MORE PROBLEMS LIKE THIS, PLEASE: U.S. oil exports boom, putting infrastructure to the test.

DC MCALLISTER: The Subversive Way Special K’s New Marketing Campaign Hurts Women.

NORMAN FRIEDMAN: The DPRK Dilemmas.

It seems to follow that the North Koreans see their nuclear weapons as cover for a projected attack on South Korea. One may doubt that Kim appreciates just how dangerous his presumed deterrence may be. During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union came to realise that nuclear deterrence had very limited impact beyond precluding the free use of nuclear weapons by either side. Kim hasn’t had long enough to reflect on this experience. We can’t tell whether his bluster indicates overconfidence. Kim’s view may be that the U.S. nuclear counter-deterrent, which threatens the North Korean population, is irrelevant given his limited interest in its welfare.

At the very least, the North Korean capability must leave U.S. allies in the region, particularly Japan and South Korea, uncertain of the umbrella that has been protecting them. Both may very well decide that they need their own nuclear deterrents, and both are well equipped to create them rapidly.

Either possibility is disastrous from a Chinese point of view. The prospect of Japanese nuclear armament is credible: Prime Minister Abe’s recent electoral triumph was partly driven by the perceived North Korean threat. The Chinese are also aware that, as a Korean nationalist, Kim may well press historic Korean claims to Chinese territory in Manchuria. He may require Chinese help to keep his economy afloat, but the Chinese lack any form of defence against Kim’s nuclear missiles.

And that is why it’s past time for China to rein in its dangerous ally, forcefully if need be.

BEGUN, THE AI WARS HAVE: Our Artificial Intelligence ‘Sputnik Moment’ Is Now.

China’s just announced an AI strategy designed to assure it will be dominant in the host of technologies by 2030.

“If you believe this is important, as I believe, then we need to get our act together as a country,” [Alphabet Exec Chairman Eric] Schmidt said this morning. In a Q and A session at the event organized by the Center for a New American Security, Schmidt said he thought the US will maintain its lead over the People’s Republic of China for the next five years, but he expects China to catch up about then and pass us “extremely quickly.”

How important does China think AI can be? Work told me the Chinese estimate they can boost economic growth with AI by 26 percent by 2030. “It’s quite stunning,” Work said. And, of course, the PRC’s government has published a national strategy and released it to the world.

What’s the best response by the United States, I asked Work after Schmidt spoke. The federal government needs to answer this question at its highest levels, as happened after the Soviet Union stunned the world and launched the first satellite, Sputnik, Work said.

I remain dubious of any government effort regarding any kind of intelligence.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: New 100,000-Bolivar Note Worth $2.42 (Now) Coming to Venezuela.

The one thing centrally planned economies never run short of is zeros.

HMM: Devin Nunes Says Dems Suddenly Very Interested in Viewing DOJ Dossier Docs They Didn’t Want Subpoenaed.

GLENN’S BEEN SOUNDING THIS WARNING FOR 15 YEARS: Escalating threats to infrastructure confirm our need to harden the electric grid.

DHS described the attacks as “a multi-stage intrusion campaign” designed to infiltrate low security and small networks to gain access and then move laterally to the networks of “major, high value asset owners within the energy sector.” DHS said it is confident that the campaign is ongoing, and hackers are actively pursuing the long-term objective of being able to access and manipulate the computer networks of their targets.

Central to any scheme to damage industries and handicap the U.S. economy is the ability to manipulate or control our national power grid – the vast, highly inter-connected network of power plants, wires, poles, transformers and cables that deliver our nation’s lifeblood — electricity — to hundreds of millions of homes, businesses and critical service organizations every minute, every day. We need look no further than the massive impact of recent hurricanes in Florida and Puerto Rico to understand the price of being without power.

The unfortunate reality is that the national electric grid is vulnerable to a variety of potential attacks, natural and man-made, and every U.S. president since 1990 has acknowledged that fact and pledged to promptly address the looming potential risks. But little has been done at the federal level to develop the kind of comprehensive policy, process and financing mechanisms that are necessary to ensure the grid is made as robust and resilient as today’s threat demand.

Indeed.

THE LEFT ALWAYS EATS ITS OWN: Democracy is doing just fine at this populist moment. Liberalism, however, is being destroyed by its most fervent supporters.

NICE: After Winning the World Series, Astros’ Carlos Correa Put a Ring on It.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m sorry, but this is deeply problematic.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Global temperature continues to cool.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t want to live in a John Ringo novel. Though I actually just reread this one recently and it held up quite well. To read, not to live in. . . .

PRIORITIES: FBI Checks Out Sexy Strangers on Delta Flight.

According to ClickOnDetroit.com, the frisky flyers, who were not identified, started off as complete strangers heading to different destinations.

The 48-year-old woman was arrested on the plane Sunday after she was seen performing oral sex on the 28-year-old man while they were in their seats.

Both passengers were issued citations, and the investigation into the incident is being handled by the FBI, which could issue misdemeanor or even felony charges as soon as Tuesday.

