PrairiePundit

Daily Mail: Russia threatens to NUKE Norway in response to allowing US Marines to deploy in the country  Norway has been warned by a senior Russian politician that it could now be a nuclear target after it allowed for the deployment of 330 US Marines Who knew Russia would be so petrified of a small group of Marines that they would threaten to go nuclear.   Are the Russians leaders really trying to look weak and scared?  It does sound like they will be adding to the legend of the US Marines.

BBC: Scientists have transformed the humble spinach plant into a bomb detector. By embedding tiny tubes in the plants' leaves, they can be made to pick up chemicals called nitro-aromatics, which are found in landmines and buried munitions. Real-time information can then be wirelessly relayed to a handheld device. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) work is published in the journal Nature Materials . The scientists implanted nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes (tiny cylinders of carbon) into the leaves of the spinach plant. It takes about 10 minutes for the spinach to take up the water into the leaves. To read the signal, the researchers shine a laser onto the leaf, prompting the embedded nanotubes to emit near-infrared fluorescent light. This can be detected with a small infrared camera connected to a small, cheap Raspberry Pi computer. The signal can also be detected with a smartphone by removing the infrared filter most have. ... That is interesting science. Now the...

NY Times: Making Sense of the 2 Candidates’ Plans on Student Debt The challenge of making college affordable is front and center in the election. Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton’s philosophies of government shape their approaches to reducing the burden. These institutions became predatory lenders so that the administrators and certain members of the faculty could live like the one percent while they exploited the most unsophisticated of borrowers.  If one of the plans is to reduce the debt of the students, then the institution should share with the government the decrease. There is just no excuse for the confiscatory price increases at these schools that go well above the inflation rate when they are overcompensating, administrators and teachers.

NY Times: CNN Drops Analyst as Hacks Show She Leaked Questions Emails showed that Donna Brazile shared questions with the Clinton campaign ahead of network-sponsored primary events. It suggests another way the Democrat primary was rigged in support of Hillary Clinton.  They just did not treat Bernie Sanders fairly.  CNN was right to drop her.

Andrew McCarthy: The Huma Unmentionables ... ... Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA) for at least seven years. Throughout that time (1996–2003), Ms. Abdein worked for Hillary Clinton in various capacities. ... It is a long piece but well worth reading to see all of her ties to Muslim extremists.

Washington Post: Harry Reid’s incendiary claim about ‘coordination’ between Donald Trump and Russia In a letter to FBI Director James B. Comey, the outgoing Senate minority leader says Comey may have broken the law. And that's not even the most brazen claim in the letter — not by a long shot. I put this right up there with the lie he told about Mitt Romney's taxes during the 2012 campaign.  Reid is a guy who is willing to lie to win.  It will be good riddance to see him gone from Washington.  This is an attempt to distract from Hillary Clinton's ongoing email screw ups.

Washington Post: FBI agents pressed unsuccessfully for probe of Clinton Foundation Agents argued that the Clinton family’s charity should be investigated for potentially giving donors special political access and favors. But the Justice Department said there was not enough evidence to move forward. I suspect there is still some low-level investigation taking place and the Wikileaks documents give them significant evidence to support a case.   This looks like Obama's politicized DOJ is running cover for the Clinton's and their get rich scheme by selling access to government.  Obama wants Hillary to win to keep investigations of his own lawlessness under wraps such as the abuse of the Tea Party through IRS harassment.  There  is also the Fast and Furious screw up he has managed to keep under wraps.

NY Times: Spooked by Russia, Tiny Estonia Trains a Nation of Insurgents A NATO member, Estonia is using an improbably popular form of “military sport” to help put together a guerrilla resistance army — just in case. Because they were a part of the old Soviet Union, the Estonians are familiar with Russian weapons and tactics.   I think that makes them a valuable ally for NATO and it is a resource the US should take advantage of.  The Estonians have also been something of a success story in Eastern Europe where they have grown their own high-tech industry.  They have no desire to be a part of a new Russian empire.

NY Times: Early Turnout Tilts Toward Democrats in Swing States Hillary Clinton’s campaign, leveraging its advantage in state-level organization, may be mitigating the fallout from her latest scrap with the F.B.I. Those who voted early may want to have their vote back if they supported Clinton. Her attempts to blame these late problems on Comey and the FBI just do not fly.  She is responsible for setting up her own server and putting the national security of the country at risk.  The facts that these emails still exist on Weiner's laptop is a testament to her bad judgment.  If she had handled her business as she was supposed to,, it could never have happened.

Gowdy was interviewed on Fox News .  It is safe to say that he will not be one of the former prosecutors solicited by the Clinton campaign to criticize the FBI.

