MATT TAIBBI: House Committee Rips State Department Over Censorship: The House Committee on Small Business prints a blistering report on the Global Engagement Center, a State Department “counter-messaging” entity at the center of the Twitter Files.

MATT TAIBBI: “Six weeks before the lancing of the boil that is the Trump-Harris election, officialdom has never been antsier. There’s desperation up there and the more bureaucratically thuggish tactics employed by agencies like GEC have not scratched their itch of uncertainty. Arbitrary removals of content aren’t cutting it. New overreaches are coming, but what? Our goons aren’t Russian enough to smash people with hammers, but as the earlier story today shows, they aren’t sane either. I’m not intimidated, but the days of smooth sailing might be over.”

ASSASSINATION NATION: Trump Survives Slanted Roof And Slanted Debate.

EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED, VERY MUCH INCLUDING THE COMIC BOOKS: Antifa Batman? DC Comics introduces a poor, brutal, and left-wing Dark Knight.

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA selects Intuitive Machines for lunar communications and navigation services.

WELL, THERE GOES THE PANIC: Just One Shot of an Existing Vaccine Could Prevent Mpox Infection.

THIS. IS. CNN.

Host Wood, passed over for “The Daily Show’s” hosting gig earlier this year, asked the panel, “What was the fake name of the head of the Taliban that Donald Trump cited during the debate.”

The answer? Abdul.

“He picked the most obvious name to make up for the head of the Taliban,” Black cracked as his fellow panelists cackled in glee. The show’s official X account pushed the clip out, secure in its comedy mileage and accuracy.

Except they got it wrong.

Trump actually negotiated with Taliban official Abdul Ghani Baradar during his presidency.

Morons who think they’re smart. Ignoramuses who think they know things. That’s our ruling class in a nutshell.

GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS: A KEY RESOURCE FOR THE FUTURE! Revolutionary Catalyst Uses Sunlight To Turn Greenhouse Gases Into Valuable Chemicals.

ONLY TRAINED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS CAN BE TRUSTED WITH FIREARMS: New Jersey Cop Accidentally Shoots Himself During Training.

CHANGE: The Last Car in America With Crank Windows Just Ditched ’Em.

CHANGE: How the 2025 Corvette ZR1 moved from supercar to hypercar.

SOMEBODY TELL GAVIN NEWSOM:

Disinformation isn’t just a problem on the right. Here’s 20,000 likes for a quote he didn’t say. I don’t like Trump but you HELP HIM when you mislead people or get fact checks wrong. It allows folks to dismiss all the true stuff. https://t.co/XQjZFdeDzs

— Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) September 18, 2024

ALL OVER THE PLACE: Where Is Your Home-Defense Gun?

SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: New study casts doubt on loneliness as a cause of many diseases.

I DUNNO, IT’S KINDA GIVING A CYBERTRUCK VIBE: Troubled Lotus shows off wedge-like vision for an EV sportscar.

I JUST WANT ONE THAT DOESN’T EXPLODE ON ME: Will phones someday be able to transmit smells?

WE NEED NEW ANTIBIOTICS, AND PHAGES: Growing antibiotic-resistant infections endanger millions worldwide.

WELL, OKAY THEN: “[It] was part of the hip-hop culture. We didn’t see nothin’ wrong with it until Bill Cosby got in trouble.”

WTF IS WRONG WITH MICHIGAN? Michigan Officials From Whitmer to Slotkin Silent In Wake of Assault on Jewish Student.

BUREAUCRATS: Some Universities Are Still Rebranding DEI Offices Instead of Dismantling Them.

RULING OTHERWISE WOULD OPEN A CAN OF WORMS: 11th Circuit Joins 5th Circuit In Dismissing Complaint Against Judges For Refusing To Hire Columbia Law Clerks.

DON’T GET COCKY: Gallup: Trump Is More Popular Than Harris Now. “Trump’s favorability today is substantially higher than in 2016 or 2020, despite the vitriol that has been aimed at him for years. This data seems to suggest that Trump is in much better position to win than the public polls suggest, and it lends credence to the suspicion that the polls themselves are part of an attempt to create a narrative in which Harris is cruising to victory.”

No, seriously, don’t get cocky. Are you donating? Volunteering? Phone-banking? Poll-watching? Commenting on blogs doesn’t count.

HE’S RIGHT. Austin Bay: The US Election’s Dirty Issue: Undisciplined and Corrupted Security Agencies.

Related:

Trump is trying to "steal your democracy" by running for office.

Meanwhile, Democrats are. . .

Importing millions of fake asylum seekers to political battleground states to create one-party Democrat rule.

Pack the Supreme Court to remove it as a separate branch of government.…

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) September 17, 2024

THIS IS GREAT:

🚨 Breaking: Thousands of Hezbollah radio devices ("Walkie-Talkie") have exploded during the past hour, in what appears to be the second wave of the attack..

Below is a footage from today, exploding during the funeral of another Hezbollah terrorist who was killed yesterday 👇 pic.twitter.com/o3ljPtgSZo

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 18, 2024

Plus: