CIRCLING THE WAGONS: Pence declines to call David Duke ‘deplorable.’

“I’m not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke’s name,” Pence said. “Donald Trump has denounced David Duke repeatedly, we don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of people who think like him.”

“You would call him a ‘deplorable’?” Blitzer asked.

“No, I’m not in the name-calling business, Wolf. You know me better than that,” Pence said. “What Hillary Clinton did Friday night is shocking.”

The Trump campaign spent all of Sunday and Monday deliberately not saying anything which would allow the press to change the subject from Hillary Clinton’s health issues.

On the other hand, who needs an invitation to call David Duke deplorable?

OLD NEWS, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, SHE’S ALREADY DISCLOSED EVERYTHING: Emails show Clinton ties to Russian oligarch under investigation.

The Clintons’ relationship with Viktor Vekselberg, the billionaire whose name appears in the documents, has taken on new significance amid an expanding criminal investigation into his company. Last week, authorities raided the offices of Vekselberg’s firm, Renova Group, following allegations of bribery from several of Renova’s subsidiaries.

Vekselberg had been named head of a partnership dubbed the “Russian Silicon Valley” just three months before a Clinton Foundation employee began pushing the State Department to approve Bill Clinton’s proposed meeting with Vekselberg and a handful of other Russian executives.

The emails, obtained by conservative-leaning Citizens United and provided first to the Washington Examiner, do not reveal any illegal activity on the part of the State Department, the Clintons or their foundation.

Well, that sort of thing would be handled strictly face-to-face.

BLAME THE LITTLE GUY: Clinton campaign manager: Staff to blame for slow health disclosure.

There is “absolutely not” any illness in Hillary Clinton’s medical records that hasn’t been disclosed, her campaign manager said Monday.

Robby Mook told CNN’s Jake Tapper it was the fault of Clinton’s staff that the press wasn’t told for 90 minutes where the former secretary of state had gone when she left a 9/11 commemoration ceremony early after “overheating” and having to be helped into a van after faltering Sunday.

“I wish we’d done that in a shorter amount of time. That’s on us — that’s on the staff,” Mook told Tapper on “The Lead.” “We were trying to make sure she could see her doctor, getting her to Chelsea’s apartment, making sure she was OK.”

Even taking Mook’s statement at face value, Clinton was reportedly out of commission and unable to make a decision for over an hour. That’s not what most Americans are looking for in a Commander-in-Chief.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Helpful Step-By-Step Guide To Defending Every Clinton Scandal.

Become a member of the Democrat-Media Complex, or just sound like one!

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: First bourbon barreled in Florida since Prohibition goes on sale in St. Augustine.

THIS MORNING’S RUMOR HAS LEGS ENOUGH FOR POLITICO TO RUN WITH IT: Former DNC chairman calls for Clinton contingency plan.

“Now is the time for all good political leaders to come to the aid of their party,” said Don Fowler, who helmed the DNC from 1995 to 1997, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and has backed Hillary Clinton since her 2008 presidential bid. “I think the plan should be developed by 6 o’clock this afternoon.”

Fowler said he expects Clinton to fully recover from her bout with pneumonia, which forced her to leave a Sept. 11 memorial event early and cancel an early-week fundraising swing. But he said the Democratic Party would be mistaken to proceed without a contingency plan. The party’s existing rules empower the DNC to name a replacement candidate but include few guidelines or parameters.

Fowler has been out as DNC chair for almost 20 years, but the next person to float this will be someone a bit closer in.

A MILLION TO ONE SHOT, DOC: Mysterious Catfish Falls From The Sky, Hits Woman In The Face.

WELL, THAT DIDN’T TAKE VERY LONG: Syria Cease-Fire Is Violated After Less Than an Hour.

Several residents in the divided northern city of Aleppo said via text message that a government helicopter had dropped explosive cylinders on a rebel-held district. And in the southern province of Dara’a, a rebel faction said in a statement that it had killed four government soldiers.

There had been widespread doubts that the cease-fire, timed to coincide with the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, would be respected.

On the other side of the Caliphate, there’s this:

Baghdad hopes that Moscow will continue to provide Iraqi security forces intelligence data on the location of Daesh militants and their capabilities during the upcoming operation to free Mosul, the second largest city in the country seized by the group in 2014, Izvestiya reported, citing an unnamed source in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Take Izvestia with a grain of salt — or perhaps a shot of vodka — but Iraq knows who the new strong horse is in the Middle East.

NONPROLIFERATION IS DEAD AND OBAMA KILLED IT: North Korea ready for another nuclear test any time.

“Assessment by South Korean and U.S. intelligence is that the North is always ready for an additional nuclear test in the Punggye-ri area,” the site of the North’s five nuclear explosions, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a news briefing.

“North Korea has a tunnel where it can conduct an additional nuclear test,” Moon said.

South Korea is pushing for more sanctions against Pyongyang to close what it says were loopholes left in the last United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in March.