CNN: American warships have intercepted five shipments of weaponry to the Houthis in Yemen from Iran in the past year and a half, according to US Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, who is in charge of American naval operations in the Middle East. The first intercepted shipment was in April 2015 and since then, American ships have intercepted an additional four shipments, Donegan said. The shipments included thousands of AK-47 automatic rifles, as well as anti-tank missiles and sniper rifles. The US Navy determined that the ships carrying the weapons came from Iran based on an examination of the GPS data on board the five vessels as well as from interrogations of their crews. ... There is some speculation that Iran is ordering the firing of these weapons on US forces.   I suspect they are firing own US ships precisely because of the intercepts of the weapons shipments.  The Houthis are trying to break the blockade.

The suggestion that she did not look at the second page of a two-page letter is laughable.  They were just trying to spin this as a political move.

Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Resignation letters piling up from disaffected FBI agents, his wife urging him to admit he was wrong: Why Director Comey jumped at the chance to reopen Hillary investigation James Comey revived the investigation of Clinton's email server as he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents, sources say The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn't recommend an indictment against Hillary He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents Comes was also worried that Republicans would accuse him of granting Hillary political favoritism after the presidential election When new emails allegedly linked to Hillary's personal server turned up in Abedin and Anthony Weiner's computer, Comey jumped at the excuse  Well, the Weiner material gave him the opportunity for a second chance at doing the right thing.  Hi...

Kyle Smith: Obama told us he’s honorable — but he’s just another liar He was a pretty convincing liar for awhile, but his lies are now being exposed and while democrats may laugh about them, the victims of Obamacare and other fiascos are not laughing.

Stephen Collison: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are better at beating themselves than each other. They're not just the most unpopular presidential nominees in recent memory: In the epic drama of the 2016 election, they're also tarnished heroes who are perpetually humbled by their own self-defeating flaws. The rivals, playing out their tragicomic duel on the grandest electoral stage, are like two Shakespearean protagonists falling prey to hubris, the excessive pride that can make a politician believe the rules that govern normal mortals do not apply to them. Clinton's penchant for secrecy and distaste for disclosure have been the common theme in the deepest morasses of her long political career. Trump's overwhelming ego and self-obsession are at the root of the most damaging controversies that have raged around his wild presidential campaign. And only one can survive. Within 10 days, the loser will see their hopes destroyed and partly have themselves to blam...

LA Times: An Iraqi band of brothers: They watch 'American Sniper' and play 'Call of Duty' – and they're out to recapture Mosul ... Hussein’s favorite movie is “Black Hawk Down.” His soldiers have seen “American Sniper” and “The Expendables,” some several times. Their Humvees are stenciled with the skull symbol of the American comic book hero “The Punisher,” adopted as an emblem by “American Sniper” Chris Kyle. They play “Call of Duty” and post selfies in uniform flashing peace signs. For meals, they must often deal with MREs, the standard field rations of the U.S. military. Many of his soldiers wear battlefield apparel manufactured by Southern California-based 5.11 Tactical. They carry American M-4 carbines. “Our supplies, training and equipment are American,” Hussein said, but, “I’m an Iraqi soldier.” ... This is a long piece but it gives a good feel for the combat operations against ISIL by some of Iraq's best troops.

Daily Caller: ... This has been a constant theme in coverage of the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s by major liberal news outlets, to ignore the actual newsworthy content in the release and focus on boring process stories. The Washington Post has not written on Hillary Clinton telling Goldman Sachs that American allies fund terrorists and opposition to immigration is “un-American.” The same is true at The New York Times. When national political correspondent Jonathan Martin was asked on Twitter why he isn’t covering WikiLeaks, he replied saying that a WikiLeaks story was on the front page the day before. The story was: “Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Strained to Hone Her Message, Hacked Emails Show.” The front page piece is about the emails showing Clinton staffers and allies discussing her views on several issues and how to deal with Vice President Joe Biden entering the race and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy. The same day that a...

Michael Goodwin: We must forgive Mark Twain for his error when he declared that “history never repeats itself but it often rhymes.” After all, he’d never met the Clintons. If Twain were alive now, he would be astonished at how the headlines over the e-mail scandal roiling the presidential race are virtual repeats of the family’s 1990s saga in power. The headlines are also an omen. A restoration of the Clinton presidency would be a restoration of the national and moral chaos they invariably create. They can’t help themselves. They are corrupt and corrupters, the ­Typhoid Mary of politics. Whether by nature or nurture, they are programmed to ruin. Friends, allies, institutions — all are stained by their touch. And always, the Clintons blame somebody else. Now it’s FBI Director James Comey’s turn to embody their all-purpose bogeyman, the vast right-wing conspiracy. Somebody, sometimes everybody, is out to get them, unfairly of course. The victim card is a Clinton family heirloom, but th...

