POLARIS DAWN SETS ANOTHER RECORD: That’s One Small Walk for a Man (and a Woman)…

WHEN IN ROME…: John Deere executives bribed Thai officials with trips to massage parlors. “The maker of John Deere tractors has agreed to pay a $10 million penalty to the US government to settle charges that it lavished Thailand government officials with extravagant trips and visits to massage parlors — bribes that netted its subsidiary more than $4 million in profit.”

The Feds going after almost anybody for shady business practices is risible at this point.

TO BE FAIR, THAT IS WHAT THEY WERE HIRED TO DO: ABC Moderators Were Lying: EIGHT ‘Aborted’ Babies Were Born Alive & Then Left to Die in Minnesota.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Report highlights severe infrastructure challenges at NASA.

“The extensive consultations, site visits, and interviews conducted in the course of the study lead the committee to conclude that NASA stands at a crossroads,” the report concluded. “The underpinnings of the unique and critical capabilities the agency provides to the United States are eroding and will be inevitably lost if certain trends are not reversed.”

The report highlighted problems in three key areas: infrastructure, workforce and technology development. They ranged from attracting and retaining a skilled workforce to aging facilities at NASA centers visited by committee members that were “some of the worst facilities many of its members have ever seen.” The report also highlighted a lack of long-term planning to guide investments in technology and infrastructure.

The report concluded that much of that had to do with budget pressures that forced the agency to prioritize spending on specific missions and projects at the expense of spending on mission support. The amount of NASA’s budget spent on mission support declined from 20% in 2013 to 14% in 2023.

That stems from having more projects on its books than funding for them, said Norm Augustine, retired chairman and chief executive of Lockheed Martin and chair of the committee, in a Sept. 10 webinar about the report. “NASA’s solution to the problem has been to underinvest in infrastructure and so on in the future. That tactic, frankly, has run out of gas.”

NASA has a budget of about $25.4 billion and requires a budget of probably no less than $30 billion to fully fund Artemis (and still get us back to the moon late) — and that doesn’t include delayed infrastructure spending.

The Biden-Harris Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (which has done little for infrastructure and less for private-sector jobs) cost more than 40 times what NASA needs.

OF COURSE THEY DO. THAT’S WHY THE LEFT IS SO FURIOUS TO SHUT ANYONE UP WHO MENTIONS THEM: Pro-Life Activist Proves That Late Term Abortions Happen ‘All the Time.’

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK:

The theme of the hearing from committee leadership and industry witnesses is that Part 450, intended to streamline launch/reentry licensing, is instead hampering it, threatening US leadership in commercial launch. "The consequences are dire," says CSF's Dave Cavossa.

— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) September 10, 2024

Related: Biden Admin to SpaceX: Drop Dead!

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: J.D. Vance Keeps Knocking ‘Em Out of the Park. “Vance routinely rejects idiotic, ‘Gotcha!’ lines of questioning and highlights the failures of the media hacks. He does it with casual ease. He knows what’s coming, he handles it and shuts it down.”

NEW JERSEY: Our Gun Control Policies Failed, So Let’s Double Down.

The state of New Jersey is one of those most hostile states toward the Second Amendment and they have been for quite a while. The only sort of pro-gun move I’ve ever seen was the repeal of a law that mandated only smart guns be sold in the state once the technology was viable, and they only did that because it became clear that the law was making it so companies didn’t want to develop such guns.

Literally everything else has been outright hostility.

It’s pretty bad when folks in New Jersey move to Illinois to get a taste of gun freedom, yet it’s how things fall.

What’s more, the gun control policies in place simply aren’t working.

That’s no accident. Gun control isn’t about making polices that work. It’s about making gun ownership impossible, or nearly so.

ABC NEWS MODERATORS INSISTED DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENED: Police Report Describes Haitians Carrying Dead Geese Down the Street in Springfield, Ohio.

(ALMOST) A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: Kerch Crumples.

One year ago, the Kerch Strait Bridge was hit for the second time, following the October 2022 attack. Russians tried to repair that damage, but the results seem to be…subpar.

