HILLARY CLINTON: ‘I’m a Bit of a Paula Revere’ on Russian Election Meddling.

I don’t recall Paul Revere having been bought and paid for by British mineral interests, but whatever helps you sleep through the night, Hill.

RETAIL BLUES: Toys ‘R’ Us Will Live Because Mattel and Hasbro Can’t Let It Die.

The toy chain filed for bankruptcy-court protection Monday night, another in a string of specialty retailers felled by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and the rest of the online onslaught. Toys “R” Us had been hobbled by more than $5 billion in debt, which required more th$400 million a year to service.

Yet, the company, which operates about 1,600 stores globally, will likely survive because manufacturers such as Mattel Inc., Hasbro Inc. and closely held MGA Entertainment Inc. need the last remaining toy chain. These vendors are eager for whatever remaining leverage they have against the might of Amazon and Wal-Mart, the bane of all companies focused on a single category of shopping.

“Oh my God, they are very important, and people don’t understand,” Isaac Larian, founder and chief executive officer of MGA, said of the toy chain. “That’s the only place where kids can go and just buy toys. There is no toy business without Toys ‘R’ Us.”

If the specialty retailer model has been broken, then how long can Mattel and Hasbro afford to pump money into it?

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE (CONT): Student jailed for falsely accusing taxi driver of sex attack.

She was an aspiring police officer.

HE SUPPORTS THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND BOOBS: Clay Travis May Run for the Senate in Tennessee.

THE NEW SHADOW WAR: Cyber Assaults on Democracy’s ‘Brain-Space’ are Here to Stay.

Information warfare involves the deliberate use of information to confuse, mislead, and affect the choices and decisions that the adversary makes. Cyber-enabled information warfare (CEIW) takes advantage of the features of information technologies and the internet: high connectivity, low latency, high degrees of anonymity, insensitivity to distance and national borders, democratized access to publishing capabilities, and inexpensive production and consumption of information content.

These aspects of modern information technologies enable foreign practitioners of information warfare to use automated Twitter accounts to amplify one-sided messages, to communicate with large populations at low cost without accountability, and at the same time to tailor political messages in a manner highly customized to narrow audiences. And because democracies place a greater emphasis on free expression and speech than do their authoritarian adversaries, democracies have fewer and more porous defenses against CEIW.

CEIW is hostile, but it is not warfare in any sense recognized under the United Nations Charter or the laws of armed conflict. The process emphasizes soft power, leveraging propaganda, persuasion, culture, social forces, confusion, and deception. If the patron saint of traditional warfare is Clausewitz, the patron saint of CEIW is Sun Tzu, who once wrote, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

And there is probably no one more susceptible to this kind of anti-republican (small-r) manipulation than today’s social-media crybullies.

GEORGE WASHINGTON GETS A FACELIFT: Carrier Overhaul Brings New Weapons & F-35. “The Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries are beginning a massive upgrade and technical adjustment to its USS George Washington Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier — to enable the ship to operate the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and serve for 25-more years with newly configured structures, weapons systems, defenses, propulsion, computer automation and advanced digital networking technology.”

So it’s a little deeper than a facelift.

WELL, GOOD: Tillerson Backs Off Asking Israel to Return $75 Million in Aid.

THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION NO ONE WAS ASKING? Dear God, Toyota is Building a Souped-up Prius.

President Akio Toyoda seemed to take personal offense at the notion that his company was renowned for producing quality machines without offering much in the way of zest. He’s made it his mission to spice things up, but a performance variant of the Prius is not something anyone could have anticipated.

However, “performance” is a relative term when discussing the Prius GR Sport because it offers no additional power output.

Oh. Just when I was about to welcome some of our Prius-owning friends back into the world of high-output fun.

NOAH ROTHMAN: Both Students and Their Mentors Deserve Blame for America’s Violent Streak.

“Here’s the problem with suggesting that upsetting speech warrants ‘safe spaces,’ or otherwise conflating mere words with physical assault: If speech is violence, then violence becomes a justifiable response to speech,” Rampell writes. Indeed, this observation has been proposed by those who have watched the storm clouds on the horizon for years now (cough). Rampell should, however, not limit her critique to colleges. These authoritarian ideas didn’t dawn on these teenagers like an epiphany ex nihilo. They were imparted.

In the modern age, the intellectual foundations needed to transform even murderous violence as an understandable, if not entirely acceptable, response to provocation were laid years ago by a frustrated class of activists trapped in ivy-covered cages on campuses. It was an impulse that began to seep out into the national consciousness when the editors and cartoonists of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were slaughtered by the Islamist terrorists they deliberately offended. We were treated to a series of hand-wringing treatise from earnest liberals lamenting the effects of a society that “perversely” “valorizes free speech for its own sake.”