Washington Post: Republicans' growing unity behind Donald Trump has helped pull him just one percentage point below Hillary Clinton and placed GOP leaders who resist him in a vulnerable position, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll . A majority of all likely voters say they are unmoved by the FBI's announcement Friday that it may review additional emails from Clinton's time as secretary of state. Just over 6 in 10 voters say the news will make no difference in their vote, while just over 3 in 10 say it makes them less likely to support her; 2 percent say they're more likely to back her as a result.  (Emphasis added.) ... I understand the makes no difference number.  There are probably a significant number of voters that have already decided to vote for or against her no matter what.  To be generous, I suspect that some in the 2 percent total probably were going to vote for her anyway and they just wanted to register their anger at the re...

NY Times: Increase in Health Act Premiums May Affect Arizona Vote Republican candidates seized on sharp increases in the cost of some health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, counting on the issue to buoy them. Obama was a serial liar when he was pushing this program and Democrats who supported deserve to be defeated.  Liberals still laugh about the lies used to sell it.  For them lies and fraud in the service of liberalism is permissible.  The left has sold its integrity in support of this terrible program that benefits only a few at the expense of millions.

NY Times: Justice Dept. Told F.B.I. Chief: Email Move Defied Policy Senior Justice Department officials warned Mr. Comey against talking about current criminal investigations or being seen as meddling in elections. The failure to tell Congress about the reopening of the investigation would have created a political cloud over any Clinton administration and created an even bigger scandal.  I get the impression the top DOJ officials were blocking the investigation and creating this untenable situation by not calling a grand jury that would have allowed the FBI to seize the devices, to begin with.  If they had done that all of this information would have been gathered well before this time in the political cycle. BTW, I suspect that one of the "senior Justice Department officials" was Loretta Lynch who seems to be running interference for Clinton in the hopes of being reappointed. Obama also should have followed the George W. Bush practice of s...

Washington Post: Abedin unsure how emails ended up on husband’s computer A person familiar with the case says top Clinton aide Huma Abedin wasn’t a regular user of the computer that belongs to her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner. They could have only gotten there if she failed to treat them with the care required for such documents.  It is what can happen when you bring the data into an insecure location.  There is already evidence that she sent these documents to herself so that they could be printed out. The burden is on those who have the data to make sure it is safely stored where unauthorized people cannot gain access to it.  She has clearly failed that requirement.  There is also probably evidence that Hillary Clinton was aware of the sloppy handling of this material.

Daily Mail: Loretta Lynch 'pleads the fifth to avoid answering questions' on $1.7bn payments to Iran Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mike Pompeo wrote a letter to Attorney General Lynch (pictured) Friday, accusing her of refusing to answer 'straightforward questions' about the payments.

Daily Beast: Huma Abedin Swore Under Oath She Gave Up ‘All the Devices’ With State Dept. Emails The FBI found emails pertinent to its Clinton investigation, reportedly on a computer from her aide’s home. That doesn’t jibe with she told lawyers this summer. If this is the case, "I forgot" is unlikely to be an acceptable answer.  But  Clinton is probably also not out of the picture since she can be tied to many of those emails.  If they were not in her original production then she could also be the subject of charges.

NY Times: A Scandal Too Far? Huma Abedin and a Test of Loyalty Ms. Abedin once seemed like sure thing for a Clinton White House. But the newly discovered emails have again turned the spotlight on her troubled marriage. If this problem is capable of being cleared up, Huma Abedin would be the one who would need to step forward and say what was on the home computer that has caught the FBI's interests.  That she has not suggests there is no simple explanation.  And Hillary Clinton has not answered the question put to her yesterday at the news conference asking what Abedin told her in way of explanation.

Michael Goodwin: It looks as if the gods finally got sick of her. Maybe it was the web of sleaze revealed by WikiLeaks or her brash talk of making nutty Joe Biden secretary of state . Or maybe Hillary Clinton just ignored too many maxims, including the one that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. (No offense to real dogs, because Anthony Weiner is a lower species.) Whatever the breaking point, fate jumped aboard the Trump Train yesterday. Because Big Mo already was a passenger, there is now a growing chance that Donald Trump will be America’s 45th president. We can’t know for sure what will happen in 10 days, but some things are certain. One is that events have a vote and the FBI letter to Congress is the most dramatic event in a campaign that has been positively bursting with them. October surprises don’t get any bigger. Suddenly, the “Access Hollywood” tape doesn’t look so crucial . And the certainty that Dems would take both houses of Congress dissolves into illusion...

Krauthammer cuts through the Clinton blizzard of obfuscations.

