JEFF REYNOLDS: Trump Eviscerated Hillary in Debate #3. What Difference, at This Point, Does It Make?
Or as I noted last night, if this Trump had shown up for the first two debates, “we might be talking about the Trump-Rubio rapprochement in a solidly red Florida, and how Clinton was barely hanging on in Nevada, Colorado, and Wisconsin.”
I AM OF COURSE DRUNKBLOGGING THE FINAL DEBATE over at the PJMedia home page.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME… Hot dogs ‘must be renamed’ in Malaysia, says religious government body.
FIFTH, SIXTH, SEVENTH, EIGHTH, NINTH, AND TENTH-PARTY CANDIDATES: Tired of Hillary and Donald? You Have Options!
I love this country.
MICHAEL LEDEEN ON THE IRAN DEAL: We’re Losing the War and We’re Paying for It.
RESET: East-West SpyWar Heats Up with Arrest of Russian Hacker in Prague.
Although the hacker’s name has not been released, video of the arrest, provided by Czech police, shows how it went down. Accompanied by his girlfriend, the Russian drove into the heart of Prague, the Czech capital, in a high-end automobile, to a swank hotel. The went to the hotel restaurant, only to be confronted by police, who moved so quickly that the Russian had no time to resist.
Indeed, he was so stunned by the appearance of the police at his table that the suspect fainted and was subsequently hospitalized. He is now in custody, awaiting an extradition request from Washington. The United States has 40 days from his arrest to ask for the Russian to be sent here to face charges, but Czech justice authorities today stated that they have yet to receive any American extradition request.
We don’t know specifically what hacking the Russian stands accused of, although Czech police have stated that he had perpetrated cyber-crimes against Americans, and he was wanted on an INTERPOL Red Notice—an indication that the FBI wanted to get their hands on this man rather badly.
Where’s the extradition request?
4TH TIME AROUND: Nobel Prize committee gives up trying to contact Bob Dylan.
THE WINTER WAR REDUX? Finland sees propaganda attack from former master Russia.
Mantila, showing on his laptop what he said were false news pictures, skewed authority statements and pro-Kremlin online discussions, said his network has verified around 20 cases of clear information operations against Finland from the past few years, and around 30 “very likely” such operations.
“There is a systematic lying campaign going on… It is not a question of bad journalism, I believe it is controlled from the centre,” he said.
Kremlin and Russian foreign ministry officials were not immediately available for a comment.
Foreign Minister Timo Soini has also acknowledged the alleged propaganda, saying the government was countering false information with facts.
“All states engage in propaganda, authoritarian states even more so,” he told Reuters.
Some of the incidents have taken aim at Finland’s independence and at its historical figures.
Putin is the master of Brandolini’s Law.
SURPRISE! Media Donate Overwhelmingly to Clinton Campaign.
As if we needed any further evidence that the liberal media are in the tank for Hillary Clinton, a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity reveals that political contributions by journalists to the Democratic nominee outstrip those made to Donald Trump by a margin of more than 27 to 1
Of the $396,000 the Center for Public Integrity tracked, $382,000, or 96 percent, went to Clinton.
Among those giving to Clinton were former ABC “World News Tonight” anchor Carole Simpson, at $2,800, longtime television talk show host Larry King, at $2,700, and New Yorker television critic Emily Nussbaum, who said during the Republican National Convention that Donald Trump was running an “ugly and xenophobic campaign,” while conveniently forgetting to disclose that she gave Clinton $250 in April.
Playing the role of Pauline Kael in tonight’s performance of 1972, Chris Cillizza.
Well this is super depressing. NO idea why any journalist would donate $ to politicians https://t.co/xyGheUdkIA
— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) October 17, 2016
NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Dem Operative Who Oversaw Trump Rally Agitators Visited White House 342 Times.
REALLY? Marco Rubio Warns Republicans: Don’t Talk About Wikileaks.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is warning his fellow Republicans not to talk about the Wikileaks dump of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta, breaking with the example set by Donald Trump.
“I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of Wikileaks,” said Rubio in a statement to NBC News. “As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process and I will not indulge it.”
Once the information is out there, by whatever means, it seems foolish not to use it.
SHOT: Saudi Minister Sees End of Oil-Price Slump.
CHASER: Saudi has little room to slow austerity drive, IMF says.
Have you thanked a fracker today?
BILL ROGGIO: A “Lasting Defeat” of the Islamic State Will Be Elusive.
Keep in mind that many analysts were quick to pronounce the Islamic State’s predecessor, al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq, as defeated after the US surge that began in 2007 rooted out the jihadists from its sanctuaries across Iraq. By 2010, Iraqi and US forces killed the Islamic State of Iraq’s emir, Abu Omar al Baghdadi, and War Minister Abu Ayyub al Masri a.k.a. Abu Hamza al Muhajir, and the group was driven underground. But these setbacks did not deter the Islamic State of Iraq. Its new leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi rallied the Islamic State of Iraq’s remaining forces and reconstituted the organization. In Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq took advantage of the Syrian civil war to rebuild its strength. By 2012, it created the Al Nusrah Front, its branch in Syria, and was launching large scale raids inside Iraq, such as the one in Haditha in March 2012, that presaged the events of 2014, which saw Iraqi forces defeated in Anbar, Salahaddin, Ninewa, and Diyala.
