CRAZY LIKE A FOX: South Korea reveals it has a plan to assassinate Kim Jong Un.

South Korea has elite troops on standby ready to assassinate Kim Jong Un if the country feels threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, the country’s defense minister revealed this week.

Asked in parliament Wednesday if there was a special forces unit already assembled that could eliminate North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, Han Min-koo said: “Yes, we do have such a plan.”

It seems unlikely that Seoul could actually pull off such a thing, given Kim’s secrecy, paranoia, and the level of protection he enjoys. Two weeks ago, South Korea announced a similarly unlikely plan to raze Pyongyang from the air. Perhaps the South is trying to provoke Kim into doing something stupid enough that the cabinet or the army instigates a coup against him.

AIN’T NO CRIME: Scotland to celebrate illegal whisky heritage.

The Cabrach Trust is earmarking £5.3m in fundraising in order to help transform the Inverharroch Farm into a heritage site and ensure that enthusiasts are well aware of the areas place in the Scotch whisky story.

Cabrach, which lies on the southern edge of Moray, is said to be one of the birthplaces of Scotch whisky as we know it, though traditionally, it is better known for its number of illicit distilleries and smuggling routes of the past.

The forbidden fruit theory holds that scotch might taste better when it’s illegal, but I’m not willing to risk it.

CHARLOTTE UPDATE: At Least Four Officers Injured, One Protester on Life Support.

AND THE ALMOST-OBLIGATORY NARRATIVE FAIL: Police Find PCP in Terence Crutcher’s Car.

THIS ISN’T EXACTLY REASSURING: It’s ‘tradition’ in Russia to tamper with elections says top US intelligence chief.

THE NEW NORMAL ANEMIA: Fed Trims Interest-Rate, Growth Forecasts.

Lost in the “good news” yesterday that the Fed thinks the economy might finally be strong enough — later this year, of course, after a few delays — to sustain a recovery amidst blustery headwinds of raising the prime interest rate all the way to 0.5%, was this sobering assessment:

In forecasts released as part of the central bank’s interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee, officials cut their growth forecast for this year to 1.8%, from 2.0% in June, and held steady their view for next year at 2.0%. Notably, they lowered their long-run view on the economy’s growth rate to 1.8% from 2%.

Bad luck, I suppose.

QUESTION ASKED: Is Hillary In Danger of Pulling a Dukakis?

Like Dukakis, she not only fancies herself the candidate of careful, deliberate reason, she’s quite pleased with herself for it—a prideful trap. If asked how she would react to killers attacking Americans, Clinton will want to contrast herself with her loose-cannon opponent. She will want to show off her mastery of the policy details. She will want to demonstrate her judicious and scrupulous commitment to the legalistic niceties. She will want to detail her experience in dealing with pressing international problems. And along the technocratic way, she may forget to mention, and fail to convey, that terrorism is heinous.

They’re both terrible at presidential politicking, but Dukakis carried a lot less baggage.

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CLAIM: David Brock is laundering money.

David Brock has 7 non-profits, 3 Super PACs, one 527-committee, one LLC, one joint fundraising committee, and one unregistered solicitor crammed into his office in Washington DC.

Uncovered records expose a constant flow of money between these organizations.

The Bonner Group, his professional solicitor, works off a commission. Every time money gets passed around, Bonner receives a 12.5% cut.

Nonprofits are required to disclose who they give cash grants to.

But they aren’t required to disclose who gave them cash grants.

This weak system of one way verification is being abused by Brock. He’s been cycling money between his organizations for years, and the Bonner Group’s 12.5% commission gets triggered after every pass.

Seems legit.

