POSTMODERN WARFARE HAS SO MANY INTERESTING NEW PARAMETERS: Ukrainian hackers locate Russian bases by posing as attractive women on social media. “The pictures sent by the soldiers were used to identify their location, the remote military base in occupied Melitopol. These details were then passed on to Ukraine’s military. It was only a matter of days before the group saw the base blown up by Ukrainian artillery, Knysh told FT.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: In Biden’s America, 1 in 6 U.S. Households Can’t Afford Their Energy Bills.

YOU’LL OWN NOTHING, HAVE YOUR POWER RATIONED, AND LIKE IT: Yellen Says US Back on Track to Ending Fossil-Fuels Dependence.

The US is on track to hit ambitious emissions-reduction goals following recent climate legislation that encourages investment in green technology, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will say in a speech in Detroit on Thursday.

The law, signed by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16, “represents the largest investment in fighting climate change in our country’s history,” Yellen will say, according to an excerpt provided to Bloomberg News.

What Yellen means is, we’re giving up reliance on inexpensive and dependable energy for dependence on expensive and unreliable energy.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Nailed It—Biden’s Philly Fascist Folly Blowback Has Begun. “If I were more mature I would resist an easy attempt to gloat, but you’ve all met me. There’s not a real big premium placed on maturity at Casa Kruiser.”

SALENA ZITO: The realities of covering John Fetterman.

When Fetterman returned to the public forum in Erie, the stroke went from “a bump in the road” to him saying, “I almost died,” leaving open the delicate question of what is the extent of his illness, with no one to date offering that answer.

The few speeches he has given have been short — he visibly struggled in giving them — no direct questions from the press have been taken outside of two closed-captioned interviews, and he is surrounded by a circle of staff who do not allow people or the press to interact with him, including during the Labor Day parade where he marched encircled by dozens of staff and volunteers.

Last week, he refused to debate his Republican rival Oz in the first debate in Pittsburgh that was scheduled to happen Sept. 6 on KDKA; it remains again very unclear if he will do any debates at all.

On Tuesday, I asked Fetterman press secretary Joe Calvello whether the candidate would be releasing an update on his medical condition. I received no answer.

In this case, no answer is an answer.

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT? New Evidence of Biden’s Role in the FBI Raid of Trump’s Home.

T-MINUS OCTOBER AND HOLDING: Artemis launch plan: Here are NASA’s next steps. “Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager, said it would take ‘several weeks of work’ to resolve the current technical issues. If this involves rolling the SLS back to the assembly building, any launch could then be pushed back until the middle of October.”

I was talking to Bill Whittle about this yesterday, and at this point, he doesn’t expect SLS to fly even once.

MEGAN FOX: Here’s Why You Should Lawyer-Up Before Sending Your Kids Back to School. “I have a back-to-school ritual that I think goes a lot further toward having a good relationship with your public school district right off the bat instead of waiting for problems to crop up.”

HMM: Embalmers Are Making Shocking Discoveries in the Blood of the Dead.

LAUGHING WOLF’S NUCLEAR WAR PRIMER CONTINUES WITH Nuclear 201: Targeting, Take 2.

REDSTATE EDITOR-AT-LARGE KIRA DAVIS IS RUNNING FOR SCHOOL BOARD IN ORANGE COUNTY and could use your support.

GUT UND HART, GERMANY: Germany Rules Out Keeping Nuclear Power On Despite Energy Crisis.

RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: That Time John Fetterman Grabbed a Shotgun and Chased Down an Unarmed Black Jogger.

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Court shuts down Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last independent media. “Novaya Gazeta, a stalwart of Russia’s media scene since its foundation in 1993 with money from the Nobel Peace Prize of late Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, had carved out a niche as Russia’s leading investigative news outlet, even as press freedoms were gradually rolled back.”

MONDAY: Biden gives MAGA Republicans a new name – ‘Trumpies’ – and calls heckler an ‘idiot’ who is ‘destroying democracy’: President launches latest attack on ‘extreme right’ in Wisconsin Labor Day speech.

Friday: ‘I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country’: Now Biden walks back his attacks on MAGA Republicans — and insists he was talking about people who call for ‘use of violence’ and reject election results.

Thursday: Biden Repeatedly Stokes Fears of ‘Violent, Extremist’ MAGA Republicans, a ‘Threat’ to America.

2020: Biden embraces healer-in-chief role in return to campaign trail.

SHE FIGHTS: Kari Lake Destroys a Reporter Who Asks Her About Questioning Election Results.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Antifa Thug Shoots at Old Man, Kills Antifa Thug.

