THE SYRIAN MESS ON OBAMA’S WATCH: Syrian and Russian aircraft attacked an aid convoy and destroyed 18 aid trucks. The hapless John Kerry claims it’s too early to say the casefire he negotiated with the Russians has collapsed. Ah, Smart Diplomacy.

INDIA MULLS RETALIATION: Four gunmen attacked an Indian Army garrison in Kashmir and killed 18 soldiers. India blames Pakistan for the attack– or at least sponsoring the attackers. Several Muslim militant groups operate in Kashmir. Remember, both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons.

THE ELECTION’S CORE ISSUE SINCE HILLARY DECLARED HER CANDIDACY IN 1808

AN ADVANCE IN MISSILE AND AIR DEFENSE: The Navy has used an F-35 to provide targeting information to a SM-6 missile (Standard Missile-6). The SM-6 intercepted a sub-sonic target. The F-35 served as an airborne sensor.

BILL FLUBS HILL: Nah, I spelled it right. Flubs, people, not, uh…Look, Hillary has cankles and Colin Powell’s emails comment on ole Bill’s, uh, sexual shenanigans…(Please. Don’t make me go there. Google for General Powell’s observations. Use the search terms “bimbos,” “dicking,” and “Clinton” and then read and absorb what you get…)…now…back to Bill flubbing Hill…flubbing…flub…flub…I am spelling the word I intend to spell…between Bill and Hill it’s all flub, if you get my drift…anyway…Ole Bill said Hillary had the flu ‘cept it was pneumonia. Or is pneumonia…maybe…read the link…Seems ole Bill’s flub of Hill has lost CNN as an agitprop asset…at least temporarily…and like Glenn says, when you’re a Dem and you’ve lost CNN…never mind…flub, that’s the word I meant…long quote coming…ready…don’t flub it…from CNN:”Bill Clinton’s effort to help his recuperating wife Wednesday may have instead caused her another political headache when he said Hillary Clinton was suffering from the flu, not pneumonia, as her campaign has said.”…like Glenn says, when you’re a Dem and you’ve lost CNN…Flu…You said flu, Slick, you idiot…Hillary…she’s you’re wife, even though according to Colin you’re still…carousing with bimbos…Colin said it, not me, Slick…But wake up, jerk. Your wife’s campaign claimed she has pneumonia, idiot…

Ole Slick idiotsplains:

“It’s a crazy time we live in where people think there’s something unusual about getting the flu,” Clinton then said. “Last time I checked, millions of people we’re getting it every year.”

Yeah…getting it…

‘Cept:

A spokesman for the 42nd president quickly said Clinton misspoke. “He clearly meant pneumonia,” Angel Urena clarified afterward.

‘Cept he said flu, Angel. Bill said FLU, Angel. He idiotsplained FLU, Angel. Is idiotsplaining Bill suffering from dementia, Angel? Or is he, uh, overheated? (HINT TO ANGEL” Go google “Colin Powell”, “Bill Clinton:, and dicking “bimbos” to get the context for “overheated.”)

Don’t start a social justice warrior email tantrum about this post, Angel. Get in Bill’s face. He said flu.

MORE DEMOCRAT PAY FOR PLAY: It’s Obama-style transformational! Pay enough and you get to play ambassador…This stuff stinks, people…Crooked media let’s media privileged Democrats get away with it.

“COURTESY APPOINTMENTS,” COURTESY OF THE CLINTON FOUNDATION: Yes, the Clinton Foundation helped big buck donors (“prominent people”!) obtain access, Foundation Prez Donna Shalala admitted. Indeed, the drip drip drip of evidence suggests Hillary has always depended on the kindness of donors — their kindness exchanged for access.

ALMOST HALF OF VENEZUELANS WOULD LEAVE THE COUNTRY — IF THEY COULD: This is a poll, so who knows if 40 to 50 percent of Venezuelan citizens are really ready to flee the desperate situation they confront. But many are already leaving. For years the Dutch were worried that Hugo Chavez might launch a military attack the island of Curacao, a Dutch territory near the Venezuelan coast. Now the island faces a refugee invasion. Even Chavistas are fed up.

