THIS DOESN’T LOOK GOOD:

Strikes me as a pretty important find by @JenniferJJacobs. Trump campaign banking on vet vote, but underperforming: https://t.co/WN2pK5kCGL

— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 4, 2016

If Trump’s strength is that “He fights!” then his weakness is that he picks his fights indiscriminately.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. U.S. Has Taught Iran a Lesson: Hostage-Taking Pays.

When it comes to Iran at least, ransom payments are standard operating procedure. It goes back to the Reagan administration. In the early 1980s, Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy in Lebanon, had taken several Americans hostage. In 1984, the Reagan administration began what it had hoped was an opening to Iranian moderates (sound familiar?). Eventually, that secret diplomacy turned into a deal to exchange anti-tank missiles from Israel for the release of hostages in Lebanon. The profits from the arms sale later went to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, but that’s another story.

Reagan didn’t get his story straight at first. In an address in November 1986 he acknowledged the arms sale, but insisted it was not part of a deal to free the hostages. By March 1987, Reagan came clean to the American people and acknowledged the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran.

All of this is important because the Iranians learned an important lesson: Hostage-taking works. Despite the completion of the Iran nuclear deal a year ago, the payment of cash, the release of Iranian nationals and the State Department campaign to encourage foreign investment in Iran, Iran’s regime is keeping to form. Since releasing the four U.S. citizens in January, the regime has arrested two more Iranian-Americans and detained other Westerners. The Wall Street Journal reports that friends and family of two captives say Iran wants more cash or a prisoner exchange.

If so, can you blame the Iranians?

When you subsidize something, you get more of it.

OUCH: Republican releases ad promising to ‘stand up’ to Trump.

The commercial, from GOP Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, represents the first time a House Republican has used explicitly anti-Trump messaging in paid advertising. It comes as many in the Republican Party — concerned about Trump’s impact on down-ballot races — are grappling with whether to take further measures to repudiate their presidential nominee after a string of controversies including an attack on a Gold Star family and his refusal to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary.

The 30-second ad opens with a shot of Coffman, a 61-year-old Army and Marine veteran who fought in Iraq, looking directly at the camera.

“People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump?’” he says. “Honestly, I don’t care for him much.”

A few moments later, he says: “I’m a Marine – for me, country comes first. My duty is always to you. So if Donald Trump is the president, I’ll stand up to him. Plain and simple.”

Coffman’s district has long been a GOP stronghold, but redistricting in 2012 (Cook PVI D+1) turned it into a tossup.

HOWARD KURTZ: Media trumpeting Trump implosion, but is it real?

I’ve never seen anything like this.

Things reached the point yesterday morning that CNBC’s John Harwood tweeted: “Longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager: ‘Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal.'”

And there was this from CNN: “A source tells @DanaBashCNN that some Trump campaign staff are frustrated w/ candidate lately, ‘feel like they are wasting their time.’”

I am told by knowledgeable campaign sources that Manafort is not going anywhere and believes that Trump will be getting back on message.

I am further told that reports of a planned “intervention” with the candidate, led by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, are false.

And the sources also say that, contrary to media reports, party chairman Reince Priebus is not furious with Trump, though he is disappointed with the nominee’s refusal to endorse Paul Ryan.

I’ve seen something almost exactly like this, in 2008 and 2012.

KING GEORGE III NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD: Hillary Clinton Would Hike Taxes By $1.3 Trillion.

Hillary Clinton comes up $2.2 trillion short in paying for her policy agenda, despite hiking taxes by $1.3 trillion, according to a new analysis of the Democratic nominee’s campaign platform.

The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released a report Thursday finding Clinton’s domestic agenda would “have a dramatic effect on the federal budget.”

Even without spending increases, the deficit is on track to return to more than one TRILLION dollars annually within the next seven or eight years. And by 2026, interest payments alone will almost equal the entire discretionary budget for defense and non-defense items.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Clint Eastwood On Hillary Clinton: ‘It’s A Tough Voice To Listen To For Four Years’

POLLING: Franklin & Marshall has Clinton up by 11 (49%-38%) in Pennsylvania.

The crosstabs — above is just one example — aren’t kind to either candidate.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Gay Syrian man beheaded and mutilated in Turkey.

Another of Mr Sankari’s friends, Diya, said the United Nations was also failing to protect the gay community in Turkey.

“I get threats over the phone… It does not matter if you are Syrian or Turkish, if you are gay you are everyone’s target. They want sex from you and when you don’t they just tag along… Who is next?” Diya said.

