FASTER, PLEASE: Oil and Gas Innovation Goes Well Beyond Fracking.

Linking the oil and gas industry with innovation these past few years isn’t controversial. The pairing of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal well drilling was a novel idea that set off an energy revolution over the past decade, remaking American energy fortunes and ushering in a new global oil reality (and increasingly a new global natural gas reality, as well). But innovation’s impacts on global energy security extend beyond the novelty of fracking. As David G. Victor and Kassia Yanosek write for Foreign Affairs, oil and gas companies are leveraging some of the same trends that are spurring on the information economy to extract hydrocarbons more profitably. . . .

It’s worth your time to sit down and read the whole thing. The authors embark on a brisk tour of the changing (and changed) energy industry in the 21st century. Big data, automation, and systems management aren’t just a hallmark of companies like Amazon—they’re also helping the bottom line of energy producers, and that’s good news for the global economy.

It’s also worth noting that new technologies don’t come with ideologies. When imagining how the international community might meet the climate targets set out in Paris in late 2015, many greens include the optimistic hope that technological breakthroughs will (in time) make clean energy options like wind and solar the only obvious choices. While it’s true that the cost of renewables has dropped significantly just in the past couple of years, it’s also true that breakeven costs for many fossil fuel operators has also come down over that same period of time. There’s no reason to think that innovation will favor one specific energy source over another—there exists the potential for breakthroughs in every corner of the industry, and that’s a tremendously exciting thought.

Well, unless you’re a green Command Economy enthusiast.

NIKKI HALEY: US ‘Is Done Talking About N. Korea.’

“The time for talk is over” on North Korea, so the United States isn’t planning to call a United Nations Security Council meeting for discussion of the country’s latest ICBM launch, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says. In a statement, Haley said there would be no point holding such a session if it produces “nothing of consequence.” She said Pyongyang is already subject to plenty of international sanctions that it flouts with impunity, and adding yet another toothless resolution would be “worse than nothing because it sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him,” the BBC reports.

“China must decide whether it is finally willing to take this vital step,” Haley said.

China seems to have made up its mind already.

YOU WANT MORE TRUMP? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET MORE TRUMP. Chelsea Clinton, the epitome of ‘white privilege’, lectures white parents about racism.

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KURT SCHLICHTER: The Military Coup Against Donald Trump of 2018, Part 1. What would a militarized #Resistance look like?

I guess everybody should go download my paper on military coups before it’s too late.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest Observer essay on Obama’s very very bad Iran nuclear deal.

ARE PLASTICS FOREVER?

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Trump Dossier Firm Worked With Media Outlets Now Giving The Firm A Pass.

The opposition research firm behind the infamous Trump dossier, Fusion GPS, worked with several prominent media outlets to spread dirt on President Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. Those same media outlets, which have enthusiastically pounced on every new detail regarding the Russia investigation, have been oddly disinterested in probing into the crucial role of Fusion GPS.

The British spy Fusion GPS hired to craft the dossier, Christopher Steele, leaned on anonymous Russian sources in crafting the dossier for Fusion GPS. Steele’s lawyers revealed in court filings that, in September 2016, Steele briefed reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News, The New Yorker and CNN on behalf of Fusion GPS. Steele later held another meeting with reporters from the NYT, WaPo and Yahoo. The lawyers said that Fusion GPS attended these meetings with reporters and Steele, as TheDC’s Chuck Ross pointed out.

Fusion GPS, which is headed up by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, was working for a Democratic ally of Hillary Clinton at that time, although that ally’s name is not publicly known.

Those same media outlets that worked with Fusion GPS to receive information on the Republican nominee now appear to be helping Fusion GPS stay out of the public spotlight.

One hand washes the other.

CHANGE IT BACK: Labor Department Considers Rolling Back Obama-Era Overtime Rule.

SCOTT ADAMS ON THE KELLY APPOINTMENT: The Turn to “Effective, but we don’t like it.”

Prior to President Trump’s inauguration, I predicted a coming story arc in three acts. Act one involved mass protests in the streets because Hillary Clinton’s campaign had successfully branded Trump as the next Hitler. Sure enough, we saw mass protests by anti-Trumpers who legitimately and honestly believed the country had just elected the next Hitler. I predicted that the Hitler phase would evaporate by summer for lack of supporting evidence. That happened.

