UNEXPECTEDLY: Experts are witnessing a strange new phenomenon in the demand for electric cars: ‘We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment.’

“The demand is not keeping up with production, which is the opposite story of a year ago,” Cox Automotive executive analyst Michelle Krebs told Grist. “We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment. Automakers are building more, but not enough consumers have come to the field.”

But Krebs also observed that availability isn’t such a bad thing when compared to the wider market.

“A year ago, the average EV price was above the average luxury vehicle price. Today, as inventory and availability build, EV prices are moving closer to the industry average,” Krebs added.

This is one of the possible outcomes (all bad) when Washington tries to pick winners and losers: A big run-up in demand as incentives get some buyers off the fence, followed by market over-saturation.

There are just too many use-cases where EVs make little sense — pickup trucks, for example — and manufacturing incentives and consumer tax credits can’t change that.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Climate Cult Tyrants Are Still Worse Than COVID Tyrants. “If, like me, you’re skeptical whenever the government says that forcing you to do something will save you money in the long run, you have a clean bill of mental health.”

BIDENOMICS, IT’S WORKING! Food Stamp Bonanza Sends Grocery Bills Soaring 15%, Study Finds.

In 2022, the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending hit a record high of $119 billion, a sixfold increase over the last two decades. In 2019, taxpayers were on the hook for $4.5 billion per month on food stamp benefits. By December 2022, monthly food stamp spending soared to $11 billion.

According to findings from the government watchdog Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), previewed by Fox News, the administration’s massive expansion of food stamp benefits could be responsible for a 15% spike in grocery store prices.

FGA called Biden’s rush to increase SNAP benefits an “unlawful expansion—which bypassed Congress—will cost taxpayers $250 billion over the next decade and has heavily contributed to soaring grocery prices.”

I love paying for other people’s groceries twice — one with my taxes and again in the form of higher prices.

ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: ‘Climate Change’ High Priest John Kerry Declares Virtual War on ‘Deniers,’ Calls Them ‘Inexorable Threat.’

DID THEY ALREADY TEST A PROTOTYPE ON JOE? China crafts weapons to alter brain function; report says tech meant to influence government leaders. “Neurostrike is a military term defined as the engineered targeting of the brains of military personnel or civilians using nonkinetic technology. The goal is to impair thinking, reduce situational awareness, inflict long-term neurological damage and cloud normal cognitive functions.”

Ralph Peters called this one more than 30 years ago in his dystopian technothriler, The War in 2020.

HMM: Why Have Billionaires Bought Up Thousands of Acres of Land Around Travis Air Force Base?

I MISS WHEN LATE NIGHT COMEDY STILL HAD COMEDY: Jimmy Dore Shreds Late Night Comics for Ivermectin Misinformation.

UGH: A Mother’s Heartbreaking Tale of Losing Her Son in the Maui Fires.

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Successful Starship Super Heavy Booster static fire! https://t.co/YclxqPCDRo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2023

No word on whether any of the staff were wearing impolitic shirts or if the correct number of asylum-seekers and/or refugees were involved.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: The Wacked Out Weiner of Love. “It’s your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have a sweet and savory marriage proposal, how to take the L with honor, and a golf cart incident in Michigan that they swear almost never happens.”

A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: School bans ‘only 2 genders’ T shirt: There’s only 1 acceptable opinion.

THE BLATANCY IS THE POINT: Hunter Biden Special Counsel Appointment Is a Blatant Act of Corruption.

BIDENOMICS, IT’S WORKING! More Americans Are Having A Hard Time Paying Their Big Credit Card Bills. “This raises an important question: what happens when consumers max out their credit cards?”

Here’s one answer: Zillow rolls out 1% down home loan program.

Will Collier reminds you that “All of this has happened before…” and it didn’t exactly end well.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT: Justice Department Sues Elon Musk for Not Hiring Legal Immigrants and Asylum Seekers. “Musk is accusing DoJ and by extension, the Biden administration of the ‘weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.'”

This suit is the Biden administration’s high-class version of a local mafia boss calling up the construction foreman on the big project downtown and reminding him that there had better be enough no-show jobs for their “mutual” friends.

COFFEE, IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Waste coffee grounds make concrete 30% stronger.

