NO NUKES: Romania Denies Accepting US Nuclear Weapons.

The Romanian foreign ministry, MAE on Thursday dismissed claims that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania amid tensions in relations between Washington and Ankara.

“The MAE firmly rejects these pieces of information,” the ministry said in a press release, without elaborating.

Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc said that such media reports were just speculation and “so far there have not been any plans or discussions [among NATO members] on this topic”.

The statements came after website Euractiv reported on Thursday morning that more than 20 B61 nuclear weapons were being moved from Turkey’s Incirlik air base to the Deveselu base in Romania.

According to one of the two anonymous sources quoted by Euractiv, “US-Turkey relations had deteriorated so much following the [recent attempted] coup that Washington no longer trusted Ankara to host the weapons”.

You couldn’t blame us for moving the weapons, or Romania for officially denying that they were the new host.

YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD: U.S. Concedes $400 Million Payment to Iran Was Delayed as Prisoner ‘Leverage’

For months the Obama administration had maintained that the payment was part of a settlement over an old dispute and did not amount to a “ransom” for the release of the Americans. Instead, administration officials said, it was the first installment of the $1.7 billion that the United States intends to pay Iran to reimburse it for military equipment it bought before the Iranian revolution that the United States never delivered.

But at a briefing on Thursday, John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said the United States “took advantage of the leverage” it felt it had that weekend in mid-January to obtain the release of the hostages and “to make sure they got out safely and efficiently.”

Perhaps on the way to work this morning, your ATM card could provide you with enough leverage to secure breakfast at the drive-thru.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: GOP preps tough perjury case against Clinton.

GOP lawmakers have claimed that the Democratic presidential nominee broke the law by lying under oath about her private email setup during her marathon appearance in October.

Next month, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to make the issue a central part of a hearing with senior officials from the FBI, a committee aide said on Thursday.
Legally, the GOP faces a tough case. Politically, however, raising the perjury allegations would be a way to keep the issue of Clinton’s truthfulness in the public eye throughout the fall as she battles Republican nominee Donald Trump for the White House.

Proving that someone committed perjury means overcoming a high hurdle: that the person knowingly told a falsehood under oath.

Convincing lawyers at the Department of Justice to take the case would also be difficult because prosecutors would have to prove that what the former secretary of State said during the 11-hour hearing was directly at odds with the truth.

Most popular phrase in the Clinton Family Vernacular? “I did not knowingly.“

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Unhappy 25th Anniversary of the Al Sharpton-Led Crown Heights Pogrom.

I’LL HAVE A BURGER, NEAT, WATER BACK: New Burger Is So Bourbon-Drenched, You Have to Be 21 to Order It.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Australia has to correct its GPS coordinates to account for continental drift.

An inch or so a year adds up, especially for self-driving cars which rely on precise positioning.

HEALTH: Exercise as much as you want, sitting will still kill you.

“Regardless of how much physical activity someone gets, prolonged sedentary time could negatively impact the health of your heart and blood vessels,” said Dr. Deborah Rohm Young in the statement published in the journal Circulation.

She told the Daily News that people who are physically active and spend much of their day sitting are at greater risk than people who are physically active and sit less. “We believe there are different biological mechanisms in place, but this hasn’t been extensively studied yet,” she said.

When you think about it, it makes sense. The same way you can’t stuff your face with Cheetos and Coke all day, then cancel it out with a salad? Yeah, well, the sweatiest SoulCycle session isn’t going to make up for sitting in front of a computer all day.

I’ve made it a habit to get up and move around for a couple of minutes at least once an hour, but that doesn’t seem to be enough.

FRIENDLY SKIES: Baby born on Cebu Pacific airplane gets one million air miles.

MEGAN FOX: Mother Loses Her Mind When a ‘Racist’ White Teacher Touches Her Daughter’s Hair.

Today’s depressing addition to what’s wrong with America is an article written by a black mother who sent her daughter to school in a headband without tying her hair up because she ran out of time. (Story of my life, lady. I get it. It happens.) What is shocking and sad about her diatribe is what happened when her little girl asked her white teacher to put her hair up for her because she was hot. The teacher complied and tied it up the best she could. But when the mother saw her daughter had been touched by a white person, all hell broke loose.

These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years — we just live in them.

WITH A CROWBAR: Over at VodkaPundit, I ponder the best way to separate Russian and Iran.

SELF-DEFENSE: Woman who shot, killed armed robbery suspect in Glendale says she had to protect herself.

Carolann Miracle is 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 85 pounds. She’s a petite woman who seems like an easy target, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I was scared, at first. I thought, ‘Am I really getting robbed?’” Miracle told ABC15.

Miracle said she was leaving the Circle K near 59th Avenue and Camelback Road with her family early Monday morning when the suspect, Frank Taylor , tried to bum a cigarette. She told him that she didn’t have one, and then seconds later, Miracle said, she could feel the barrel of the gun against her skin.

