FASTER, PLEASE: Trump Still Hasn’t Drained Obama’s IRS Swamp.

Kimberly Strassel:

Voters put a Republican in the White House in part to impose some belated accountability on the scandal-laden Obama administration. And the supreme scandal was the IRS’s assault on tea-party groups—a campaign inspired by congressional Democrats, perpetrated by partisan bureaucrats like Lois Lerner, and covered up by Mr. Obama’s political appointees. This abuse stripped the right to political speech from thousands of Americans over two election cycles. To this day, no one has answered for it.

The groups targeted are still doggedly trying to obtain justice through lawsuits that have dragged on for years. They believed Mr. Trump’s election would bring an end to the government obstruction. It hasn’t. “The posture of the DOJ and the IRS under the Trump administration is identical to the posture under the Obama administration,” Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Sound Governance, tells me. “Nothing has changed.”

Mr. Meckler was one of the founders of Tea Party Patriots. His current organization is funding a class-action suit in Ohio federal court on behalf of groups targeted by the IRS. So far the effort has cost $3 million.

That money is now going to fight Mr. Trump’s administration.

Heads need to roll, and lots of them. If that means the IRS can’t fulfill all of its nasty functions for a while — well, tough.

CHINA WARNS NORKS: You’re on your own if you go after the United States.

China won’t come to North Korea’s help if it launches missiles threatening U.S. soil and there is retaliation, a state-owned newspaper warned on Friday, but it would intervene if Washington strikes first.

The Global Times newspaper is not an official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, but in this case its editorial probably does reflect government policy and can be considered “semiofficial,” experts said.

China has repeatedly warned both Washington and Pyongyang not to do anything that raises tensions or causes instability on the Korean Peninsula, and strongly reiterated that suggestion Friday.

“The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

“China hopes that all relevant parties will be cautious on their words and actions, and do things that help to alleviate tensions and enhance mutual trust, rather than walk on the old pathway of taking turns in shows of strength, and upgrading the tensions.”

Translation: China can’t afford a war and a refugee crisis on its northern border, and the Administration’s threats have had the effect of forcing Beijing to finally rein in its difficult ally.

If it works, this might just be our biggest win in Korea since Inchon — and without any loss of life.

GOOGLE CANCELS TOWN HALL, ISIS SETS UP SHOP ON EBAY, AND DANA LOESCH IS IN THE CROSSHAIRS: All that and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

POLITICO: Breitbart’s war on McMaster bites Bannon.

The attacks on McMaster have put Bannon in an especially awkward position with his new boss, retired Marine general John Kelly, who has been increasingly defensive of McMaster, a longtime friend and fellow general, according to interviews with 10 administration officials and people close to the White House. McMaster, who pushed Bannon off the National Security Council principals’ committee, hasn’t spoken to Bannon in weeks, one senior administration official said.

Trump’s chief strategist has been suspected in the past of orchestrating stories against his colleagues in Breitbart, which he ran before joining Trump’s campaign last August. Kelly has told West Wing staff that he won’t tolerate the infighting or anonymous comments to the press that characterized the tenure of Kelly’s predecessor Reince Priebus.

The continuing flood of negative stories targeting McMaster has served as a constant reminder that the problem was bigger than Priebus, who resigned two weeks ago.

As Ron Radosh asked earlier this week, “Will President Trump Stand with the Bannonites, or the Generals?”

THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED IN 1979: U.S. To Designate the IRGC, Affiliates as Terrorists.

President Donald Trump signed wide-ranging Congressional sanctions against Iran, North Korea and Russia last week. Known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the law’s Iran section requires the president to extend a terrorism designation pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its foreign agents and affiliates by Nov. 1.

The milestone marks the first instance the US will designate the military branch of a foreign country for terrorism.

The law’s Sec. 105 (3) states, “The IRGC, not just the IRGC-QF [the Qods Force, the Guard’s extraterritorial branch], is responsible for implementing Iran’s international program of destabilizing activities, support for acts of international terrorism, and ballistic missile program.”

