WHEN WHALES ATTACK: Gangs of aggressive killer whales are shaking down Alaska fishing boats for their fish.

After decades of relatively peaceful coexistence with cod and halibut fishers off the coast of Alaska, the region’s orcas appear to be turning on them in greater numbers.

“We’ve been chased out of the Bering Sea,” said Paul Clampitt, Washington State-based co-owner of the F/V Augustine.

Like many boats, the Augustine has tried electronic noisemakers to ward off the animals, but the orcas simply got used to them.

“It became a dinner bell,” said Clampitt.

John McHenry, owner of the F/V Seymour, described orca pods near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands as being like a “motorcycle gang.”

“You’d see two of them show up, and that’s the end of the trip. Pretty soon all 40 of them would be around you,” he said.

Zombies, Skynet, and now whales.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: GE Plans World’s Largest Laser-Powered 3D Printer.

The prototype Atlas printer, announced on Wednesday, can print objects up to one meter long using titanium, aluminum, and other metals instead of the plastics, resins, and filaments that many commercial and consumer 3D printers use. That means it could print an entire engine block for a car or truck, for example, replacing the specialized machines and tooling that are currently required to make those types of products in a factory.

GE said it plans to unveil the Atlas in November. The prototype can only print objects up to one meter in two directions, such as length and width, but once the production version is ready next year, it will be able to print objects up to one meter in any direction.

Impressive.

WHICH BUFFOON? Washington Babylon set leftie hearts a-fluttering this morning with the headline “Trial For Venal, Buffoonish Leader Set for Fall; Process Could Lead to Ouster for Collusion.” Imagine their disappointment when they found out upon reading it was not the buffoon they were hoping for: One with a “D” after his name:

[New Jersey Senator] Menendez “is accused of improperly seeking to help Florida doctor Salomon Melgen in a Medicare overbilling case, a contract dispute with the Dominican Republic and with visa applications for three girlfriends. Prosecutors say Menendez accepted nearly $1 million in campaign donations and luxury travel, including a Paris vacation, from Melgen.”

Nice trolling!

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR: Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub is floating the idea of expanding their investigative scope to include looking at political ads appearing on-line. The Washington Examiner reports that:

“A new proposal by an anti-Trump Democrat on the Federal Election Commission would expand the federal government’s probe into alleged Russian influence to foreign companies and internet sites that take political ads, like Facebook or the Drudge Report, while giving the FEC an unprecedented role that some say oversteps its authority.”

What almost any broadcaster or publisher — be it legacy or new media — will tell you is that political ads are a critical part of their revenue stream, and such mission creep would surely not stop at Drudge or Facebook, but threatens everyone from The Gateway Pundit to The New York Times.

FUN FACT: The landmark First Amendment Times v. Sullivan case was based not on something the Times wrote, but was in fact based on a political ad run by the NAACP.

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: ISIS Blows Up 12th Century Mosque in Mosul as Iraqi Forces Close in.

CHINA CRACKS DOWN: On toothpick crossbows. Check out the pictures of this tiny weapon.

AYAAN HIRSI ALI AND ASRA Q. NOMANI: Kamala Harris Was Silenced. Then She Silenced Us.

Senator Harris took her seat in front of us as a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We were there to testify about the ideology of political Islam, or Islamism.

Both of us were on edge. Earlier that day, across the Potomac River, a man had shot a Republican lawmaker and others on a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Va. And just moments before the hearing began, a man wearing a Muslim prayer cap had stood up and heckled us, putting Capitol police officers on high alert. We were girding ourselves for tough questions.

But they never came. The Democrats on the panel, including Senator Harris and three other Democratic female senators — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill — did not ask either of us a single question.

This wasn’t a case of benign neglect. At one point, Senator McCaskill said that she took issue with the theme of the hearing itself. “Anyone who twists or distorts religion to a place of evil is an exception to the rule,” she said. “We should not focus on religion,” she said, adding that she was “worried” that the hearing, organized by Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, would “underline that.” In the end, the only questions asked of us about Islamist ideologies came from Senator Johnson and his Republican colleague, Senator Steve Daines from Montana.

Just as we are invisible to the mullahs at the mosque, we were invisible to the Democratic women in the Senate.

Read the whole thing.

FAILED JET: Marine Corps Wants F-35Bs Delivered Faster.

GOOD LORD: Whipped cream dispenser explodes, killing French Instagram fitness model.

NEWSFLASH WONDER WOMAN: Women Already Use the Majority of Healthcare:

So, if Carter really wants things to be gender neutral, maybe we need to even things out to 50/50 in healthcare and make sure that men receive their fair share of healthcare benefits. That, however, is not a conversation that misinformed (or sexist and entitled) celebrities want to have.

CANADIAN SNIPER SETS RECORD FOR LONGEST CONFIRMED KILL: He made the shot of in northern Iraq. He hit an ISIS terrorist 3,450 meters away.

RELATED: The Newsweek list of long-range sniper kills the article cites is missing this shot of 2,815 meters by Australian snipers in 2012. Admittedly, two snipers fired and one hit. As the blog says, “That is an impressive feat, but calling it a world record is unfair in my opinion.”

UPDATE: Link fixed.

RELATED: Why snipers rule.

GREAT SPECIAL ELECTION, NOW DON’T GET COCKY: Republicans Undefeated–& They Haven’t Even Cut Taxes Yet.