“He put the gun up to my neck and said, ‘It’s loaded, don’t move,’” Miracle said. ”I think he thought, ‘She’s a little girl. Maybe she doesn’t know how to use her weapon.’”

She knew how to use it.

Firearms can be the ultimate equalizer between smaller women and larger, predatory men — feminists ought to embrace their Second Amendment rights as Carolann Miracle did.

(Hat tip, the fully equalized Dana Loesch.)

SHE DON’T FEEL NO WAYS TIRED: Hillary resting up: no campaign events until Sunday.

KNOWN WOLF: Report shows that Army took away gun from Dallas cop shooter Micah Johnson.

A sergeant who supervised Micah Johnson, the man who killed five Dallas police officers in July, told the Army that his gun should be taken from him in 2014 because he posed a potential threat, according to a newly released Army investigation.

The report, finished in May 2014, was conducted after a female soldier complained that Johnson had sexually harassed her while they were stationed in Afghanistan and that he had stolen her underwear. Johnson knew the woman for years, and during a disagreement she recalled that he punched his hand through a car window and cut himself so badly he need to be taken to a hospital.

“The (first sergeant) told me we needed to separate” Johnson and the female soldier “as soon as possible,” the report said. “I asked if for safety reasons we should relieve [PFC] Johnson of his firearm and any bladed weapons in his possession. The (first sergeant) said that was a good idea so I had [redacted] retrieve all weapons.”

Johnson was a known issue to the Army, but apparently unknown to local police.

We live in a networked world where nearly anyone can communicate nearly anything with nearly anyone else, nearly instantaneously — except between government agencies.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. A History Lesson for Howard Kurtz: Honest Reporting Died Long Ago.

Congratulations, Howard, you’re emerging from the media jungle. However, you’ve a chronic case of historical amnesia, one that often accompanies life in the mainstream media’s heart of obliviousness. So what do you say we do a little historical research, sir, to establish an even more lamentable context? Remember the 2008 campaign? In February 2008 The New York Times and Washington Post both ran poorly-sourced but innuendo-laced stories about John McCain’s relationship with a lobbyist.

The Times’ version implied McCain had an affair with the lady. Reporters? Rumor-mongers, Howard, targeting a Republican presidential candidate. The timing of the article damaged McCain’s campaign, so it was a successful political operation. Unfortunately it also maligned the woman’s reputation and she would have none of it. The Wikipedia summary notes a year The Times made a retraction, of sorts, in “an unusual ‘Note to Readers’ stating that The Times had not intended to allege any affair.” Read the quotes from the article and tell me with a straight face The Times didn’t mean to imply McCain wasn’t romantically entwined.

There’s much more — read the whole thing.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’: Uber’s Self-Driving Car Plans Involve a Trucking Startup.

The San Francisco ride-hailing company, which announced last year its plans to invest in self-driving tech, has agreed to acquire Otto, a young startup, it revealed to Bloomberg. Otto, which developed a kit that lets big-rig trucks drive themselves on highways, was founded by four former Googlers, including Anthony Levandowski, one of the original engineers on the company’s self-driving team, and Lior Ron, who headed Google Maps for five years.

Uber hasn’t disclosed terms of the deal, but Bloomberg pegs the price tag at roughly $680 million, assuming certain targets are met. When the deal closes, Levandowski will take the lead of Uber’s self-driving car operations while also running Otto’s trucking business, according to the report.

Who will robot trucks will deliver goods to, once everyone has lost their jobs to robots?

WELCOME TO POST-KEMALIST TURKEY: Turkey seizes assets as post-coup crackdown turns to business.

Turkish authorities ordered the detention of nearly 200 people, including leading businessmen, and seized their assets as an investigation into suspects in last month’s failed military rebellion shifted to the private sector.

President Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to choke off businesses linked to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for the July 15 coup attempt, describing his schools, firms and charities as “nests of terrorism.”

Tens of thousands of troops, civil servants, judges and officials have been detained or dismissed in a massive purge that Western allies worry Erdogan is using to crack down on broader dissent, risking stability in the NATO partner.

In dawn raids on Thursday, police from a financial-crimes unit entered some 200 homes and workplaces after a chief prosecutor issued 187 arrest warrants, state-run Anadolu news agency said. TV channel CNN Turk said 60 people were detained.

It wasn’t a failed coup; it’s a successful purge.

TO PROTECT AND SERVE: Army Veteran Hangs U.S. Flag Upside Down to Protest Eminent Domain, Gets Arrested.

Homer Martz, a 63-year-old U.S. Army veteran from Iowa, was unhappy about the oil pipeline being built on his property by a private company which had been granted access to the land through eminent domain. Among Martz’s concerns were the risk the pipeline presents to his water supply and the fact that the pipeline could have been placed — much less disruptively, a few hundred feet away from its current path — where it wouldn’t disturb anyone’s home or water supply.

So he decided to protest this public-private intrusion into his home by hanging a U.S. flag upside down.

Then the police arrived.

Read the whole thing.

EXTREMELY CARELESS: Clinton Foundation Possibly Hacked.