E.O. 13224 is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of terrorists and their supporters, while isolating them from the US financial and commercial systems, according to Treasury.

All the talk was about Russia, but the more meaningful action may have been taken against Iran.

QUESTION ASKED: Could Trump’s hard line work on North Korea?

Niall Stanage:

The basic thrust of that campaign, in the minds of Team Trump, is to pressure China by raising the specter of instability in the region unless North Korea curbs its nuclear program. The prospect of such instability would concern China because it would call its No. 1 goal — maintaining its economic expansion — into question.

Even some Republicans who have at times been critical of Trump seemed to endorse that approach.

“China should have two options,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday. “Deal with the nut job in your backyard or realize there will be a war in your backyard.”

Independent experts who are broadly sympathetic to Trump’s approach argue that his rhetoric provides an important measure of clarity — even as critics worry that it is raising the temperature to a dangerous level.

“No matter who you are, you understand the president means business in North Korea,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank established by former President Richard Nixon. “The dictator in Pyongyang knows he means business as well. There is no mistaking what he is talking about here.”

Others noted that the more modulated approaches favored by other recent presidents have not proven successful.

As has been previously noted, you can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after we’ve tried everything else.

FREAK OUT: Walmart Hangs ‘Back-to-School’ Banner Near Gun Display.

What’s the big deal? I buy my 11-year-old ammo and take him to the range in exchange for good grades.

NORMALIZED RELATIONS: Hearing loss of US diplomats in Cuba blamed on covert device.

The two-year-old U.S. diplomatic relationship with Cuba was roiled Wednesday by what U.S. officials say was a string of bizarre incidents that left a group of American diplomats in Havana with severe hearing loss attributed to a covert sonic device.

In the fall of 2016, a series of U.S. diplomats began suffering unexplained losses of hearing, according to officials with knowledge of the investigation into the case. Several of the diplomats were recent arrivals at the embassy, which reopened in 2015 as part of former President Barack Obama’s reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Some of the diplomats’ symptoms were so severe that they were forced to cancel their tours early and return to the United States, officials said. After months of investigation, U.S. officials concluded that the diplomats had been exposed to an advanced device that operated outside the range of audible sound and had been deployed either inside or outside their residences.

On opening the new US embassy in Cuba two years ago, President Obama said, “This is what change looks like.” I wonder if he has any comment to our diplomats about what change is supposed to sound like.

BRUCE BAWER: The Guardian’s Propaganda Film About Dearborn.

CORN, POPPED: The Future Of The Democratic Party Is … White Guys?

Ossoff’s campaign is now infamous for how much press attention and money it received, while Perriello got endorsements from a series of high-profile Obama administration officials and was profiled in national outlets. (I wrote about him in March.) Pod Save America, the brainchild of former Obama staffers that has become a de facto outlet for Democratic politicians, the fireside chat for “the Resistance,” has hosted and promoted all of these young, white Democrats.

And it’s not as if there is a dearth of minority talent. Turner herself has been floated as a potential 2018 Ohio gubernatorial candidate, while Stacey Abrams, another black woman, is making a bid for the Georgia governor’s mansion, and Ben Jealous, former head of the NAACP, recently announced a long-awaited bid for Maryland governor. Where is their national party hype machine?

It might be that at the heart of the matter, Democrats have internalized most acutely the accusation that they shamed and alienated white constituencies by elevating cultural conversations around issues like the Black Lives Matter movement and gay rights. The more subtle argument, that exciting the party’s base — namely, minority groups — could be just as electorally rewarding, has been less interrogated. There are years left for younger Democratic talent to develop, and perhaps for the party to again focus on strengthening its base. But for now, at least in its promotion of rising talent, it seems the Democratic approach is lopsided.

Something so problematical might also prove highly entertaining.

RETAIL BLUES: Department Store Chains See Key Sales Figures Fall Again.

BLUE ON BLUE: Our Revolution Takes Issue With The “Dictatorial,” “Arrogant,” “Pompous” DNC.

NORTH KOREA’S NUKES: Reagan made them do it.

