‘MURICA: EV Domination? US Sets New Gas Consumption Record.

Gas is cheap and plentiful, so why not?

SHOOT THEM DOWN, ALL OF THEM: North Korea Plans to Launch 4 ‘Crucial Warning’ Missiles at Guam to be Ready by Mid-Month.

FAKE NEWS? Russian surveillance plane soars over the Pentagon, Capitol and other Washington sights.

A Russian surveillance plane soared through secure airspace over Washington on Wednesday, presumably collecting intelligence as it traveled near the Pentagon, the Capitol and other government buildings, two U.S. officials said.

The Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft made the flight through the Treaty on Open Skies, which Russia, the United States and 32 other nations have signed. The treaty established criteria under which countries can make unarmed observation flights over the soil of other treaty members in an effort to promote transparency and international arms control efforts, according to the State Department.

The Capitol Police issued an alert Wednesday that warned that an “authorized low-altitude aircraft” would enter restricted airspace between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The alert did not state who owned the plane, but said it “will be large and may fly directly over the U.S. Capitol.”

The treaty was signed in 1992 and has been in effect since 2002, so I’m not sure why WaPo and CNN are suddenly making a big deal out of it, unless it’s to make Trump appear ineffectual on Russia.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Google’s ‘tolerance’ requires repression.

Michael Barone:

“Part of building an open, inclusive environment,” said Google’s vice president “for diversity, integrity and governance,” “means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views, including different political views, feel safe sharing their opinions. But” — key word — “that discourse needs to work alongside the principles of equal employment found in our Code of Conduct, policies and anti-discrimination laws.”

Similarly, Google’s CEO said Tuesday, “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves. However” — key word — “portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

George Orwell would recognize this doublespeak. We totally support free speech except when we call it heresy. Tolerance requires repression.

Ironically, for a company that makes money by transmitting information, Google’s position is intellectually incoherent. What its CEO dismisses as “harmful gender stereotypes” are the conclusions, after years of painstaking research, of serious neuroscientists.

And Google’s tacit endorsement of the quasi-religious dogma that a fair society must produce gender balance and proportionate ethnic representation is at war with both experience and logic.

Mostly though this progressive dogma is at war with both liberty and individual rights.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: Supporter Of California Secession Movement: ‘Our Values Are Different’ Than The United States.

“This is California. We’re not the United States. Our values are different,” said Shankar Singram, vice president of the California Freedom Coalition. “We’re fundamentally different in how we act and speak and think about the world globally. Whether it has to do with war, the climate, the environment. We’re just a different state.”

He added, “We are going to do things that are beneficial for our state, and we disregard what the United States thinks or even their laws,” pointing to sanctuary cities and marijuana laws as examples where California is currently defying the feds.

As reported by Western Journalism, Californians may soon get the opportunity to vote to secede. The state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, issued an official ballot measure title last week allowing CalExit supporters to start gathering the 585,000 signatures needed to place the matter before California voters in 2018.

It’s an interesting thought experiment, what Californians would vote themselves if as a sovereign nation they were able to print their own money.

NORKS TARGET GUAM, TRUMP SASSES MCCONNELL, AND DWS DOES DEMOCRATS DISASTROUS DESTRUCTION: That and more in Liz Sheld’s morning brief.

RED ON RED: Top Trump donor ponies up to take out Flake.

One of Donald Trump’s most generous political benefactors is providing a six-figure donation to a super PAC devoted to unseating Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has been fiercely critical of the president.

Robert Mercer, a reclusive hedge fund billionaire who was intimately involved in Trump’s rise and helped to bankroll his 2016 campaign, is contributing $300,000 to a super PAC supporting former state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is challenging Flake in a Republican primary next year.

It’s the latest sign that Trump’s political machine is preparing to take on Flake, whose persistent attacks have angered the president. The White House has met with Ward and two other Republicans who are mulling primary challenges to the Arizona senator, former state Treasurer Jeff DeWit and former state GOP Chairman Robert Graham.

Arizona sure seems to like its mavericks.

THERE’S A LOT OF MONEY IN THAT PINK SLIME: Disney pays at least $177 million to settle ‘pink slime’ case.

