MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Here’s the Next Damn Way the Left Will Go After Your Car.

CHUTZPAH: A Ukrainian soldier called up Russian tech support when his captured Russian tank wouldn’t start. “The person on the other end of the phone appeared to be unaware that he was speaking with a Ukrainian soldier. He assured Kochevnik that he would raise Kochevnik’s issues with the design bureau and the engine manufacturer, Forbes reported.”

WHEN THIS IS THE ADVICE YOU’RE GETTING FROM A DEMOCRAT ON MSNBC…: Biden should stop focusing on the economy.

BREAKING: Donald Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial in N.Y. Is Underway.

FOR A GUY WHO ISN’T RUNNING, HE’S SURE MAKING A SHOW OF MOVING TO THE CENTER: Gov. Newsom Vetoes Bill Allowing Workers to Collect Unemployment While on Strike.

DON’T BE EVIL: DOJ finally posted that ’embarrassing’ court doc Google wanted to hide. “The document in question contains meeting notes that Google’s vice president for finance, Michael Roszak, ‘created for a course on communications,’ Bloomberg reported. In his notes, Roszak wrote that Google’s search advertising ‘is one of the world’s greatest business models ever created’ with economics that only certain ‘illicit businesses’ selling ‘cigarettes or drugs’ ‘could rival.'”

HEH: Criminal-Friendly Seattle Is So Bad This Guy’s Shocked When a Judge Won’t Let Him Go.

YOU DON’T SAY: Biden admin quietly released study showing green energy receives far more subsidies than fossil fuels.

The report — authored by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) and published in August — represents the first of its kind since 2018. The EIA analyzed data from 2016 through 2022, and determined that, during that time period, the federal government doled out $183.3 billion in direct and mainly indirect taxpayer subsidies, more than half of which came over the last three years.

“For years Democrats have claimed technologies like solar energy are cheaper than coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear. This report makes clear that solar is largely dependent on heavy subsidies with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital.

It might be more expensive and less reliable but at least solar provides endless opportunities for grift.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: ‘Mommy, the Republicans Are Fighting Again!’ “Grand Old Party. Grand Old Hot Mess. The fun never ends.”

CHANGE: Nebraska is imposing a 7-day wait for trans youth to start gender-affirming medications. The regulations also require transgender minors to undergo at least 40 hours of ‘gender-identity-focused’ therapy that are ‘clinically neutral’ before receiving any medical treatments meant to affirm their gender identities. A new law that took effect Sunday bans gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth under 19 and also required the state’s chief medical officer to spell out when and how those youth can receive other care.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Chicago Armed Robbers on an Extraordinary Rampage: ‘Everyone Is so Freaked Out.’

CRISIS BY DESIGN: New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul rants the border is ‘too open’ and demands a ‘limit on who can come across.’

New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul ranted about failing immigration policies saying the southern border is ‘too open’ and demanded a limit on how many people can stream over into the US.

During a Sunday appearance on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation,’ Hochul said she feels the country’s border is currently too much of a free-for-all.

A record 260,000 migrants flooded across the border last month alone, causing chaos not only in border states that are ill-equipped to stomach such massive population influxes but in sanctuary states like New York.

‘We want [Congress] to have a limit on who can come across the border,’ said Hochul.

Congress does have limits, Governor. Talk to your man in the White House about enforcing them.

SURVEILLANCE VIDEO IS UBIQUITOUS EXCEPT WHEN IT’S INCOVENIENT: Fire Alarm Scandal Raises New Questions About Cocainegate.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: It’s Your Birthday and You’ll Do WHAT If You Want To? “This week we have a daring police cruiser escape, a CIA bike ninja, and the Oklahoma judge who really should have known better.”

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Florida man charged in Jan. 6 riot slams ‘double standards’ as ex-prosecutor makes bail in road rage stabbing.

CHANGE: SF Mayor Breed Calls for Drug Testing and Treatment for Welfare Eligibility.

LOS ANGELES HATES POOR PEOPLE: As California Charter Schools Excel, Los Angeles’s Top Public District Makes It Harder To Attend Them. “The Los Angeles Unified School District voted Tuesday to overhaul its implementation of Proposition 39, a state law that compels California’s public districts to give charter schools access to their facilities. Under the district’s new measure, hundreds of district sites that charter schools could typically use to hold class will no longer be made available, thus forcing those schools to use locations that are farther away from where their attendees live. Given that Los Angeles’s charter schools typically attract students from low-income families who lack reliable sources of private transportation, the added commute could force students to ditch their charter school in favor of a more convenient district location.”

VICTORIA TAFT: West Coast, Messed Coast™ Report – Leftists Swarm Like Sharks After Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Death.