(A fisking.)

GOOD LUCK: Federal judge orders State Department to search for more Clinton Benghazi emails.

State will have to want to find them.

PETER SUDERMAN: Why Republicans Didn’t Repeal and Replace Obamacare.

Trump’s inexperience is a factor here. But the outsider president’s expectations were set in large part by seven years of Republican promises to repeal and replace the health care law. And throughout that time, Republicans were never really serious about developing a replacement plan that could pass.

Back in 2013, when Obamacare’s exchanges went online, and immediately crashed, it was clear that many Republicans were simply not interested in productive health policy improvements. Instead, they viewed the struggles of the health care law strictly as a political cudgel to wield against political opponents.

To be clear: I am not saying that there were literally zero Republican health care policy proposals. There were any number of white papers and policy frameworks and even a fully written piece of legislation or two. But there was very little effort to sell these plans to either the broader public or to Republican lawmakers, and to create the political conditions under which they were likely to both pass and be successful. What Republicans lacked was a shared vision—a theory of the case and how best to address it.

These efforts take significant time and energy. Democrats and their allies on the left spent nearly two decades working through ideas and building broad consensus after the failure of President Bill Clinton’s health care plan in the early 1990s. Republicans didn’t mount a similar effort. This was a widespread institutional failure driven by a combination of policy disinterest and political cynicism.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: A new study claims marijuana is tied to a threefold risk of dying from high blood pressure — but there’s a catch.

Isn’t there always?

A new study suggests that anyone who smokes marijuana faces a threefold risk of dying from high blood pressure than people who have never used the drug.

Those findings sound alarming, but it’s important to keep in mind that, like any study, this one has limitations, including that it defines marijuana “users” as anyone who’s ever tried the drug and that it doesn’t differentiate among strains of a highly unregulated product.

However, the study highlights some key areas for future study — including how using cannabis might affect the heart.

Criminalization made thorough studies of marijuana’s health effects almost impossible, and a study like this one amalgamating one-time users with habitual users probably doesn’t have much utility, either. This needs to change, now that there’s greater legal tolerance for the drug, so that individuals and governments can better understand what we’re getting into.

PALEONTOLOGY: Meet the new heavyweight champion of dinosaurs: Patagotitan.

At 76 tons (69 metric tons), the plant-eating behemoth was as heavy as a space shuttle.

The dinosaur’s fossils were found in southern Argentina in 2012. Researchers who examined and dated them said the long-necked creature was the biggest of a group of large dinosaurs called titanosaurs.

“There was one small part of the family that went crazy on size,” said Diego Pol of the Egidio Feruglio paleontology museum in Argentina, co-author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The researchers named the dinosaur Patagotitan mayorum after the Patagonia region where it was found and the Greek word titan, which means large. The second name honors a ranch family that hosted the researchers.

Six fossils of the species were studied and dated to about 100 million years ago, based on ash found around them, Pol said. The dinosaur averaged 122 feet long (37 meters) and was nearly 20 feet high (6 meters) at the shoulder.

A cast of the dinosaur’s skeleton is already on display at the American Museum of Natural History. It’s so big that the dinosaur’s head sticks out into a hallway at the New York museum.

I’d planned to take my sons to New York in three years, when my youngest turns ten — but maybe I should bump that up.

JAPANESE DEFENSE MINISTER: Japan could legally intercept a Guam-bound North Korea missile.

Onodera told a lower house of parliament committee that Japan would be allowed to hit a missile headed towards the U.S. Pacific territory if it was judged to be an existential threat to Japan, Kyodo said. This is a reiteration of the Japanese government’s position.

Experts say Japan does not currently have the capability to shoot down a missile flying over its territory headed for Guam.

Then Congress should fast-track selling them the THAAD systems to give them the capability.

CUE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: Halle Berry Says Her High School Was Racist. Her Classmates Lit Up Facebook to Set the Record Straight.

FOREVER’S A MIGHTY LONG TIME: Big Oil Is Planning to Produce at $50 Forever.

