STAFFING BLUES: Several White House staffers terminated or reassigned for security clearance issues.

Several White House staffers have been terminated or reassigned for issues related to their security clearances — with at least one individual employed in the Office of the First Lady relieved of duty, sources with direct knowledge tell ABC News.

here is a list of several other individuals with security clearance issues that are under consideration for possible termination or reassignment in the coming days, sources also tell ABC News. These individuals are likely lower level and could include people who work in the complex but not necessarily in the small confines of the West Wing.

The full break down on the list of possible individuals that action could be taken against was not readily available on Wednesday.

I semi-joked last week that Trump seems to thrive on chaos, “but today’s stories are almost enough to make you wonder if he’s going to end up having to run the whole operation by himself.”

Then again, if he’s anything like SNL’s Mastermind Reagan, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

HMM: China test hypersonic space vehicle as Xi Jinping continues push to rival Trump military.

According to a bombshell report issued at the opening of China’s annual meeting of Parliament, the country’s 2018 defence budget will be 1.11trillion yuan (£127billion).

Military chiefs in China reportedly want to make the country’s armed forces the most powerful in the world and have set a target of 8.1 per cent growth.

At present, China is the second biggest military spender behind the US.

Sam Roggeveen, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra, said: “The pace and scale of this build-up is really dramatic.

Those are just the official defense spending figures. China is known to do much of its military spending off the books. These figures are a few years old, but they still pertain in trying to get a better idea of how much Beijing really spends:

Not everyone agrees with Beijing’s numbers. Critics have complained for years that China consistently under-reports its defense budget by not including spending that other countries would disclose.

In 2012, Beijing announced a military budget of $106 billion. But the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute pegged the real number at $159 billion. The Pentagon estimated it was anywhere from $135 and $215 billion.

But there’s also this WSJ item from Tuesday: China Spends More on Domestic Security as Xi’s Powers Grow.

Beijing’s budgets for internal and external security have grown faster than the economy as a whole for several years, but domestic security spending has grown far faster — to where it exceeds the national defense budget by roughly 20%.

So who does Xi think his government really needs protection from? That’s a question I put to Bill Whittle and Scott Ott on a recent Right Angle segment.

FLASHBACK: The Tale of the Swedish Prosecutor, the Citizen, and the Human Being.

Seth Tillman:

I cannot verify the facts of this story. So, please, consider this a piece of fiction: a mere story seeking to pose a moral question. In other words, it is a story about you: about what you believe about your government, your public officials, your fellow nationals, and others—foreigners—nationals of countries other than your own.

The story is that a Swedish prosecutor successfully convicted a migrant (hailing from the Third World) for raping a Swedish twelve year old. A sentence of confinement was imposed by the court. The judge asked the prosecutor to make a recommendation in regard to whether the defendant should be deported after the period of confinement ends.

The prosecutor made a recommendation against deportation.

The prosecutor reasoned that the defendant was unlikely to be rehabilitated by confinement, and therefore, the defendant was likely to commit the same crime again. The prosecutor’s position was that whether the defendant goes on to rape a Swede (or a non-Swede in Sweden) or someone in the defendant’s own home country should not be considered because the health, safety, and lives of all potential future victims should be valued equally. And equality is a value upon which we all do or should agree.

Did the prosecutor act rightly or wrongly?

I’d wager he acted rightly in the eyes of his peer group, which is more concerned with political correctness than with protecting the property, safety, and rights of his fellow Swedes.

Related: Sharia Law Makes Its Debut in Swedish Court.

Who needs to export foreign criminals when you can import foreign notions of “justice?”

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT (CONT’D): Nerve agent was used to poison Russian spy and his daughter as it’s revealed police officer first on the scene is also fighting for his life.

SO MUCH FOR THOSE BABY STEPS: Saudi crown prince shocks Islamists with bold moves in Egypt.

It is hard to overstate the significance of a hugely symbolic move by the reformist crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). American media mostly are clueless about religion and lack any understanding of the momentous changes underway in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with the full support of the Trump administration. The fact that MbS is reputed to be close to Jared Kushner seals the deal: the mainstream media have little interest in extolling the world-historical transition underway in the nation that is pre-eminent in Sunni Islam, the Guardian of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and which has been the moneybags for radical jihadists for three generations.

This move, as recorded by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya network, is startling and highly important.

Read the whole thing.

The American media would do a better job reporting this stuff if it could get past the Trump Bad/Not-Trump Good narrative, but don’t hold your breath.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Is Islam the Solution for Wayward Youth? “If young Muslims in Western countries who get involved in juvenile crimes stop what they’re doing and become observant in Islam, authorities should breathe a sigh of relief, no? That’s what Australian authorities encouraged recently. Things didn’t work out quite the way they had hoped.”

Unexpectedly.

HISTORY: Amelia Earhart mystery solved? Scientist ’99 percent’ sure bones found belong to aviator.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Pepe the Frog Creator Sues Alex Jones’s Infowars.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Florida considering guns in schools.

THIS IS ON TOP OF THE CITY’S DAY-TO-DAY CRAZY: All the crazy things happening in San Francisco because of its out-of-control housing prices.

The telling detail explaining what California has done to its middle class is in this one line: “Only about 12% of households in San Francisco can afford the median-priced home.”

OH, GROW UP: A Photo of Charles Murray Is Too Traumatizing for Some Middlebury College Students.

I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT: Have we reached peak bourbon? “You can now literally make your own from start to finish.”

Now you can literally make your very own bourbon — guided by experts — from start to finish.

And by start to finish, I mean you literally develop your mash bill (grain recipe), ferment and distill the product, raise and fill your barrel, hammer the bung in, fill your own bottles, and label them.

