RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Here are the Anti-Israel Tweets from Hijab-Wearing Olympian.

“But, but, but she wants to change the perception about Muslims.”

OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Wargaming the Electoral College.

Trump’s path to 270 has narrowed considerably since last month.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Substantial’ Number of Syrian Refugee Applicants Have Been Rejected.

The reasons, which shouldn’t surprise you, include “terrorism and national security concerns.”

YA THINK? FBI probe of Clinton’s emails prompted by espionage fears, secret letters say.

The two letters, dated October 23, 2015 and January 20, 2016, and marked “For Official Use Only,” were written by Peter Strzok and Charles H. Kable IV, the section chiefs of the FBI’s counterespionage section, and sent to Gregory B. Starr, the assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. They were written while the FBI was investigating Clinton’s use of an unsecure, private email server and the dissemination of classified information.

“The potential compromise was identified when, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request [by VICE News], the U.S. Department of State (DoS) and the ICIG reviewed electronic mail (email) communications from the private email accounts previously used by a former Secretary of State during her tenure at DoS,” Kable wrote. “An initial review of this material identified emails containing national security information later determined by the US Intelligence Community to be classified up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Level.”

Ready to be a fully compromised President from Day One.

QUESTION ASKED: Why couldn’t the Romans hold and conquer Scotland?

My theory is that if Scotch whisky had been invented much sooner, the Romans would have put forth a much greater effort.

MODERN PROBLEMS: That Vibrating ‘Wub Wub Wub’ That Comes From Cracking One Car Window? It’s Not Just You!

The vibration actually has a name. It is the Helmholtz resonance, or “wind throb,” and it has long plagued an auto industry that has generally made cars better with each passing year. It is as likely to assail a pricey sports car as it is a compact sedan.

The most common instance of wind throb is when a back seat driver rolls down a window when the front ones aren’t cracked. The usual advice: Open a front window. There are other scenarios, too.
…
The throb is caused by wind passing over flat openings, like a window, in a way that matches the “resonance frequency” of most car cabins. The phenomenon is just like what happens when someone blows over the top of a Coke bottle.

“Most vehicles today, regardless of manufacturer, are sealed so well to improve NVH levels, they can’t vent the volume of air needed to reduce or eliminate the phenomenon,” Jason Nunamaker, a Toyota Motor Corp. expert on vehicle frames, said in an email. NVH is an industry term that stands for noise, vibration and harshness.

I’ve found that cracking a back window slightly wider than a front window completely eliminates the throb, but that nothing helps when it is caused by a poorly designed sunroof.

WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN: Men’s Lingerie Is Here—and It’s Super Lacy.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why Clint Eastwood’s Anti-PC Rant Matters.

OUTRAGE OF THE DAY: SJW Internet Freaks Out about How ‘Wearing Camo Can Be Anti-Feminist’

“Let’s have a conversation about the basic origin of camouflage, shall we?” self-described “queer/femme antagonist” Annah Anti-Palindrome writes in a piece for Everyday Feminism titled “These 3 Powerful Stories Show Why Wearing Camo Can Be Anti-Feminist.”

“Camouflage is a dye pattern that was initially made to disguise the bodies of soldiers during combat, so that they could stealthily hunt people on opposing armies,” she writes. “Let me repeat this: Camo patterns were made for the purpose of human hunting.”

“In the spirit of feminism, let us not forget our most basic goal: to create and sustain a world in which people inherently value, revere, and actively support each other’s survival,” she continues.

Unless of course you don’t fall into line with the SJW crowd, in which case all bets are off.

THE WAR ON PLEASURE: Tough new vaping rules are suffocating e-cig retailers.

Garrett Blankenship, owner of Darth Vapor in Chatsworth, said he took a huge hit when the smoking age went up, and expects another blow to the business from the tougher federal regulations.

“It’s the beginning of a new generation,” he said of customers between 18 and 21. “We’ll see where this heads.”

The new regulations also cover hand-rolled cigars, hookahs and pipe tobacco.

FDA officials now must assess all e-cigarette products available since 2007. To stay on store shelves, nearly every vaping product must secure FDA approval, though manufacturers will be able to keep selling their wares for up to two years during the application process and for a year during FDA review.

Vaping likely saves lives, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the nanny staters.

I’M NOT SURE THIS IS POSSIBLE, BUT I’M WILLING TO STIPULATE IT: The Orlando terrorist’s father attending Hillary Clinton event is worse than you thought.

OBAMANOMICS: US Productivity Plunges For 3rd Quarter In A Row – Longest Losing Streak Since 1979.