The Middle East still produces a huge amount of oil, and a war or other disruption there could still send prices soaring — temporarily. But, yes, with North America’s proven reserves and lower-cost fracking technologies, the days of $100 oil aren’t coming back to stay any time soon.

So go on and hug a fracker today.

HE BECAME A REPUBLICAN, NOT A CONSERVATIVE: West Virginia Gov. Justice Asks Trump for $4.5 Billion to Save Eastern Coal.

The governor, who days ago switched parties to Republican from Democrat, said in an telephone interview Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s elimination of burdensome regulations have been very helpful in starting to get the U.S. coal industry back on its feet. But he said Appalachian region coal mines specifically—and the thousands of jobs they provide—remain at risk because of rising competition from natural gas and less-labor-intensive coal mines in Western states such as Wyoming, the nation’s leading coal producer.

If the Eastern coalfields were to disappear altogether, he said, then any disruption to the power grid in the East because of terrorism or other reasons could lead to tragedy because there would no longer be a nearby, abundant and easily-accessible energy source.

“The survivability of the Eastern coalfields is very, very iffy,” he said. “And if you lose the Eastern coalfields, you are putting the country at risk beyond belief.” He insisted his funding proposal isn’t for a subsidy, but rather a “homeland security incentive.”

That’s almost always the excuse.

LARRY ELDER: The Shameful Blackout of Thomas, Sowell and Williams.

The African-American Museum’s discrimination against Thomas provides just one example of the black anti-conservative bigotry. Here’s another. Every year, the black monthly magazine Ebony lists its “Power 100,” defined as those “who lead, inspire and demonstrate through their individual talents, the very best in Black America.” Each year Thomas is conspicuously absent. Apparently, as a sitting black justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, Thomas does not “lead, inspire and demonstrate … the very best in Black America.”

Ebony not only excludes Clarence Thomas but also shuts out prominent conservatives Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.

As for Sowell, he’s only an economist and writer whom playwright David Mamet once called “our greatest contemporary philosopher.” Sowell, who never knew his father, was raised by a great-aunt and her two grown daughters. They lived in Harlem, where he was the first in his family to make it past the sixth grade. He left home at 17, served as a Marine in the Korean War, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, earned a master’s degree at Columbia University the next year, followed by a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago.

Sowell, at 87, authored some four dozen books (not counting revised editions) and wrote hundreds of scholarly articles and essays in periodicals and thousands of newspaper columns. In 2015, Forbes magazine said: “It’s a scandal that economist Thomas Sowell has not been awarded the Nobel Prize. No one alive has turned out so many insightful, richly researched books.” Yet, thanks in part to the Ebony shutout, many blacks have never heard of him.

It’s sad to see Ebony and so many others others stool for the guards on the Left’s black plantation.

SUNSET LAW: Rand Paul Urges ‘One of the Easiest, Most Common-Sense Steps’ to Rein in Government Waste.

THE SUN WON’T COME OUT — TOMORROW: The end of the world is always 10 years away.

OF COURSE IT DOES: The Real Story Of That Lynch-Clinton Tarmac Meeting Gets Even Stranger.

Jazz Shaw:

Two obvious questions leap to mind immediately. The first is a no-brainer which somebody at Justice should be addressing for us. Lynch had, by that point, already essentially recused herself from the question of possible prosecution of Hillary Clinton, saying she would leave the decision entirely up to the FBI, so why was her staff sending a blizzard of information and press talking points to the FBI after the secret meeting was revealed?

The second question is even more puzzling and deserves a thorough scrubbing if anyone in the MSM can be bothered to ask. There are generally accepted rules for when the government can or should redact information being released to the public. These can include privacy considerations if the personal information of individuals (such as their Social Security number) are included. Also, the government can withhold sensitive information which might endanger national security. But this was a document which contained a list of talking points to be used if they had to answer questions for the press. In what version of reality would a set of press talking points qualify for redaction?

The more we learn about this the worse the general odor coming from the story becomes.

It doesn’t stink at all, provided you’re also willing to believe that Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000 emails about wedding cakes and yoga routines.