In June, Turkish police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse gay activists who tried to hold an LGBT rally in Istanbul, despite a ban on the Gay Pride parade.

Unlike in many Arab countries, homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey but analysts say homophobia remains widespread.

It may not be illegal, but in Erdogan’s Turkey the law doesn’t mean much.

OBAMA’S NATO: Turkey’s Tilt Toward Moscow.

The bases for this Russian-Turkish rapprochement are manifold, but the primary impetus is Bashar al-Assad’s near-restoration in Syria. In the past, Assad had been the major obstacle to improved ties between Russia and Turkey. The countries’ poor relations reached a boiling point when Turkey shot down an Su-24 Russian fighter jet last November. The situation in Syria has changed dramatically since that episode, however. The Russian-Iranian offensive in support of Assad has checkmated Turkey, shutting Ankara out of northern Syria. Now, Moscow and Tehran are in the midst of an operation to restore Assad’s control over Syria’s second city of Aleppo. Even an obstinate leader like Erdogan cannot ignore the hard reality that Assad is here to stay.

Thus, in a remarkable about-face five weeks ago, Erdogan apologized to Putin for the Su-24 shoot-down and asked the family of the killed pilot to “excuse us.” Two weeks later, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim stated that Turkey might even entertain normalizing relations with Syria someday.

What to make of this sudden change? By sidestepping the question of Assad, Erdogan is attempting to unlock cooperation with Russia on his other major priorities — the defeat of the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) and the consolidation of domestic power.

Turkey prefers the strong horse.

QUESTION ASKED: Can Hillary Clinton give a straight answer on emails?

Media fact-checkers have offered harsh reviews of Mrs Clinton’s response. The Washington Post gave it four “Pinocchios”, its lowest rating. Politifact labelled her statement “pants on fire”.

“Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server,” writes the Post’s Glenn Kessler. “This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation.”

“Allowed to skate past” covers all of the Clintons’ shenanigans, legal and illegal, going back more than 30 years.

THE DOWNSIDE OF BREXIT: Scotch whisky producers in tariffs warning.

It warned levies to those markets could rise to 20% as a result of Brexit.
SWA called for a trade policy that was “as open and free trading as possible”.

The industry body also urged the UK government to provide clarity on future trading arrangements as soon as possible.

More than £3.8bn worth of Scotch was exported last year, almost a third of which was shipped to the EU.

Having completed a post-referendum consultation with its membership, SWA said Scotch would continue to benefit from existing zero tariffs in countries such as the US, Canada and Mexico.

Here’s to continued free trade with our British friends. If the EU wants to impose tariffs on Scotch, I say let them — and we’ll be more than happy to make up the difference.

THE FORCE AWAKENS: So Many Australians Are Claiming ‘Jedi’ as Their Religion That It’s Becoming a Problem.

You’ll never guess who thinks that Australian Jedis are a problem: Atheists.

MUST-BLEED TV: America’s Got Talent Contestant Shot in the Throat by a Flaming Arrow in Stunt Gone Wrong.

“I’m okay, it got my shirt, I’m okay,” he eventually assured the terrified crowd.

Despite Stock’s insistence that he was fine, the judges were adamant that he seek medical attention immediately. Cowell even interrupted Klum’s feedback by asking, “Why are we judging this act? Amber just shot Ryan and he needs to go to a hospital now! I’m being serious.”

After a commercial break, host Nick Cannon assured viewers that Stock was examined by EMTs and appeared to be fine.

Ed Ames and Johnny Carson still have the better act.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: TSA Says a Mummified Head Is a Perfectly Acceptable Carry-On.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, RIGHT? Terrifying Moments at Dublin Zoo as Man Puts Child in Rhino Exhibit to Get a Picture.

FASTER, PLEASE: Moon Express Approved for Private Lunar Landing in 2017, a Space First.

Moon Express submitted an application to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on April 8. The document then made its way through the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission, Richards said.

The interagency approval process “took some time, not because anybody was against or averse to this,” he said. “It’s just that we asked questions that had never been asked before, and that had to be addressed and worked out.”

Moon Express can now focus exclusively on the financial and technical challenges of the 2017 moon mission, which will begin with the launch of the company’s MX-1 lander atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster.

The company also hopes to win Google’s $30 million Lunar X-Prize and says that future missions will “help assess, extract and exploit lunar resources such as water ice, helping to launch a new era in space exploration.”

Starting as soon as next year, I hasten to reiterate.

TRUMP NAILED IT: Military-Aged Men Extremely Over-Represented in EU Refugee Asylum Applications.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Clinton Foundation drug contracts intersected with State Department work.

