PERHAPS BERNIE SANDERS AND JANE O’MEARA WILL TAKE A SECOND HONEYMOON THERE: Kim Jong Un wants to turn his missile testing area into a billion-dollar tourist hotspot.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: IMF Says Venezuela’s Inflation Rate May Rise Beyond 2,300% in 2018.

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

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Weinstein, Vegas, NFL, Eminem and Much, Much More.

THE END IS NIGH: Cook County Finance Committee repeals soda tax.

“Today the board exercised its collective will and set in motion a repeal of the sweetened beverage tax we approved last year,” Preckwinkle said. “As I outlined last week, it is up to the commissioners to choose our direction on revenue, and I respect their authority to do so.”

The tax has been controversial since its start last year when it was narrowly passed by the board after Board President Toni Preckwinkle cast the deciding vote after commissioners deadlocked on the measure.

The tide turned on the tax Friday, when a bipartisan deal to rescind the tax was announced last week. The tax will stay in effect through the end of the county’s fiscal year on Nov. 30.

With 15 votes, those in support of a repeal have more than enough support to override a Preckwinkle veto. That’s a major setback to Preckwinkle, who has argued that the tax was needed to avoid major cuts to the public health and safety sectors.
Dueling ad campaigns have argued that the tax is either an onerous burden on consumers that is hurting small businesses — or a way to provide desperately needed funds and promote healthy choices and combat child obesity.

The Can the Tax Coalition, a staunch opponent of the tax that receives money from the American Beverage Association, “applauded” the passage of the repeal.

I’m dumbstruck that Cook County repealed a tax, no matter how small or self-defeating.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE THEY SHUT THEMSELVES UP: Some of Trump’s biggest Hollywood critics remain silent about Harvey Weinstein.

Many in the Hollywood elite — arguably Trump’s most vocal foes — point to the president’s offensive past regarding women, including the infamous recording from his 2005 Access Hollywood appearance, as proof of his misogynistic tendencies and sexual predation. To be sure, Trump does not have anywhere approaching a good record on this front. Like others, I was (and still am) bothered by what we’ve learned about the president’s treatment of women.

However, some of the same individuals who have long railed against Trump’s behavior have not only been silent since the NYT article on Weinstein was published, but have been silent about his well-known behavior for years. Matt Damon, who according to the Times tried to tamp down an earlier report (which Damon denies), remains silent. Rose McGowan, who has appeared to indicated that she was assaulted by Weinstein, tweets “Ladies of Hollywood, your silence is deafening.” In fact, despite the few who have spoken out against Weinstein, most of Hollywood is staying mum.

This severely damages any shred of credibility they have when it comes to discussing Trump’s past indiscretions.

Indeed. Talk of Trump’s various indiscretions never amounted to much. But with Weinstein, once the dam cracked there came a deluge of accusations and allegations — so many and so serious that on Saturday his own lead counsel dropped him even before his own company could fire him.

And this seems apt:

There really is no end to the entertainment industry’s hypocrisy — nor to its power and desire to exploit.

MODERN POLITICS: Trump Says He ‘Didn’t Undercut’ Tillerson by Challenging Secretary’s IQ.

VERITAS FALLOUT: The New York Times responds, James O’Keefe counters.

CNN’S SYMONE SANDERS: White People Aren’t Allowed to Criticize the NFL Kneeling.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Five Great Cities To Take Your Kids To Learn American History.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Guess What’s Missing in Suburbicon’s Press Push?

LIGHTS OUT: S. Korea close to developing ‘blackout bomb.’

South Korea has secured technologies to build a non-lethal graphite bomb which can paralyze the North’s power systems in case of war, military sources said Sunday.

The so-called “blackout bomb” works by spreading chemically treated carbon graphite filaments over electric facilities to short-circuit and disrupt the power grid.

The weapon has been developed by the Agency for Defense Development as key part of South Korea’s pre-emptive strike program called Kill Chain.

“All technologies for the development of a graphite bomb led by the ADD have been secured. It is in the stage where we can build the bombs anytime,” a military official said.

They won’t have to build a very big one.

PATRICK POOLE: ISIS in Ohio (Part One): The Terror Attack at Ohio State University.

THE AGE OF LITTLE WARS: Missions Like One in Which Four Green Berets Killed in Niger Expected to Increase.

FIRST WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY CUT THE TAXES: The economy needs Trump’s tax cut, but don’t expect too much.

CAN’T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME? North Korean hackers suspected of stealing US-South Korea war plans.

IT’S MATTEW DOWD, IN CASE YOU HAD ANY DOUBTS: ABC News Chief Political Analyst Caught Pushing Fake Terrorism Claim.

IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Half of the universe’s missing normal matter has been found.

PARTY OF THE WORKING MAN: Majority of Households Paying Obamacare Penalty Are Low and Middle-Income.

This isn’t an unexpected result, given that there are far fewer wealthy people and that they’re far less likely to have to make the difficult financial choice between, say, buying insurance or making the rent.

But it certainly wasn’t discussed much during the faux debate over ObamaCare, or during the law’s slapdash implementation under Barack Obama.

LONE GUNMAN: After reviewing 200 instances when Paddock was spotted around Vegas before the shooting, sheriff said he’s “never been seen with anyone else.”

DOUBLING DOWN: Identity politics isn’t the problem for Democrats. It’s the solution.

EUGENE ROBINSON: Our Democracy Could Be Sunk by a President Adrift.

If we stipulate Robinson’s assertion, it’s mostly an indication that we’ve invested far too much power in the executive branch.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: PBS’ The Vietnam War Miseducates America.

There’s a lot to chew on, but the most telling stuff is in this graf:

Both programs depict Ho Chi Minh as more of a nationalist than a communist, but never seriously address the question of why such a “nationalist” would wage a war of aggression against his own people in the name of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, and why the communist regime that conquered South Vietnam in Ho’s name imprisoned its perceived political enemies in gulags, sent tens of thousands to re-education camps, and produced hundreds of thousands of “boat people,” who risked and often lost their lives in an effort to flee from the communists.

The horrors of Communism always seem to get swept under the rug, don’t they?

TURNABOUT: Israel ought to offer her services to Spain and the EU as an “honest broker,” and negotiate an end to the Catalonian crisis on the basis of “land for peace.”

HARDBALL: Spanish Police Set To Arrest Catalan Leader “Immediately” If He Declares Independence.

The word yesterday was that Catalan President Carles Puigdemont plans to declare a “gradual” independence, which sounds a little like Brexit although perhaps with less Cabinet infighting. But if Madrid is serious about stopping Puigdemont, there can’t be anything gradual about his arrest and/or crackdown.

THE BAD HEADLINE: Oil rises to $56 on Saudi export cut.

But under the headline, this: “In the United States, some production remains offline following Hurricane Nate, lending additional support.”

Yes, oil prices are up — but only up to about half of where OPEC would really like them to be, and even that hike might be artificially (and temporarily) inflated by Hurricane Nate.

Have you hugged a fracker today?