ER… I…. WHAT? NO SHIT SHERLOCK!  U.S. officials with dementia may pose national security threat, Pentagon-funded study finds.

They needed a study for that?

WELL, YES, WE DID KNOW THAT:  Hunter Biden’s texts, emails contradict lawyer’s claim that he ‘did not share’ money from businesses with dad.

WHEN YOU OPEN THE FLOODGATES, YOU IMPORT THE DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE:  The New Underground Economy In New York City.

WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PALS:  Bipartisan NYC Council Caucus Tells Hochul to Sue Biden Over Migrant and Border Crisis.

THE LEFT THINKS THEY’RE IMPORTING AN ARMY. THEY’RE WRONG. THEY’RE IMPORTING VERY STUPID PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT AMERICANS ARE LIKE WHEN THEY FIGHT WITH THEMSELVES:  Biden Border Crisis: Video Shows Largest Illegal Crossing in Texas, Illegal Immigrants Scaling the Wall in Arizona.

GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND:  Federal government continues to block the return of Varda’s commercial capsule, carrying drugs to treat HIV.

WE REALLY DO HAVE A CRISIS OF COMPETENCE:  The American Geophysical Union shows off its ignorance of the scientific method.

THE DEEP STATE IS HIDING STUFF BAD ENOUGH THEY’RE WILLING TO KILL US ALL TO STOP US FINDING OUT:  Who is Seth Rich? Who Murdered Him? And What’s The Deep State Hiding?

I thought that had been made abundantly clear in the last three years or so….

INCONCEIVABLE! THESE ARE CLIMATE REFUGEES. I WAS TOLD SO:  Cartels sending migrant mobs of thousands to overwhelm the US border.

Can a tongue become permanently wedged in your cheek? Asking for a …myself.

UPENN NEEDS TO BE CONFRONTED WITH THE STUPIDITY OF ITS CHOICES (THAT DISGUST I WAS TALKING ABOUT):  UPenn to Host Palestinian Literature Festival Featuring Speakers Who Praise Violence Against Israel.

ONCE YOU PAY THE DANE GELD:  Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose Iran Prisoner Swap.

USED TO BE THAT THE ONLY PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION WERE THE COMMIES.  OH, WAIT:  Misinformation Is a Word We Use To Shut You Up.

This needs to be pushed back on worldwide. the only people who want speech controlled are totalitarians. Period. There is no opinion so dangerous it can’t be aired. It might disgust all listeners, (and I or others might not feel like giving them space in our private blogs), but it should certainly not be made illegal to speak it.

GUYS, I WRITE SCIENCE FICTION, AND MY DISBELIEF CAN’T BE SUSPENDED THAT FAR WITHOUT CHOKING TO DEATH:  What We Must Believe to Believe Biden Is Innocent.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH LIKE AN HYENA:  NYC Mayor Gets Another Setback Amid Migrant Crisis.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): California school district to pay $2.25 million to sex abuse victim of teacher who gave birth to student’s baby. “A Southern California school district will pay $2.25 million to settle the latest lawsuit involving a teacher who became pregnant by one of at least two students she was accused of sexually abusing. The settlement brings to $8.25 million the amount paid by Redlands Unified School District to Laura Whitehurst’s victims since her 2013 arrest, the Southern California News Group reported Sunday.”

THE “DON’T NORMALIZE TRUMP” CAMPAIGN WAS THE DUMBEST AND MOST DESTRUCTIVE (AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE) IN AMERICAN POLITICS: We’re supposed to believe that other politicians don’t say “whatever it takes to fulfill [their] desires and thirst for power.”

I don’t like the way the abnormalization of Trump has come at the cost of stifling our capacity to critique other politicians. The others may be more “normal” than Trump, but since when is a “normal politician” a genuine policy wonk who’s dedicated to telling the truth and serving the people?

I watched the entire interview with Trump — video, transcript — and it seemed to me that Trump was heavily immersed in policy. His haters act as though it’s a matter of principle to refuse to engage on the substance at all. Ironically, they are making it easier for him to win on the merits.

Stop dehumanizing him and answer him! The abnormalization strategy reinforces a suspicion that you don’t dare argue substance.

Watching the interview, I wrote down the time stamp 17:43. I wanted to remember where it was that I said out loud, “He’s going to win.”

Well, kids, don’t get cocky.

OPEN THREAD: It’s all yours.