Every minute the FBI spends investigating a blow job is a minute taken away from tracking down known-wolf terrorists who would blow us up.

CONRAD BLACK: Focus of Russia Probe Needs To Be on Clintons.

The fact that, on the same day as the Manafort and Gates indictments, Tony Podesta — who was intimately connected with the Uranium One dealings that were contemporaneous with extraordinarily large pledges to the Clinton Foundation and the celebrated $500,000 speech-making payment to the former president, Bill Clinton — retired as head of the firm that bears his name — may indicate that Special Counsel Mueller is shifting gears with the evidence and broadening his attack, conducted by his largely Clintonian lawyer group. Mr. Gates had so little notice of what was coming that he had not even hired a criminal lawyer; he had a public defender enter his plea.

I presume Mr. Mueller raced out with the Manafort-Gates charges in the hope that, if there were anything Mr. Manafort could say that would be damaging to Trump, an indictment such as this — the usual U.S. prosecutorial technique of throwing all the spaghetti at the wall (“conspiracy against the United States” is one of the more extreme charges) — will bring him to the standard plea bargain: giving extorted and false but incriminating testimony against the big target (Mr. Trump), in exchange for a reduced sentence with an immunity for perjured testimony. Mr. Mueller and his protégé, James Comey, are superstars in the firmament of this profoundly rotten system, but Mr. Manafort’s lawyer gave them clear notice that it won’t work.

At the same time, to shake Mr. Podesta out of his own company, and incite rumors in the Democratic press that the Podestas are being investigated (Tony Podesta’s brother, John Podesta, was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager), means that Mr. Mueller is already much closer to lifting the rock all the way on the Clintons and President Obama than he is to finding anything vulnerable around President Trump or his campaign.

Months of “Russia, Russia, Russia” may prove to be the Clinton’s worst own-goal yet.

EVERYTHING’S PROBLEMATICAL: Liberals Upset That Gary Sinise Has Been Chosen as the Rose Parade Grand Marshal.

THE CAR OF THE FUTURE, FOR NOW: Elon Musk’s goals appear less realistic as Tesla again downshifts plans for its Model 3, reveals slowdown in older models.

Tesla burned through a record amount of cash during the period—some $1.4 billion. That is disconcerting, but investors’ emphasis has been on the future with this company. Developments during the quarter make CEO Elon Musk’s vision look more and more like a pipe dream. For starters, Tesla said it would build 10% fewer Model S and X vehicles in the fourth quarter than the third quarter—a worrying sign on future demand for its more expensive, higher margin products.

The outlook is even worse for the Model 3, the mass-market model that Tesla has struggled to build. It now expects to produce 5,000 a week by the first quarter of next year, another slippage in its timeline. And Tesla seemed to hint that key equipment to produce even more Model 3s hasn’t yet been installed, noting “it has always been our intention to implement that capacity addition after we have achieved a 5,000 per week run rate.” Its ultimate target is twice as many. Given Tesla’s long history of questionable forecasts, investors should take a dim view of even these lowered expectations.

As of August, more than 10% of Model 3 preorders had been cancelled. And that was before the new car’s manufacturing delays had come to light. Eventually the company is going to have to start delivering cars or refunding many more $1,000 deposits.

Reportedly, even the refund process is experiencing serious delays.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: Twitter Buried #DNCLeak, #PodestaEmails Tweets In Last Two Months Of Campaign.

Twitter’s systems hid 48 percent of tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag and 25 percent of tweets using #PodestaEmails, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said in his written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“Approximately one quarter (25%) of [#PodestaEmails tweets] received internal tags from our automation detection systems that hid them from searches,” Edgett said.

He added that “our systems detected and hid just under half (48%) of the Tweets relating to variants of another notable hashtag, #DNCLeak, which concerned the disclosure of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.”

Just two percent of the tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag came from “potentially Russian-linked accounts,” according to Edgett.

Just think of them as Democratic operatives with LOLcats and it all makes sense.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Terrorist Attack Update, See the RUSSIAN ‘Election’ Ads and Much, Much More.

DONNA BRAZILE: When I was asked to run the Democratic Party after the Russians hacked our emails, I stumbled onto a shocking truth about the Clinton campaign.

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.

So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.

Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.

By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.

Read the whole thing.

Brazile has been nothing if not a Clinton loyalist, so there must be a heavy change in the winds for her to have written this piece. And for Politico, no less, which is basically the DNC’s unofficial house organ.

SEE ALSO: The previous post on the Democratic Civil War.

GETTING? The Democratic Civil War Is Getting Nasty, Even if No One Is Paying Attention.

Clinton was guilty of “malpractice” in how she conducted her 2016 Presidential campaign, Greenberg told me. Even worse, he said, Democrats were repeating the same political mistakes a year later. “Look at Virginia right now,” Greenberg said, as soon as we sat down in his second-floor office. “We have a candidate”—Ralph Northam, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee—“running as Hillary Clinton. He is running on the same kind of issues, and has the same kind of view of the world. It’s the Republicans who talk about the economy, not the Democrats.” This was the approach that doomed Clinton against Trump. The electorate was angry in 2016 and remains angry now, Greenberg said, and Northam, a Norfolk doctor, didn’t get it. Neither did Clinton and the team of Obama veterans who staffed her Brooklyn headquarters. “If you live in the metro areas with the élites, you don’t wake up angry about what’s happening in people’s lives,” Greenberg said.