Instapundit readers have known for years that Jimmy Carter was the “best-case scenario” for Barack Obama.

HOPENCHANGE COMES TO RUSSIA: Putinism enters a new historic phase.

At the end of July, a reshuffle of senior figures especially in Russia’s regional administration – with the promise of more to come – told us something about President Putin’s current concerns and priorities. It also hints at a new historical metaphor. Putin is a keen student of history and has repeatedly paralleled himself to tough-minded reformers, from modernising tsar Peter the Great to prime minister Peter Stolypin, perhaps the last hope of imperial Russia. Instead, though, Putin now seems to be metamorphosing into Tsar Nicholas I, the unyielding autocrat who viewed his people with disdain and suspicion, and earned the title “Gendarme of Europe” for his attempts to prevent the spread of liberal and democratic ideals.

The reshuffle, described by presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov as “the usual cyclical rotation” saw figures both retiring and being sacked, and a knock-on series of promotions and transfers. To many, the central leitmotif was “the rise of the men in epaulettes” as jobs went to veterans from the security apparatus, especially the Federal Guard Service (FSO), Putin’s personal protectors.

But he makes the troop trains run on time.

NEW CLINTON EMAIL FIGHT: Bill Clinton’s schedules.

State revealed the existence of the large collection of Bill Clinton schedules after the RNC made an unusual legal move last month, asking a federal judge to declare that the former president’s schedules should be released in their entirety because the former president worked closely with State officials and his post-presidency office is funded with taxpayer dollars. The GOP also pointed to the ethical controversy over the Clinton Foundation soliciting donations abroad while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

“The record … reflects that State Department officials and Clinton Foundation officials worked essentially hand in glove, coordinating President Clinton’s schedule and whom he would speak with, as well as talking points and even briefings with regard to political ramifications of certain meetings or events,” wrote Jason Torchinsky, an attorney for the RNC. “The electronic calendar records at issue here merely are a function of, and inextricably intertwined with, that coordinated effort with the federal agency officials.”

While the thousands of pages of Bill Clinton’s schedules could provide ample fodder for opposition researchers at the RNC, it’s uncertain whether the GOP will get its hands on many of them before the November election.

You can be sure that a Clinton DOJ would show just as much integrity and impartiality on this matter as the Obama DOJ was in handling the Clinton email saga.

SALON: Americans deserve more than an apology for the foreclosure fraud epidemic.

“I lost my home of 30 years to fraudclosure.”

“I have been fighting this bank for over five years now. I am finally losing everything to their fraud.”

“We feel captive in our own home.”

This is a sampling of what I have awakened to practically every day for the past few months, since my book “Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud” came out. Hundreds of people have emailed me, sent me letters, attended my public events, to relate their personal horror stories of foreclosure and dispossession. They come from across America, from different social and economic backgrounds. Some lost everything, and some haven’t given up.

Hey, they don’t call Barack Obama “President Goldman Sachs” for nothing — but is America (including Salon writers) ready for Madam President Goldman Sachs?

SURPRISE: Negative interest rates might be backfiring.

Policy makers in Europe and Japan have turned to negative rates for the same reason—to stimulate their lackluster economies. Yet the results have left some economists scratching their heads. Instead of opening their wallets, many consumers and businesses are squirreling away more money.

When Ms. Hofmann heard the ECB was knocking rates below zero in June 2014, she considered it “madness” and promptly cut her spending, set aside more money and bought gold. “I now need to save more than before to have enough to retire,” says Ms. Hofmann, 54 years old.

Surely some smart central banker could point to just one example where negative interest rates have produced the intended growth.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: “Rigged?” 5 Ways the Election Is Under Attack.

If “rigged” means a group of Democrats sit in central command and control the output of voting machines from outer space, no, the election isn’t rigged.

What is really happening is far more dangerous, far more diffuse and far harder to fix than a conspiracy to control voting machines.

The integrity of our elections are suffering from a coordinated multi-million dollar attack on multiple fronts. It’s far more complicated than one centralized high-powered conspiracy to “rig” the election. A more sophisticated understanding of what is happening is essential to combat the real threat to our elections.

Read the whole thing.

GEORGA PEACH? Clinton leads by 7 points in GA.

Clinton leads Trump by 7 points, 44 to 37 percent, in the JMC Analytics poll released Monday, with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson taking 7 percent.

Another 10 percent of respondents were undecided, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein registered just 1 percent support in the poll.

Clinton leads Trump, 84 to 6 percent, among black respondents, while Trump leads her among white respondents, 52 to 25 percent.