IN THE NEW YORK SUN: Conrad Black argues that Trump has “re-calibrated” during the campaign and is taking the political center. Black isn’t surprised. Trump has leveraged Hillary’s slew of mistakes. Black mentions Trump’s trip to Mexico as a plus. It was. I think that trip was a political master stroke.

BUSINESS BOOTSTRAPPING: Advice from a couple that started their own business. It was risky. They spent their life savings. They didn’t get a paycheck for four years. They pulled if off. How? Scrimped, worked, adapted…worked. “There were times when we were both delirious with sleep deprivation.” Typical? The abstract elements are typical. The experience is always unique.

Excerpt:

Everyone starts out building a company pretty much the same way – brimming with pride about their new idea, eager to gush their intentions to anyone who will listen. But time has a tendency to separate the entrepreneurs from the “wantrepreneurs”. Success in business usually takes a little luck, but more than anything it takes hard work and the determination to do whatever it takes . For me that meant transitioning from a cushy desk job to scrubbing pots in a commercial kitchen in the middle of the night. For years we couldn’t afford to pay anyone else to do the dirty work, so we either did it ourselves or we stalled. To bootstrap successfully, you’ll need to drop any notions about low-level or high level tasks; everything is important and it’s all on you.

DOMESTICATING FOXES: No no no no no. This is not a post about gorgeous women washing dirty dishes. So don’t start a social justice warrior tweet storm. This BBC article is about a Russian institute that has domesticated wild foxes…the animal…the one Brits in red suits on horses chase… I am not talking high-energy knockouts, OK?… Anyway, the biologist who began the experiment wanted to answer this question: “How did human beings domesticate animals, like the dog and the cat?” Read the whole thing.

A SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE VOA SHORT VIDEO: The Islamic State’s sources of income. (Yup, Youtube has influenced VOA.)

HOUSE REPUBLICANS INTRODUCE RESOLUTION TO IMPEACH IRS COMMISSIONER JOHN KOSKINEN: Good, he should be impeached. He behaves as if he’s above the law. The resolution faces procedural hurdles and may not move forward. Even if Koskinen isn’t convicted, the process will serve a useful and instrutive purpose. Per a comment today on my NY Observer essay deploring our deplorable FBI Director Comey, yes, Comey has earned a similar fate.

ASIA DIVOT: China arrests 13 in rebel village.

Excerpt:

Wukan, a 13,000-strong fishing village in the southern province of Guangdong, became a symbol of resistance against corruption after a mass uprising over allegedly illegal land grabs propelled it onto global front pages in 2011. Lin Zulian, who played a key role in those protests, was detained in June, and police said that since then villagers had “continued to fabricate rumours and deploy measures such as threats, insults, force and bribes to instigate, plan and launch illegal mass gatherings”.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED IN SYRIA’S WAR?: Good question. This new report says 300,000. I’ve read reports that put the toll over 400,000. In early May StrategyPage editor Jim Dunnigan thought the “over 400,000” estimates were credible. I did, too. (Here is Jim’s analysis, dated May 6.) It is all but impossible to gather accurate statistics in a war zone, but there are groups that attempt to get the truth. Medical aid organizations and refugee relief groups are decent sources. Whatever the presice figure, Syria’s death toll has surpassed that in Bosnia in the 1990s. Syria is occurring on the Obama Administration’s watch. Remember, Bosnia was a genocide. Obama’s UN ambassador Samantha Power excoriated Bush for failing to stop the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. Responsibility To Protect, she said. Yes, that’s what she said.

WHAT’S OLD AND CROOKED IS STILL CROOKED: Is it a surprise to learn that the House Oversight Committee is having trouble getting FBI Director Jim Comey to provide information redacted from the FBI’s various inquiries into Hillary’s email server? My latest New York Observer column is now five days old but it sure seems relevant. (bumped)

WHAT TURNED A RUSSIAN ARCTIC RIVER RED: Russia’s Norilsk Nickel mining and refining organization has admitted spillage from one of its operations turned the Daldykan River blood red. Heavy rains on September 5 broke a “filtration dam.” (The photos are dramatic.)

