CUE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: A Millennial’s ObamaCare Lament.

Since ObamaCare’s implementation three years ago, the percentage of enrollees under 34 has remained steady every year at about 28%. According to the Census, some 16% of Americans between 25 and 34 have opted to remain uninsured, which is 71% higher than the uninsured rate for 45- to 65-year-olds.

But without our premiums, health insurers can’t turn the profit they were counting on. Their only options are to raise premiums on everyone else or abandon the ObamaCare exchanges. That’s why premiums are skyrocketing almost everywhere and why more than 40 insurers have abandoned the law in the past two years.

There aren’t enough “I-told-you-so’s” in the world.

(If you need to, you might find a way past the WSJ’s paywall here.)

CLAIM: Trump’s old debate tricks won’t work on Clinton.

He entered each debate with a game plan and flawlessly executed it. By the time the debates began, for instance, Trump was at the top of national and battleground Republican polls. So he was able to consistently tout his polling strength while needling opponents such as Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. Trump never missed an opportunity to remind the audience he was the only candidate self-funding his campaign. He claimed vast wealth and said it ensured he was not beholden to special interests. He attacked other candidates on stage for accepting his personal donations, which he said were accompanied by leverage and return favors. And he railed against the corrupting influence of super PACs, including the one supporting Bush that raised more than $100 million.

Trump also would constantly tussle with debate moderators in order to curry favor from the audience. This started in Cleveland when Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted him with insulting remarks he had made about women, extended to the CNBC debate in Boulder, and culminated in Houston with his dressing-down of Salem Radio’s Hugh Hewitt, who had pressed him on his failure to release tax returns. Finally, Trump was a debate chameleon who receded from the spotlight at crucial moments for extended periods of time. He never participated in a debate with fewer than four candidates, and he never spoke longer than 30 minutes.

These tactics that worked so well for him in the primaries will be difficult to replicate in his trio of upcoming debates against Clinton.

I think Aaron Kall might be conflating Trump’s points from the primary debates with Trump’s style. The issues changed from forum to forum, question to question, but his style remained essentially Trump throughout — dialed down for more serious issues, dialed back up whenever he could, but always Trump. And voters respond to Trump’s take-no-guff style at least as much as they do to whatever the topic-of-the-moment might have been during the dozen or so GOP debates.

Trump also had the benefit of honing his skills and his style against 16 hungry GOP competitors. Hillary Clinton had only Bernie Sanders (who pulled his best punches) to square off against, plus a couple of other contenders so milquetoast that I can’t remember their names at this early hour without consulting Google first.

The last time Clinton had to square off against someone with so much style, it was eight years ago and his name was Barack Obama. And Clinton doesn’t seem to have the strength or health she enjoyed back then.

In either case, we’ll find out tonight, and of course I’ll be drunkblogging the debate at the PJMedia home page.

TROLL LEVEL: UNPRECEDENTED. Gennifer Flowers accepts Trump’s invitation to sit in front next to Mark Cuban at debate.

I wonder what they’ll talk about.

SETH CROPSEY: NATO Should Expel Islamist Turkey.

According to Erdogan, the leader of the moderate Islamic movement that favors secularism orchestrated an Islamist coup in July while living in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. This proposition is far-fetched.

However, its underlying argument — that Islamists have taken control of Turkey’s government — is fact.

Erdogan himself, both before and after the failed coup, has been working steadily to transform Turkey into an Islamist state. As of today, Erdogan has succeeded. Although not an Iranian theocracy, Turkey’s leadership is explicitly Islamist.

Its values and goals are antithetical to American interests and those of NATO as an alliance of free, democratic states that respect the rule of law.

Such a nation has no place in NATO, despite its previous history as a critical American ally.

Read the whole thing.

CEASEFIRE UPDATE: Syria airstrikes kill 85 people in Aleppo amid diplomatic row.

“Everyone in Aleppo is depressed,” an activist on the ground told CNN.

