PEOPLE POWER: How Millions of Iranians Are Evading the Internet Censors.

Authorities in Tehran have ratcheted up their policing of the internet in the past week and a half, part of an attempt to stamp out the most far-reaching protests in Iran since 2009.

But the crackdown is driving millions of Iranians to tech tools that can help them evade censors, according to activists and developers of the tools. Some of the tools were attracting three or four times more unique users a day than they were before the internet crackdown, potentially weakening government efforts to control access to information online.

“By the time they wake up, the government will have lost control of the internet,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, executive director of NetFreedom Pioneers, a California-based technology nonprofit that largely focuses on Iran and develops educational and freedom of information tools.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s handpicked FBI director insisted just yesterday that strong encryption is a “major public safety issue” requiring some kind of government backdoor.

Whatever keys we hand to Washington will be in the Tehran’s hands (or the Kremlin’s, Beijing’s, etc.) in less time than it takes to download a bootleg copy of The Last Jedi.

ENDORSED: A Piece Of Wood Is Not A Plate:

Because here’s the thing: For almost all of human history, eating off a plank of wood was a sign that something was wrong. That you and your tribe were not economically or technologically developed, or that you’d lost a war and the other guys carried off or smashed up your dinnerware. . . .

Because when it comes right down to it, the whole food-on-boards thing is nothing more than an affectation, a pre-civilisational pretense reminiscent of what the French call the nostalgie de la boue — politely translated as a longing for the mud, a desire to throw off the shackles of society and return to a more degraded state. People who want to do that sort of thing should go camping.

Read the whole thing.

ALIVE WITH PLEASURE: Why Vaping Isn’t a ‘Gateway’ to Smoking.

There are ways to minimize the initiation of risky behaviors, but prohibiting one product in hopes of decreasing the use of another should not be one of them. At best, doing so directs time and energy away from a better solution. At worst, people who would otherwise benefit from the reduced harm posed by the alleged gateway product – like e-cigarettes – are put at risk of relapsing to a more dangerous product – like their combustible counterparts.

Unfortunately, we are not deprived of misleading research that threatens to steer users away from reduced-harm products, like e-cigarettes, and toward readily available yet more dangerous tobacco products. A slew of studies have recently concluded that e-cigarette use is a gateway to combustible cigarette use in teens, and one study in particular concludes that kids who use e-cigarettes are seven times more likely to use combustible cigarettes when compared to kids who don’t use e-cigarettes.

Read the whole thing. But understand that vaping gets a bad rap because Big Tobacco has to deal with upstart competitors, and politicians aren’t getting their cut.

HILLARY MISHANDLED HUNDREDS OF CLASSIFIED DOCS AND SKATED. THIS GUY GOT JAIL: Kristian Saucier took some private photos of the nuclear sub on which he formerly served, presumably to show family members and to keep for old time’s sake. Hillary Clinton put hundreds of highly classified official U.S. government docs on her private server. Saucier got jail, she got to run for president. This is equal justice under law? Check out Saucier’s answer.

I REMEMBER WHEN PUBLIC PARKLAND WAS SACRED: Chicago profs blast ‘socially regressive’ Obama Center plan. “Not only does the current plan involve forfeiting huge portions of public parks to the private Obama Foundation, the professors say, but it would also impose hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs to the taxpayers.” So pretty much like his presidency, then.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, Updated Hourly.

Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.

And, today’s Digital Deals.

MOTHER JONES: How Oprah Helped Spread Anti-Vaccine Pseudoscience.

HOLLYWOOD BABYLON: Michael Douglas Preemptively Denies Sexual Harassment Allegation Before It Goes Public.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Bannon Out, Fusion GPS Testimony Out and Much, Much More.

BUT ALL THE FOREIGN POLICY “EXPERTS” ASSURED ME THAT THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESULT OF TRUMP’S INVOLVEMENT WAS NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST: Trump deserves big credit for helping spark talks with North Korea, says South Korean President.

TIME FOR A SECOND EMBRACE : The second edition is in print and available in Kindle.

