TROUBLING IF TRUE. BUT BELIEVABLE.

The West, particularly the Biden-Harris administration, isn't just delaying and denying military aid to Ukraine; it's actively sabotaging Ukrainian military operations and leaking details to the Russians in a concerted effort to prevent Russia's defeat. 1/6 https://t.co/SS64tB6pG6 pic.twitter.com/5ByjuGVdlY

— Ukraine Reporter (@StateOfUkraine) August 18, 2024

As I’ve mentioned before, the Biden/Harris Administration seems to want Ukraine (and Israel) fighting, but not actually winning.

HE’S RIGHT, OF COURSE: To Beat the Democrats, Destroy the Media First. Think of control of the news media as air superiority. You can fight without it, but it’s hard to consistently win without it.

DEMOCRATS SHORT-SHEETED THEIR OWN BED, NOW LET THEM TRY AND LAY IN IT:

BREAKING: Pro-Palestine Democrat protestors are now putting up images all over street signs in Downtown Chicago, calling to "STOP KILLER KAMALA" and to "SHUTDOWN THE DNC"

Kamala Harris radicalized them in 2020 and now she's getting a taste of her own creatures. I don't feel bad… pic.twitter.com/wQa576mxk5

— George (@BehizyTweets) August 18, 2024

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: If Harris Is Doing So Great, Why Did She Go Full Commie?

LIMITED TIME DEAL: 4,500 Sq.Ft Energy Star Dehumidifier for Basement with Drain Hose. #CommissionEarned

AS I’VE WRITTEN AGAIN AND AGAIN, WE’VE BEEN IN A JOBS RECESSION DURING THE ENTIRE “RECOVERY”:

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will downward revise jobs for the April 2023-March 2024 period by up to 1 million. This means that all "beats" recorded in the past year will have been misses and the US job market is in far worse shape than the admin would admit.

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 18, 2024

WE GET IT, YOU’RE ASSHOLES: Anti-Israel activists disrupt Rutgers new student orientation, brag on social media.

HEH: Don Lemon Gets Trumped Hardcore Interviewing Voters in Atlantic City!

UPDATE (From Ed): Lemon surprised by results in New Jersey, huh? New Jersey/New York Tops National Inflation Rankings, New Study Reveals.

OH NO, NOT THE STAYING HOME PART: College socialist students plan to ‘strike for Palestine’ by staying home and skipping class to cause ‘disruption.’

I love when people who produce nothing think they can wield power by going on “strike.”

HMM: ‘Black Swan’ hedge funder warns a recession is coming this year—and the biggest market bubble in history will soon pop.

But for Mark Spitznagel, founder and CIO of the private hedge fund Universa Investments, all of these ideas are merely attempts to find a story to explain how “it’s different this time,” when the reality is that history tends to repeat itself, or at least rhyme.

“It’s not different this time, and anybody who says it is really isn’t paying attention,” Spitznagel said in an interview with Fortune, adding “the only difference is the magnitude of this bubble that’s popping is bigger than we’ve ever seen.”

Spitznagel has claimed for years now that the Federal Reserve helped blow up the “greatest credit bubble in human history” with years of loose monetary policy—and he’s warned that all bubbles eventually pop, giving him a reputation as a perma-bear that he’s tried hard to shake.

Even now, with most Wall Street experts turning bullish this year, the veteran hedge funder is worried about the economy. He believes the negative impacts of the Fed’s monetary tightening in a period with elevated levels of corporate, consumer, and government debt have simply been delayed.

Government spending and debt are on an unsustainable course but the market bubble might be less than it appears.

The DJIA closed at about 40,660 on Friday — up almost a third from the last day of trading in 2020, when it was 30,606. But inflation has depreciated the dollar by about 20% since the end of 2020, which makes Friday’s DJIA 32,528 in constant dollars.