The Islamic State is not alone in its phoenix-like rebirth after losing ground to local forces backed by the US. Al Qaeda branches in Somalia, Yemen, and Mali, have experienced major setbacks and lost ground it held, only to regroup and retake territory. The same is true with Boko Haram in Nigeria and Taliban branches in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each of these countries have been in a state of perpetual war for well over a decade due to jihadist insurgencies.
Killing jihadis, as my colleague Bill Whittle says, is like mowing the lawn — a dreary job that must be done with some regularity or else it grows out of control.
WIKILEAKS: Email Shows That Clinton Seeks ‘the Unraveling’ of Obamacare.
In the email, Clinton conveys her support for Republicans’ ill-advised effort to repeal—or delay—Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax.” (Such efforts are ill-advised because Republicans should be pushing for full repeal, not catering to various interest groups in pushing for partial repeal.) But the striking thing is Clinton’s motivation: She wants the Democrats “to be careful” to let the Republicans’ legislation pass, because that legislation, she conveys, “begins the unraveling of the ACA” [Obamacare].
That doesn’t sound like someone who’s trying to make Obamacare better, which Clinton has campaigned as being committed to doing. Rather, while posing as an Obamacare supporter, she has been eager to see President Obama’s signature legislation “unravel,” so that it can to give way to a true government monopoly.
“The worse, the better,” as another leftist is supposed to have said.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CHUTZPAH: President Barack Obama has some advice for Donald Trump: Man up.
You first, Chief.
RICH LOWRY: How Team Hillary secretly sees the world.
A certain high-handedness and bad faith pervades the entire Clinton campaign. Hillary Clinton was perfectly comfortable with the globe-trotting financiers throwing six-figure speaking fees at her, but then had to turn around and shovel boob bait for Bubba at her party’s inflamed left-wing activists, who hate those very financiers and their views on trade, among many other things.
The Clinton campaign’s predicament was captured in microcosm by spokesman Brian Fallon. In September 2015, he worried about an op-ed attacking the Keystone Pipeline that, he noted, had already been extensively edited and re-edited.
Secretary of State Clinton had, reasonably enough, indicated she’d likely support the pipeline and now she was coming out against. Will her newly aggressive opposition, Fallon wondered, “be greeted cynically and perhaps as part of some manufactured attempt to project sincerity?”
Yeah, probably — like much of what she says and does.
Read the whole thing.
I’M PARTIAL TO WINGS MYSELF, BUT I STILL WANT ONE OF THESE: Let Your Kids Live on a Yellow Submarine With a Beatles Lego Set!
THAT WOULD EXPLAIN THE RISE OF THE LUTHERAN CALIPHATE… Russell Simmons: ‘Probably More Christians Are Radicalized’ Than Muslims.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: UN’s special envoy warns ‘Aleppo will not be there anymore’.
Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the world, a trade center with a continuous history going back 7,000 years.
MOSUL FALLOUT: EU ‘should prepare for returning jihadists’
GENERATION SNOWFLAKE: Can Cries of ‘Free Speech’ Be a Weapon? Students Say Yes.
The report, titled “And Campus for All: Diversity, Inclusion and Freedom of Speech at U.S. Universities,” covers a broad range of hot-button topics, including trigger warnings, microaggressions, safe spaces and controversial campus speakers. While it cites “troubling incidents of speech curtailed,” it finds no “pervasive” crisis.
But it does worry about an “apparent chasm” between free speech advocates and student activists, thanks in part to a conversation that sometimes dismisses students’ demands for equity and inclusion instead of parsing how they do, or don’t, infringe on the “bedrock principles” of free speech.
“A rising generation may be turning against free speech,” the report warns. “Before these developments deepen and harden, PEN America hopes to open up a wider, more searching dialogue that can help all sides to these debates better identify common ground.”
There’s no common ground to be found with totalitarian crybullies, but there is a First Amendment.
JAYVEE: Tough resistance from Islamic State slows Iraqi advance on Mosul.
The front lines were largely quiet after fierce fighting as Kurdish forces pushed to retake a string of villages on the edge of their territory and turn them into new footholds closer to Mosul. The city is the last main stronghold for the Islamic State in Iraq and represents a critical showdown for both sides.
However, the Iraqi military made some gains. The army’s 9th Division broke into the district of Hamdaniya, also on the eastern front, closing in on the Christian town of Qaraqosh, commanders said.
The intense fight for hamlets some 30 miles from the city suggested that the militants could fight for every inch outside the city, but also that they are unlikely to be able to hold on in the face of a coordinated advance and close air support from a U.S.-led coalition.
Residents who have recently fled the area and Iraqi officials with contacts inside Mosul say the Islamic State has been digging in for a fight, erecting concrete barricades and filling trenches full of oil that can be set on fire to slow advancing forces. The Islamic State claimed to have carried out 12 suicide attacks on the first day of the offensive, according to its affiliated news agency, Amaq.
The fight for Mosul is going to get uglier, but the eventual “peace” between Kurdish, Turkish, and Iraqi forces could prove uglier still.
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