WEIRD, I WAS TOLD THIS TAX BILL WOULD ONLY HELP THE SUPER-RICH: Utilities cutting rates, cite benefits of Trump tax reform. “On the heels of companies dishing bonuses of up to $3,000 to over one million workers due to the anticipated benefit of President Trump’s tax reform victory, several major utilities have announced plans to cut rates in a consumer payback related to the lower taxes. Energy suppliers like Washington’s Pepco, Baltimore Gas and Light, Pacific Power, Rocky Mountain Power and Commonwealth Edison said they plan to give hundreds of thousands of customers a rate cut due to the tax reform.”

WINNING: United States To Leapfrog Russia In 2018 As The World’s Top Oil Producer.

THE 2018 KOREAN WAR OLYMPIAD.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Don’t refill the swamp by restoring earmarks, President Trump.

While President Trump wants to drain the swamp, his White House has been repeatedly checked by a gridlocked Congress. Now, Trump wants to grease the wheels a bit. He wants to bring back earmarks.

“I think we should look at a form of earmarks,” Trump told lawmakers gathered at the White House on Tuesday. “One thing it did is it brought everybody together.” The other thing it will do is permanently rebrand the party of fiscal responsibility into the party of graft, pork, and greed.

To be sure, earmarks make the legislative process a bit more efficient. And it’s understandable why a dealmaker like Trump would find them appealing as a negotiating aid. But they also lead to waste. Even the president admitted as much when he said that earmarks “got a little bit out of hand.”

When negotiations break down, obstructionists sell their votes for things like a $233-million bridge nobody needs, $3.4-million worth of tunnels for turtles, and $500,000 for a teapot museum. Old, greasy hands like former Rep. Charlie Rangel were even able to secure funding for personal monuments. That New York Democrat christened the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service with $1.9 million in taxpayer money.

Most lawmakers don’t remember, though. When some Republicans tried to bring earmarks back shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, warned that “63 percent of House Republicans have been elected since 2010” and as a result “have no personal knowledge or experience with earmarks.”

Those post-pork members didn’t witness the conservative crusade to end the practice. “If there’s a public vote [on earmarks],” former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., warned me last February, “Republicans are going to get killed by some of these grassroots organizations out there now.” In other words, they can’t comprehend the rake they would be stepping on if they do this before the midterm elections.

That’s absolutely right.

LIBERAL DEMS TRYING TO PROTECT TAX BREAK FOR THEIR WEALTHY DONORS: Yes, it’s probably all but impossible to believe but liberal Democrats in big blue states like California and New York are feverishly seeking ways around the recently enacted tax reform measure’s cap on the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT). It turns out, according to LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby, that the biggest beneficiaries of SALT are wealthy tax filers with big mortgages and other properties, plus high individual rates. And in a Blue State, those filers tend to be donors to liberal Democrats. Purely coincidental, right?

NO ONE’S MAKING LOVE AND EVERYBODY CARES: Exchanging Dirty Jokes Is Now a ‘Sexual Relationship’ at George Washington University.

Strange days, indeed.

MAYBE THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK: Classified Military Satellite Goes Missing After SpaceX Launch.

CONVENTIONAL POLITICAL WISDOM THINKS TRUMP IS IN TROUBLE – WRONG!!: Actually, it’s those who are prisoners of the conventional political wisdom who are in trouble. And it’s Trump who understands the new paradigm underlying American political flow – populist conservatism. You don’t have to agree with that proposition to find the analysis in “What Trump is Doing Right” by LifeZette White House Correspondent Jim Stinson worth pondering.

UPDATE: My apologies, dear readers, for inserting the wrong link earlier this morning. The 14 concealed carry pistols page was something I was looking at earlier this morning, for the obvious reason. Not sure how it happened, but the link is corrected now.

NOW ALL THE OTHER WITNESSES KNOW WHAT TO SAY WITHOUT BEING TOLD DIRECTLY: Feinstein posts testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder.

WELL, GOOD: Campus Anti-Israel BDS Resolutions Falling on Deaf Ears.