THERE GOES KURT SCHLICHTER MINCING WORDS AND PULLING PUNCHES AGAIN: That Miserable Bag Of Goo Mitt Romney Slinks Away Humiliated. “I knew there was something wrong with Mitt Romney, really wrong, when my mom – a daughter of Pennsylvania’s steel mill country, but a dedicated Republican, told me back in 2012, ‘I just don’t like him.’ Of course, those steel mills are all gone now, moved to China by guys who either were, or looked exactly like, Mitt Romney. Now he’s finally calling it quits as a senator, apparently by popular demand. His departure is cause for celebration. Mitt Romney is a bad person who pretends to be a good person. He is the blow-dried embodiment of everything awful about the Republican Party that used to be. The only good thing about him is the riddance. Mitt Romney is an empty $5,000 suit, a human Mad-Lib who tries to fill in the blanks with whatever his audience wants to hear. He is Eddie Haskell with incredible hair, who believes in nothing except the desperate imperative of his own success. That success, of course, has been limited – Mitt will be remembered for his failures. . . . Mitt believes he deserves the awe of the peasants; why is not so clear.”

Come on, Kurt. Stop holding back. Say what you really mean!

THE NEW SPACE RACE: When SpaceX’s Starship is ready to settle Mars, will we be?

TBH, IT’S KIND OF PLAUSIBLE THESE DAYS: Bad Luck: Military Announces Lost F-35 Was Carrying Epstein Client List.

VDH: Welcome to Post-Postmodern America.

[C]ash strapped border states started busing their illegal aliens to sanctuary blue-state jurisdictions.

Almost immediately, once magnanimous liberals, whether in Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago, or Manhattan, stopped virtue-signaling their support for open borders.

Instead, soon they went berserk over the influx.

So now an embarrassed Biden administration still wishes illegal aliens to keep coming, but to stay far away from their advocates — by forcing them to remain in Texas.

That means the president has redefined the U.S. border. It rests now apparently north of Texas, as Biden cedes sovereignty to Mexico.

Pre-civilizational greens in California prefer blowing up dams to building them.

They couldn’t care less that their targeted reservoirs help store water in drought, prevent flooding, enhance irrigation, offer recreation, and generate clean hydroelectric power.

Now an absurd green California is currently destroying four dams on the Klamath River. In adding insult to injury, it is paying the half-billion dollar demolition cost in part through a water bond that state voters once thought would build new — not explode existing — dams.

Read the whole thing.

MARINE CORPS LEADER ORDERS SAFETY STAND-DOWN OF ALL AIRCRAFT AFTER F-35 DISAPPEARANCE:

All Marine Corps aircraft, inside and outside the U.S., were grounded Monday after a stealth F-35 jet mysteriously disappeared in South Carolina, according to an order issued by Gen. Eric Smith, the acting commandant of the Marines.

Marine aircraft deployed abroad or with imminent missions can delay the order briefly but are expected to stand down for two days this week, officials said.

The Pentagon said in a statement that the pause in operations would allow units “to discuss aviation safety matters and best practices.” Marine leadership will use the stand down “to ensure the service is maintaining operational standardization of combat-ready aircraft with well-prepared pilots and crews.”

The debris of the crashed F-35 has since been found; America’s Newspaper of Record explains the method used: Military Personnel Seen Wandering Forest Pressing Button On F-35 Key Fob.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Just What Chicago Needs, Government-Owned Grocery Stores.

Now, no doubt Chicago’s city-run grocery stores would have the same service, efficiency, and quality that Chicago residents have come to expect from the local government of a city ranked 149th in its financial stability, 67th in its education system, 71st in its health-care system, 80th in its public safety, 129th in the quality of its economy, or, credit where it’s due, 37th in its infrastructure and pollution. (That’s out of 149 U.S. cities.)

Call me crazy, but I think if you had safe streets and no shoplifting and petty theft, grocery stores could thrive in any neighborhood, because people have to eat. The good news is that so far this year, murder is down in Chicago, with “only”435 people killed from the beginning of the year to September 10, compared to 485 people in the same time period last year. The bad news is that overall, major crimes are up 30 percent from the same period last year. Motor-vehicle theft has nearly doubled from last year.

What could possibly go wrong? Boris Yeltsin knew: When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Houston:

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. You can blame those frozen Jell-O Pudding pops.

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

It is terrible to think about – but not terrible enough for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

ALIENS: A Mysterious Hidden Force Is Generating Water on The Moon.

FOUND? Debris field found in search for missing F-35 in South Carolina, officials say.