Plus:

• Get in touch with your inner frogself
• The Purge: CNN
• Kamala Harris and the grapes of wrath

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

COLORADO: Michael Bennet Avoids Biden, Pelosi on the Campaign Trail.

Related: Democrat Michael Bennet virtually tied with GOP challenger Joe O’Dea in Colorado Senate race.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Mar-a-Lago Raid Looms Large for November. “The Democrats are obviously trying to use Trump as a shiny object to distract from the unmitigated disaster that is the Biden presidency. I agree that the potential for losing some votes if all of the talk is about Trump — especially since he’s not even on the ballot — is real.”

THAT WOULD BE NICE: The Inflation Tide Appears To Be Turning.

Alas, there is little reason to expect the Fed will continue to deliver a monthly core inflation rate of 0.1 percent. Although its average inflation target would seem to require reducing the gap between core PCEPI and the pre-existing 2 percent growth path, Fed officials do not intend to do that. Instead, they intend to see prices grow 2 percent per year on average beginning sometime after 2024. In the meantime, they project inflation will remain high, though not as high as it has been over the last year, with monthly core inflation around 0.2 percent and the gap between core PCEPI and the 2 percent growth path plotted from January 2020 slowly increasing in 2023 and 2024.

Of course, it is also possible that the Fed has not yet gotten a handle on inflation. It is hard to have much confidence with only one month’s worth of data. Perhaps the low core inflation rate observed in July is just a blip. It wouldn’t be the first time a one-month core PCEPI inflation reading prompted undue optimism. For example, the monthly core PCEPI inflation rate fell from 0.4 percent in August 2021 to 0.2 percent in September 2021. It then hit 0.5 percent for four consecutive months. Many incorrectly predicted that inflation would fall following the September 2021 reading when, in fact, it was about to surge.

Still, the most recent inflation data provides some scope for optimism. After a long delay, the Fed finally seems to be bringing inflation down. It doesn’t plan to bring inflation down quickly, nor to offset the high inflation we’ve experienced over the last year. But at least it does not intend to let prices continue to grow as fast as they have.

So the inflation tide isn’t really turning, it’s just moderated a bit.

STACEY LENNOX: Why Republicans Shouldn’t Take the Bait and Make the Midterms a Referendum on Trump.

FALLOUT: Russia Privately Warns of Deep and Prolonged Economic Damage.

The document, the result of months of work by officials and experts trying to assess the true impact of Russia’s economic isolation due to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, paints a far more dire picture than officials usually do in their upbeat public pronouncements. Bloomberg viewed a copy of the report, drafted for a closed-door meeting of top officials on Aug. 30. People familiar with the deliberations confirmed its authenticity.

Two of the three scenarios in the report show the contraction accelerating next year, with the economy returning to the prewar level only at the end of the decade or later. The “inertial” one sees the economy bottoming out next year 8.3% below the 2021 level, while the “stress” scenario puts the low in 2024 at 11.9% under last year’s level.

All the scenarios see the pressure of sanctions intensifying, with more countries likely to join them. Europe’s sharp turn away from Russian oil and gas may also hit the Kremlin’s ability to supply its own market, the report said.

But: Russian ambassador insists it is a reliable supplier of energy as it cuts off gas to Europe, plunging the continent into economic crisis.

It might become a case of who blinks first: Russia because of its need for hard currency or Europe because of its need for energy.

WELL, GOOD: Judge Grants Trump Request for Special Master to Review Docs Seized From Mar-a-Lago.

UGH: Mass Stabbing in Canada Kills 10, Wounds at Least 15 More.

IT’S THE LEGITIMATE CUSTOMER REVIEWS THEY NEED TO WORRY ABOUT: Amazon’s putting a three-day pause on reviews for The Rings of Power. “An Amazon representative told Variety that it put the policy in place to give the service time to evaluate whether a user review comes from an actual viewer — not a bot or troll looking to hijack the reviews section. Amazon introduced the policy earlier this summer, starting with its reboot of A League of Their Own, which contended with review bombers who opposed the show’s political stance.”

And there’s this from The Irish Times: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent. “The Scots get it too in The Rings of Power. Stand-ins for the dwarfs, they are portrayed as aggressive and argumentative. It gets to the point where I expect Durin, prince of Khazad-dûm, to whip out a deep-fried Mars bar. Every other ‘mad Jock’ cliche has already been ticked off.”

Racism, straight up.