A potentially campaign-ending October Surprise could be in the making for Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked Clinton Foundation emails, according to a report out late Wednesday evening.

Reuters is reporting that according to sources familiar with the matter, the Clinton charitable foundation had to hire a cyber-security firm to examine its data systems after seeing signs that they were hacked. The culprits appear to be the Russians, cyber-security experts say.

She can’t even protect her own secrets.

POOR THING: Clinton Pushed From Left and Right on Health Care.

Democrats have tried to move past debate over the Affordable Care Act, a goal made harder this week when Aetna said it would withdraw from 11 of the 15 state health care exchanges, unsettling the marketplaces and reducing consumer options.

Mrs. Clinton has backed a public option since 2007, and she reaffirmed her support during her Democratic primary against Mr. Sanders. He and others on the left will be pushing to make sure she carries through, especially given their concerns that she will tack to the center if elected president.

Conservatives, meanwhile, say Aetna’s decision shows the law isn’t working and should be scrapped.

“Aetna just today announced that they are dropping out, as are many of the major insurance agencies. Obamacare is a disaster,” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said at a rally late Tuesday in Wisconsin.

No wonder she’s “often confused.“

ROBOTIC RIDE-SHARING: Uber’s self-driving cars will pick up their first customers this month.

Uber’s self-driving taxis will get their first real-world test in Pittsburgh this month, with the semi-autonomous vehicles assigned at random to customers using the company’s app. According to a report from Bloomberg, the test fleet will consist of modified Volvo XC90 SUVs, with each car supervised by a human in the driver’s seat (a legal requirement) as well as a co-pilot taking notes. The trips themselves will be free, with a tablet in the backseat informing the passenger about the car’s capabilities.

Related: Ford will sell fully autonomous cars by 2021 with no steering wheels.

What is really needed is an AI able to pass the Turing Test well enough to make smalltalk during your trip.

Would you ride in a fully autonomous robot cab?

DON’T DO STUPID SH*T: NATO’s Foothold in Eastern Med Is Faltering.

While China and Russia are providing Greece and Turkey with much needed support, their involvement could compromise Western security. Athens and Ankara may side with Beijing and Moscow when it comes to NATO security concerns involving China, North Korea and Russia, for example, if they become too dependent on Chinese and Russian assistance. It would take just one country withholding support to prevent an action by NATO that is not in the interest of China or Russia since NATO only takes action when every member agrees.

Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu has already made some worrying remarks about Turkey’s NATO membership. Cavusoglu has publicly justified Turkey’s growing relationship with Russia bystating, “Turkey wanted to cooperate with NATO members up to this point. But the results we got did not satisfy us. Therefore, it is natural to look for other options.” This is concerning because NATO relations with Russia have been strained since Moscow invaded Ukraine and increased its aggressive behavior on the alliance’s eastern flank. A NATO member making such statements suggests that Turkey finds more value in a closer relationship with Russia. Minister Cavusoglu also warned that “if the West loses Turkey one day, it will not be because of Turkey’s relations with Russia, China or the Islamic world, but rather because of themselves.” The West must address Turkey’s concerns to prevent the loss of a geopolitically significant ally.

Obama wanted us out of the Middle East, and after seven years we’re well on our way — but it won’t stop there.

LOOKING OUT FOR THE LITTLE GUY: Small business owner: FDA rules threaten Florida heritage of hand-rolled cigars.

The FDA recently released its long-dreaded rule that asserted the agency’s authority to regulate a wide variety of nicotine-delivery products. Much of the media attention zeroed in on the fairly new vaping, or “e-cigarette,” industry. By the FDA’s own admission, its new rule would make 98.5 percent of those products on the market illegal. What has been largely missed by the media, but not the small business owners like my wife and me, is that these regulations would devastate the hand-rolled cigar industry.

The new FDA rules would force all new premium cigars to undergo a “pre-market review process.” This process requires that manufacturers prove their products meet certain requirements before they can go to market by submitting hundreds if not thousands of hours of paperwork per product. Since the FDA defines new cigars to include new blends, which can change seasonally for smaller manufacturers, the compliance costs could overwhelm many small-cigar businesses.

This isn’t about promoting health; it’s about securing money and power.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES. Merkel: Germany Had Islamic Extremism Before Refugee Influx.

Merkel said late Wednesday that “the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism by IS isn’t a phenomenon that came to us with the refugees, it’s one that we had before too.”

She conceded, however, “it can be seen that there are attempts to win over refugees (for terrorism), or we had the case of Paris, where refugees were deliberately smuggled in by IS.”

Merkel was speaking at a campaign event in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where her Christian Democrats face strong competition from the nationalist, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party in state elections on Sept. 4.

The country was shaken by a string of attacks in July, two of which were the first in Germany claimed by the Islamic State group. In those, only the attackers — both asylum-seekers — were killed.

Would she try treating lung cancer with Marlboros?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Every joke from Airplane!, ranked.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? How Alcohol Shaped Our Civilization, According to a Beer Archaeologist.