“They don’t know what they have done to become targets for warplanes. Fear is clear in the eyes of anyone you see walking the streets of Aleppo. Yesterday I saw a woman walking on the street and crying , no clear reason, just crying.”

Hundreds of airstrikes have pummeled the city, home to more than 250,000 people, since the Syrian government, backed by Russia, announced a renewed, “comprehensive” offensive Thursday following the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire.

It’s impossible to calculate how much American prestige President Obama has squandered in Syria, drawing disappearing red lines, making unenforceable demands, negotiating nonexistent ceasefires, and allowing ISIS to metastasize globally.

QUESTION ASKED: Can the Bat Man of Mexico also be Tequila’s Super Hero?

Bats have long been among the world’s most despised animals, due largely to myth and Hollywood’s fascination with vampire bats. But Rodrigo Medellín is trying to lead a the perceptual transformation of the bat, from blood-sucking demon to unsung nature hero, and hopes a bat-friendly tequila will provide a major public relations boost.

Aside from consuming loads of crop-destroying insects, bats are plant pollinators, and Medellín’s prized lesser long-nosed bat pollinates the cactuslike blue agave plant, the single plant species from which Mexican tequila is produced.

Habitat destruction has been especially harmful to the lesser long-nosed bat, first listed as a threatened species in Mexico in 1994. By 2008 it was well on its way to recovery, thanks largely to Medellín, a tireless advocate who’s been dubbed the “Bat Man of Mexico” for his work with bats.

Clearly this man deserves a Nobel or an Oscar or whatever we can give him.

REBOOT: ABC Developing Female-Centric ‘Magnum P.I.’ Sequel Series.

My wife insists that the original Magnum starring Tom Selleck was plenty female-centric.

AND FOUR OTHER CLINTON AIDES, TOO: FBI Gave Clinton Aide/Lawyer Cheryl Mills Immunity Deal in Clinton Email Probe.

“The FBI was handing out immunity agreements like candy.”

Heads should roll, starting with Comey’s.

GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF: Obama’s debate advice to Clinton: ‘Be yourself’

Yes, please do.

CLAIM: Former congressman Weiner faces sexting claim from girl, but he calls it a hoax.

Weiner gave The Associated Press an email, written by the girl to her teacher, in which she recanted her story.

“Our online chats were never inappropriate,” the email said. “I wanted to publish my story. He was the best candidate to pin the story to. The story needed a hoax to ride on.”

The girl told the Daily Mail she wrote the email at Weiner’s request but never sent it to the teacher.

One of Weiner’s previous online paramours was a 21-year-old college student less than half his age.

THE APOPLECTIC LIBERALS: The media is failing, they argue, because it can’t convince the public that Trump is Lucifer.

Curious, isn’t it, that liberals believe that it’s the job of the “objective” press to get Hillary Clinton elected President?

FASTER, PLEASE: ‘Hangover-free alcohol’ could replace all regular alcohol by 2050, says David Nutt.

On second thought, maybe hangovers are an necessary tool for helping us learn our limitations.

TRUMP TO DEBATE MODERATOR HOLT: We don’t want another Candy Crowley.

“Well, I think he has to be a moderator,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” of Holt during a phone interview Thursday morning. “I mean, you’re debating somebody and if she makes a mistake or I make a mistake, I’ll, you know, we’ll take each other on. But I certainly don’t think you want Candy Crowley again.”

Crowley, who moderated a 2012 debate at Hofstra University, where Trump and Clinton will square off Monday, attempted to fact check then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who said it took President Barack Obama 14 days to call the attack in Benghazi, Libya, an “act of terror.”

“And she turned out to be wrong. I really don’t think you want that,” Trump said. “That was a very pivotal moment in that debate. And it really threw the debate off and it was unfair. So I don’t think you want that. No, I think you have to have somebody that’s just — let them argue it out.”

What a welcome change — it’s been decades since I’ve been able to think about an upcoming presidential debate without flinching.

THE PRICE OF WAR, NEGLECT, DOWNSIZING, AND A BROKEN PROCUREMENT SYSTEM: House Panel says $1 Trillion Needed to Reboot Military.