During Clinton’s first year at the [State Department], Merck lobbied the State Department to ease regulations restricting the distribution of its drugs “in certain Latin American markets,” according to lobbying disclosure forms from 2009. That placed the drug company’s international interests squarely on Clinton’s desk.

Clinton sat down with Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier privately in March 2012 in a meeting that was closed to the press, according to her official schedule from that day. Immediately afterward, she walked into a staff meeting about “global health strategy.”

By June of that year, her staff was collecting press clips on a $75 million partnership with Merck, funded by the State Department, to reduce childbirth-related deaths in Africa. The Norwegian government had pledged a matching $75 million to the initiative, which was spearheaded by Clinton.

The government of Norway has also donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation, giving up to $25 million to the nonprofit. In fact, Clinton’s emails suggest she even asked members of her State Department staff to facilitate a Norwegian donation to a foundation project, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

The clean cookstoves project served as a clear example of the blurred lines between Clinton’s foundation and State Department work.

Read the whole thing.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Obama economy is trouble for Hillary Clinton.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a Global Network of Killers.

The Islamic State’s attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 brought global attention to the group’s external terrorism network, which began sending fighters abroad two years ago. Now, Mr. Sarfo’s account, along with those of other captured recruits, has further pulled back the curtain on the group’s machinery for projecting violence beyond its borders.

What they describe is a multilevel secret service under the overall command of the Islamic State’s most senior Syrian operative, spokesman and propaganda chief, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. Below him is a tier of lieutenants empowered to plan attacks in different regions of the world, including a “secret service for European affairs,” a “secret service for Asian affairs” and a “secret service for Arab affairs,” according to Mr. Sarfo.

Read the whole thing.

Allowing ISIS to metastasize from an unopposed “jayvee” in the deserts of the Levant and into a global menace might be the West’s worst unforced error since March 7, 1936, when France failed to confront a small force of nineteen German infantry battalions crossing the Rhine.

TRUMPSKYGATE: Whittle, Ott, and Green on Hillary and Donald’s Kremlin connections.

Full disclosure: I’m Green.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: Saudi Economic Woes Leave Indian, Pakistani Workers Stranded.

Building projects have fallen off dramatically along with the drop in oil revenue. Construction contracts shrank by about 50 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year earlier, according to data published by Jeddah-based National Commercial Bank. The government didn’t award any contracts during the first quarter in 2016 or the fourth quarter of last year, the bank said.

More than 4,050 workers from Saudi Oger, a Riyadh-based construction and management company, are stranded, according to the Indian Foreign Ministry. The Indian Embassy is providing food to workers in 20 camps in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, the ministry said.

If this keeps up, someday maybe even Saudi nationals will have to find honest work.

AS IF ON CUE: Russia Denies Involvement in Syrian Gas Attacks.

This comes on the heels of yesterday’s report that the Russians lost a combat helicopter on a “humanitarian mission” — shot down over the same rebel-held city where a suspected chemical attack occurred.

JOHN SCHINDLER: Why Trump’s Crimea Gaffe Matters.

Amid all these unforced errors in a single, disastrous week for the GOP, Trump made another statement that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, between the Republican nominee’s other highly publicized gaffes.

This was a comment he made about Crimea, the Ukrainian region on the Black Sea that was annexed by Russian forces in early 2014, setting off what I termed at the time Cold War 2.0. On Sunday’s This Week program on ABC, Trump appeared to accept Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, indicating that, as president, he would “look at” recognizing Russian rule there, adding memorably, “the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”

Making matters worse, Trump then denied Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine, stating twice of President Vladimir Putin, “He’s not going into Ukraine.” This overlooks the well-known fact that since 2014 occupied Crimea has become a major Russian military venue, with the Kremlin publicly boasting of a hundred new units stationed on the peninsula. Moscow’s forces in Crimea include the Black Sea Fleet (with a cruiser, a destroyer, four frigates, five submarines plus numerous smaller vessels), while the air force recently showcased its power in a memorable demonstration of strength over Crimea. And let’s not forget the two whole Russian army corps—nine brigades plus five regiments—that occupy a substantial chunk of eastern Ukraine and are involved in daily combat operations against Ukrainian forces.

Many people, myself included, would have fewer reservations about Trump if he’d ditch Paul Manafort.

BIG BADA BOOM: Trump asks why US can’t use nukes.

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.

It’s MSNBC and an unnamed source, so who knows if there’s any truth to this.

On the flip side, there’s nothing wrong with using a “leak” to put a little fear of God, Curtis LeMay-style, into America’s adversaries.