Even former Secretary of State John Kerry gave credence to this ideal. Following the bloody November 2015 attack on various locations in Paris, Kerry called the violence senseless—unlike the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. The Charlie Hebdo murderers, he said, had “a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘Okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.’” That same logic can been seen today in the cowardice of adult men and women who scold their young charges for inviting the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, Condoleezza Rice, Christina Hoff Sommers, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Charles Murray, or any number of pop culture figures, intellectuals, and conservative authors onto campus. Don’t they know they’re just asking for it?

The crybully’s tears were always crocodile.

TUCKER CARLSON: Were We Lied to About Wiretapping, Or Did FBI Go Rogue?

According to a new report from CNN, Paul Manafort, who for a time last year was the Trump campaign chairman, was indeed wiretapped by the federal government, both before and after the election.

Manafort, it ought to be noted, had an apartment inside Trump Tower at that time, so it is virtually certain that surveillance of him would have included other members of the Trump campaign staff, maybe even Trump himself. In other words, it looks like Trump’s tweet may have been right. So why did three top members of Congress from both parties, and the country’s top law enforcement officers all assure us that the surveillance didn’t happen? That there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest it had happened? Were they lying or did they simply not know?

Neither answer is comforting.

Nope.

INCLUSIVITY: Activist in Seminar: All White People Are Racist and Always Will Be.

I’m not certain she’s thought this through.

STAKES RAISED: Palin, Gorka To Campaign Against Trump’s Candidate In Alabama GOP Senate Primary.

Increasingly this feels less like GOP civil war than a world war, with far-flung players getting sucked in. First it was Roy Moore versus Luther Strange in the Alabama Senate runoff. Mitch McConnell naturally backed the incumbent Strange, who’s been a team player in the Senate. Steve Bannon then jumped in on behalf of Moore, who’s led Strange in the polls and whose victory in the primary would serve notice to Republicans on the Hill that the base wants populism. But then, somewhat illogically, Trump decided to double down on his endorsement of Strange during the primary by agreeing to hold a pre-runoff rally for him in Alabama this coming Friday night. If anything can save Strange from likely defeat, it’s POTUS’s support in a deep red state.

But Bannon’s not licked yet. He’s going to counter Trump’s support for the establishmentarian by bringing in a pair of big-name right-wing populists, Sarah Palin and Sebastian Gorka, to hold a rally for Moore on Thursday evening. Checkmate for Strange? Not just yet: Mike Pence will travel to Alabama next week and hold a rally of his own for the incumbent on Monday night, the day before the election.

These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.

REMINDER: Trump is hardly the first president to remind North Korea of America’s ability to obliterate it.

Though Trump’s comments are indeed remarkable considering the context and setting in which they were delivered, he’s hardly the first president to remind everyone of America’s ability to wipe the Hermit Kingdom off the map.

In 2016, for example, President Barack Obama remarked casually that the U.S. could, in fact, turn North Korea into a memory.

“We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals,” he said in an interview with CBS News.

He added this careful qualifier, “But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, [South] Korea.”

That same year, in his final speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Obama referred to North Korea as a “wasteland,” and said it would have to face “consequences” if it continued to pursue its nuclear program.

Years prior, during a press conference in 1993, President Bill Clinton warned that the U.S. would wage total war against North Korea should it get out of line.

“I know of no one who seriously believes that the United States and [South Korea] would be defeated in a war of aggression by North Korea if they were to attack,” he said. “And I made it as clear as I could that if they were to do that, they would pay a price so great that the nation would probably not survive as it is known today.”

Yes, but it’s different when Trump does it because shut up.

TRAVEL BAN CHALLENGER: Trump Should Like His Supreme Court Chances on Travel Ban.. “I don’t think the court will be disappointed at all if the case goes away as moot, and they don’t actually have to issue a decision on the merit.”

THIS STORY FROM MONDAY SEEMS LESS RELEVANT AFTER TUESDAY’S UN SPEECH: How Trump’s advisers schooled him on globalism.

OH FER CRYIN’ OUT LOUD: Hours After Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County Tickets Residents For Code Violations.

Celso Perez was helping his neighbors remove some fallen trees blocking their street when a county code enforcer rolled up and issued him a safety notice for having a downed fence. “I laughed,” Perez tells WSVN-TV. “I thought he was kidding. ‘You are kidding right? We just had a hurricane six hours ago.'”

It wasn’t a joke. The official told Perez that the downed fence—which encloses a pool—was a safety hazard, and that if it wasn’t fixed by the time he returned, Perez would be hit with a fine. The official then hung the safety citation on the portion of Perez’s fence that remained standing, leaving him and his neighbors to finish clearing the debris from their street.

According to WSVN, the county has handed out 680 safety notices for downed pool barriers, and another 177 electrical hazard safety notices. Reason reached out to the county to confirm those numbers, but has not received a reply.

From what can be gleaned from the WSVN story and from county code enforcement procedures, these safety notices appear to be just warnings, meaning no fines have been handed out as of yet. Reason tried to confirm this with the county as well, but was again rebuffed.

Still, these warnings carry with them a duty to correct the violation within a specific window of time. That might not even be possible for some residents, given how many businesses are still out of operation.