His rant was notable for a variety of reasons, not least because Greenberg was the pollster who helped Bill Clinton win the White House in 1992, and he has been a participant in every Democratic nominee’s Presidential campaign since, including Hillary Clinton’s. His criticism illuminates an urgent question for the Democratic Party, not just in next week’s governor’s race in Virginia but in the midterm elections of 2018 and beyond. Could Trump, as deeply polarizing and unpopular as he is, even be reëlected?

Greenberg and other prominent Democrats still furious about last year’s Clinton campaign think it’s entirely possible, unless the Party figures out, and fast, a way to tackle the problem that sealed Clinton’s fate in 2016: how to appeal to the disaffected white working-class voters who provided Trump’s unlikely win a year ago.

Too late. The deplorable bitter clingers have caught on.

GREGG JARRETT: Still no evidence of Trump-Russia ‘collusion’ – but Hillary is a different matter.

George Papadopoulos pled guilty to a single charge of making a false statement to the FBI. He was not charged with so-called “collusion” because no such crime exists in American statutory law, except in anti-trust matters. It has no application to elections and political campaigns.

It is not a crime to talk to a Russian. Not that the media would ever understand that. They have never managed to point to a single statute that makes “colluding” with a foreign government in a political campaign a crime, likely because it does not exist in the criminal codes.

But that did not stop them from accusing Donald Trump, Jr., of illegally conspiring with the Russians when he met with a Russian lawyer to obtain information on Hillary Clinton. What law did he break? None. The Federal Election Commission has made it clear that it is perfectly lawful for foreign nationals to be involved in campaigns, as long as they are not paid and do not donate money. Which brings us to Hillary Clinton.

It is against the law for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to funnel millions of dollars to a British spy and to Russian sources in order to obtain the infamous and discredited Trump “dossier.” The Federal Election Campaign Act (52 USC 30101) prohibits foreign nationals and governments from giving or receiving money in U.S. campaigns. It also prohibits the filing of false or misleading campaign reports to hide the true purpose of the money (52 USC 30121). This is what Clinton and the DNC appear to have done.

Read the whole thing.

JAYVEE: New York City Terrorist Was Following ISIS Instructions, Law Enforcement Reveal.

If Obama had ordered the military to act as vigorously against ISIS in 2014 as Trump did in his first months as POTUS, instead of dismissing the threat, we might have been spared some of these stories.

PROCUREMENT BLUES: F-35 Repairs 6 Years Behind Schedule.

The GAO found that the DoD’s capabilities to repair F-35 parts at military depots are six years behind schedule.

Other challenges affecting the fighter aircraft’s readiness include spare parts shortages, undefined technical data needs, unfunded intermediate-level maintenance capabilities and delays in autonomic logistics information system (ALIS) development and uncertain funding.

From January to 7 August, the F-35 aircraft were unable to fly more than 22% of the time due to parts shortages.

The DoD has not defined all of the technical data it needs from the prime contractor.

The ALIS is a complex system that has been designed to support operations and maintenance that is key to F-35 sustainment.

Planned updates to ALIS will likely be delayed and requirements for the system development are not fully funded, according to GAO.

It’s difficult to determine whether it’s our procurement process or our maintenance systems that’s in the most dire condition.

QUESTION ASKED: Did Obama hide Iran’s relationship w/AQ from the American people so he could pursue his feckless nuclear deal?

WE MUSTN’T OFFEND OUR MURDERERS, DEAR: Stop Dancing Around It And Call Evil By Its Name.

DE RIGUEUR: New York City Terror Attack Is Confirmed as ‘Known Wolf’ Terrorism … Again.

PROFESSIONALS STUDY LOGISTICS: 15 Subs Kept Out of Service: 177 Months Of Drydock Backups.

That is almost 15 submarine-years, the equivalent of taking a boat from the 2018 budget and not adding it back until 2033.

While only Congress can pass a budget and lift caps on spending, the staffers said, part of the solution is in the Navy’s hands: outsource more work to private-sector shipyards, something the Navy does not like to do.

As the submariner community prepares to gather in Washington, D.C. for the annual Naval Submarine League symposium, a lot of subs are in rough shape. The most famous case is the USS Boise, which was scheduled to start an overhaul at the government-run Norfolk Naval Shipyard in September 2016 and is still waiting. The government finally gave up and awarded a $385.6 million contract for the work to privately run Newport News Shipbuilding – just across the James River – this month. All told, the Navy says the Boise will be out of service for 31 months longer than originally planned.

But Boise isn’t the only one.

American logistical prowess was once great enough to launch amphibious invasions of France and Saipan, half a world apart, almost simultaneously. Now we have trouble keeping seaworthy an undersized fleet.