The committee is spearheading the $18-billion annual increase for more equipment, training and troops. But it is facing a tough political fight with the Senate and Democrats, who oppose busting defense spending caps and raiding the Islamic State war fund to pay for the hike.

A $1 trillion increase would require obliterating spending limits passed by Congress and doling out an average of an additional $100 billion each year on the military through 2027.

Such an increase appears highly unlikely on Capitol Hill where budget gridlock and stop-gap legislative solutions have become normal. It foreshadows the hard political fight ahead for Republican defense hawks who want more money for a military that they say is depleted, inexperienced and unready for war with major world powers such as Russia and China.

That’s a lot of money. But as Robert Heinlein noted, “The most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win.“

AFTERMARKET AUTOPILOT: Comma.ai will ship a $999 autonomous driving add-on by the end of this year.

This isn’t a kit that makes your car into a fully self-driving vehicle, [famed iPhone and PlayStation hacker George] Hotz is quick to note, but it is a system that can provide powers equivalent to Tesla’s Autopilot, without requiring that you buy a whole new car. “It’s Mountain View to San Francisco without touching the wheel,” Hotz said. At launch, Comma One will support a small group of specific vehicles, but over time the startup hopes to add compatibility with more models.

Hotz contends that Comma’s key ingredient is “shippability,” a key ingredient he says other companies lack. Automakers and other startups are fond of announcing self-driving car projects (another was announced earlier today, in fact), but Hotz points out that many of these companies don’t even have hardware, let alone products they can sell to consumers.

“It is fully functional. It’s about on par with Tesla Autopilot,” Hotz said. It doesn’t have a lot of sensors as the Comma One relies on built-in car front radars and comes with a camera.

You go first.

NC CONGRESSMAN ROBERT PITTENGER: Charlotte Rioters ‘Hate White People’

That doesn’t seem like a helpful thing to say right now.

CUE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: Falling Oil Prices Shock Saudi Middle Class.

Mohammed Idrees used to travel to London once or twice a year, but these days the Saudi civil servant is asking his wife and children to cut back on using the family car to save fuel and has installed a solar panel for the kitchen to reduce electricity costs.

For decades, Saudi nationals such as Mr. Idrees enjoyed a cozy lifestyle in the desert kingdom as its rulers spent hundreds of billions of dollars of its oil revenue to subsidize essentials such as fuel, water and electricity.

But a sharp drop in the price of oil, Saudi Arabia’s main revenue source, has forced the government to withdraw some benefits this year—raising the cost of living in the kingdom and hurting its middle class, a part of society long insulated from such problems.

They might have to find honest work.

MEET PALMER LUCKEY: The Facebook Near Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump’s Meme Machine.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey financially backed a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America, a self-described “social welfare 501(c)4 non-profit” in support of the Republican nominee.

Luckey sold his virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, and Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $700 million. The 24-year-old told The Daily Beast that he had used the pseudonym “NimbleRichMan” on Reddit with a password given to him by the organization’s founders.

Nimble America says it’s dedicated to proving that “shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real,” according to the company’s introductory statement, and has taken credit for a billboard its founders say was posted outside of Pittsburgh with a cartoonishly large image of Clinton’s face alongside the words “Too Big to Jail.”

Payback’s a… well, you know.

IT’S A LIE IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT:

Obama warned that, if we didn't act to punish Assad in 2013, US troops would face chemical weapons. He was right. https://t.co/GBkcrhnkJi

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) September 22, 2016

CEASEFIRE UPDATE: New strikes in Aleppo as Syria announces offensive.

Syrian and Russian planes were pounding eastern Aleppo, according to activists. A rescue worker described what was happening as “annihilation”.

The government has urged people to avoid positions held by rebels. Russia has not confirmed its involvement.

US-Russian talks to revive a collapsed truce have broken up without progress.

Publicly, John Kerry sold the Syrian deal with Russia as a possible “turning point” in the five-year-old civil war. But privately, he “conceded to aides and friends that he believes it will not work,” even before it was implemented.