INSHALLAH: Mohammed bin Salman’s Next Saudi Challenge: Curtailing Ultraconservative Islam.

Last month, authorities detained a senior prince, Khaled bin Talal, for opposing the government’s reforms such as the decision to curb the power of the religious police, according to people familiar with the matter.

“He was complaining about the reforms. He thought that would give him [political] credibility,” said a person briefed on the event. The prince, who has limited political clout, is kept at the high-security prison of al-Ha’ir.

Since the clampdown, many clerics have publicly endorsed the social reforms, while others have kept silent. “They are government decisions and it is part of our religion to accept that,” said Sheikh Mohammed al-Hodithy, 87, who until his retirement was the chief justice in Asir region.

The government is also setting up a new center to vet the interpretations of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, or hadiths, in a bid to prevent the teachings from being used to justify violence.

“It will purify Islam from any inventions, clean the hadiths from the liars’ deliberate misquotations and present Islam in a better image,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan al-Sheikh, the chairman of the new entity and a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, the kingdom’s highest religious body.

I keep waiting for the other — bloody — shoe to drop. So far though, bin Salman seems to have put the fear of God, so to speak, into the Kingdom’s religious leadership.

GOOD NEWS FOR KNOXVILLE: Discovery moving ops HQ to Scripps in Knoxville.

Instead of closing the Knoxville campus of Scripps Networks Interactive, Discovery Communications will move its national operations headquarters to Knoxville, the company announced Tuesday.

At the end of August, Scripps and Maryland-based Discovery announced that Discovery would buy Scripps in a cash-and-stock deal worth $14.6 billion. The deal includes Discovery’s assumption of Scripps’ $2.7 billion debt, and is expected to close in early 2018.

Scripps’ roughly 1,000 Knoxville employees have been uncertain how the sale would affect their jobs. While the fate of individual jobs remains unknown, Discovery plans to keep Scripps operations here and expand.

Another company moving from a high-tax/high-cost blue state to a low-tax/low-cost red state.

RICHARD GOLDBERG AND DENNIS ROSS: On Iran, Trump Should Be Like Reagan.

The Iranian protesters are making a statement and we should not ignore it. The president would be well within his rights under the JCPOA and international law to follow President Reagan’s example and answer them with action. Just as the Iranian regime feels free to spread its power and reach within the region notwithstanding the JCPOA, so should the United States and Europe feel free to impose sanctions tied to human rights, terror and missiles notwithstanding the same.

The sanctions relief provided under the JCPOA should not be interpreted as a blanket immunity for Iranian officials, banks and other government instrumentalities to expand their illicit activities. If such a person or entity is found to be connected to the Revolutionary Guard, terrorism, missile proliferation and human rights abuses, it most certainly can and should be subject to sanctions—even if sanctions for that person or entity were initially suspended by the JCPOA.

The JCPOA must not prevent us from fulfilling our international obligations on human rights, terrorism and proliferation. It cannot handcuff the United States and its allies from using all available means of state power to stop these illicit activities. Indeed, the American people were repeatedly assured by then-Secretary of State John Kerry that nothing in the JCPOA precluded the United States from imposing sanctions for such non-nuclear activities.

Many international agreements throughout history were hatched by adopting vague language that could be interpreted in different ways by different parties. That is especially true for arms-control agreements, and the JCPOA is no exception. The administration would be wise to try to persuade the Europeans that non-nuclear sanctions are an acceptable and highly effective way of raising both the internal and external costs to the Iranian regime for its aggressive behavior.

Trying to move Europe seems like a waste of effort, now that European firms have gotten a renewed taste for Iranian oil money. And putting the squeeze on Iran via the JCPOA might also be futile, since Obama’s deal essentially gave away the store in exchange for little more than a promise that Tehran would try to do a better job of hiding its nuclear program.

The best that can probably be done is what Glenn suggested on Monday: “Now is the time to hit the Iranian regime with lower oil prices: For the sake of the Iranian people and global stability, we need to lead the effort in suppressing oil prices beyond what Tehran can bear.”