Tar, feathers.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump’s UNGA Speech, Mexico Earthquake and Much, Much More.

BETSY WOODRUFF: Facebook Silences Rohingya Reports of Ethnic Cleansing.

Rohingya people trying to use social media to share information about the attacks on them tell The Daily Beast they have had their posts removed and their accounts shut down, and that they hope Facebook stops silencing them.

A Facebook representative told The Daily Beast the company would look into the situation. “We want Facebook to be a place where people can share responsibly, and we work hard to strike the right balance between enabling expression while providing a safe and respectful experience,” said Facebook spokesperson Ruchika Budhraja in a statement. “That’s why we have Community Standards, which outline what type of sharing is allowed on Facebook and what type of content may be reported to us and removed. Anyone can report content to us if they think it violates our standards. In response to the situation in Myanmar, we are carefully reviewing content against our Community Standards.”

Facebook shows little compunction about doing the bidding of oppressive regimes, although to be fair it’s impossible to say if that’s due to an impartial application of the company’s Community Standards — or something more sinister.

Either way, it’s something to keep in mind when sharing your most personal details with the social media behemoth.

CAUTION: SPEED BUMPS AHEAD. Latest Push for a Health-Law Repeal Picks Up Speed in the Senate.

Mr. McConnell said on Tuesday the Senate leadership was “in the process of discussing” whether to hold a vote on the latest bill, which would unwind much of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

“If we were going to go forward, we would have to act before Sept. 30,” Mr. McConnell told reporters. “We are in the process of discussing all of this. Everybody knows that the opportunity expires at the end of the month.” He was referring to the short shelf life of the procedural tool that allows Republicans to pass bills through the Senate with a simple majority.

GOP Senators met Tuesday to discuss the repeal bill from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R., La.) and two hearings are planned next week. The White House also threw its muscle behind the legislation, with Vice President Mike Pence saying Tuesday that the administration is “all in” on the effort.

The bill still faces the same challenge that sank a July repeal effort: Moderate Republicans worry the proposal goes too far in rolling back the current health law.

Senator Rand Paul says he won’t vote for the bill because it doesn’t go far enough, which puts the new replacement effort in the exact same bind as the previous replacement effort.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Middlebury College Empowers Violent Students, Heckler’s Veto.

SURPRISED? CNN Hated Trump’s UN Speech, Fox News Loved It.

Wolf Blitzer looks like he’d been forced to swallow a live bullfrog just before going on-air.

THAT’S (NOT) ENTERTAINMENT! The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe Hollywood productions about the United States.

SARAH HOYT: Light Another Cigarette and Learn to Forget. “The rise of the West seems to hinge on the spread of two substances: tobacco and coffee.”

Coffee remains a medical necessity, but as much as I miss nicotine even after all these years, I won’t take up vaping for fear that the do-gooders will outlaw it.

APPARENTLY NOT: Tylenol Isn’t So Safe, But At Least It Works, Right?

I’m not a big fan of Tylenol, which becomes rather obvious if you read the first part of this two-part series. For a drug that is so widely used, it is quite easy to consume enough, accidentally or otherwise, to take enough to suffer a toxic overdose due to irreversible liver damage.

But drugs cannot be judged by safety alone. Both the good and the bad – benefits and risks – must be taken into account to get the true measure of the quality of a drug. So if Tylenol isn’t all that safe, you might expect that, at the very least, it should work well. Otherwise, why would so many people be taking it?

That’s the $64,000 question, and here’s the answer. In reality, Tylenol doesn’t work very well at all, and there is plenty of evidence to back this up, especially in systematic Cochrane Reviews – highly regarded, evidence-based reviews that carefully evaluate the quality of data in multiple studies.

I don’t keep Tylenol in the house because of its deleterious effects when combined with alcohol — and unlike Tylenol, alcohol is an effective painkiller.

DAVID HARSANYI: After Self-Reflection, Journalists Discover They’ve Been Too Critical Of … Democrats.

It’s difficult to believe this now, but at one point a number of top media outlets considered the first-ever FBI investigation of a major presidential candidate in the history of the republic to be somewhat newsworthy. So they proceeded to cover the candidate’s many lies, her purging of somewhere around 30,000 pieces of evidence, and the FBI’s she’s-so-freaking-guilty-but-not-guilty verdict. And when authorities uncovered a computer that should have been in the possession of the FBI but was instead accessible to the sex-addicted husband of a top Hillary aide, they reported that, as well. This should have all been ignored.

On numerous occasions during her book tour, Clinton argued that the press didn’t do its job — which is to say, help her get elected. Considering the sycophantic coverage afforded her and her former boss the past eight years, perhaps these expectations were too high. Perhaps she expected the whitewashing to continue. Perhaps she anticipated the reaction to her dishonesty to be similar to the reaction she received after lying about the events surrounding the September 11, 2012 terror attack that took the life of Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Which is to say a bunch journalists tweeting,

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embellished with dismissive jokes.

Perhaps in all the excitement of the election some journalists lost their way.

They must want more Trump, because this is how to get just that.