James Freeman:

Mr. Ossoff’s campaign seems to have enraged some voters, while others were not as enraged at Mr. Trump as you might think from consuming national news. Perhaps answering Mr. Bruni’s question of whether anti-Trump passion is largely theatrical—and also explaining the challenge facing Democrats— Josh Kraushaar writes in the National Journal:

Here’s why their math is more daunting today. Democrats need to net 24 House seats next year to gain a majority. Georgia-06 is the 28th-most-Democratic district that Republicans hold (based on Hillary Clinton’s vote percentage in 2016). For Nancy Pelosi to become speaker again, Democrats would need to nearly run the table in more-favorable districts—or pick off seats in places even more forgiving of Trump. It’s possible, but a little less likely given Tuesday night’s results.

One Democratic operative tracking House races said the generic ballot is around 6-7 points in their favor. To regain a House majority, it needs to be closer to a double-digit advantage by next November.

The big tell that the race wasn’t as favorable for Democrats as the early conventional wisdom was when Ossoff’s paid messaging never mentioned Trump, and barely mentioned the GOP’s health care efforts—despite the uproar against both in Washington. Democrats saw polling, confirmed by good shoe-leather reporting, that the district’s skepticism of Trump was not nearly as red-hot as most people expected based on cable news coverage.

This column has noted previously that voters seem to approve of Mr. Trump’s agenda—particularly his focus on American economic revival—much more than they approve of Mr. Trump. This suggests that many voters see his well-documented flaws as worthy of serious consideration, but not a grave threat to the republic.

If there’s a grave threat to the Republic, it comes from those using misdirection, lies, and even violence to overturn the results a free and fair election.

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HMM: Scalise Shooter ‘Liked’ the Terror-Linked SPLC, Which Repeatedly Attacked Scalise.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:

● Shot: [Obama’s] White House praises ‘Venezuelan people’ after Chavez victory.

—The Hill, October 8, 2012.

● Chaser: “Illinois is like Venezuela now, a fiscally broken state that has lost its will to live, although for the moment, we still have enough toilet paper. But before we run out of the essentials, let’s finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people’s money. Those ‘other people’ include taxpayers who’ve abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday.”

—John Kass, “What to do with a broken Illinois: Dissolve the Land of Lincoln,” the Chicago Tribune, Tuesday.

In both cases, this is known as “bad luck.”

RICK MORAN: Some people hate Trump. More people hate liberals.

After the initial glum reaction of pundits to Handel’s win came the excuses. It was the weather, it was the big GOP advantage in registration, it was early voting, it was Republican outsiders, it was history, it was counter-historical, Ossoff wasn’t liberal enough, no unions, blacks didn’t turn out, and the most common complaint from the left about ordinary voters…

The people refused to vote “their interests.”

All of those excuses fail to get to the crux of why the left keeps losing. Ordinary Americans simply don’t like leftists very much. And when Hollywood and Silicon Valley unite to tell them they are stupid, are ignorant, are racist, are homophobic, hate Muslims, and shouldn’t love America so much, what do they expect the reaction from ordinary people will be?

The reaction by now is as clear as it is natural, but the progressive left still doesn’t seem to have gotten the message.

RETAIL BLUES: A Nike-Amazon deal has sporting goods chains running scared.

Shares in several major sports chains hit 52-week lows on word that Nike (NKE) may soon be selling its gear directly on Amazon (AMZN).

Goldman Sachs (GS) said Wednesday it believed the deal would give Nike better exposure to Amazon’s huge retail channel and customer base, especially millennials.

Nike goods can already be found on Amazon subsidiary Zappos.com, and its shoes and gear can be found through third-party sellers on Amazon. Goldman believes the deal would give Nike better control of its brand’s presentation on the site.

But investors saw mostly the gravitational pull of Amazon, sending shares of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), Hibbett Sports (HIBB), Big 5 Sporting Goods (BGFV), Finish Line (FINL) and Foot Locker (FL) plummeting between 4 percent and 5 percent in Wednesday trading.

If you want a deeper understanding of Amazon’s goals, I highly recommend Stratechery’s analysis of the Whole Foods buyout.

Here’s the gist:

I suspect Amazon’s ambitions stretch further, though: Amazon Grocery Services will be well-placed to start supplying restaurants too, gaining Amazon access to another big cut of economic activity. It is the AWS model, which is to say it is the Amazon model, but like AWS, the key to profitability is having a first-and-best customer able to utilize the massive investment necessary to build the service out in the first place.

I said at the beginning that Mackey mis-understood Amazon’s goals, strategies, and tactics, and while that is true, the bigger error was in misunderstanding Amazon itself: unlike Whole Foods Amazon has no desire to be a grocer, and contrary to conventional wisdom the company is not even a retailer. At its core Amazon is a services provider enabled — and protected — by scale.

Is there a point where Amazon’s ever-increasing scale becomes a net loss for consumers?

PROCUREMENT: Pentagon wastes $28M on forest camouflage in Afghanistan.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Anthem to withdraw from Wisconsin health insurance marketplace.

Also: Two of four insurers will no longer sell Obamacare plans in Indiana.

CHARLIE MARTIN: Trashing Trump and the “I’m a Genius” Press.

Related:

GOSH, I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THOSE FLYOVER COUNTRY RUBES WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP DON’T TRUST NORTHEAST CORRIDOR ELITIST TECHNOCRATS:

● We’re the greatest city in the world and our subways suck.

—Headline, the New York Post, June 20th.

● Let’s face it: Washington, DC’s Metro is the worst in the world.

—Headline, the Washington Examiner, June 19th.

And the pun that was probably ancient when my dad repeated it frequently to me when I was a kid is really true this year: “Lead us not into Penn Station.”

WELL, GOOD: A Colorado county is training teachers to carry firearms on school grounds.

ALL THE HEADLINES YOU CAN EAT: At Liz Sheld’s Morning Brief.

BITTER TEARS III: Jon Ossoff spent six times more than Karen Handel but complains about ‘money in politics’

Really, his contributors ought to be the ones complaining.