THE CALIFORNIA BAY AREA IN A NUTSHELL: Housing official in Silicon Valley resigns because she can’t afford to live there.

Related: The Extinction of Palo Alto?

DON’T DO STUPID SH*T: U.S. allies unite to block Obama’s nuclear ‘legacy’

The governments of Japan, South Korea, France and Britain have all privately communicated their concerns about a potential declaration by President Obama of a “no first use” nuclear-weapons policy for the United States. U.S. allies have various reasons for objecting to what would be a landmark change in America’s nuclear posture, but they are all against it, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and nuclear experts.

Japan, in particular, believes that if Obama declares a “no first use” policy, deterrence against countries such as North Korea will suffer and the risks of conflict will rise. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe personally conveyed that message recently to Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the head of U.S. Pacific Command, according to two government officials.

U.S. allies in Europe have a separate, additional concern. They don’t want any daylight between their nuclear policies and those of the United States, especially since Britain, France and the United States all are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. In the case of an emergency, those differences could cause real coordination problems.

Nuclear deterrence against rogue states and bad actors just isn’t as important as giving progressive voters a temporary case of happy feelz.

ROGER SIMON: Donald Trump Should Go for the Black Vote—NOW!

As Roger writes, Trump needs to change the narrative ASAP – and here’s the plan. Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTITIES: Once Skeptical of Executive Power, Obama Has Come to Embrace It.

In nearly eight years in office, President Obama has sought to reshape the nation with a sweeping assertion of executive authority and a canon of regulations that have inserted the United States government more deeply into American life.

Once a presidential candidate with deep misgivings about executive power, Mr. Obama will leave the White House as one of the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history.

That was always the intention.

THAT ’70S CATALOG: Absolutely Hilarious JCPenney Catalog From 1977.

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MY OF COUPS AND THE CONSTITUTION PAPER is still #1 on SSRN. With 4 times the downloads of #2. Thanks for all your interest!

NEVER TRUMPNIKS PAVE HILLARY’S PATH TO POWER: “Rather than encourage Trump — whose victory could secure these and other conservative goals after 16 years of molar-grinding Bush-Obama statism — the Never Trump crowd slaps away his extended hand. These malcontents should help Trump develop the best conservative ideas and present them to the voters as attractively as possible. Supply-side heavyweights Arthur Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Steve Moore helped craft Trump’s economic proposal. The man who Never Trumpniks say ‘never listens’ heeded these free-marketeers on taxes and the Heritage Foundation on judges. Conservative Trump haters should do something productive: Offer the GOP nominee issues and ideas he can use to win.”

Read the whole thing.

Related: An Illustrated Story: What it means to be #NeverTrump.

HOOSIER DADDY? Records contradict Bayh’s assertion over staying in Indiana.

A CNN review of public records since Bayh left office in 2011 shows the Democrat repeatedly listed his two multi-million dollar homes in Washington as his main places of residence — not the $53,000 condo he owns in Indianapolis.

Just three weeks after leaving office in 2011, Bayh changed his address to his $2.3 million home in a leafy neighborhood in Washington, according to Indiana records. And often when Bayh registered his address — whether it was on an Alaska fishing license, a donation to Hillary Clinton or on the deed to his beachfront property in Southern Florida — he listed Washington as his home.

Even when Bayh returned back to Indianapolis last summer for an Indiana Democratic Party dinner, he stayed at a JW Marriott just 12 miles away from his condo. A source with Indianapolis Power and Light said Bayh’s monthly electric bills averaged less than $20 per month since 2012, suggesting little — if any — use at his Indiana condo.

You can’t run a country you’ve never been to.

CURIOUS, COMING FROM A MAN WHO HAS NO SHAME WHATSOEVER. Dan Rather: Media Must Publicly Shame Donald Trump Supporters.

THE THING TO REMEMBER IS THAT THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED IN SPITE OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, NOT BECAUSE OF IT: U.S. energy independence looks ‘tantalizingly close.’

HOPE: What Conservatives Did to Pull Off Religious Liberty Win in California.

Facing a maelstrom of grassroots controversy, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said Wednesday that he would remove the portions of his bill, SB 1146, that would have harmed the right of religious colleges to operate according to their principles.

Under the previous wording, SB 1146 would have ultimately blocked low-income students from receiving Cal Grants, California’s system of need-based education aid, if they attended colleges with policies such as bathroom use based on biological sex that violated the state’s LGBT policies. It also would have enabled students who feel discriminated against in light of these policies to bring a lawsuit against their college.

“Without a doubt, the unmodified version [of the bill] would have jeopardized Christian institutions and egregiously penalized all students of faith, especially Latino and African-American individuals,” Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said in a statement.

If a win like this is possible in California, then it’s possible in any state.

PUTIN’S WEB: Manafort blasts NYT, denies he accepted Ukraine cash payments.

It’s unclear if Manafort actually received payments, but prosecutors told the Times that Manafort “must have realized the implications of his financial dealings.”

But Manafort strongly denied that he ever received off-the-books payments or has done work with the governments of Ukraine or Russia.

“My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014,” Manafort says. “In addition, as the article points out hesitantly, every government official interviewed states I have done nothing wrong.”

The Times story was retweeted by Corey Lewandowski, the former Trump campaign manager and Manafort rival who was fired in June.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, Robby Mook, called the alleged connections between Manafort and members of pro-Russian factions troubling.

Oh really?