More:

Say, for example, you donate $1,062,857 to Media Matters for America. This is how David Brock would have used your charitable donation in 2014:

1.Media Matters would receive your $1,062,857 donation

•The Bonner Group would earn a $132,857 commission
•Media Matters would retain $930,000

2. Next, Media Matters would give what’s left of your entire donation, $930,000, to the Franklin Education Forum

•The Bonner Group would ‘earn’ a $116,250 commission
•The Franklin Education Forum would retain $813,750

3. The Franklin Education Forum would then forward the remaining $813,750 to The Franklin Forum

•The Bonner Group would ‘earn’ a $101,718 commission
•The Franklin Forum would retain $712,031

In the end, Brock’s solicitor would have pocketed $350,825, almost a third of your initial donation! That’s a far cry from the advertised 12.5% commission.

As bizarre as that scenario may sound, this is exactly what David Brock did in 2014.

Read the whole thing. But rather than “bizarre,” the scenario sounds more like “business as usual” in Clintonland.

WELL, YEAH: The Clintons Can’t Help Themselves.

While much of the world’s press is focused on the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, another glitzy event is also taking place across town: The meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) whose gatherings have always attracted a potent mix of political operators and the rich and famous. Today, former President Bill Clinton will attempt to defend his foundation and the CGI against critics.

But rather than an opportunity to set the record straight on his charitable legacy or to defend his wife’s reputation, the former president’s speech is another in a series of colossal mistakes the Clinton machine has made in recent weeks. With her once solid lead over Donald Trump having vanished because of conflict of interest charges and the email scandal that has trashed her credibility, the last thing Hillary needs right now is the press reporting on the Clinton Foundation. Even worse, by allowing her husband to take a deep dive into issues that cannot help but hurt her no matter what he says, Clinton is demonstrating that neither her campaign nor her spouse is thinking clearly about how to avoid letting the election slip completely out of their control.

Even when it’s about Hillary, it always comes back to Bill.

Always.

The producers of Veep might try pitching a sitcom about the antics of a Bill Clinton-like character returning to the White House as First Gentleman.

Even the title is satirical.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Obama Admin Refuses To Say Whether Clinton Pal Violated Foreign Lobbying Law.

[Sid] Blumenthal appears to have engaged in such activity when on Sept. 3, 2012, he sent a memo to Hillary Clinton on behalf of John Kornblum, an international lobbyist who served as ambassador to Germany during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

As was disclosed in the memo, Kornblum was working for Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian billionaire who was head of the Georgian Dream political party. An ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ivanishvili was challenging Mikheil Saakashvili, a U.S. ally.

Blumenthal told Clinton that the Georgian election “could be a potential hot spot a month before the US election.”

“Kornblum suggests that a politically beleaguered Saakashvili might ratchet up tensions with Russia before the election, drawing Republican attention and creating a cudgel to beat the Obama administration as soft on Russia,” wrote Blumenthal, a former journalist who worked in the Bill Clinton White House.

Putin’s friend Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream Party went on to beat Saakachvili in the October, 2012 election, and Blumenthal was at the time a well-paid, full-time employee of the Clinton Foundation.

QUESTION ASKED: Donald Trump finally ramped up his campaign spending. So where did the money go?

The campaign’s largest investment continues to be in digital consulting and online ads. Giles-Parscale, a San Antonio-based firm whose president, Brad Parscale, serves as the Trump campaign’s digital director, was once again the biggest vendor for the month, collecting $11.1 million, much of which was directed to digital ads. The company, which got its foothold designing websites for the Trump Organization in 2011, had previously been paid $12.5 million this cycle.

Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics firm backed by GOP megadonor Robert Mercer, got $250,000 in August, up from $100,000 in July. Trump’s media consultant, Rick Reed, was paid $4.5 million to place TV ads. And Private Jet Services, a New Hampshire-based air charter, received $2.3 million. That’s a shift from past months, when Trump mainly used own his private jet company Tag Air to fly. In August, Tag Air was paid just about $320,000.

Through July, the campaign had directed nearly $7.7 million in reimbursements to Trump properties and Trump family members, a practice that drew criticism. But such spending drastically dropped in August. In all just $548,519 went to reimburse Trump and his companies, the majority to Tag Air, the new filing shows.