I’m not an expert in bridge structural integrity, but that warping/sagging/bending doesn’t look good. In a video game, that looks like a structure you’d get one chance to jump off of before it collapses into the sea.

Taking out the Kerch Bridge — it’s remained at least in partial operation — has been a big part of Kyiv’s effort to make Russian occupation of Crimea “untenable.”

NOW I’VE SEEN EVERYTHING: What a Time to Be Alive: Biden Put on a Trump Hat.

THE ELITES WOULD HAVE YOU FORGET The Falling Man.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Underappreciated Albums: ‘Hearts And Bones.’ “‘Hearts And Bones’ is the album that relaunched Paul Simon’s career to all-new heights by crashing and burning.”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Am I Racist?’ – 2024’s Funniest Comedy.

The documentary finds Walsh going undercover to expose DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) proponents.

The result? A devastating peek behind the curtain of the Identity Politics racket. “Racist?” doubles as the year’s funniest comedy.

“Woman?” made its interview subjects squirm. This time, it’s the audience that might wriggle in their seats between the laughter.

The best part might be when “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo gets tricked into paying reparations to Walsh’s producer.

CHANGE COMES TO STARBUCKS: How About Just 17,000 Different Kinds of Coffee?

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THE VENEZUELA APARTMENT TAKEOVER WAS JUST RIGHT-WING PANICMONGERING:

BREAKING: Kids who live directly next to the apartment complex Venezuelan gangsters took over CONFIRMED to me that the gangsters "were doing a lot of bad stuff" like shootings and that they are happy the building got shutdown

Me: "What do you mean by bad stuff?"

Them: "Like,… pic.twitter.com/MntgTJ0NTH

— George (@BehizyTweets) September 10, 2024

HMM: It Looks Like Trump May Have Helped Himself in the Debate. “Reuters interviewed ten undecided voters before and after a debate. Six of them shifted toward supporting Trump, three leaned toward Harris, and one remained uncertain. That’s a rather solid outcome for Trump.”

PROGRESSIVE “JUSTICE”: Harris County Justice Cancels All Warrants. “A Harris County justice of the peace has recalled all warrants issued through his court thwarting law enforcement efforts in his jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws, pursue fraudulent check writers, and detain individuals who had failed to appear in court.”

MATT MARGOLIS: Five Takeaways From the Trump-Harris Debate.

IN PLENTY OF TIME FOR THE HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON: Potential port strike has retailers, manufacturers scrambling. “For retailers, that means holiday shipments might not arrive on time. Manufacturers might not receive parts, materials and supplies needed for production, which will lead to assembly lines shutting down. And farmers won’t be able to get their products to overseas markets, which could lead to lost sales.”

Plus: “East Coast and Gulf Coast ports handle about 43% of all US imports.”

BIDENFLATION ISN’T DONE WITH US YET: Kiss Your Giant Rate Cut Goodbye.

THREAD:

We spoke with a former CBZ employee, who, on condition of anonymity, explained how the scheme worked. Representatives from Papagayo arranged hundreds of contracts with CBZ to place migrants in the Aurora apartments. Soon, they were up to 80% full of Venezuelans. pic.twitter.com/38QqlZwmTT

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) September 10, 2024

Read the whole thing.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is Man’s Best Friend the ‘Superweapon’ That Helped Humans Outcompete the Neanderthals?

IT IS UNWISE TO ASK UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS, COMRADE:

DHS statistic establish 3 incontrovertible facts:

1. Harris imported approx 500K illegal migrants from Haiti
2. Half were flown directly to the US under a government relocation program
3. Almost all of them are still here

But the media says you are forbidden to ask questions.

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) September 10, 2024

The State Steno Pool knows what its job is — and performed it to near-perfection during last night’s three-on-one “debate.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Biden Admin to SpaceX: Drop Dead! “Biden-Harris would have us lose the New Space Race — putting our entire national security at risk — in a fit of partisan pique against the man whose other company, X, had the temerity to restore free speech to just one social media platform.”