Daily Signal: ... According to Manion, it is “well-documented” that the refugees are not representative of that “war-torn area of the world.” Ten percent of the Syrian population is Christian and “yet less than one-half of 1 percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States this year are Christian.” President Barack Obama set a goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S., and by August that goal had already been exceeded. But of the “nearly 11,000 refugees admitted by mid-September, only 56 were Christian.” Yet Christian Syrians have been one of the primary targets of the Islamic jihadists infesting Syria and butchering, murdering, and killing civilians. The Islamic State has made it clear that it is going after Christians because it intends to “conquer Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women.” Thus, one would expect that Christian Syrians would represent a significant portion of the Syrians being accepted into the U.S. as refugees. But that hasn’t be...

AP: Yemen's Shiite rebels and their allies fired a ballistic missile deep into Saudi Arabia, an overnight strike that they said on Friday had targeted an international airport while the kingdom claimed that it flew toward the holy Muslim city of Mecca. Saudi Arabia said the missile was "intercepted and destroyed" 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Mecca, which is home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world's Muslims pray toward five times a day. Angry Saudis soon denounced the missile fire online with hashtags questioning the faith of Yemen's Shiite rebels known as Houthis, as other Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf linked the attack to Shiite power Iran. Invoking Mecca also invigorated support for Saudi Arabia as it leads the stalemated war in the Arab world's poorest country, as well as turned attention away from those starving under a kingdom-led blockade and the civilians killed in its airstrikes. The Saudi military said the missile, fired Thursday nigh...

Fuel Fix: Chevron Corp.’s sprawling portfolio includes massive deep-water platforms, multibillion-dollar gas facilities and footholds in dozens of countries. But in a conference call on Friday, executives made it clear Chevron’s future has become closely tied to a single region: the prolific Permian Basin, where the company spends $1.5 billion annually and expects to increase investments in coming years. “We’re not looking to take all activity down to the Permian,” said Chief Financial Officer Patricia Yarrington, adding the relatively low cost of pulling large amounts of oil out of the region raises the bar for other projects competing for capital. “Permian will get the first call.” Another executive said the company has essentially built a “well factory” across 2 million acres in West Texas and New Mexico, which means it has begun drilling oil wells over and over with the same design features. Its approach could lift oil production in the Permian as much as 200,000 barrels ...

Washington Post: Clinton urges FBI to explain renewed email inquiry ‘without delay’ Newly discovered emails found on a computer used by former congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, have prompted the agency to make new inquiries related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The surprise announcement, less than two weeks before the election, could reshape a race that the Democratic nominee has been leading in most public polls. The demand is disingenuous.  When asked at the press conference what Abedin had told her about what was on the computer, Clinton completely dodged the question.  If she really wanted to clarify the issue she would not only answer that question but also make Abedin available to the media to answer questions about what was on the computer. Because she did not, it is reasonable to assume that doing so would not be helpful to her campaign.  If Abedin believes that doing so would put her in ...

NY Times Editorial: Emails Again, This Time With Anthony Weiner James Comey’s failure to provide specifics about a new, potentially important development, less than two weeks before Election Day, is confounding. When asked what Huma Abedin told her about the latest email controversy, Hillary Clinton ignored the question.   It is reasonable to conclude that she ignored the question because her answer would not be helpful to her campaign. Still, there is nothing stopping Abedin from holding her own press conference and answering questions about what was on the computer.  That is something completely within her control.  If she concludes that doing so would put her in legal jeopardy she could always take the 5th Amendment like several other people involved in the email controversy.  But if she did so then Clinton demand of the FBI to disclose what they know would really ring hollow. The problem here is not Comey's "failure to provide specifics." ...

Mary Katherine Ham: My Defective Obamacare Health Insurance Product Just Blew Up My 96-percent increase in premiums is a useful, unvarnished look at Obamacare’s effects. The Democrats solution is to raise the penalty for healthy people who decline the terrible product they are pushing.  That sounds like an excellent way to drive away voters from the Democrats. It is a program that was sold with lies and is much worse than even the critics imagined.

NY Times: F.B.I. Review of New Emails Revives Issue in Election The F.B.I. said it had uncovered new emails related to the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified information. The emails were discovered after the F.B.I. seized devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, officials said. I think Hillary will do whatever it takes to avoid  being held responsible for her irresponsible handling of classified materials.  If it takes funding an FBI directors long shot race in Virginia, she is up for that.  If it takes Bill talking directly to the head of DOJ, she is OK with that.  If it takes ordering the destruction of emails after she receives a subpoena, she is OK with that.  As Bill might say, she will do whatever it takes to "maintain her political viability."