Trump started spending more like a traditional presidential candidate in the last month — $30 million — and on more conventional campaign expenses, and his national and swing-state poll numbers have shown a commensurate rise.

OCCUPIED MOSUL: Smuggled diary reveals life of fear under IS.

This morning my friend went out shopping and saw Isis executing three people because they’d been talking about Isis losses. It’s really shocking to hear news like that. They’re robbing people of their lives for trivial reasons. They are twisting the word of God for their own interests.

In the past I used to go out with my friends to the caves, to play football, or study together. But now most of the places we used to go are shut down. When I go out I try to be careful and not to go too far from home or to public places because it’s unsafe there.

Today my mother made some delicious cookies for us. You can sometimes buy the ingredients on the market, but they’re expensive. People here survive on local products which they grow themselves. It’s quite easy to get vegetables but it’s very difficult to get flour, sugar and rice because it’s expensive. People don’t have money. There’s no work, no salaries.

Free nations are endlessly inventive and surprising, but totalitarian regimes are all alike in their repression and deprivation.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER WEEK: This Week in Clinton Corruption for September 21, 2016.

You might think a series like this would eventually run short of material, but no.

D’OH! Hillary Clinton’s IT Guy Made This Common Mistake.

His mistake was choosing that username “stonetear.” Unfortunately for Combetta, he had used that name elsewhere on the Internet, which provided amateur detectives with a trail of online breadcrumbs that appear to identify him.

As the Washington Post and others have pointed out, those clues include: archived records linking the name Combetta to a “stonetear” Gmail address; an Etsy account and a video game site where “stonetear” identifies as Paul Combetta; other “stonetear” Reddit points that correspond with Combetta’s personal biography (such as ties to Rhode Island).

To make a long story short, Combetta screwed up by recycling an online handle he had used before. It’s something all of us do. It’s human nature to use the same name, rather than invent a new handle for each Internet site we visit.

But it’s also a great way to get caught if you’re doing something illicit.

I had been assured that Hillary Clinton’s personal and unsecured email server, used for public business while stashed in a bathroom of her private residence, then later wiped clean with BitBleach, was strictly on the up-and-up.

WE KNOW WHO WE ARE: Who are America’s ‘super’ gun-owners?

America may hold a reputation as a country of gun owners, but a new survey shows that roughly half of the nation’s weapons are owned by just three percent of the population.

Three percent of Americans own eight or more firearms, a cumulative 133 million of the country’s 265 million weapons, according to an unpublished survey from Harvard University and Northeastern University, whose results were reported by the Guardian and The Trace on Monday. These “super owners” have a multitude of reasons for accumulating their stash, from the guns’ investment value, to their historical significance, to concerns about personal protection, the primary factor motivating about two-thirds of all gun owners, according to the study.

While many gun owners are staunch in their defense of what they consider their Second Amendment right to protect themselves, some experts say that the fear that motivates many to accumulate weapons can be dangerous in its own right.

This unsigned Christian Science Monitor editorial is a nasty example of the left’s efforts to stigmatize a minority of Americans for being enthusiastic about exercising a constitutionally protected individual right.

VIDEO: ‘A Sh*t Ton of Famous People’ Telling You to Vote for Hillary.

Do as you’re told, citizen.

WELL, YEAH: Beer makes people happier, maybe even sexier.

Maybe?

GOOD THING THERE ARE NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ: ISIS suspected of mustard attack against US and Iraqi troops.

The shell was categorized by officials as either a rocket or artillery shell. After it landed on the base, just south of Mosul, U.S. troops tested it and received an initial reading for a chemical agent they believe is mustard.

No U.S. troops were hurt or have displayed symptoms of exposure to mustard agent.

One official said the agent had “low purity” and was “poorly weaponized.” A second official called it “ineffective.”

Ineffective or not, ISIS doesn’t fear us enough to refrain from attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT: Dashcam Video Reportedly Shows Keith Scott Coming Toward Officers With Gun In Hand.

