“I’M NOT GONNA BE IGNORED, DAN!” Has the Media Finally Had Enough of Kamala Harris’s Silent Treatment? “There is, however, a dance that must be performed for the public between Democrats and their enablers in the mainstream media. The media pretends to ask tough questions and Democrat candidates pretend to answer them. The problem is that Harris isn’t playing her part in the dance — and the press is starting to pipe up a bit in frustration.”

THIS IS THE WAY:

JD Vance: “You've now asked me three questions about comments that I made three years ago. I wonder what Kamala Harris thinks about the fact that her policies opened the southern border."

Dana Bash: "Im interviewing you not Kamala Harris."

JD Vance: "You're interviewing me… pic.twitter.com/4BI1v3LkMz

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) August 11, 2024

Vance is a master class on how to handle the hostile media.

DAVID SOLWAY: Islam and the Future of the West.

In End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate, philosopher Jon Mills reflects on the Taliban attack with machine guns and explosives on a school in Peshawar, in which 132 schoolchildren were slaughtered. The act is almost incomprehensible. “The immediate dislocation of understanding any rational means behind such atrocities,” he writes “is emotionally unfathomable for the simple fact that it disrupts our psychic need for a moral order in the universe.” It represents a “pathological breach” in our implicit conviction that we live in a civilized world. “It takes only one act of barbarism,” he concludes, “to remind us that evil is no illusion.” Of course, the single act of barbarism can be and is multiplied exponentially all over the world every moment of the day, but there exists one world-historical belief system in which such occasions are both justified and mandated.

Any reading of the Koran, as Robert Spencer, Raymond Ibrahim, Ali Sina, Ibn Warrak, Rebecca Bynum, and a host of other excellent scholars make abundantly clear, will reveal ayah after ayah commanding acts of grotesque violence against unbelievers. The reward for the martyrs who have been slain in service to Allah will be peace, loveliness, and virgins with pear-shaped breasts, as stipulated variously in Sura 44:45-55 and 78:31-36 of the Koran.

The Taliban killers said they were justified in committing so feral and heinous an act as payback for the harms they themselves had unjustifiably endured. What we are witnessing, however, is an expression of what Mills calls the “ethics of evil,” which is nothing less than “the justification of self-righteousness while perpetrating evil under the guise of moral superiority.”

Read the whole thing.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST THE WASHINGTON POST…: Questions we’d love to ask Kamala Harris.

If she hopes to prevail, Ms. Harris needs to present her ideas. The media and public have legitimate questions, and she should face them. This is a political necessity — Mr. Trump is already turning her avoidance of the media into an attack line. And elections aren’t just about winning. They’re about accumulating political capital for a particular agenda, which Ms. Harris can’t do unless she articulates one.

What’s more, Ms. Harris might find her best hope of persuading voters is not to reinforce familiar negative information about Mr. Trump, even if it’s repackaged as an attack on his, and his party’s, “weirdness.” Rather, a new survey published in Matt Yglesias’s newsletter by political scientists David Broockman of the University of California at Berkeley and Josh Kalla of Yale, who study political messaging, suggests that her best bet would be to provide the public new, positive information about herself — and her agenda.
…
Without hearing Ms. Harris articulate her thought process, she runs the risk of leaving voters to wonder whether she is just shifting with the political winds, or, indeed, planning to revert to previous positions after she’s won the presidency. Why, for instance, did she embrace Mr. Trump’s idea to exempt tips from taxation?

Would the Washington Post actually ask their questions, even on the off chance Harris deigned to sit for a real interview?

PUTIN’S EMBARRASSMENT: What the Hell Is Going on in Kursk? “If Kyiv wanted a propaganda win, showing that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin can’t fully protect the Motherland, then they got one.”

ELECTRIC STICKER SHOCK: Tesla halts orders for $61,000 Cybertruck, cheapest version now $100,000.

Tesla stopped taking orders for the cheapest model of its Cybertruck electric pickup, which was priced at $61,000. Now, its $100,000 version is the cheapest model available for order on the automaker’s website.