All for the low, low price of $18,750.

OK, bear with me. That’s not as preposterous as it sounds.

It’s the My Craft Distillery program from Moonshine University at the Distilled Spirits Epicenter we’re talking about and the price is based on a group of four (extreme!) bourbon enthusiasts going in together. The cost includes two rooms at The Brown Hotel, 335 W. Broadway; daily lunches for all plus a dinner with the Moonshine University team; and VIP tours and experiences, not to mention an intensive education. Participants will become a Stave & Thief Society Executive Bourbon Steward along the way.

And, of course, the bourbon. Oh, and even the empty barrel.

How much bourbon are we talking? Only time will tell how much remains of the 53 gallon barrel after aging and angel’s share, but a rule of thumb, it’s about 215 bottles at barrel proof (not cut down with water) after four years, said Colin Blake, director of spirits education.

So you’re looking at a little less than $90 a bottle – a price that seems downright reasonable compared to what some limited edition bourbons go for on the secondary market, or for that matter, what many top shelf bourbons sell for retail.

It sounds like fun, but I think I’ll stick to buying a bottle or two at a time.

JOHN HAWKINS: Are You a Good Person? Take Our 16-Question Quiz and Find Out!

Can we grade on a curve?

GO FIGURE: Non-Celebrity Sexual Harassment Victim Wins Millions Against Big Company, and No One Seems To Care.

MICHELLE MALKIN: Give VA Secretary David Shulkin the boot. “This Obama holdover needs to hear the famous words: ‘You’re fired!'”

Staffing remains an issue for this Administration.

TRIGGERED: Va. Dems ‘Emotionally Shaken’ after Hardcore Pro-Second Amendment State House Speech.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT (UPDATE): The long, terrifying history of Russian dissidents being poisoned abroad.

MICHAEL WALSH: California’s Defiance Exposes a House (and Senate) Divided.

As we learned in 1861-65, state nullification of federal laws is not compatible with a federal system; “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” as Abraham Lincoln put it in his famous speech accepting the Republican nomination for Senate from Illinois in 1858. Although he lost to Stephen Douglas that year, and while he was talking about slavery, the principle still holds true today as applied to similarly divisive issues.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. [Emphasis mine]

Don’t think for a moment that the Left doesn’t fully understand Lincoln’s warning in the boldface words. In fact, they’re counting on it, just as the old South was counting on it when the Confederate states undertook secession. And for many of the same reasons.

Read the whole thing.

TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT CREEPER: ‘Doomsday Clock’ professor put on leave amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

BEFORE LONG WE’LL NEED A SPECIAL COUNSEL CZAR: Gowdy and Goodlatte Pen Letter to Attorney General Calling for Appointment of Second Special Counsel.

EURABIA: ‘Hair-Raising’: Sharia Law Makes Its Debut in Swedish Court.

In a landmark case, the Solna District Court has acquitted an Iraqi man suspected of abusing wife by pushing her against furniture, pulling her hair and hitting her face with a shoe. The court called the credibility of the woman’s testimony into question, stressing her “lowly” parentage, the daily newspaper Aftonbladet reported.

In addition to stressing that the man “came from a good family,” unlike the woman, the court ruled that the fact that the woman turned to the police instead of the husband’s family “further” undermined her credibility. According to the court, “the normal thing” to do “in these circles” would be to try and resolve the conflict within the family.

The ruling, adopted by a divided court, triggered an immediate response from Sweden’s legal circles.

“This is one of the most prejudiced and strange judgments I have read. Not completely unexpectedly dictated by two lay judges. Still no one in charge who wants to do something about the lay judge system?” former Swedish Bar Association president Bengt Ivarsson tweeted.

​Prosecutor Josefine Dahlqvist appealed the ruling straight away, claiming that the ruling violated the foundations of Sweden’s legal system.

Of course it did — that was the entire point.

And I still think we need a word for cultural self-genocide.

CDC REPORT: Emergency department visits for opioid overdoses rise by 30 percent in a year.

THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: How Stale Is Innovation in Drug Discovery? Think: 5-Year-Old Yogurt.

Nearly all of Big Pharma is riding on fumes, it seems.

On average, the 30 large and small pharmaceutical and biotech companies IDEA Pharma examined got just 11% of their 2017 revenue from drugs developed within the past five years, says Mike Rea, the firm’s CEO and one of the most insightful people I’ve met—no exaggeration—when it comes to pinpointing innovation choke points in the drug industry. Take out Gilead and Biogen from the mix and the group average drops to 8.1%. Nineteen of these 30 companies, meanwhile, got less than 7% of sales in the last calendar year from “new” products, says Rea.

“I’ve heard several arguments over the years about how this doesn’t really matter, but I believe it does,” writes Rae in his LinkedIn post. “One of the issues we face, as an industry, is the familiar reputation/ pricing issue. But the real issue on pricing is the year-on-year rises on old drugs—the deflection is to talk about new drug prices, but the sleight of hand is on the double digit rises taken every year on the portfolio staples. Without those rises, however, just imagine how those companies with no new blood to talk about would be doing…?

Maybe we need to look at shortening the 20-year patent on new drugs, which might be encouraging complacency instead of innovation.

OY: Leftist Rabbi Says Jacob, Deborah, King David, Apostle Paul Were All Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming. “The patriarch Jacob, for example, is clearly gendered female.”

ALLIES: Turkey will clear Syria’s Afrin of terror elements, says Erdoğan.

Change “terror elements” to “armed Kurds” and you’ll get a better idea of what Erdoğan is up to.