opportunity.

I offer the Iran nonpaper now as a public service, since staff changes at the White House have made presenting it to President Trump impossible.

Sad. But read the whole thing, which is too long to properly excerpt here.

TO BE FAIR, WHAT ISN’T? Why Taylor Swift Is A Problem For Feminists.

IN RESPONSE TO NORTH KOREA’S LATEST MISSILE TEST SOUTH KOREA DROPS BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS IN FIREPOWER DISPLAY:

South Korea’s military has dropped eight heavy bombs near its border with the North in a show of what local media called “overwhelming force” following Pyongyang’s latest missile test.

President Moon Jae-in ordered the strike, by four F-15K fighter-bombers, at a firing range in the country’s east to “display a strong capability to punish” North Korea if it were to attack.

The MK-84 multi-purpose bomb is a 2,000lb munition that can penetrate some 11m of earth and 11ft of concrete. South Korea said all eight hit their targets at a testing ground on the country’s own soil.

These bombs could take out North Korean artillery in hardened positions –artillery that could shell Seoul. South Korea and Japan are all-in on Trump’s pressure strategy.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Harvey Pummels, NKorea Launches, ACLU Files and Much, Much More.

HOW WAFFLE HOUSE’S HURRICANE RESPONSE TEAM PREPARES FOR DISASTER.

Hurricane preparation for many can be a scramble, but for Waffle House, it’s a game of chess with military-style strategy and execution. Before a storm hits, and even before hurricane season, the company makes storm checklists for each location, meets with local authorities, and educates new employees, though many have been through 15 hurricanes. . . .

A Waffle House jump team consists of a small team of restaurant operators from outside the hurricane zone. These employees swoop in at the first possible moment after a storm to restore service and get things open. Typically after a storm, demand for food is high and functioning restaurants are in low supply, and things get extremely busy. . . .

One of the reasons why these jump teams are the key to the chain’s success is because employees may not be able to work if they’re dealing with their own hurricane damage.

“It does help to bring operators from outside so it relieves [local employees] so they can focus on family,,” said Warner. “They don’t have to worry about their restaurant at the same time.”

During Hurricane Katrina, Warner said Waffle House worked beyond its restaurants to provide temporary lodging for its workers, putting tarps on employees’ roofs and shipping in hard-to-find essentials like diapers and formula.

Very cool.

OBEYING THE LAW? THAT’S FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE! The IRS Is Mining Taxpayer Data On Social Media In Violation Of Federal Privacy Law.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Obamacare Causes New York’s Largest Hospital Network to Leave Insurance Market.

WEIRDLY, WHEN THEY HAD A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR AND PRESIDENT, IT WAS FINE: University of Maryland band won’t play pro-Confederate state song. Amazing how much stuff was perfectly okay until this week.

REMINDER: Why It’s a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence.

ACT OF WAR? North Korea Has Fired a Missile Over Northern Japan.

“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

Abe said Japan was seeking an urgent meeting at the United Nations to strengthen measures against Pyongyang. The test was a clear violation of UN resolutions and the government had protested against the move in the strongest terms, he said.

South Korea also condemned the launch. “We will respond strongly based on our steadfast alliance with the United States if North Korea continues nuclear and missile provocations,” the South’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

North Korea fired what it said was a rocket carrying a communications satellite into orbit over Japan in 2009. The United States, Japan and South Korea considered that launch to have been a ballistic missile test.

“It’s pretty unusual,” said Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies at Monterey, California. “North Korea’s early space launches in 1998 and 2009 went over Japan, but that’s not the same thing as firing a missile.”

It’s time for the White House to implement Austin Bay’s “return of serve” option for dealing with North Korea.

THE RISE OF “WHOLE COMMUNITY RESPONSE” TO DISASTERS: In all-hands-on-deck response to Harvey, lessons learned from earlier storms.

Ahead of the storm, there were questions about whether Texas-style self-reliance or a centralized, civil-defense-era response from the federal government should govern. But as an all-hands-on-deck response to historic floods has unfolded, the all-of-the-above support exemplifies something new, disaster experts say: a template for what the nation’s top emergency managers call “whole-community” response. It’s a dramatic shift since hurricane Katrina in how the United States prepares for natural disasters, encompassing everything from agency leadership in Washington to Mr. Sherrod and his sturdy compatriots from East Texas. . . .

During Katrina, some rescuers literally had to sneak into the city to help. In Houston, the Cajun Navy has been part of a massive volunteer response, encouraged by officials. Twelve thousand National Guardsman also are being deployed, the government announced Monday.

The Cajun Navy represents both literally and figuratively the importance of neighborhood social networks – what researchers call “social capital” – that has become increasingly part of national response to disaster.

Well, I said it was a good idea.

PATRICK POOLE: Islamic Terror Attacks Are Literally Changing the Face of Europe — And America.

THE RACIST SELF IDENTIFIES. APPARENTLY ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN TAN COMMIT FRAUD: Schumer to Trump: Reject White Supremacy, Disband Voter Fraud Commission.  Mister Schumer, having poll watched in pasty-white Colorado Springs, I can promise you that the fraud knows no color barrier.

IS IT POSSIBLE THE DOGS JUST DON’T LIKE THE FOOD? Summer Box Office Suffers Historic Decline in U.S. Or that “roll left and die” is not a selling strategy? Nah, you’re right, that’s just crazy talk.  It must be the same “external factors” that caused the drop in reading for decades, in drop in news watching for decades, the drop in….

JOHN RINGO, CALL YOUR OFFICE, BLACK TIDE HAS BEGUN: Plane with 144 holidaymakers on board forced to make emergency landing as furious passenger bites cabin crew.

STILL AT WAR WITH REALITY: Gender ‘X’ could soon be an option on California state IDs.

HATS, COATS, SWASTIKAS: Why Everybody is a Nazi.

NOT THE RECOMMENDED WAY OF CONFIRMING THAT: Boy finds gun in dressing room, mom fires ‘to see if it was real’.

NOT REALLY.  ONLY WHEN READING/WATCHING POLITICS: Smarter people are more likely to use curse words.