Tuesday morning roundup

How bad is the tension between Russia and the West over Syria and other issues getting? Putin is canceling a trip to Paris after Hollande accuses Russia of war crimes in Aleppo.   State TV presenter Dmitri Kiselyov says that "offensive behavior toward Russia has a nuclear dimension." British Parliament member Andrew Mitchell likens Russian behavior in Aleppo to that of Nazi Germany in the 1937 bombing of the historic Spanish town of Guernica. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, says the world is at a "dangerous point."

Remind me never to apply for work at this outfit:

Bill and Chelsea Clinton’s “office crap” nearly drove the Clinton Foundation’s chief operating officer to commit suicide in 2011, according to hacked emails released by WikiLeaks.

Former President Bill Clinton’s chief adviser at the time, Doug Band, sent an email to the former president’s staff involved with the Clinton Foundation that he talked the nonprofit’s COO, Laura Graham, out of ending her life.

“Late last night, laura graham called me as she couldn’t reach my brother or her shrink,” Band wrote in a Dec. 2011 email chain discussing the Clinton Foundation’s “infrastructure.”

“She was on staten island in her car parked a few feet from the waters edge with her foot on the gas pedal and the car in park,” he wrote. “She called me to tell me the stress of all of this office crap with wjc and cvc as well as that of her family had driven her to the edge and she couldn’t take it anymore.”

How great is the contempt your overlords have for the post-American cattle-masses? This great:

The head of the liberal Center for American Progress privately warned Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign staff against endorsing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, saying that it would be bad for the economy.

Despite that, both the Clinton campaign and the center have since promoted state and local activists' efforts to push a $15 rate, and Clinton has even said she would sign $15 federal legislation.

Neera Tanden made the warning in an April 2015 email to top Clinton campaign staffers John Podesta, Robby Mook, Jake Sullivan and Jennifer Palmieri. The five were discussing a recent email from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio that gave them a heads up on a rally he was planning that would promote, among other issues, a $15 federal minimum wage. That would more than double the current federal rate of $7.25.

"Substantively, we have not supported — you will get a fair number of liberal economists who will say it will lose jobs. Most of rest seems fine (obviously trade sticks out)," Tanden said in response to de Blasio's email.

Evangelist Wayne Grudem withdraws his endorsement of Squirrel-Hair.

Peter B. Josephson, a professor at St. Anselm College, has an incisive essay at AEI on the points of departure between Hobbes and Locke on the subject of natural law. It mainly comes down to how each regards the concept of property.

A Gallup poll says that 54 percent of post-Americans think that government tries to do too many things that ought to be the purview of individuals and private organizations.