Kimberley Strassel: ... It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned. ... While some in the media have acknowledged the corruption they have not moved it above the fold to highlight it or have the kind of follow-up stories they normally have when pursuing corruption of public figures.   They seem content to wait until after the election to really pursue this angle because they do not want to do anything to give hope to Trump voters.

Christina Del Sesto: Elections can be stolen in the United States. It happened to my grandfather. It is the story about how Democrats in Rhode Island refused to honor the election results that would have put a Republican governor in office. ... Time magazine wrote on Dec. 31, 1956: “Winning by a slim 427 votes out of almost 390,000 cast … Chris Del Sesto, 49, was elected Rhode Island’s first Republican governor in 16 years.” His opponent, incumbent Dennis J. Roberts disapproved of Del Sesto’s win, and by exploiting a legal loophole put into effect in 1911 he “sought to have 5,602 tide-turning absentee and shut-in ballots disqualified” by four state Supreme Court justices whom Roberts had played a role in installing. The fifth justice recused himself. He was the governor’s brother. ...

Washington Post: Clinton far outpaces Trump’s October fundraising, amasses dominant war chest Donald Trump had $16 million in his coffers on Oct. 19, compared with $62 million for Hillary Clinton. And there was scant evidence that the GOP nominee will end up giving the $100 million he has claimed he is donating to his bid. Or it could be just an expansion  of her massive pay to play scheme.  The big money donors probably see it as a price of admission to the Clinton White House.  When a person as corrupt as Hillary Clinton is raising this kind of money, the question should be asked.

NY Times: Ukrainian Hackers Release Emails Tying Top Russian Official to Uprising Documents released by the hackers, which appeared to be genuine, showed a direct Kremlin role in creating and directing the rebel uprising in eastern Ukraine. The Russians find themselves caught by their own game.  Their denials always ringed hollow with me.  It does appear that they are also not immune to the cyber war game.

Sun Prairie Star: The latest battleground state polls show the presidential race is much tighter than the mainstream media and some prognosticators would have you believe. And there is still room for it to flip either way in the closing days. 4 state polls by Axiom Strategies-Remington Research Group conducted Oct. 20 to 22 find Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in North Carolina 47 to 44 percent and in Ohio 46 to 42 percent . Clinton is ahead in Pennsylvania 45 to 42 percent . And in Florida things are all tied up at 46 percent apiece . Another poll by Bloomberg in Florida conducted Oct. 21 to 24 shows Trump ahead 45 to 43 percent . Meaning, things could not be any closer. And there is room to pick up the margin of victory in each state. In the Remington polls, in North Carolina, 5 percent remain undecided. In Ohio, 6 percent are undecided. In Florida, 5 percent are undecided. And in Pennsylvania, a whopping 7 percent are undecided. As for Bloomberg's Florida poll, 2 percen...

Daily Caller: Newly released emails show that Hillary Clinton’s top State Department adviser, Huma Abedin, granted access to the then-secretary of state during overseas diplomatic visits based upon Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) donor status. A Dec. 4, 2012 email obtained by Citizens United and shared exclusively with The Daily Caller shows that Paul McElearney, CGI’s head of member development, emailed Abedin asking if he could meet with Hillary Clinton during her trip to Ireland two days later. Abedin said that she could accommodate McElearney, and he then asked if several other people, including two CGI sponsors, could also meet Clinton. McElearney forwarded four names for Abedin’s consideration. ... The email is just the latest to show that State Department access was granted to donors to the Clintons’ various causes, including the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation. ... It would be hard to make it more clear that if you donated to the Clinton Global...

Caleb Howe has a long piece on not just the Trump theory of how the election is being "rigged" but also suggesting the same logic would apply to his primary victories over the Republican field. I think some of the Wikileaks material support that thesis.

NBC News: U.S. officials tell NBC News that they believe Iran has supplied weapons to the Houthis in Yemen — including coastal defense cruise missiles like the ones that were fired at US Navy ships earlier this month. "We believe that Iran is connected to this," Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan said. The head of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, who is tasked with securing the waters off of Yemen, disclosed today that the U.S. and partner nations have intercepted five weapons shipments from Iran that were headed to the Houthis in Yemen. Donegan said the first intercept occurred in April 2015 when seven ships guarded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy attempted to move weapons to Yemen. "They were filled with coastal defense cruise missiles, boats that we believe were explosive boats, other weapons that were clearly on the decks of their ships that we saw," he said. Since then the U.S. and allies have intercepted four other ships with weapons. ...