Both China and Russia backed sanctions imposed in March following the North’s January nuclear test, but their apparent ambivalence about fresh sanctions cast doubt on the Security Council’s ability to quickly form a consensus.

It was a big deal when Russia and China signed on to the new sanctions regime, but they haven’t been nearly as interested in following America’s lead since the Obama-Kerry nuclear deal with Iran.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Scholar of Islam predicts civil war across Europe as more young Muslims facing poor job prospects turn to radical groups.

MAYBE SARAH HOYT WILL LEND ME HER SHOCKED FACE: Some Trump supporters loathe Hillary but love Bill.

I have been struck during recent interviews by how many Trump voters go out of their way to tell me they abhor Hillary but admire Bill. They believe Bill felt their pain; they see Hillary as heartless. They thought of Bill as an Arkansas outsider taking on the established order; they think Hillary embodies that order.

Well, Bill’s a lot more likable than Hillary — or at least he used to be.

CONSPIRACY THEORY:

DNC delegate: If @HillaryClinton withdraws, every indication now committee will vote to replace with Biden. @BernieSanders team scrambling

— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) September 12, 2016

The really juicy stuff going on right now will never make the history books, which is a real shame.

ROGER KIMBALL: The Bumpy Ride of Our Flight 93.

Back in June, Donald Rumsfeld summed up the position that, in subsequent weeks, many (not all) anti-Trump conservatives have come to adopt. Reprising his famous epistemological mot that distinguished between “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,” Rumsfeld said that, of course he was voting for Trump. Trump was an “unknown known,” perhaps dubious in some ways, but all the world knew exactly what Hillary Clinton represented.

This was the essential point made in a more colorful way in the most remarkable essay I have read in some time, “The Flight 93 Election,” which appeared a few days back in that indispensable journal, the Claremont Review of Books. I have no idea who “Publius Decius Mus”—the putative author—really is, though I speculate on stylistic and philological grounds that he is not unacquainted with the works of Leo Strauss. The historical Decius Mus was a Roman consul during the first Samnite and Latin wars. In 340BC, he sacrificed himself at the Battle of Vesuvius in order to secure a great victory for the Romans. That story, for those who are interested in such things, is told in Book 8 of Livy’s The History of Rome.

Presumably, Claremont’s Publius adopted the name of that self-sacrificing Roman in order to remind his readers of the existential stakes in this election (as well as, of course, concealing his real identity from the wrath of NeverTrump vigilantes). Publius reworks Donald Rumsfeld’s point with a metaphor—with two, in fact: “2016,” he begins, “is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die.”

Read the whole thing.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: S. Korea unveils plan to raze Pyongyang in case of signs of nuclear attack.

South Korea has already developed a plan to annihilate the North Korean capital of Pyongyang through intensive bombing in case the North shows any signs of a nuclear attack, a military source in Seoul said Sunday.

“Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon. In other words, the North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the map,” the source said.

Well, good — I suppose.

U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea for decades not only to deter Pyongyang, but to keep Seoul feeling secure enough to stay reined in.

Those days would seem to be over.

THE TORRICELLI OPTION: ‘Expect emergency DNC meeting to CONSIDER replacement for Hillary,’ Dem operatives say.

It’s not personal, Hillary. It’s strictly business.

TRADECRAFT: New Tricks Make ISIS, Once Easily Tracked, a Sophisticated Opponent.

Weeks before Islamic State militant Abdelhamid Abaaoud led the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris, French authorities thought he was holed up in northern Syria. Western Intelligence agencies pursuing Abaaoud had tracked him there using cell-phone location data and other electronic footprints.

The Paris attacks, which killed 130 people, showed how badly they were fooled. Abaaoud had slipped past the dragnet and entered the city unnoticed.

Drawing from a growing bag of tricks, Islamic State accomplices located in Syria likely used phones and WhatsApp accounts belonging to Abaaoud and other attackers to mask the group’s travel to Europe, said a Western security official: “We relied too much on technology. And we lost track.”

SIGINT is important, but almost nothing beats HUMINT. We’ve always been better at the former than the latter, but our HUMINT has been hurt by years of malign neglect under President Obama.

FASTER, PLEASE: Sniper takes out ISIS executioner from a mile away.

A sharpshooter killed a top ISIS executioner and three other jihadists with a single bullet from nearly a mile away — just seconds before the fiend was set to burn 12 hostages alive with a flamethrower, according to a new report.

The British Special Air Service marksman turned one of the most hated terrorists in Syria into a fireball by using a Barett .50-caliber rifle to strike a fuel tank affixed to the jihadi’s back, the UK’s Daily Star reported Sunday.

The pack exploded, killing the sadistic terrorist and three of his flunkies, who were supposed to film the execution, last month, the paper said.

Bravo.

GALAXY 7 NOTE RECALL: Samsung May Remotely Deactivate Unexchanged Units After Sept. 30.

TRANSPARENCY: VA quit sending performance data to national health care quality site.

For years, the VA provided data on a number of criteria to the Hospital Compare web site run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Department of Health and Human Services. The site includes death and readmission rates and other measures of quality for public and private hospitals around the country, as well as national averages.