Clinton also holds a big advantage among women, 48 to 35 percent, while men are more evenly split, 41 to 40 percent, in favor of Trump.

Poll respondents more than not disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, with 48 percent disapproving and 44 percent approving.

I dismissed the first poll showing Clinton with a small lead in Georgia, because it was just one poll of registered voters. But this is the second one now, and it was taken of “likely households.” You can see JMC Analytics’ full results and methodology here.

RCP’s poll averaging gives Trump a two-point lead, although they don’t yet include JMC’s numbers and do still include two outdated polls of registered voters from the Atlanta Journal and PPP.

JUSTICE: Benghazi victims’ families file suit against Clinton.

The parents of two men killed in Benghazi, Libya nearly four years ago are suing former Secretary of State and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, saying the attack resulted from her “reckless” handling of classified information.

The federal lawsuit, filed Monday, comes from Patricia Smith of San Diego, whose son Sean Smith was a U.S. State Department technology officer, and Charles Woods of Portland, Ore., whose son Tyrone Woods was CIA security contractor.

If the FBI and the DOJ won’t do their job, maybe the courts will.

IT’S MUCH EASIER THE OTHER WAY AROUND: Scientists turn urine into beer.

EQUALITY: U.S. Male Gymnasts Want to Be Objectified.

When the United States men’s gymnastics team came to the site of the Olympics earlier this year for a reconnaissance training camp, the American athletes did what anyone in Brazil with a carefully sculpted body would do. They went to the beach, stripped to their Speedos and whipped out a selfie stick. The soaring peaks of Sugarloaf Mountain in the background have never looked so meek.

What happened next was exactly the reaction the U.S. team imagined. The Internet went gaga for the ensuing Instagrams.

That wasn’t an accident. It’s one of the ways they think they can get attention in a country that showers glory upon gold-medal-winning women gymnasts while ignoring America’s less-successful men’s team.

If it’s any consolation to Team USA, my wife has been objectifying male gymnasts for years.

HUNKA-HUNKA: BMW restored Elvis Presley’s 507 and oh my goodness it’s perfect.

VENUS AIN’T THE KIND OF PLACE TO RAISE YOUR KIDS: But climate models show it might once have been hospitable to life.

While Venus now has very little water in its atmosphere, it could have had oceans as deep as 525 meters (1,700 feet) billions of years ago. The atmosphere was likely far less thick and toxic, too. The Goddard team plugged all of those factors into climate models used for Earth, and they showed that it had a mean surface air temperature of 11 degrees C (52 degrees F), with max temperatures at 95 degrees F. That means that several billion years ago it could have been just as likely to support life as Earth, if not more so.

Climate models are notoriously unreliable, even about the planet we can measure directly. But this is at least some fascinating conjecture about our solar system neighbor.

NAME THAT PARTY! Virginia Mayor Richard Silverthorne Resigns After Meth-for-Sex Bust.

The mayor of Fairfax, Virginia, has resigned following his arrest last week for allegedly trying to exchange methamphetamine to undercover detectives in exchange for sex, city officials said Monday.

Mayor Richard “Scott” Silverthorne’s resignation will take effect on Thursday, according to a statement on the City of Fairfax website.

Silverthorne, 50, was arrested and charged with felony distribution of methamphetamine and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia after a sting operation that had been underway since July led an undercover detective to the mayor, who provided detectives with methamphetamine.

The detectives had contacted Silverthorne through a website, where he promised them a “group sexual encounter” with men in exchange for the drugs, according to the Fairfax City Police Department.

I really don’t care what Silverthorne does in his free time, but NBC News apparently cares enough to hide the fact that he’s a Democrat.

HIP TO BE SQUARE: How the hipster aesthetic is taking over the world.

Everywhere you go, seemingly hip, unique spaces have a way of looking the same, whether it’s bars or restaurants, fashion boutiques or shared office spaces. A coffee roaster resembles a WeWork office space. How can all that homogeneity possibly be cool?

In an essay for the American tech website The Verge, I called this style “AirSpace”. It’s marked by an easily recognisable mix of symbols – like reclaimed wood, Edison bulbs, and refurbished industrial lighting – that’s meant to provide familiar, comforting surroundings for a wealthy, mobile elite, who want to feel like they’re visiting somewhere “authentic” while they travel, but who actually just crave more of the same: more rustic interiors and sans-serif logos and splashes of cliche accent colours on rugs and walls.

Truly hip hipsters will say that they were anti-hipster before it was hip.