AND IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 11:33 A.M. ET:   Grown-ups know that there are critical events happening as we fight our adolescent-level presidential campaign.  And what is happening now can easily result in American casualties in the future.  Anyone in the press interested?  From NBC News:

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mason was fired on again in international waters off the coast of Yemen, but the ship deployed countermeasures and the vessel was not struck, two U.S. officials said.

The incident occurred late Saturday or early Sunday local time. At least one missile was fired, the officials said.

"The Mason once again appears to have come under attack in the Red Sea, again from coastal defense cruise missiles fired from the coast of Yemen," Navy Admiral John Richardson, chief of naval operations, told reporters at an event in Baltimore Saturday.

The destroyer was targeted by missiles fired from rebel-controlled areas in Yemen twice earlier this week, prompting the U.S. military to launch cruise missiles that destroyed three radar sites in response.

After the earlier attempted missile attacks this week, a Defense Department official warned that those who fire on U.S. vessels do so at their peril.

Yemen is embroiled in a two-year-long conflict between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the conflict escalated in March 2015, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Monday.

COMMENT:  And it's being reported that Obama, probably against his own instincts, is considering further American action in Syria.  The world is a serious place, and we're talking about the weight of a Miss Universe contestant and whether Donald Trump, no Boy Scout he, did some vulgar things years ago.

We'll pay the price for the breathtaking immaturity of this era.

October 16, 2016