Consumers and investors have closely monitored the supply and demand of Tesla’s Cybertruck after CEO Elon Musk invested heavily in the EV truck line in recent years with the goal of producing 200,000 annually.

Musk said last fall that Tesla had 1 million reservations for the truck. Some customers have indicated they’re waiting for less expensive versions to be available because its prices have been higher and driving ranges lower than originally forecast.

Plus:

Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid told Reuters that Tesla’s move “shows that demand is a lot less than a million trucks” and added, “They’re sitting on a lot of inventory of two-motor and three-motor trucks right now.”

The mass market for electric trucks isn’t very massive.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Hamas-Loving Harris Is Working Hard for the Dearborn Vote. “Harris gets away with being all over the place like that because the MSM hacks are protecting her, of course. They’ll keep up the ‘YAS QUEEN!’ incurious nonsense for as long as possible. She may end up staking out positions on both sides of every hot-button issue except abortion by the time someone finally gets around to interviewing her.”

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR PLANET:

It’s perfect. Leader of one decaying cesspit passes the flag to the leader of another decaying cesspit. But it’s historic because of their genders, even though gender is now meaningless https://t.co/x0RxB6PJki

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) August 11, 2024

People keep voting for DEI over competence and that’s what they get.

PRETTY MUCH: Britain Is Now a Totalitarian State.

DOUBLE STANDARDS ARE THE BEST STANDARDS BECAUSE YOU GET TWICE AS MANY: Kamala Harris panned for requiring ID to enter Arizona rally after previously painting voter ID laws as racist.

“I don’t think that we should underestimate what that could mean,” Harris said about allowing voter ID laws. “Because in some people’s mind that means, well, you’re going to have to Xerox or photocopy your ID to send it in to prove you are who you are. Well, there are a whole lot of people, especially people who live in rural communities, who don’t – there’s no Kinko’s, there’s no Office Max near them. People have to understand that when we’re talking about voter ID laws, be clear about who you have in mind and what would be required of them to prove who they are.”

As usual, I have no idea what she’s talking about because she doesn’t, either.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE US RESTING COMFORTABLY: A Cop Gets His Head Bashed in at a ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Protest Marking 10 Years Since Michael Brown Died.

BAD NEIGHBORS: China’s Long March 6A rocket is making a mess in low-Earth orbit.

US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military’s ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches).

Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said.

The culprit is the second stage of China’s Long March 6A rocket, which lifted off Tuesday with the first batch of 18 satellites for a planned Chinese megaconstellation that could eventually number thousands of spacecraft. The Long March 6A’s second stage apparently disintegrated after placing its payload of 18 satellites into a polar orbit.

Space Command said in a statement it has “observed no immediate threats” and “continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain.” According to LeoLabs, radar data indicated the rocket broke apart at an altitude of 503 miles (810 kilometers) at approximately 4:10 pm EDT (20:10 UTC) on Tuesday, around 13-and-a-half hours after it lifted off from northern China.

At this altitude, it will take decades or centuries for the wispy effect of aerodynamic drag to pull the debris back into the atmosphere. As the objects drift lower, their orbits will cross paths with SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites, the International Space Station and other crew spacecraft, and thousands more pieces of orbital debris, putting commercial and government satellites at risk of collision.
…
The launch Tuesday began the deployment of China’s “Thousand Sails” Internet network, which will initially consist of 1,296 satellites, with the possibility to expand to more than 14,000 spacecraft. This will require numerous launches, some of which will presumably use the Long March 6A.

Long March 6A seems to be a problem but China doesn’t seem to care. That’s strange because orbital debris is everyone’s problem.

HANLON’S RAZOR MIGHT NOT BE SHARP ENOUGH TO CUT THIS ONE: Did the Secret Service Abandon Trump in Butler? New Body Cam Videos Make You Wonder.

SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD:

KAMALA HARRIS: "We believe in the collective!" pic.twitter.com/xW3G6vLZSl

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 8, 2024

Previously: Now Do You Believe Me That the Commies Are Coming?

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: One Was a Bridge Too Far. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and this week, resistance isn’t just futile — it’s soaking wet. Plus the worst roommate ever, how not to make a clean getaway, and Colorado Man’s spiritual journey to… Ohio?”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (MOSCOW EDITION): Ukraine ambushes Russian convoy in Kursk as Kremlin declares emergency.

A video circulated by Russian military bloggers showed a destroyed convoy, with bodies just visible inside some trucks, on the E38 east-west highway at Oktyabrskoe, a location far deeper inside Russia than any previously confirmed fighting since Ukraine’s forces crossed the border on Tuesday.

Commentators said the attack, reminiscent of Ukrainian attacks on Russian troops besieging Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, demonstrated an effective hit-and-run strategy, but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.

Russia’s defence ministry said at lunchtime that it was transferring military reserves to the Kursk region, according to the Interfax news agency, including Grad rockets, artillery and tanks. A video released by Zvezda, official Russian military media, showed a convoy of lorries carrying armoured vehicles down a highway.

Ukraine isn’t about to march on Moscow or anything like that. But Kyiv was able to assemble several companies’ worth of mechanized soldiers without anyone noticing for what has turned into an extended and embarrassing cross-border raid.

Assuming the UA can get back out largely unscathed, that ought to have the Kremlin wondering where and when the next attack might come.

At the very least, Moscow’s redeployments have taken some of the pressure off the UA in the East, where Russian forces had been gaining.

UPDATE:

The Kursk Nuclear Power plant just went off line for the Russian power grid.

The 💩 is getting real. https://t.co/V0afSle7YT

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) August 9, 2024

That’s worse than embarrassing.

NOT TOO SOON, I HOPE: NASA’s Mission to Monitor Near-Earth Objects Comes to an End.

FIGHT THE POWER: RV retailer Camping World defies California county order to take down giant American flag.

SHE PRACTICALLY BRAGGED ABOUT IT: Nancy Pelosi Finally Admits Her Role in the Biden Coup.

WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE, ANYWAY?

Biden's schedule this week is truly absurd. 1 phone call on Monday. Nothing Tuesday or Wednesday. 1 phone call and a ceremony on Thursday & then off to the beach house.

Any employee or CEO who did would be fired. Biden is the leader of the free world working 10 hours a week. pic.twitter.com/JKDO1jEilP

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) August 8, 2024

It sure would be nice to know who the president is.

DON’T SLEEP IN THE SAME PLACE TWICE, YAHYA: Hamas Proclaims New Leader Who Was Involved in Oct. 7 Attacks.

GODSPEED: SpaceX targeting Aug. 26 for historic Polaris Dawn astronaut mission. “Polaris Dawn will take the quartet to Earth orbit, on a free-flying mission that does not link up with the International Space Station (ISS). The planned private spacewalk(s) aren’t the only way it will make history: Polaris Dawn will circle our planet at an altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers), taking the crew farther from Earth than any mission since the Apollo era.”

Polaris Dawn reminds me a bit of Mercury and Gemini — projects for earning the technology, experience, and skills needed for a much grander project.

THE DEBATE IS ON: I’m Not Saying Trump Reads VodkaPundit But…

DON’T GET COCKY:

So after the best coverage any presidential candidate has ever received, and after taking zero questions for 19 days, this is the result. Jig is up. https://t.co/xBv1bMxQx4

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) August 8, 2024

I wrote last week that August would be “gut-check time” as the media did everything in their power to boost Harris. But they can only work with the material they have and, despite White House/Media collusion to keep her out of sight, it isn’t like she’s an unknown commodity after four years as veep.

Still… don’t get cocky.

SPOILER: SHE IS AN AUTHORITARIAN JACKBOOT. You Don’t Have to Wonder if Kamala Is an Authoritarian Jackboot, Just Look at Her Record.