Fuel Fix: Exxon Mobil and FuelCell Energy said Thursday they will build a carbon capture pilot project at an Alabama power plant with the potential to finally make affordable “clean” coal and gas a reality. After Exxon and Connecticut-based FuelCell announced a partnership in May, they have now chosen Southern Company’s Barry power plant near Mobile, Alabama for its first pilot project. The 2.7 gigawatt plant generates power from both coal and natural gas, so the pilot project allows them to test the new technology on both fossil fuel sources. The idea is to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants, so coal and natural gas could remain viable in both the developing and developed world while still meeting climate change goals, said FuelCell President and Chief Executive Chip Bottone in a phone interview. “We’re trying to solve a very, very large problem with huge implications,” Bottone said. While other carbon capture technologies ...

Rigzone: Off the coast of Nigeria, Exxon Mobil Corp. and its partners have found a reservoir that is estimated to hold between 500 million and 1 billion barrels of oil beneath 2 miles of ocean floor. ExxonMobil announced the discovery in a news statement Thursday. The Irving, Texas-based company has a 27 percent interest in the find, in a joint venture with Chevron Nigeria Deepwater G Ltd. (27 percent interest), Total E&P Nigeria Ltd. (18 percent interest), Nexen Petroleum Deepwater Nigeria Ltd. (18 percent interest), and the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company Ltd. (10 percent interest). ExxonMobil’s affiliate Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria drilled the Owowo-3 well to 10,410 feet in 1,890 feet of water; the field itself is contained in the Oil Prospecting License 223 and Oil Mining License 139. Originally spud Sept. 23, the Owowo-3 found about 460 feet of oil-bearing sandstone, adding to the Owowo-2 find of 515 feet, according to the company. ... Nigeria’s flow...

NBC News: Hacked Memo Reinforces Worst Perception of the Clintons ... "The memo … lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family's fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called 'Bill Clinton Inc.,' obtaining 'in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.'" ... The material has been authenticated and it proves that much of what has been said about the deals is true.  This is much more serious corruption than anything alleged against Trump.  It will be interesting to see how the media will try to ignore it.

Bill Gertz: Chinese spies repeatedly infiltrated U.S. national security agencies, including official email accounts, and stole U.S. secrets on Pentagon war plans for a future conflict with China, according to a forthcoming congressional commission report. “The United States faces a large and growing threat to its national security from Chinese intelligence collection operations,” states the late draft report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “Among the most serious threats are China’s efforts at cyber and human infiltration of U.S. national security entities.” ... The ineptitude and carelessness of the Obama administration when it comes to cyber attacks is criminally corrupt and is putting the US at risk.  It is a question that should be put to Hillary Clinton but she is not in much of a position to claim she could do something about it.

Kim Strassel: The Press Buries Hillary Clinton’s Sins As reporters focus on Trump, they miss new details on Clinton’s rotten record. It is an example of how little integrity exists in much of the mainstream media.   Even her own insiders are shocked that she is so brazenly getting away with criminal activity.

NY Times: Boko Haram Attacks Signal Resilience of ISIS and Partners Violence in Nigeria and Niger has surged again, and shows how an adaptive ISIS is relying on affiliates to hold their ground. A Clinton Foundation donor may have used his influence with Secretary Clinton to keep Boko Haram off the terrorist watch list.  It is just another element of how the corruption of the Clintons has impacted the war against terror.

Catherine Engelbrecht Is the founder of True the vote and something of an expert in how vote fraud is done in the US and promoted by politiicans like Obama.

The Hill: Solar energy can't survive without massive subsidies ... In substantial part because of the system of "net metering" — rooftop solar customers are paid inflated prices for the excess power that they sell to the grid — those installing rooftop systems do not pay their proportionate shares of the costs of conventional capacity. Everyone else must bear those backup costs.... ... There is much more. Subsidies for wind and solar are only a part of the added cost.  There are also the costs for transmission and delivery of off-site wind and solar that add substantially to everyone's' energy bills.

NY Times: Clash of Kelly and Gingrich Is a Pivotal Moment for Fox Megyn Kelly’s divergent approach at Fox News took a different turn in her exchange with Newt Gingrich and again raised the question of the channel’s future. I did not find the back and forth all that interesting, but the reaction to it was.  Liberals, especially those in the media, thought Kelly was great, and Trump supporters though Gingrich really put her argument down. If you are in the group that thinks the election should turn on whether Trump cops a feel of women who might not be interested in him, then Kelly makes your argument.  Trump supporters tend to see him as something of a braggart but they are willing to overlook that because of their distaste for Hillary Clinton. However, if you are a Clinton backer, you should be looking to win on the issues so you will have a better shot at governing.  Because if you win because Trump is seen as a groper, your only mandate is op...