A 6% return after more than 3.5 years is nothing to brag about but you can bet Harris-Walz will be doing just that.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Grab the Pepto — It’s DNC Alternative Reality Week. “After spending most of this election limping along in disarray, the Democrats have finally found some unity and solace in their favorite activity: circumventing the will of the voters. They’re positively thrilled that they are about to nominate a woman who continues to fail upward without receiving any primary votes.”

LIGHTNING DEAL: PowRyte Electric Pressure Washer. #CommissionEarned

DESPITE ALL THE FLUFFING, SHE’S STILL A WEAK CANDIDATE: Different Candidate, Same Plan: Despite the widespread enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, she is a weak candidate—and the race may still hinge on what Donald Trump does or doesn’t do. Widespread enthusiasm?

Meanwhile, a friend in Boston texts: “In bluest Mass, all over Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, haven’t seen a Harris-Walz bumpersticker in days. FYI. Could prob count on one hand the ones I’ve seen since she ascended. Also notably absent is any update of ‘Any functional adult in 2020.’ Apparently functionality is no longer a concern. But it’s unclear what is. Obviously a lack of enthusiasm for this situation that was foisted on them. Does foisting another, like these Michelle DNC rumblings, fix that? I dunno. I mean, a lefty port in a storm, I suppose. All that being as it may be, it’s all entirely irrelevant when elections are decided by antifa with stacks of unverifiable mail-in ballots.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: Europe’s plot to regulate political speech in America. “In Europe, free speech is in free fall. Germany, France, the United Kingdom and other countries have eviscerated free speech by criminalizing speech deemed inciteful or degrading to individuals or groups. The result had made little difference to the neo-Nazi movement in countries like Germany, which is reaching record numbers. It has, however, silenced the rest of society.”

Almost like that’s the goal, and the Nazis are just a convenient excuse.

GENTRY-CLASS PIETIES FOR THE WIN:

If you're scared to say "protect our daughters", then you're failing your daughters as a father pic.twitter.com/ryiNhe8u8r

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) August 16, 2024

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Russia’s launch rate has plummeted.

A Progress cargo supply spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Thursday, local time. The mission was successful, and Russia has launched hundreds of these spacecraft before. So it wasn’t all that big of a deal, except for one small detail: This was just Russia’s ninth orbital launch of the year, Ars reports. At this pace, it appears that the country’s space program is on pace for the fewest number of Russian or Soviet space launches in a year since 1961. That was when Yuri Gagarin went to space at the dawn of the human spaceflight era.

Thanks, Putin … There are myriad reasons for this, including a decision by Western space powers to distance themselves from the Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, after the invasion of Ukraine. This has had disastrous effects on the Russian space program, but only recently have we gotten any insight into how deep those impacts have cut. In a recent interview with Russian state-owned media, Andrei Yelchaninov, the first deputy director of Roscosmos, said the contract cancellations by “unfriendly contacts”—a presumed reference to former US and European customers—has cost Russia’s space program 180 billion rubles, or about $2.1 billion.

SpaceX has launched more rockets in the last three weeks than Russia has this year.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE THE BIDEN/HARRIS ADMINISTRATION WANTS WAR MORE THAN IT WANTS VICTORY:

Western Escalation manager ridden governments are going do what they're going to do.⬇️

Screw the long term security interest of their nations or the West. Their personal careers depend on Russian _NOT LOSING_ to Ukraine.

Careerism über alles.🤢🤮 https://t.co/I36DV7YdxM

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) August 17, 2024

⚡⚡🤬UK decision to allow Kyiv to use Storm Shadow missiles on russian territory is effectively blocked by Washington – Times

It's a fucking disgrace how many restrictions can be placed on Ukraine. If there were no restrictions, the offensive would be much more effective. pic.twitter.com/XtOuoI4qXa

— 🇺🇦 UkraineNewsLive🇺🇦 (@UkraineNewsLive) August 17, 2024

TO BE FAIR, YOU’RE NOT MEANT TO BE:

Are you better off after 3 1/2 years of their fighting? https://t.co/3xPwi8B9n3

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 18, 2024

LIKE BIDEN, SHE MUST BE TIGHTLY CONTROLLED BY STAFF: Salena Zito: Harris’s tightly controlled Pennsylvania event avoided Pittsburgh.