JACOBINS IN TRAINING: My leftist peers tore down my ‘Free Speech, Even When You Hate To Hear It’ flyers.

MOUNTAINS OF IT: No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Joe Biden? How About This?

OH, CANADA: Federal government looking to cut $1 billion from National Defence budget.

According to NATO’s latest annual report, Canada spent an estimated 1.3 per cent of its GDP on the military last year — well below the target. Coming out of the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Liberal government faced a storm of bad press and increased pressure from allies to step up its financial commitment.

How the planned cuts will affect Canada’s commitment to NATO is unclear. Germany also recently walked back its pledge to meet the two per cent target.

Meanwhile: Poland Becomes a Defense Colossus.

Poland was already spending 2.4% of GDP on defense by 2022, ranking third in NATO after the United States and Greece.

The government decided much more was required. In 2023, Poland estimates it will spend more than 4% GDP on defense, which would be the highest proportion in NATO, as well as the highest proportion of the budget spent on equipment (over 50%.)

As Europe’s sixth-largest economy, by far the largest on the Eastern Flank, these figures translate into very substantial increases in personnel and hardware.

The country plans to double its land forces to 300,000. Huge purchases from abroad include 366 Abrams tanks and 96 Apache helicopters from the United States; 980 K2 tanks and 648 self-propelled howitzers from South Korea; hundreds of US HIMARS rocket launchers; many more Patriot air defense systems; 22 UK-made air defense batteries and three UK-designed frigates; as well as 48 South Korean FA-50 combat aircraft from and 32 US F-35 aircraft, complementing its existing fleet of 48 F-16s.

Canada and Germany have no excuse.

Update: I forgot to add the sign, courtesy of CDR Salamander.

VICTORIA TAFT: So This Is How the ‘Impeach Joe Biden’ Inquiry Is Going for the Democrats. “Now, I recognize this so far reads like a Tourette’s induced poison pen letter, not of Aristotelian canon, but this is actually the Democrats’ playbook on how to energize their supporters in the please-don’t-impeach-old-Joe camp.”

CHUCK ROSS: The Latest Hunter Biden Document Dump Is Littered With Bombshells. Here Are the Biggest.

A federal prosecutor on the Hunter Biden investigation ordered the FBI to remove references to then-candidate Joe Biden from a search warrant related to the probe.

In August 2020, FBI agents drafted a search warrant for the lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies that referenced the elder Biden as “Political Figure 1.” But assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf intervened to remove the reference to Biden on the grounds that it was outside the scope of the warrant.

“There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” Wolf wrote in an email to FBI and IRS investigators.

The email adds to the growing evidence that the U.S. attorney’s office blocked investigators from pursuing leads related to the president. IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler have claimed Wolf stymied several aspects of the investigation and tipped off Hunter Biden’s lawyers to a planned search of the first son’s storage unit in Virginia.

Wolf was removed from the prosecutorial team this year, for reasons yet to be explained.

Read the whole thing.

STATE MEDIA: Trump Accuses MSNBC Owner Comcast of ‘Treason,’ Calls for It to Be Investigated.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: America’s emergency oil reserve is at a 40-year low — and that could inflate oil prices, Goldman Sachs says.

America’s emergency oil stockpile has plunged to 40-year lows. The shrinking Strategic Petroleum Reserve is limiting Washington’s ability to shield consumers from the fallout of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive supply cuts, according to Goldman Sachs.

“At this point, US energy policy has fewer bullets left. It has less levers left in its policy toolkit,” Daan Struyven, head of oil research at Goldman Sachs, told CNN in a phone interview.

That’s one reason Goldman Sachs expects oil prices to stay high, averaging $100 a barrel this time next year. Triple-digit oil would boost already-high prices at the pump, worsening inflation and potentially influencing the 2024 race for the White House.

To cushion the blow from the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration has released vast amounts of oil from the SPR, the underground series of storage tanks along the Gulf Coast that contains emergency oil.

Industry veterans say that strategy helped mitigate the hit to consumers as gasoline prices plunged after hitting $5.02 a gallon in June 2022.

But the SPR, which acts as a rainy-day fund that presidents can tap during times of war or natural disaster, is down by about 270 million barrels over the past two years to the lowest level since August 1983.

Related:

🔸BIDEN ADMINISTRATION 5-YEAR OFF SHORE OIL PLAN TO BE RELEASED ON FRIDAY DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY SALES FOR 2024 – SOURCES

🔸U.S. 5 YEAR OIL LEASE PLAN WILL INCLUDE THE LOWEST LEASE SALES IN HISTORY – SOURCES

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) September 28, 2023

Previously: Well, Biden Screwed Us Forever on Another Damn Thing. “The SPR is probably never going to be refilled, according to one expert, and maybe not even for the reason that first popped into your mind.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.