NY Times: Some Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Clinton Wins Some fans of Donald J. Trump worry that their concerns and frustrations will be forgotten if Hillary Clinton wins. Others predict violent conflict. “People are going to march on the capitols,” one said. “They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office.” She is everything they have been fighting against.  Trump won the nomination because the base of the GOP was disgusted with congressional leadership that kept giving in to Obama's extravagant spending and programs they despise like Obamacare and amnesty for illegals.  Clinton represents more of the things they oppose, and she lacks Bill Clinton pragmatism and charisma when it comes to dealing with Congress. I am sure that many in the media will say that the opposition is about sexist attitudes since she has girly bits, but they are as wrong as those who claim opposition to Obama is because he is black.  These peo...

Breaking Defense: Since World War II, the US military has always expected to fight outnumbered . Soon, however, expendable unmanned systems may change that. For the first time in 70 years, America could have numbers on its side. That turns traditional assumptions about tactics, technology, and budgets upside down. “It does flip things,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh , deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps. “We’ve been down the path of each system getting more expensive, more complicated, and therefore we’re buying less of them….What we see is the opportunity with unmanned systems to provide more mass.” Mass, as a principle of war , boils down to “quantity has a quality all its own.” The US has spent decades developing ever-smaller numbers of ever more expensive and “exquisite” weapons. Each fighter, helicopter, tank, or ship is vastly more capable than its predecessors, able to hit more targets over a wider area in a shorter period — but it still can only be in one place at a time, ...

Washington Free Beacon: Clinton Aides on Email Scandal: ‘There is Just No Good Answer’ Tom Friedman not persuaded by Ann-Marie Slaughter's defense of Clinton Top Hillary Clinton aides said “there is just no good answer” to questions about her decision to use a private email server, according to recently released hacked emails. Less than a week after the New York Times revealed that Clinton used a private email account while she was secretary of state, her team scrambled to try to get ahead of the story. ... They missed the obvious answer.  She was conniving to avoid accountability and she did it in a very unintelligent way.  She is just not that smart.  I suppose that answer would not spin her out of the trouble she had created for herself.

Federalist: American Support For An Assault Weapons Ban Just Hit A Record Low A new poll from Gallup shows that support for the so-called assault weapons ban just hit a record low of 36 percent. Support for a so-called assault weapons ban in the U.S. just hit a record low of 36 percent, according to a new Gallup poll released on Wednesday . The poll showed that 61 percent of American adults now oppose a ban. That level of opposition is the highest ever recorded. ... She clearly has no mandate for her agenda.  To the extent that she is winning in some states it is because she is not Trump and not because people like her or her agenda.

AP/Fuel Fix: Nigerian militants have bombed an oil export pipeline operated by U.S.-based multinational Chevron, according to the attackers and residents, and the militants are warning companies not to carry out repairs to sabotaged infrastructure that has reduced oil exports from Africa’s largest economy to a near 30-year low. The warning against repairs comes as British-Dutch multinational Shell prepares to resume exports eight months after the Niger Delta Avengers bombed an undersea pipeline and halted exports from Shell’s 250,000-barrel-a-day Forcados terminal. The International Energy Agency estimates the Forcados closure lost Nigeria $1 billion in just three months. In a statement, the Avengers said they “took down” Chevron’s 100,000-barrel-a-day offshore pipeline at Escravos in a pre-dawn attack Tuesday. That breaks a three-month cease-fire days before President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to meet with community leaders and other stakeholders in the southern oil-producing...

Andrew Klaven used this as an intro to his piece which makes the case that Hillary is the most hideous .

Daily Caller: Clinton Campaign Chairman Had Multiple Dinners With Top DOJ Official During Clinton Email Investigation The hints of conflicts of interest and corruption keep heading for the Department of Justice.  It is looking more like a defense counsel for Democrats than an arm of justice.

NY Times: Health Law Penalty Hasn’t Worked, Ruining the Math A lot of healthy people are defying predictions by the Affordable Care Act architects and refusing to enroll, throwing off the calculations behind the system. The Democrats problem is that if they raise the penalty tax to a higher level in an attempt to force people to buy insurance they do not want, they will lose even more voters who are already despising the healthcare plan.  The only people who seem to likely are the ones who are getting it virtually free, i.e. other people's money is being used to pay for it and those who are doing the actual paying are also having to pay more for their own healthcare insurance. This program looks like a loser for the Democrats either way.  The push to save it will revitalize the Tea Party.

Frank Bruni: Hillary Clinton's Resounding Mandate This is absurd on its face.  Her only reason for being elected is that she is not Trump.  That has been the primary substance of  her campaign and it has been the primary story of the mainstream media.  Her agenda as laid out by her is unpopular and would never be a reason to elect her. More people want to do away with Obamacare than "fix it."  Her open borders agenda is not politically viable.  It lacks any limiting principle.  Would she allow two billion people to come to the US and be eligible for benefits? Her main argument for voting for her is that she is against men grabbing women's gentiles, although she is married to a guy who might disagree with her on that point. 