GET YOUR KIDS OUT OF THOSE SCHOOLS: A Federal Court Denies Maryland Parents an Opt-Out Policy for LGBTQ Books.

JONATHAN TURLEY: The Search for Robert L. Peters: He Goes By Various Names…The Question is Why.

He is a man with many names. “Celtic.” “The Big Guy.” According to congressional investigators, most citizens know him as “President Biden.”

Aliases are tricky things. They are sometimes innocent or essential like the code name that the Secret Service gives you as part of your protection like “Celtic.”

Then there are nicknames that are preferred to your given name. Take the Big Lebowski. He did not like being called Mr. Lebowski and preferred “Dude” but he was flexible: “I’m The Dude. So, that’s what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or, uh, Duder, or El Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.”

It appears that President Biden also preferred on occasion not to be called “Mr. Biden.” The question is why and whether Mr. Peters is more Big Lebowski or Big Guy.

The Dude only abides when the Big Guy get his 10 percent.

VICTORIA TAFT: Portland’s Predictable Doom Loop. “The unfortunately named Tina Kotek, Oregon’s governor, has convened a blue ribbon panel of all the same lefty friends, NGOs, quasi-governmental groups, and favored business owners to fix the problem they spent years cheerleading.”

WOEING: Extra Holes Drilled in 737 Max Pressure Bulkheads.

Boeing has found another significant manufacturing flaw in its 737 Max aircraft and it’s likely to throw a curveball at deliveries of its most popular aircraft.

The company says fuselages from its largest contractor, Spirit AeroSystems, have random extra holes drilled in the rear pressurization bulkhead. The Air Current broke the story on Wednesday and said the issue may be widespread.

Boeing inspectors reportedly found bulkheads with “hundreds” of misaligned and duplicated holes in the structure, some of which were filled with fasteners. They passed Spirit’s quality control inspections.

Absolutely none of that inspires any confidence.

CHANGE: Anti-U.S. BRICS Admits 6 New Members, Including Iran.

CUE THE ELECTION-YEAR COVID STRAIN HYPE IN FIVE… FOUR… THREE…: Ohio becomes the THIRD state to detect highly-mutated BA.2.86 COVID variant that ‘can infect vaccinated people better than other strains.’

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Can the Trump-Hating Psycho Prosecutors Be Stopped? “A once-great country is being subjected to the manifestation of the emotional imbalance that’s brought on by being progressive. I wrote in my classic book ‘Don’t Let the Hippies Shower‘ that progressivism is ‘the toddler mindset manifested in adulthood.'”

I’D WONDERED THIS MYSELF: After Prigozhin humiliated Putin, the question was how he survived so long.

“The very fact that Prigozhin existed after the coup completely upended our understanding of the Putin regime,” said Abbas Galyamov, a political consultant and former Putin speechwriter. “The rule was that you can’t go against Putin. For two months, everything was upside down. Prigozhin created a massive problem for Putin, he humiliated him.”

In the two months after the mutiny, Prigozhin appeared down but not out. He was filmed in Belarus telling his mercenaries that the conduct of the war in Ukraine was a “disgrace”. He was photographed on the sidelines of a Russia-Africa summit, and then appeared this week armed and in camouflage somewhere in Africa, saying he was “making Russia even greater on all continents”.

Perhaps more importantly, he was never served with criminal charges after the mutiny. His companies continued to win multimillion-dollar catering contracts, and he continued to travel between Africa, Belarus and Russia on his Embraer jet until it crashed on Wednesday.

“It gave the signal that it was permissible to go against Putin and everything will be OK,” Galyamov said.

Many had the sense that this would not last. The CIA director, William Burns, last month called Putin an “apostle of payback” and warned Prigozhin not to fire his food taster.

Somehow, Prigozhin spent his time in Belarus (which is basically a Russian vassal) and sometimes even safely traveling back to Russia… up until he didn’t.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Self-Professed Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk Says He’s Suing Over Censorship.

WHEN CANCEL CULTURE MEETS THE STREISAND EFFECT: Cancel Culture Made Aldean’s ‘Small Town’ Even Bigger. “You’re not gonna love every joke a comedian tells… but what the Republican party needs to lean into is the First Amendment, free speech and the marketplace of ideas.”