THE SEPTEMBER 12TH OTTOMAN DEFEAT THAT SHOCKED MUSLIM SUPREMACISTS: Vienna, September 12, 1683. Vienna turned the tide. Other defeats would follow.

NEW EVIDENCE REBUTS NOAM CHOMSKY’S UNIVERSAL, HARD-WIRED GRAMMAR THEORY: The article’s from Scientific American and it’s long and detailed.

But here’s a basic summary. A child learning a

…first language does not rely on an innate grammar module. Instead the new research shows that young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories (people or objects, for instance) and to understand the relations among things. These capabilities, coupled with a unique hu­­­man ability to grasp what others intend to communicate, allow language to happen. The new findings indicate that if researchers truly want to understand how children, and others, learn languages, they need to look outside of Chomsky’s theory for guidance.

Another telling graf:

…evidence has overtaken Chomsky’s theory, which has been inching toward a slow death for years. It is dying so slowly because, as physicist Max Planck once noted, older scholars tend to hang on to the old ways: “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”

Finally:

A key flaw in Chomsky’s theories is that when applied to language learning, they stipulate that young children come equipped with the capacity to form sentences using abstract grammatical rules. (The precise ones depend on which version of the theory is in­­voked.) Yet much research now shows that language acquisition does not take place this way. Rather young children begin by learning simple grammatical patterns; then, gradually, they intuit the rules behind them bit by bit.

Learn by doing. So kids need the freedom to learn by doing? Do I get this right– language acquisition is a kind of experimental enterprise? A free enterprise that incorporates a mix all kinds of skills and capabilities human beings possess, even very young ones?

Empirical evidence is undermining Chomsky’s explain-it-all theory. Even Chomsky’s “revised” theory doesn’t explain the data. Which leads to a discussion of Chomsky’s equally well-known hard left political activism. Empirical evidence — measured in dead bodies and poverty– showed Communism doesn’t work. Chomsky created to his own language theory and of course still subscribes to it. As one of the American Left’s leading thinkers, Chomsky calls himself a “libertarian socialist.” He says he’s not a Communist but various brands of Marxism impress him, deeply. In 2003 article on Chomsky’s economics, mises.org noted “One of Noam Chomsky’s favorite journals when he was young was called Living Marxism.” Like Marx he opposes “…the private ownership of the means of production, which he believes permits “elite groups” to “command resources.” Elite groups — like the faculty at MIT, Noam? Here’s a Chomsky comment on Marx’s value — abstract theories clearly appeal to the man. Chomsky seeks a Marxist post-capitalist society but a Marxism without the authoritarianism.

How quaint. How utterly imaginary and disconnected from reality. Note Chomsky also believes violence usually works. Gee, as the mises.org article said, ole Noam believes a lot of things, doesn’t he? Let’s note there is a huge difference between the death of Chomsky’s academic theory and Communism’s death toll, which is somewhere around a hundred million people. The Black Book of Communism estimated 94 million.

Unfair of me to go after Chomsky? No. In the core of his pompous hard left academic being, Chomsky is an America hater of the worst sort. His status as a premier linguist — the genius who came up with The Theory of Language Acquisition– gave him global prestige and standing. He used it to hate and berate the free society that gave him the privileged intellectual existence he’s enjoyed…Wait…Intellectual existence? A more accurate description is poseur existence, where ole Noam endlessly criticizes and shoots his mouth, hither, thither and yon. Chomsky rejects the charge he’s anti-American, but so what? The blinkered guy who criticizes everybody definitely lacks the faculty of self-criticism. Right after the 9/11 attacks David Horowitz hit him hard, and deservedly so. Note that Horowitz quoted a Chicago Tribune attribute that “Among intellectual luminaries of all eras, Chomsky placed eighth, just behind Plato and Sigmund Freud.” Horowitz also employed a great description of Chomsky’s America-hate “anti-American dementia.” Chomsky’s rank anti-Americanism has encouraged other America haters and in so doing has damaged our efforts to defend freedom and keep America secure. (See Thomas Nichols in The Anti-Chomsky Reader.) It is just deserts –so justly deserved– that this disgraceful man lives to witness the demise of his theory. All time Luminary Number 8? Heh.

