Politics

• Ranked-choice voting on the ballot in four states and DC: The dubious ranked-choice voting (RCV) system will be on the ballot in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia. With RCV, voters rank their choice of candidates, and if their top choice is not among the top candidates, then their secondary ranked votes get added to the top candidates until one of them reaches a majority. This quirky system is inherently unfair because it effectively grants multiple votes to some voters while limiting the votes of others. But it’s not just Republicans who oppose RCV; Washington, DC’s Democrat Party is also leading the opposition to RCV adoption by the city, arguing it would “cause our party’s values and goals to be diluted.” Ten states have banned RCV, and voters in Missouri will be deciding whether to approve Amendment 7, a state constitutional ban on ranked-choice voting. Alaska’s ballot features Measure 2, which would repeal RCV after the state adopted the system in 2020. The rate of RCV repeal is high — over 90%. When voters experience and fully understand RCV, the vast majority reject it for the unfair gimmick that it is. Currently, three states, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine, use RCV in statewide elections, while 13 other states use or allow the use of RCV in some local jurisdictions.

• Steve Bannon released from prison: After serving four months in prison, Donald Trump’s former campaign advisor, Steve Bannon, was released early today. Bannon was sentenced to prison after he was convicted of defying a congressional subpoena to give testimony and provide documents related to the January 6 Committee’s investigation. Back in 2022, a jury found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress. Bannon argued that he was a “political prisoner” and that he was “proud of going to prison” for standing up to a “corrupt” Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Bannon plans to hold a news conference later today. He still faces a trial in New York scheduled for December for money laundering, fraud, and other charges.

• Tim Walz’s laughably stupid football tweet: We knew this guy was a fraud from the jump, and this confirms it. Remember when the Harris campaign trotted him out as “Coach Tim Walz”? Get a load of this hilarious August 8 headline from Newsweek: “Tim Walz’s Coaching Style: How He Led Suburban High School to State Championship.” Huh? This guy was an unpaid assistant coach whose football acumen has now been shown to be beneath that of even the most casual of football fans. We know this conclusively thanks to a since-deleted tweet that said, “AOC can run a mean pick 6 — and I can call an audible on a play. And we both know that if you take the time to draw up a playbook, you’re gonna use it.” Say what? Walz was trying to scaremonger his low-info audience with that Project 2025 smear, but everyone who’s ever watched a game of football knows that a “pick 6” is an interception returned for a touchdown. Thus, it’s a part of the game that can’t be called, can’t be schemed, can’t be predicted. You don’t “run a mean pick 6,” and everyone with an ounce of football acumen knows it. But Tim Walz doesn’t.

• Humor: Walz asks which button to press in “Madden” to make players slap each other’s butts (Babylon Bee)

• Ballot drop boxes burned: A good reason for voting in person was recently demonstrated in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, after ballot drop boxes in the two states were set on fire. According to surveillance footage, in the middle of the night, a Volvo pulled up to the drop box in Portland and drove off. Moments later, the box was discovered to be on fire. Roughly two hours later, a drop box in Vancouver caught fire due to an incendiary device, resulting in hundreds of ballots being destroyed. Greg Kimsey, the auditor in Clark County, where Vancouver is located, called the incident “heartbreaking,” adding, “It’s a direct attack on democracy.” Republicans have long argued against drop boxes, noting that they are easily exploitable for election fraud. Since 2020, six states have banned drop boxes. To ensure that your vote is protected, vote in person.

• 49ers star Nick Bosa takes heat for supporting Trump: What is it about these “tolerant” people, these proponents of “diversity, that they can’t stomach a divergent political view? One of the NFL’s best players, San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, got a dose of it yesterday when he briefly made clear his support for Donald Trump by flashing a "Make America Great Again” hat after the team’s win over the Dallas Cowboys. Asked about it during the post-game presser, he said, “I’m not gonna talk too much about it, but I think it’s an important time.” He can say that again. As Fox News reports, “It was one of a few instances of active NFL players outright supporting a presidential candidate this election season.” Cue the demonization: “[I don’t know] how his teammates of color can even look at him,” said one representative critic, who seems to think not only that Donald Trump is a racist but that all his supporters are as well. Which is odd, given that Trump is poised to win a larger share of the black vote than any Republican candidate in half a century.

• Joe Rogan shoots down Kamala Harris podcast interview over campaign’s demands (NY Post)

• Harris to frame campaign as referendum on Trump, not her or Biden, in Ellipse speech (Washington Examiner)

• Harris stiff-arms Biden in final stretch (Axios)

• Over 200,000 subscribers flee Washington Post after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement (NPR)

• Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, two-time campaign finance violator, sues Elon Musk over voter lottery (Daily Signal)

Environment

• Windmills are killing whales: During his widely watched interview with Joe Rogan, Donald Trump noted that offshore wind farms are killing whales. The mainstream media dutifully claimed that Trump was lying because the Left is heavily invested in the climate change narrative and sees renewable energy, like wind farms, as a means to combat it. However, investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger was quick to point out that what Trump was saying was not a lie. He linked to ongoing investigations into the growing phenomenon of whale deaths off the Northeastern seaboard that have been connected to offshore wind farms. Shellenberger notes, “This isn’t a matter of opinion. This is the conclusion of the world’s leading whale researchers and what the boat tracking data and sonar data both show.” The great irony is that wind and solar farms, which are promoted as “green,” are far more deadly to wildlife than fossil fuels. So much for seeking to protect nature.

Security

• North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to likely fight against Ukraine, Pentagon says (AP)

• Crime? What illegal alien crime? We’ve been hearing incessantly from the Left that illegal immigrants — sorry, undocumented migrants — commit crimes at a lower rate than natural-born U.S. citizens. There’s no reliable proof of this, and even if there were, every crime by an illegal immigrant is a crime that wouldn’t otherwise have been committed. This brings us to Pinellas County, Florida, which, as Not the Bee reports, “has been devastated by swarms of looters in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Just this month, they have arrested 45 people on charges that include burglary, loitering and prowling, grand theft, armed robbery, vandalism and trespassing.” But that’s not the news. The news is that of 45 people arrested, 41 of them are illegal immigrants. So much for another leftist lie.

• Hezbollah losing fighters to desertion: From assassinations to exploding pagers and walkie-talkies to resounding military defeats, the Jew-haters of Hezbollah are beginning to show the stress. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey gleefully writes, “Not only did Iran lose much of its advanced air defenses in the Israeli strike over the weekend, their forward proxy army may collapse soon as its terror troops head for Syria. Arabic media report mass Hezbollah desertions in the face of a determined IDF ground campaign, and nearly no effective communications between command and field units.” We hate to see such a barbaric bunch being beset by a bunch of quitters. But who can blame them? “Those defecting,” reports the Jerusalem Post, “are not reporting when summoned by senior terrorists and not waiting in their assigned locations. Other terrorists have reportedly fled to Syrian territory with their families, attempting to avoid any confrontation with Israel at close range.” Sounds like tough times for terrorists.

• Israel bans UN Palestinian aid agency from operating in its country (Just the News)

Culture

• Chicago police don’t charge suspect with hate crime after he shot Jewish man and reportedly yelled, “Allahu Akbar” (Washington Free Beacon)

• Army veteran found guilty for praying outside UK abortion facility (Daily Citizen)

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