Real news about fake news:

Walt Disney Co paid $177 million, in addition to insurance recoveries, to settle the closely watched “pink slime” defamation case against its ABC network by Beef Products Inc., a quarterly financial report shows.

Privately-held BPI sued American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 2012 for $5.7 billion, saying it and reporter Jim Avila had defamed the company by using the “pink slime” tag, and making errors and omissions in a series of reports that year.

Disney and BPI, which calls the product “lean finely textured beef,” came to an undisclosed settlement in June, 3-1/2 weeks after a trial began in South Dakota, where BPI is based.

Disney reported the settlement of the litigation in a footnote to its financial report, saying it was seeking additional insurance proceeds to recover its cash payment.

The financial tables show a charge of $177 million described as being “in connection with settlement of litigation.” The figure is not directly linked to the “pink slime” case, but the BPI litigation is the only one Disney specifies in the report.

Classical reference, as Ed likes to add, in the headline.

THANKS, OBAMA: Obama Admin. Found Out About North Korea’s Mini Nukes Back in 2013 but Downplayed Report.

TYPICAL*: Google Women Staying Home After James Damore Manifesto Proved His Point.

*I kid, I kid.

TRUMP IS TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL: Canada sends soldiers to migrant border crossing.

FAKE NEWS: NYT’s ‘Leaked’ Climate Report Was Online for Months.

CROCODILE TEARS: Internet Cries Over Outback Wrangler Using Duct Tape to Capture Titanic Crocodile.

ALL OUR HOPES ARE PINNED ON YOU: Conservative Koch Brothers Are Secret Investors in ‘Wonder Woman.’

Though they might be the most reviled figures among Hollywood’s liberal crowd, the Koch brothers have been a silent investor in Warner Bros.’ slate of movies for four years.

Sources say Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch — who are worth a combined $96.2 billion and wield enormous power in political circles as major backers of right-wing politicians — took a significant stake valued at tens of millions of dollars in RatPac-Dune Entertainment. Now-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brought the brothers in as investors as part of a $450 million deal struck in 2013 — a move that was never disclosed because RatPac-Dune is a private company.

Though Mnuchin is no longer involved with the slate financing facility, having recently put his stake into a blind trust in order to avoid a conflict of interest, the Koch brothers continue to be stakeholders in such films as Wonder Woman, Dunkirk and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Ready Player One.

A RatPac spokesperson didn’t respond to a request. A spokesperson for Koch Industries says, “Charles Koch, David Koch and Koch Industries do not have any involvement with this investment.”

The brothers aren’t the only unlikely billionaires who have sunk money into the Warner Bros. deal. Sources say Mnuchin also brought in Bill Gates for an amount similar to the Koch brothers’.

What a nothingburger — which you wouldn’t get from Hollywood Reporter shrieking “KOCH BROTHERS” in the headline.

“SHUT UP,” THEY EXPLAINED:

BUT OF COURSE: White Males Barred From College’s Social Justice Journalism Grant.

White males deserve whatever happens to them, because justice.

SAD: Overbrook bakery closes, blames city soda tax.

CC Orlando & Sons, which baked countless wedding and holy communion cakes and pastries since its founding on an Overbrook corner in 1948, closed after business Sunday.

The Orlando family cited not only the challenges of the baking business in these days of ubiquitous Dunkin’ Donuts shops and 24-hour supermarkets but the city’s 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages and a recent rise in property assessments.

“The soda tax was the kill shot,” said Anthony Voci Jr., a grandson of Christopher Columbus “Chick” Orlando and now a lawyer in Philadelphia.

Why are Democrat-run cities so hostile to mom & pop businesses?

GOOGLE CEO: ‘People Must Be Free To Express Dissent.’

Just not, you know, free-free.

ROGER L. SIMON: In the grand world of nothing is as good as it seems or as bad as it seems, Ed Klein is reporting over at Newsmax that a plea bargain is in the works for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Developing…

CLIMATE OF HATE: Democratic anti-Trump activist shot/killed a Republican.

WALTER OLSON: Google memo drama really is about free speech.

