DEAL OF THE DAY: JiaSifu 40×60 High Definition Monocular Telescope with Smartphone Adapter.#CommissionEarned

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP [VIP]: Kamala Harris Says She ‘May Have to Take Over,’ and This Is Why I Drink.

Plus:

• The mask whingers have escalated to eugenics.
• We had to destroy the study to publish it.
• Biden stages a walkout on a Medal of Honor recipient.

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

OF COURSE IT DID: Brexit Worked: The economic case against Brexit has now totally collapsed. Revised GDP figures have exploded one of the most pervasive Remainer myths about UK economic growth. “These updated figures suggest that the UK economy is as much as two per cent larger than previously believed. This means that the UK can no longer be considered the worst-performing economy in the G7. In fact, post-Brexit, the UK recovered from the pandemic at a similar rate to France and at a faster pace than Germany, Europe’s largest economy. The ONS’s revision is extraordinary. As one leading economist put it: ‘The entire UK economic narrative – post-pandemic – has just been revised away.’ The very basis for the Remainer elites’ narrative of doom has now been shattered before our eyes.”

Just as with our BLS, there’s a well-publicized figure that supports the preferred narrative, revised much later with much less publicity to a more truthful figure that does not.

ELECT BIDEN, THEY SAID. HE HAS A COOL HEAD, THEY SAID. NOT LIKE THAT SABER-RATTLING WARMONGER TRUMP, THEY SAID. U.S. military launches ICBM in display of nuclear forces’ readiness.

PROF. JACOBSON: I’ve been speaking out against ADL since before it was cool to speak out against ADL. “Now everyone is talking about ADL. But I’ve been speaking out against ADL for years, frustrated how ADL took a good purpose – fighting antisemitism – and weaponized it for leftist political purposes under Jonathan Greenblatt. It will be interesting to see where the ADL-Twitter (X) dustup goes. But one thing is beyond doubt, Greenblatt needs to go.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Oversight chair: Then-VP Biden office “colluded” with Burisma in 2015 — just before torpedoing Shokin.

That’s why they had to go after Trump with a made-up “Russian Collusion” story before he was even sworn in.

JOE KLEIN: Hidin’ Biden.

For those of us who spent time in Afghanistan, the endgame came as no surprise. I made several visits to a once-crucial town called Sanjaray in Zhari District where a series of American Army Captains learned these truths: that the local leaders were thoroughly compromised by the Taliban, that the local people couldn’t distinguish us from the last invaders, the Russians; that the Afghan civilians were happy—grateful, really—for any help we could give them; and everyone, especially the Talibs, knew we would eventually leave. A mixed message to be sure. But no surprise when the Afghan “army,” which we’d spent billions funding, evaporated in the face of the Taliban offensive. It turned out that almost everybody in the Afghan establishment had made the same calculation as the local warlord in Sanjaray—his name was Hajji Lala: they all had secret deals with the Taliban.

How could Biden not know this? How could he not plan for it? Why did he abandon Bagram, the massive American airbase that might have been a less chaotic staging area for our evacuation than the commercial airport in Kabul?

Flashback: “F— that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it,” Biden said in 2010.

That’s not what happened in Vietnam but it hardly matters because Biden is a callous SOB who doesn’t give a damn for anyone other than Joe Biden, except to the extent that they can deliver to the Big Guy.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The Price of Truth. “I was the first blogger I know of to get demonetized by Google — and the irony is that I wasn’t even making any money at it.”

COSMIC REFLUX: Black holes keep ‘burping up’ stars they destroyed years earlier, and astronomers don’t know why.

AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES GERRY ANDERSON: ‘Earth-like’ Planet Nine could be hiding in our solar system: research.

In accordance with the prophecy:

EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: Marxist American Library Association chief: ‘Libraries need to be sites of socialist organizing.’

Sites for socialist organizing shouldn’t receive tax dollars or tax exemptions.

YOUR SPEECH IS VIOLENCE BUT THEIR VIOLENCE IS JUST SPEECH: Over 60 Domestic Terrorists Face RICO Charges Over Protests Against ‘Cop City.’ “Goons with ties to both Antifa and Stacey Abrams disrupted church services where employees of the contractor were worshiping and firebombed a daycare center near the site, but tensions rose to new heights in January when a group of terrorists fired at law enforcement officers clearing the site of squatters. One thug fired at a state trooper, so police shot back and killed him.”

WELL, GOOD: College presidents launch ‘Campus Call for Free Expression:’ The Campus Call for Free Expression is led by 13 college presidents from across the country, including colleges like Rutgers, Cornell, and Notre Dame.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE IN THE “EQUAL PROTECTION” DEP’T: JustTheNews is reporting that:

“The same Fulton County grand Jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants under a Georgia state racketeering law also used the same law to indict 61 people who were protesting against the building of an Atlanta police training center.”

Now, most folks I know call the Trump indictments “lawfare.” (To be fair, there’s something vaguely reminiscent about South American dictators tossing possible challengers in the pokey. I’d imagine Valerie Jarrett et. als. wish they could borrow of one General Pinochet’s helicopters…)

Now, what’s the story here? These people protesting against the building of the police training camp?

Were they good citizens like Mom and Dad merely using their First Amendment rights to redress government? Nope.

Were they perhaps a little “over-the-top” greenies who got carried away? Nope.

“The 61 defendants, just 13 of whom are from Georgia, are members of Defend the Atlanta Forest, an anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization,” the attorney general’s office said, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

A total of 61 protesters have been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. Some face additional charges of domestic terrorism, arson and money laundering. Most are not from Georgia.