After the VA scandal, Congress passed the law mandating the VA to submit even more data. But the VA confirmed to USA TODAY last week that it stopped reporting its information July 1.

Joe Francis, director of clinical analytics and reporting at the Veterans Health Administration, said lawyers at HHS advised the VA to pull the plug until the two agencies could work out a new deal governing the sharing of information.

It must be nice, one executive branch department negotiating with an executive branch agency over how (or whether?) they’ll follow a law from Congress.

PEAK OIL: OPEC Flips Forecast to Predict Rebound in Rival Supply Next Year.

Production from outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will grow by 200,000 barrels a day next year, according to the group, which a month ago had projected a drop of 150,000 a day. The gain is driven by the startup of the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan. That means the organization’s total output of 33.24 million barrels a day in August was 757,000 a day higher than the average amount the world will need from OPEC in 2017.

“For 2017, non-OPEC supply growth has also been revised up,” the organization’s Vienna-based research department said in its monthly market report. “This is mostly due to new production from Kashagan next year.”

The report also says that national stockpiles are “poised to diminish in the coming months as a result of surprisingly strong demand in major consuming nations.”

What’s so surprising about using more oil when the price is so low?

PRESIDENTIAL:

.@realDonaldTrump on Hillary's health: I hope she gets well, gets back on the trail & we'll see her at the debate pic.twitter.com/1k8vXigpBv

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 12, 2016

MISTER, WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE CHARLES HABSBURG AGAIN: Austrian election re-run comes unstuck in postal ballot setback.

The country’s constitutional court scrapped the result of the first election in May due to irregularities in counting postal ballots.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said the re-run, scheduled for Oct. 2, had also been postponed.

“The reason is a defective envelope,” he said, suggesting a return to ballot forms used in previous elections after some postal voters complained the glue on their papers was not working properly.

Asked at a news conference if the double setback might damage Austria’s reputation, Sobotka said: “The laugh is always on the loser.”

The postponement refocuses attention on an election that had already set alarm bells ringing among Austria’s European Union peers.

In May, Norbert Hofer of the anti-migrant Freedom Party (FPO) came within 31,000 votes of a far-right victory that would have resonated widely on a continent where mass migration driven by war and poverty threatens to polarize political debate.

In a twist on the classic E.U. tradition, Austria continue postponing the vote until they’re assured of the desired result in which the scary “far-right” doesn’t win.

JILL ABRAMSON: Hillary Clinton’s best riposte to Trump? Radical transparency.

The drag on her momentum is Clinton’s insistence on holding things close in order to maintain a zone of privacy. This feeds the unfair but persistent belief among a sizable chunk of the electorate that she has something serious to hide. The events of Sunday were a case in point: the candidate appeared to stumble after leaving the 9/11 memorial in New York. The zone of privacy closed around her – press were largely kept in the dark, apart from a short statement and a shout of “I’m feeling great”. Clinton then retreated to Chappaqua with her inner circle.

The time has come to do something daring to try to restore trust. It goes against every fibre of her nature, but Clinton should now become radically transparent.

She should release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches. She should release a comprehensive list of all of her paid speeches. She should release any records or correspondence that help clarify her role at the Clinton Foundation. She should announce that no member of the Clinton family, including her daughter, Chelsea, will be involved in the foundation while she is president. She should release detailed health records, including the treatments she received following her concussion several years ago. And, now, the full details of her abrupt departure from the 9/11 ceremony. The campaign should never go dark when something happens, even if it’s not serious.

“Appeared to stumble?”

Asian dude that blocks #ClintonCollapse just earned all expense paid trip to Orgy Island. #HillaryHealth pic.twitter.com/mSj2ZaC3yx

— Deplorable-Blon (@RubberBlon) September 11, 2016

There’s some radical transparency for you.

PEACE IN OUR TIME? Russia-US-brokered Syria cease-fire to start at sunset.

The cease-fire deal, hammered out between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Saturday, allows the Syrian government to continue to strike at the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants with the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group, earlier known as the Nusra Front, until the U.S. and Russia take over the task in one week’s time.

Rebel factions have expressed deep reservations about the deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, the rebels and the Syrian government are expected to stop attacking one another. Along with Assad’s government, his key allies — Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — have also endorsed the deal.

But that scenario is complicated by the fact that Jabhat Fatah al-Sham remains intertwined with several other groups fighting on the ground.

After five years of “red lines” and demands that Assad step down, it’s difficult to see this deal as anything other than a US surrender to Russian and Iranian interests in Syria.

QUESTION ASKED: Is Tequila the New Kombucha?

Margaritas might not be a superfood, but the Soul Cycle tribe seems pretty convinced that tequila counts as a wellness drink. Tales of health-minded tipplers abound, from accounts of celiac sufferers sipping the gluten-free spirit at happy hour to non-wheat-sensitive folks who just feel better on it.

I’m not sensitive to anything, but Friday is margarita night here anyway — so why take chances?