WHAT KEEPS HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON AWAKE AT NIGHT: According to NBC, Johnson believes coordinated 9/11-type terrorist attacks are less of a threat today. However, mass shootings (like San Bernardino or Orlando) are “upper most on our minds. It is the thing that keeps me up at night the most.”

Johnson used an interesting phrase to describe his worry. It’s very similar to what Donald Rumsfeld said in January 2001. Concern that intelligence would fail and America would suffer for the intel failure kept Rumsfeld awake.

Johnson is still confronting an intelligence problem.

AT THE CLINTON FOUNDATION ACCESS EQUALS CORRUPTION: Ted Rall’s take on the Clintons’ scheme.

Excerpt:

Clinton’s defenders like to point out that neither she nor her husband draw a salary from their foundation. But that’s a technicality. The Clintons extract millions of dollars in travel expenditures, including luxurious airplane accommodations and hotel suites, from their purported do-gooder outfit. They exploit the foundation as a patronage mill, arranging for it to hire their loyalists at extravagant six-figure salaries. Charity Navigator, the Yelp of non-profits, doesn’t bother to issue a rating for the Clinton foundation due to the pathetically low portion of money ($9 million out of $140 million in 2013) that makes its way to someone who needs it.

More:

…ethics require that someone in Hillary Clinton’s position never, ever take a meeting or correspond by email or offer a job to someone who donated money to her and her husband’s foundation.

Rall’s counter to Donna Brazile’s defense of the Clintons’ corrupt operation is excellent. Read the whole thing.

RELATED: My thoughts a few weeks back on the hybrid Clinton State-Foundation.

OBAMA POLITICAL APPOINTEE SPENT TAX $$$ ON LUXURY TRAVEL AND HIS PERSONAL OFFICE AND THE COMMERCE DEPT IG WON’T NAME HIM: The linked Fox News article refers to this Commerce Dept IG report. The inspector general responded to a confidential complaint. The IG confirmed the appointee spent way too much money on the office and had a taste for “premium lodging.” The IG determined that “multiple regulatory and policy violations occurred in connection with Political Appointee’s official travel during his first year with the Department, and several people share responsibility for these violations.” (See the pdf, p. 21) The appointee is not named– not named anywhere in the report. The IG determined that the “Political Appointee is not a person lacking the means to pay for luxury accommodations or other premium services out of his own funds…” The appointee has told the IG he will pay back the money. So…First Bet: He’s a wealthy Democrat donor. Second Bet: The Commerce Dept honchos don’t want to embarrass him. Third Bet: If we had a Republican administration in power the mainstream media would be demanding the appointee’s name be released — for the benefit of good government!!! Fox News reports the Cause of Action Institute is on the case and says “American taxpayers have the right to know the name and title of this high-ranking political appointee and whether such wasteful spending could be a more widespread problem at the agency.”

THE DECLINING RATE OF HOMEOWNERSHIP: Millennials will continue to rent a lot longer. The reasons are complicated but Obama’s non-recovery has to contribute to the malaise. Here’s the study the CNBC article uses as a primary source. Check out its analysis of The Balancer Generation.

THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: State Dept sand bags and slow-walks document requests by Republicans, but it’s quick to respond when Democrats ask. Indeed. It’s part of a calculated –and massive– obstruction of justice operation run by Hillary. Obstruction of justice is the crime that drove Nixon from the White House.

OBAMACARE FAILED BECAUSE IT VIOLATED ECONOMICS 101 AND HUMAN NATURE 101: Get ready for the source of this insight: The Chicago Tribune. Remember, not a single Republican in Congress voted for ObamaCare. Violating Economics 101 as well as violating common sense were two reasons the GOP opposed the hideous thing en masse.

More from The Chicago Tribune:

It straitjacketed insurers into providing overly expensive, soup-to-nuts policies. It wasn’t flexible enough so that people could buy as much coverage as they wanted and could afford — not what the government dictated. Many healthy people primarily want catastrophic coverage. Obamacare couldn’t lure them in, couldn’t persuade them to buy on the chance they’d get sick.

Read the whole thing.

RELATED: Harry Reid says “ObamaCare has been terrific” for the country.