She finished the day at a local Sheetz gas station, which was ironic at least and arguably hypocritical considering that Harris’s administration sued Sheetz in April. The ludicrous suit claims that merely by conducting criminal background checks on job applicants, the company was practicing racial discrimination.

Beaver County is located to the west of Allegheny County, adjacent to the airport. It was once a powerful component of the Democratic Party, filled with union families who worked at the steel mills in Aliquippa and Ambridge. But as the Democratic Party shifted leftward, the voters moved toward the Republican Party. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump won the county over Joe Biden by nearly 20 percentage points.

While some local Democrats thought the move was strategic to show she was attempting to expand her universe, others were more cynical, citing the tight control of who attended her planned events and the risk she would take doing an event in Pittsburgh, where she might face a pro-Hamas contingent in her party that has become very politically vocal there.

Late last week, that movement, spearheaded by the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America, came to a head. The Democratic Socialists of America’s Pittsburgh chapter submitted a petition to the city for a proposed ballot question this November that would ban Pittsburgh from doing business with companies that have financial ties to Israel. The petition spurred accusations of antisemitism and placed Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey on the hot seat.

Gainey’s initial reaction was a concern that the ban would grind to a halt the city’s ability to deliver services. Gainey did not, however, ever publicly object to the ballot question. When the ballot petitions were handed in last week, it was discovered over a dozen employees within Gainey’s administration, including Communications Director Maria Montaño, had signed the petition. Within days, Montaño stepped down from her position.

Since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel last Oct. 7, the city has become a hotbed of pro-Palestinian protests, including an encampment that was set up on the grounds of the University of Pittsburgh. The city has also become a hotbed of vandalism to synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, and the homes of Jewish residents in the city neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, where the massacre of 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue occurred six years ago.

Several longtime Democratic strategists in Pennsylvania believe Harris avoided Pittsburgh for any of her stops and stuck close to the airport so she could avoid the possibility that protesters would interrupt her tour in the important battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Related: Abandon Biden rebrands into Abandon Harris during DNC: ‘Reminiscent of 1968.’

She’ll run from these people, but she won’t denounce them.

DON SURBER: How to Tell Kamala Isn’t Polling Well.

THAT WOULD ALMOST BE A RELIEF, IF TRUE: Is Kamala Drunk? “Is Kamala drunk most of the time? If you watch her talk with that possibility in mind, so much makes sense all of a sudden. All those word salads, the occasional slurring, the inappropriate laughs… These are all tells that her brain is fogged by something, and it may not be stupidity.”

I feel like she’d be more amusing if she were drunk, though.

FROM THE BIRTHPLACE OF ENGLISH LIBERTY: Man Given Three-Year Prison Sentence for ‘Stirring Up Hate’ Online.

IS ANYONE SURPRISED? Harris Campaign Turns Deaf Ear to Jewish Groups in Decision To Court Pro-Hamas Activist.

AS YE SOW, SO SHALL YE REAP: Protesters paused to reconsider opposing Harris at the DNC. They decided on full steam ahead.

Related: 1000 Cops Call in Sick.

MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: What if Germany had invested in nuclear power? “Germany has one of the most ambitious energy transition policies dubbed ‘Die Energiewende’ to replace nuclear- and fossil power with renewables such as wind-, solar- and biopower. The climate gas emissions are reduced by 25% in the study period of 2002 through 2022. By triangulating available information sources, the total nominal expenditures are estimated at EUR 387 bn, and the associated subsidies are some EUR 310 bn giving a total nominal expenditures of EUR 696 bn. Alternatively, Germany could have kept the existing nuclear power in 2002 and possibly invest in new nuclear capacity. The analysis of these two alternatives shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power.”