CHARLOTTE POLICE SHOOTING: Scott had gun, not a book, chief says.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: ObamaCare Individual Mandate Fine Hit 8 Million People This Year

Despite the controversy and high-stakes legal battle that has surrounded the individual mandate, the scope of the penalties paid this year has gone unreported by major news outlets as attention has focused on ObamaCare’s latest and most glaring problems: weak enrollment, surging premiums, and insurer losses that have provoked the exit of UnitedHealth (UNH), Aetna (AET) and Humana (HUM) from most state exchanges.

Yet ObamaCare’s mounting problems should only serve to intensify questions about the wisdom and fairness of the individual mandate. The root of all of those ObamaCare problems is that far too many people — even those eligible for big subsidies — see the plans as either unaffordable or such a bad deal that they’re willing to risk paying a fine.

I had been assured that the individual mandate’s fine tax would encourage enough Young Invincibles to buy insurance and keep the exchanges solvent.

REVEALED: Survival secret of ‘Earth’s hardiest animal’

A gene that scientists identified in these strange, aquatic creatures – called tardigrades – helps them survive boiling, freezing and radiation.

In future, it could be used to protect human cells, the researchers say.

It was already known that tardigrades, also known as water bears, were able to survive by shrivelling up into desiccated balls.

But the University of Tokyo-led team found a protein that protects its DNA – wrapping around it like a blanket.

DNA damage is a big part of the aging process, so my aging self says, “Faster, please.”

NO. WAY. Bill Clinton’s Speaking Fee Overlaps With Foundation Business.

The timing of Bill Clinton’s speech income, from a perfume trade group in which a large member would later benefit from a Clinton Foundation project in Haiti, represents the kind of overlapping of private and charitable interests that has become a political liability for his wife as she runs for office. The Clinton Foundation has previously drawn attention for accepting donations from companies and foreign governments with business before the State Department when it was led by Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Clinton, for his part, has given so many speeches to companies and groups in recent years, and the Clinton Foundation has collected donations from so many corporations and organizations, that this kind of overlap seems almost inevitable.

Convenient, too.

FIVE YEARS, WHAT A SURPRISE: Obama Administration Considers Arming Syrian Kurds Against ISIS.

Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring American allies that Washington needs to combat the Islamic insurgency.

Directly providing weapons for the first time to the Syrian Kurds, whom American commanders view as their most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, would help build momentum for the assault on Raqqa. But arming them would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s already tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria.

Independent Kurdistan should have been the price President Bush made Turkey pay for their intransigence in 2003. And Kurdistan would have been, as Ralph Peters noted, “the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.”

It still could be.

JOHN TAMNY: ‘America’s Raise’ Wholly Ignores the Real Story of U.S. Income.

What left and right properly pointed out about the median income news is that income was even higher in 1999. So if we ignore for now just how easy it is to twist statistics, the simple truth is that Americans got a raise in 2015 to levels that would have distressed the 1999 worker. Even more interesting is the sad reality that the 1999 dollar was quite a bit more valuable than the one in 2016. Deep thinkers view the mere mention of gold as low rent, but the dollar bought roughly 1/279th of an ounce of gold in 1999 versus less than 1/1300th of an ounce in 2016. Gasoline back then retailed for about .98 cents a gallon.

The above figures hopefully remind us that modern income gains are somewhat illusory, but they’re most useful for explaining what has been sixteen years of wage stagnation. More than elite thinkers would ever like to admit, 21st century wage stagnation has sprung from a lack of investment. Unquestionably. Because when investment soars, so does worker productivity and wages. Companies very much want to give out raises. But when investment lags, so does productivity, and with it so do wages stagnate.

Investing is a sucker’s bet so long as the Fed keeps King Dollar dethroned and Washington picks the winners and losers.

SURPRISE! Democratic lawmakers pushing ‘public option’ amid ♡bamaCare!!! woes.

It’s almost as though ObamaCare was just a stalking horse for single payer all along.