Our hands continue to be tied by overly restrictive rules of engagement, while Moscow and Damascus do whatever they please — with another self-humiliation of the U.S. Secretary of State as an added bonus.

HUH: Turkey postpones trip by UN torture expert.

The U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, was due to visit Turkey from Oct.10 to 14, but Ankara pushed the trip back to “November or December,” according to a statement from Mendez’s office.

“While I understand that the developments in Turkey during the last months demand the government’s fullest attention, I believe that postponing my visit at this late stage sends the wrong message,” he said in the statement.

“In light of the thousands of arrests made following the failed coup of July 15, and the allegations of severe overcrowding and poor conditions in many detention centres throughout the country, my visit is of utmost importance,” he added.

Mendez’s mandate ends on Oct. 31, but he urged Ankara to give his successor “unfettered access” to any areas where people were being detained.

U.N. rights office spokesman Jon Izagirre told AFP that Turkey said it was “too busy to dedicate time to the visit.”

Too busy with what, exactly?

YOU DON’T SAY: Fewer see 2016 election coverage as fair.

The decline is largely due to Democrats’ dissatisfaction. “It comes predominantly from Democrats’ unease of how the media is covering the candidates,” Jeffrey Gottfried, senior researcher at Pew, said in an interview.

The percentage of Americans who characterized the media’s coverage of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, as “too easy” totaled 27%. That is higher than 20% for 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and 15% for John McCain, the Republican standard bearer in 2008.

More than four out of 10 Democrats, 43%, say the media is too easy on Trump. Only 27% of them said the same about Romney in 2012.

Meanwhile, 61% of Republicans said the media is too easy on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, relatively unchanged from four years ago, when 59% of them said the same about President Obama.

If the media were fair with Clinton, she’d be hiding in Argentina by now.

THIS DOESN’T LOOK GOOD: Charlotte police refuse to release shooting video.

Other officers at the scene were wearing body cameras at the time, though the officer who shot Scott — Brentley Vinson, who was placed on paid administrative leave — was not wearing any recording device.

Kerr Putney, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, said that video footage of the encounter did not give “absolute definitive visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun,” but he said that the footage and other evidence “supports what we’ve heard” about what happened.

Putney later told CNN that the video was not from an angle that would show a gun in Scott’s hand, but he said witnesses saw a gun and one was found nearby. However, he said the department has no imminent plans to let the public view this footage and make a determination.

Conclusive or not, it’s probably past time to let the public see the video.

JAYVEE: Islamic State launches chemical attack against U.S., Iraqi forces, Pentagon confirms.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee “mustard blister agent” was released in the vicinity of a military airfield in the western part of al Qayyara, about 40 miles south of Mosul, in northern Iraq.

The airbase has been designated by Iraqi and American commanders as the main logistics hub to support a series of firebases that will serve as jumping-off points for 14 Iraqi Army brigades and thousands of peshmerga and militia fightersfor the eventual siege of Mosul.

If ISIS had been dealt with seriously three years ago, they wouldn’t be holding dress rehearsals with chemical weapons today.

OOPS: Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years.

Several weeks ago, Facebook disclosed in a post on its “Advertiser Help Center” that its metric for the average time users spent watching videos was artificially inflated because it was only factoring in video views of more than three seconds. The company said it was introducing a new metric to fix the problem.

Some ad agency executives who were also informed by Facebook about the change started digging deeper, prompting Facebook to give them a more detailed account, one of the people familiar with the situation said.

Ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the earlier counting method likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by between 60% and 80%, according to a late August letter Publicis Media sent to clients that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

This isn’t just a big deal for advertisers on Facebook-hosted videos, but also for video producers. Metrics like how long users watch and exactly when they stop watching help producers figure out the best ways of creating content which actually keeps people watching.

Business Insider’s Lara O’Reilly argues that Facebook’s flub isn’t “as bad as it seems,” but as one of those content creators, I’d have to strongly disagree.