I also predicted the anti-Trumpers would modify their attack from “Hitler” to “incompetent,” and that phase would last the summer. That happened too. The president’s critics called him incompetent and said the White House was in “chaos.” There were plenty of leaks, fake news, and even true stories to support that narrative, as I expected. Every anti-Trump news outlet, and even some that supported him started using “chaos” to describe the situation.

Now comes the fun part.

I predicted that the end of this three-part story would involve President Trump’s critics complaining that indeed he was “effective, but we don’t like it.” Or words to that effect. I based that prediction on the assumption he would get some big wins by the end of the year and it would no longer make sense to question his effectiveness, only his policy choices.

How does the anti-Trump media gracefully pivot from “chaos and incompetence” to a story of “effective, but we don’t like it”? They need an external event to justify the turn. They need a visible sign of the White House moving from rookie status to professional status.

They need General John Kelly to replace Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff.

Well, stay tuned. I had a similar observation:

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: ‘A new stage of the struggle begins.’

Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party has vowed that a newly elected legislative super-body will begin passing laws quickly after a vote that was boycotted by the opposition and slammed by foreign governments as an affront to democracy.

At least 10 people were killed in protests on Sunday by opponents of unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro, who insists the new “constituent assembly” will bring peace after four months of protests that have killed more than 120 people.

The country’s CNE elections authority said 8.1 million voters went to the polls on Sunday. The opposition estimated only 2.5 million ballots were cast.

Maduro’s critics characterized the election as a naked power grab meant to keep him in office despite repudiation over an economic crisis that has spurred malnutrition and left citizens struggling to obtain basic products in the nation of about 30 million people.

Once the new assembly has given Maduro his “wider powers,” he will have to find himself a new set of scapegoats. Such is the struggle for the leader of the vanguard party.

NORTH KOREA PLANS MORE ICBM AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS: The Korea Herald quotes South Korea’s defense ministry. So let’s do something about it.

SHOCKER: One Year Later, Journalists Exposed By WikiLeaks Carry On As Before. “One year after WikiLeaks began publishing emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta that exposed prominent journalists as partisans, many of those journalists are continuing their careers without, it seems, any serious consequences.” Think of them as Democratic Party operatives with bylines.

Their bosses do. . . .

THINKING? What In The World Is Debbie Wasserman Schultz Thinking?

21ST CENTURY CRIME: Indiana man kills doctor who refused to prescribe wife opioids.

TURF WARS IN THREE MEXICAN BORDER TOWNS ARE INTENSIFYING: Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, and Matamoros are in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state — and across the Rio Grande from Texas.

PERHAPS SARAH HOYT WILL LET ME BORROW HER SHOCKED FACE: Cantor comes clean, admits he didn’t believe his own ACA rhetoric.

Asked if he feels partly responsible for their current predicament, Cantor is unequivocal. “Oh,” he says, “100 percent.”

He goes further: “To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office….” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”

He says he wasn’t the only one aware of the charade: “We sort of all got what was going on, that there was this disconnect in terms of communication, because no one wanted to take the time out in the general public to even think about ‘Wait a minute – that can’t happen.’ ” But, he adds, “if you’ve got that anger working for you, you’re gonna let it be.”

This is how the GOP got Trump.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Pakistani Hackers Working for the DNC.

It’s too early to be making a Christmas lists, I know, but here’s something I would really like: the stolen laptop that was found in the Rayburn House Office Building that apparently belongs to Wasserman Schultz but that Iwan was using. The congresswoman really wants that back, and has even threatened the Capitol Police with “consequences” if it is not returned to her eftsoons and right speedily.

How do we explain all of this? How do we explain the smashed hard drives that were recovered from the Awans’ former home last week? I think Mark Steyn is right to invoke Occam’s Razor: entia non multiplicanda sunt praeter necessitatem. We can leave high jinks to one side. “Why,” Steyn asks, “did Debbie Wasserman Schultz not do as her fellow congressmen did and dump the Awan clan as no longer politically convenient” back in February? Answer: “Because she was head of the DNC and thus Awan knew too much for her to cut him loose.”