Washington Times: Angel Gilberto Garcia-Avalos had been deported five times in just the past four years, yet each time he has managed to sneak from Mexico back into the U.S., where he ended up in more mischief: driving without a license, attempted burglary and felony weapons charges. In August, he graduated to full-fledged mayhem, sparking a fire in the Sequoia National Forest that has already cost the government $61 million and left some of the country’s most beautiful landscape scarred for years to come. Garcia, who pleaded guilty last month and faces 13 months in prison, had only recently been released from the Kern County Jail. He likely would have been deported again, but local authorities were unable to report him to immigration authorities because of California’s new sanctuary city law, which prohibited the sheriff from communicating with federal agents. Federal agents now say they will kick Garcia out of the country once he serves his latest sentence, but the damage has...

Popular Mechanics: On paper, the Air Force plans to start mothballing the A-10 in 2018, with the last Warthogs sent to the boneyard by 2021. But last month Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said that the retirement of the A-10 would likely have to be delayed further as the military continues to rely on the low-and-slow attack plane for close-air support (CAS) missions flown against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Even more telling, the Air Force Material Command (AFMC) is bringing the depot line for A-10 maintenance and repair back up to full capacity, according to Aviation Week. The Hawg isn't going anywhere. "They have re-geared up, we've turned on the depot line, we're building it back up in capacity and supply chain," AFMC chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski recently told Aviation Week. "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." Air Force maintainers are also preparing to...

Bill Gertz: Defense Board: White House Blocked Navy From S. China Sea Warship Passages China engaged in campaign to oust U.S. Senior White House officials blocked the Navy from conducting needed freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea amid growing concerns that China is militarizing newly reclaimed islands, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. ... By ceding the area to the Chinese Obama only makes a confrontation in the future more likely.  His policy of weakness and retreat only emboldens aggressors like China.

NY Times: The small drone, with its six whirring rotors, swept past the replica of a Middle Eastern village and closed in on a mosque-like structure, its camera scanning for targets. No humans were remotely piloting the drone, which was nothing more than a machine that could be bought on Amazon. But armed with advanced artificial intelligence software, it had been transformed into a robot that could find and identify the half-dozen men carrying replicas of AK-47s around the village and pretending to be insurgents. As the drone descended slightly, a purple rectangle flickered on a video feed that was being relayed to engineers monitoring the test. The drone had locked onto a man obscured in the shadows, a display of hunting prowess that offered an eerie preview of how the Pentagon plans to transform warfare. Almost unnoticed outside defense circles, the Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the center of its strategy to maintain the United States’ position as the world’s d...

NY Times: Trump Allies Are Focusing Anger on G.O.P. Leaders Some in the deeply factionalized Republican Party are already fanning the flames for a revolt against the House speaker, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. The congressional leaderships' decision to go along with funding of Obamacare and Obama's illegal amnesty has been a motivating factor for Trump voters all along, and the recent disputes with those leaders over things Trump has said during the campaign  only adds to that sense of betrayal.  Trump voters do not want to work with Democrats.  They want to defeat them and their bad ideas. The typical Trump voter did not trust Ted Cruz all that much despite his conflicts with the congressional leadership.  They treated him as if he were tainted by even shaking hands with them.  If Hillary Clinton is elected it will be very hard for Republicans to work with her on much of anything that supports her current agenda. They...

Patterico: Breitbart Reporter “Proud” Of “Working With” Shady Democrat Operative To “Expose” Rubio It appears that Breitbart shared the Democrats' desire to have Trump as the nominee.  They looks as corrupt as the mainstream media in this election.

Jeff Roe who led the Cruz campaign says the Obamacare premium increases would have been like a direct mail piece for the Cruz campaign.  It has been a signature issue for Cruz.  Whether Trump can capitalize on it now remains to be seen.

Wall Street Journal: U.S. officials and security researchers said it doesn’t appear that national governments were behind Friday’s massive internet attack , which briefly blocked access to dozens of popular websites such as PayPal, Twitter and Netflix. National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Tuesday that it appeared a “nonstate actor” was behind the attack, which used a vast collection of internet-linked devices to create a flood of traffic that essentially overwhelmed a key cog in the internet. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Clapper said investigators were gathering a lot of data, and that preliminary indications were that it was a nonstate actor. Network experts studying the attack are also starting to rule out usual suspects, such as national governments and online blackmailers. That suggests, they said, the attack was another cry for attention by online attack-for-hire services and their customers looking to make a statement. .....