Attorney General Chris Carr said in a press conference announcing the indictments, that:

“As the indictment asserts, members of Defend the Atlanta Forest subscribe to a philosophy of anarchy. They hold a core belief that society should abolish police, government and private business and as further alleged, they’re willing to bring about such changes ‘by any means necessary.”

Nice little line here:

“If you come to our state and shoot a police officer, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set fire to police vehicles, damage construction equipment, vandalize private homes and businesses, and terrorize their occupants, you can and will be held accountable,” Carr said.”

Traveling to another state to shoot police officers, throw firebombs at LEO, torch police cars and commit mayhem? Gee, what kind of people would do that? And how are they funded? 

So much for that “peaceful protect” excuse the MSM has been gaslighting us with regarding Antifa and “Defund the Police” types running wild with no accountability.

Waiting to see which far-left Democrats put up their bail. Worth following, IMHO.

THERE’S NOTHING LESS AFFORDABLE THAN ANYTHING GOVERNMENT TRIES TO MAKE MORE AFFORDABLE: The $53,000 Connection: The High Cost of High-Speed Internet for Everyone.

Nebraska’s Winnebago Tribe has long been stuck with sluggish internet service. The federal government plans to fix that by crisscrossing the reservation with fiber-optic cable—at an average cost of $53,000 for each household and workplace connected.

That amount exceeds the assessed value of some of the homes getting hookups, property records show. While most connections will cost far less, the expense to reach some remote communities has triggered concerns over the ultimate price tag for ensuring every rural home, business, school and workplace in America has the same internet that city dwellers enjoy.

“The problem is, money is not infinite,” said Blair Levin, a senior communications policy official in the Clinton and Obama administrations who is now an equity research analyst. “If you’re spending $50,000 to connect a very remote location, you have to ask yourself, would we be better off spending that same amount of money to connect [more] families?”

The U.S. has committed more than $60 billion for what the Biden administration calls the “Internet for All” program, the latest in a series of sometimes troubled efforts to bring high-speed internet to rural areas.

Plus: “In Montana, laying fiber-optic cable to some remote locations could cost more than $300,000 per connection, said Misty Ann Giles, director of Montana’s Department of Administration. Building to those places would empty the state’s coffers, she said: ‘That’s when we might not reach everyone.'”

Ya think?

Private Enterprise: Rural users in most places in the US can get Starlink up and running for $599 in hardware, do-it-yourself installation in most cases, and $120 a month for high-speed service.

WELL, YES: Nate Silver: Democrats think Kamala Harris would lose to Trump. Polls say they’re probably right. She can’t string a sentence together, she’s deeply unlikable, and she has a lifetime record of nonachievement, broken only by spells of support for prosecutorial misconduct.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Quid Pro Here You Go—Lefties Hit With RICO Charges by Georgia AG. “American leftists, on the other hand, see themselves as immune to the kinds of ills they enjoy seeing others suffer. The attorney general in Georgia just provided a lesson in how wrong they are.”

REMEMBER WHEN A BIDEN PRESIDENCY WAS SUPPOSED TO BRING A RETURN TO NORMAL POLITICS? FBI: Yeah, we have more documents targeting Christians.

COLORADO: Teachers union to teachers: Destroy evidence of student gender identity surveys.

A Colorado affiliate of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, told its teachers to destroy any evidence of having given students a gender identity survey, according to a recent report.

CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.

Federal and state law forbid mandatory surveys that ask about kids’ “protected information,” and voluntary surveys must include a parent opt-out.

But an email from the Jefferson County Education Association told teachers that if they give such surveys, to make sure to they are pencil and paper … because “any digital records are more permanent and may be requested under federal law.”

The email also “encouraged” teachers to “make […] notations about students and not hold on to the documents.”

This kind of thing doesn’t happen and it’s none of your business when it does.

BURNING MAN CANNIBALISM CONSPIRACY THEORIES SPREAD ONLINE:

However, since news emerged of the flooding, some have made outlandish claims online about what was going on at the desert camp.

“There’s been several unconfirmed reports of cannibalism taking place on Saturday at Burning Man due to the dwindling food supply,” one Reddit user wrote.

They claimed: “A small group of survivors was trapped by the trash fence overnight during the rainstorm and were forced to consume one of their camp mates before making the several mile dangerous trek back to their camp on foot.”

One user of X, formerly Twitter, wrote the same evening: “We’re hearing about the first reports of Cannibalism at the Burning Man event.”

There is no cannibalism at Burning Man. And when I say none, I do mean that there is a certain amount. But necrophilia is right out!

WELL, THEY THINK THINGS ARE WORSE BECAUSE THEY ARE WORSE: Voters don’t buy ‘Bidenomics’ and say economy worse under Biden.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Coleman RoadTrip 225 Portable Tabletop Propane Grill, Gas Grill. #CommissionEarned

DON SURBER IS FEELING SURPRISINGLY CONFIDENT: The election isn’t a lock, but . . . “DC is hunting for the keys to unlock the lock they fear President Trump has on next year’s election. We’ll see. But for now let us review the situation.”

UPDATE: Related: ” I still doubt that Trump is making any converts. But what might be happening is something I underestimated: that while Trump fails to gain, Biden is slipping.” “Why is this important? Because, as the last two presidential elections tell us, even a marginal erosion of black support for Biden in, say, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Philadelphia could throw Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania to Trump, and with it the election.”

WASHINGTON IS PUTTING THE MINIMUM VISA PAYMENT ON THE MASTERCARD: The New U.S. Deficit Numbers Are Simply Breathtaking.

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING, BESIDES, YOU KNOW, ANYONE WITH A BRAIN? As predicted: San Francisco real estate tax collections nosedive.