How much did he know? Steyn reports that Awan had the password to her iPad and other access codes. Some commentators have been going on for months about possible collusion between the Trump administration and the Russians. So far as I can see, that lengthy investigation has turned up nothing, but nothing of significance there. But how about the case of Awan? McCarthy ends his piece with some disquieting observations. They “had the opportunity to acquire communications and other information that could prove embarrassing, or worse, especially for the pols who hired them.”

Stay tuned.

OUT TODAY FROM DINESH D’SOUZA: The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.

HERBERT LONDON IN THE HILL: The ‘Trump doctrine’ is the antidote to modern cynicism.

In his July 6 speech in Warsaw, President Trump pledged America to the “defense of civilization itself.” Here in simple terms is the emergence of a Trump doctrine: “The bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are.” By referring to the spiritual foundations of Western civilization, the president echoes our collective civilized humanity: The laws and culture that undergird western civilization.

During World War II, Winston Churchill declared that we were fighting to defend “Christian civilization.” When this statement was criticized by detractors as narrowly ethnographic, he defended his position by noting what separates our civilization from others is the protection of individual rights, the rule of law, free markets and freedom of conscience. President Trump has taken up its mantle just as so many in the West and elsewhere reject it. He asks in Churchillian language whether the West has the will to survive.

Admittedly the core of liberalism Trump represents has undergone progressive debasement. Trump’s assertions are certainly welcome since they are a needed antidote to the cynicism now afflicting parts of the West. But the progressive left bristles at the talk of God and country and any positive references to Western civilization.

They’ve succumbed to Gramscian Damage.

HMM: Wasserman Schultz Aide In Pakistan Still Liquidating Assets In US.

Imran Awan, a congressional aide arrested by the FBI after wiring $300,000 to Pakistan and misrepresenting the purpose, had previously wired money to the Muslim country and was frantically liquidating multiple real estate properties on the day he was arrested, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Imran’s real estate properties provide a source of money that could be sent directly to Pakistan when two upcoming home sales close. Prosecutors have since filed paperwork saying they fear “the dissipation of the proceeds of the fraud and destruction of evidence in other locations.”

Imran was arrested July 24 — four months after the FBI says his wife Hina Alvi moved to Pakistan after learning the family was the subject of a criminal investigation into their work as IT administrators for House Democrats. On the day of Imran’s arrest, the couple accepted a buyer for one house owned by Hina with an asking price of $618,000 (Hawkshead Dr.) and listed another property for sale at $200,000 (Pembrook Village), real estate records show.

On June 20, a third house his wife owned was “sold” to his brother-in-law for $360,000 (Sprayer St.). In November 2016, a fourth home his wife owned was “sold” to his brother Jamal for $620,000 (Linnett Hill Dr.). In both cases, the bank financed nearly all of the purchase.

Home sales could be a vehicle to continue moving large amounts of money to Pakistan even after Imran’s arrest. Authorities released him with a GPS monitor and confiscated his passport.

The whole thing reeks.

BERNIE SANDERS GETS A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION ON SINGLE PAYER: That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

NO-KNOCK RAIDS SHOULD BE BANNED EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMMINENT THREAT TO LIFE: Police raid the wrong home? If the innocent homeowner is lawfully armed, he could end up dead.

I’d ban “qualified immunity” — a creature of judicial activism with no basis in the Constitution — entirely. But short of that, it should never be available when police have failed to knock, announce themselves, and wait for the homeowner to answer the door.

And in the case of anyone who breaks down your door — whether in a police uniform or not — the presumption should be that you did the right thing by shooting them. Door-breakers should bear that risk. Likewise, if they shoot someone in the house, the presumption should be that they acted improperly.

Homeowners whose doors are broken down without good reason should be able to proceed against the assets of the law enforcement agency involved. Why should forefeiture only work in one direction?

ACTUALLY, THIS MAKES A LOT OF SENSE: Oakland gives pot convicts first chance to open marijuana businesses as part of reparations for war on drugs.

The Drug War took a couple generations of entrepreneurs and made them into criminals.