Because Google and Silicon Valley are cutting-edge workplaces, there’s a tendency to assume that the premise of the Google memo furor — “Your erroneous opinions are making my work environment hostile” — is somehow new as well.

But it isn’t the least bit new. The application of hostile work environment law to workplace speech — including basically political or ideological discussions, not just vulgar jokes or unwanted personal talk — goes back decades.

I had a chapter on it 21 years ago in my book on employment law, “The Excuse Factory.” Others wrote about it then and earlier.

Jonathan Rauch, for example, in the New Republic in 1997, wrote that “quietly, gradually, the workplace has become an exception” to the general rule that in America the law does not seek to restrain wrongful opinion and expression.

And Rauch explained the indirect mechanism by which this has come to pass: “What the government cannot do directly, it now requires employers to do in its stead: police ‘discriminatory’ speech.”

There’s a word for big government and its big business cronies working hand-in-hand to suppress the individual. I’ll give you a hint: It’s something the Left always accuses the Right of being, but they’re projecting.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: 6.5 million Americans chose to pay the fine rather than sign up for insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.

Insurance so good, people won’t even buy it under penalty of law.

TOM NICHOLS: About Those Bombs.

First, let’s be clear about what kind of bomb the Norks have developed. A nuclear bomb relies on splitting atoms of uranium and plutonium through the process of nuclear fission to produce an explosion. This is the kind of bomb the North Koreans tested in 2006 and the only kind they have.

That’s plenty bad, but not as bad as the more powerful thermonuclear bomb uses that fission explosion to fuse hydrogen atoms together (which is why it’s also called a fusion bomb) to produce a much, much more devastating explosion. This is the bomb used in the nuclear arsenals of the advanced nuclear powers, and while the North Koreans claim to have tested one, it’s unlikely.

A bomb without a ride to its destination is just a really dangerous paperweight, and the North Koreans have made progress on testing an ICBM, the acronym for an inter-continental ballistic missile, a rocket that throws a warhead—the bomb—into space, after which that warhead falls back to earth at many times the speed of sound.

This is different from short-range rockets or artillery, or even Saddam Hussein’s infamous SCUDs, which are fired at short range and go relatively smaller distances. Those are easy to make; Saddam’s missiles were of 1960s vintage. ICBMs are a different game entirely. ICBMs are like the rockets that sent men to the moon, capable of traveling huge distances and landing close to a designated target.

A crude nuclear bomb isn’t that hard to make, if you have enough uranium and don’t care how big it is. (The first nuclear bomb was the size of a small automobile and had to be shoved out of an airplane in 1945.) A nuclear ICBM is a lot tougher to manufacture, because a small, reliable bomb is a lot more complicated, and placing that warhead on top of a space-capable vehicle is yet more of a challenge.

This is because a nuclear ICBM requires a small enough warhead to fit on top of a big, wobbly missile and withstand the pressures of launch, traversing space, and re-entry into the atmosphere. Nuclear bombs are not hand grenades; they are delicate and finely engineered weapons that will not explode if their machinery is destroyed while plunging to earth at Mach 20.

Read the whole thing.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Tillerson on ‘Fire and Fury’ Warning: North Korea ‘Doesn’t Seem to Understand Diplomatic Language.’

SHOT: US government’s grim climate summary draft gets unofficially published.

It has been four years, and the next report’s draft has been completed and has undergone scientific vetting.

The draft paints a grim picture of how the US is already dealing with a variety of issues related to climate change and how much worse most of those issues will get during the coming decades. And the report places the blame squarely on humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.

This message won’t go over well with the administration of President Donald Trump, which has a number of members who are openly hostile to the scientific community’s conclusions.

Goodness.

But…

CHASER: ‘Dodgy’ greenhouse gas data threatens Paris accord.

Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy.

However, the Italian submission to the UN records just a tiny amount of the substance being emitted.
Levels of some emissions from India and China are so uncertain that experts say their records are plus or minus 100%.

These flaws posed a bigger threat to the Paris climate agreement than US President Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw, researchers told BBC Radio 4’s Counting Carbon programme.

It’s almost as though all of this scientific certainty is just a gussied-up modern religion providing cover for old-fashioned statism.