HOSTAGE CRISIS: Biden State Dept Says It Has No Resources To Rescue Trapped Flights In Afghanistan, No ‘Reliable Means’ To Confirm Details.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Why in the World Is the Government Disrupting the Distribution of Monoclonal Antibodies Now?

WHOSE TWEET IS IT, ANYWAY? Facebook or Twitter posts can now be quietly modified by the government under new surveillance laws.

A new law gives Australian police unprecedented powers for online surveillance, data interception and altering data. These powers, outlined in the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, raise concerns over potential misuse, privacy and security.

The bill updates the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. In essence, it allows law-enforcement agencies or authorities (such as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission) to modify, add, copy or delete data when investigating serious online crimes.

The Human Rights Law Centre says the bill has insufficient safeguards for free speech and press freedom. Digital Rights Watch calls it a “warrantless surveillance regime” and notes the government ignored the recommendations of a bipartisan parliamentary committee to limit the powers granted by the new law.

It’s Orwellian, is what it is.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: History Will Not Be Kind to the Biden Train Wreck Presidency. “Here in the modern media and academic malpractice era, Democrats have much of the havoc they wreak upon America rewritten, especially by historians. I’m getting the feeling that the drooling puppet in the White House might be such an overwhelming disaster that even the left-leaning hacks in academia won’t have the desire or skill to cover for him.”

THAT ’70S SHOW: Stagflation rears its ugly head in US payroll data.

As labor becomes scarcer and more expensive, employers stop hiring, either because they can’t find workers or because they can’t afford them. This is a classic symptom of an inflationary cycle.

The average rent on a newly-signed lease is up 12% year-on-year as of August, according to Apartmentlist.com.

Home prices are up 20% year on year, the biggest jump on record, according to the Case-Shiller Index.

Used car prices are up 25%, and new car prices are probably up 10% after dealer discounts have dwindled.

Manufacturing jobs rose by 37,000, driven mainly by a 24,000 jump in automotive jobs.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey of establishments was conducted in the middle of August before major auto companies announced production shutdowns to the global chip shortage.

All we’re missing is a malaise speech from the Oval Office.

HE HAS CHOSEN HIS ENEMIES: Biden Seems More Determined to Fight Texas Than the Taliban.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Team Biden Can’t Wish Away the Afghanistan Fiasco. “It is more than obvious that our alleged president and his puppet masters would love nothing more than to have the American public get hit with some sort of collective amnesia that would make us forget the last several weeks. Heck, I wouldn’t mind not remembering Biden’s body count and unraveling of our international reputation. Sadly, the consequences of our anti-American president’s misdeeds aren’t that easy to send down the memory hole, despite the best efforts of his handlers and the media to usher them there.”

SAME: Joe Biden’s Senate Friends Are Not Impressed With His Afghanistan Spin.

FEWER THAN YOU MIGHT THINK: How Many Democrats Approve of Biden’s Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal?

JUSTICE: Matt Gaetz Exonerated In Sexual Misconduct Investigation. “Stephen Alford, 62, was indicted this week for false accusations of sexual misconduct against the congressman.”

FIRST-TERM LAME DUCK: Joe Manchin Is Singlehandedly Destroying Biden’s Presidency. Thank God.

SEAN TRENDE: Biden’s Job Approval Has Entered Dangerous Territory.

TWO AMERICAS: There’s Good Economic News, But It’s Mostly from Republican-Run States.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Constitutional Carry Won’t Make Texas More Dangerous, Gun Opponents Are Just Blowing Smoke.

AFGHANISTAN: How President Trump Would Have Done It.

GOOD: Students demanded professor who refused to use trigger warnings be fired. So far, he’s still teaching.

#RESIST: CA Church Defied Gavin Newsom and Remained Open. Here’s How That Turned Out.

SQUIRREL: After Losing a War and Stranding Americans in Afghanistan, Biden’s Pentagon Pivots Back to Race.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): This is basically like the disgraced Harvey Weinstein vowing to go after the NRA.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: China Tries To Limit Video Games.

THEY’RE ALL ABOUT COMPULSION: Democrats Slip Measure Including Women in the Draft into Defense Bill.

SAY ANYTHING: Tree of Life synagogue says Biden’s claim of visiting them after 2018 attack is false.

#METOO: House Dem ‘Concerned’ About Price Tag of Biden’s $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan.

During a Tuesday virtual town hall, Rep. Kurt Schrader said while it was “really nice to see” bipartisan support for a $550 billion infrastructure plan, he is “concerned about the amount of money involved” in the multitrillion-dollar megabill championed by Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.).

“The speaker also is trying to go along with another package the president is interested in on some of the key social issues out there,” Schrader said. “I am concerned about the amount of money involved with that. So far, they’re talking about whether or not they’re going to pay for that.”

Schrader is not the only congressional Democrat to express wariness about the bill’s price tag, a trend that endangers Biden’s economic ambitions. Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) told his partymates Wednesday to “hit the pause button” on the legislation, citing “runaway inflation.” One day later, he penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed to detail why he “won’t support spending another $3.5 trillion.”

“Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic,” Manchin wrote. “Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt, or the inevitability of future crises. Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.”

Left unsaid: Biden doesn’t have the clout — the combination of love/fear/respect — on Capitol Hill to pass his signature agenda item.

He’s basically a first-term lame duck.

HE HAS PICKED HIS ENEMIES: Joe Biden Threatens to Fight Texas Harder Than He Ever Fought the Taliban.

Related (From Ed): To be fair, that’s what Obama-era retreads simply do out of reflex: ‘Where the Obama Administration Sees War, and Where It Doesn’t.’

On the other hand:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Bridget Phetasy is right. Red states that have been getting a lot of blue-state refugees all need to pass legislation that will discourage immigration.

WELL, HE’S RIGHT. AND FOR THAT, THE LEFT — STARTING WITH THIS AXIOS REPORT — WILL MAKE HIM PAY: Silicon Valley investor dismissed racism, called BLM ‘the true racists.’

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Who Had ‘Dems Hate on Ghost of RBG’ on Their Bingo Cards? “Internecine squabbles abound in political factions, no matter where on the spectrum the group exists. They are, however, more likely to break out the farther left one goes. That’s the price that is paid when all politics is emotion-driven. American leftists have spaz meters that go from asleep-to-screech in approximately .0000000087 nanoseconds after a political battle doesn’t go their way.”