SIX PROBLEMS WITH MEDIA’S HYSTERICAL REACTION TO TRUMP’S ISIS COMMENTS, including:

Listen, Trump might be an effective communicator with his core audience, but others have trouble understanding him. His speaking style couldn’t be more removed from the anodyne and cautious political rhetoric of our era. This can be a challenge for political journalists in particular. His sentences run on into paragraphs. He avoids specificity or contradicts himself when he doesn’t. His sentences trail into other sentences before they finish. He doesn’t play the usual games that the media are used to. It’s frustrating.

So the media immediately decided Trump was claiming that Obama had literally incorporated ISIS a few years back. And they treated this literal claim as a fact that needed to be debunked.

Related: Hyperliteral media wasn’t prepared to handle sarcasm from a candidate – or at least from a Republican candidate.

Plus a video rewind: Chris Matthews Said Cheney ‘Created al-Qaeda,’ ‘Created ISIS.’

BIRTHRATES ALWAYS PLUMMET UNDER SOCIALISM: America’s falling birth rate is now a national emergency.

The new birth rate numbers are out, and they’re a disaster. There are now only 59.6 births per 1,000 women, the lowest rate ever recorded in the United States. Some of the decrease is due to good news, which is the continuing decline of teen pregnancies, but most of it is due to people getting married later and choosing to have fewer children. And the worst part is, everyone is treating this news with a shrug.

It wasn’t always this way. It used to be taken for granted that the best indicator of a nation’s health was its citizens’ desire and capacity to reproduce. And it should still seem self-evident that people’s willingness to have children is not only a sign of confidence in the future, but a sign of cultural health. It’s a signal that people are willing to commit to the most enduring responsibility on Earth, which is raising a child.

But reproduction is also a sign of national health in a more dollars-and-cents way. The more productive people you have in your society, the healthier your country’s economy. It’s an idea that was obvious back in the 17th century, when economist Jean Bodin wrote “the only wealth is people.”

Yes, but then we got Paul Ehrlich.

A CLASSIFIED MATTER AT THE WHITE HOUSE: SEMI-RETIRED PRESIDENT’S STAR-STUDDED GALAS.

Or to put it another way, world’s biggest celebrity much prefers hobnobbing with other superstar performers than actually doing the job he was hired to do by the American people. But then, it’s not like voters weren’t warned this would be the likely result.

Related: President Ash Carter Shows Bold Leadership While Obama Vacations.

BORROW, SPEND, STAGNATE, REPEAT. Japan’s economy stalls in April-June, casts doubts on Abe’s policies.

“Overall it looks like the economy is stagnating. Consumer spending is weak, and the reason is low wage gains. There is a lot of uncertainty about overseas economies, and this is holding back capital expenditure,” said Norio Miyagawa, senior economist at Mizuho Securities.

“The government has already announced a big stimulus package, so the next question is how the Bank of Japan will respond after its comprehensive policy review, which is sure to lead to a delay in its price target.”

This time stimulus will work, honest.

OOPS: Hillary scrubs sexual assault pledge after allegations against Bill resurface.

The Clinton campaign has removed a pledge from its website stating that all survivors of sexual assault “have the right to be believed.”

On a page dedicated to “Campus sexual assault” on HillaryClinton.com, this passage from the Democratic presidential candidate used to be prominently featured last year: “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we’re with you.”

But by February of this year, those lines had been deleted, according to BuzzFeed News.

The online website says the scrubbing came after the election-cycle reemergence of Juanita Broaddrick, who has accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978 when he was lieutenant governor of Arkansas.

More on Broaddrick here.

THERE’S A LOT TO WORK WITH IN THESE EMAILS, IF THE GOP HAS ANYONE SMART ENOUGH TO DO IT: Leaked DCCC Memo Offers Window into Committee’s Candidate Research.

THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES WILL ALMOST SURELY DECIDE THE ELECTION.

As with both the Kennedy-Nixon debate and the Obama-Romney debate, I wonder what the MSM will do to give their candidate the upper hand?

CORN, POPPED: Democrats Brace for More Leaks From Hackers.

Some computer experts and Democrats in Congress believe both websites—the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress page and DCLeaks.com—have ties to Russian intelligence services and that the sites are using hacked information to try to influence the November elections.

The precise motives of the entities controlling these webpages cannot be learned because their identities are unclear.

U.S. officials are now debating whether to publicly accuse the Russian government of conducting the attacks, two people familiar with the deliberations said, though no final decision about how to proceed has been made.

“I certainly believe that this is a coordinated Russian effort against the U.S. political process,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D., Conn.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview Sunday. “It’s an act of hostility by a foreign power.”

The 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back.

WHY DO THE PROGRESSIVES AT THE NEW YORK TIMES HATE PROGRESS SO?

Last week: Fire bad! Fire hold back feminism, advance patriarchy!

This week: Electric light bad! “Now new research in animals shows that excessive exposure to ‘light pollution’ may be worse for health than previously known, taking a toll on muscle and bone strength.”

And don’t get ‘em started on the eeeeeevils of air conditioning…

IT’S HUGE: California’s Rich-Poor Gap.

EMAILS REVEAL: The Clintons’ Crumbling Foundations.

The implication in these email communications is that those with close connections to the Clinton Foundation had easy access to the Secretary of State’s office, and received quick and unusual assistance in their queries—some of which appear to be employment-related. If proven, that would be a clear violation of an ethics agreement signed by Clinton Foundation chairman (then CEO) Bruce Linsey and senior advisor to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, in 2009 as a precondition for Clinton’s appointment to serve as Secretary of State.

You would think the Obama Administration would have an interest in enforcing an ethics agreement made with its own Secretary of State. Unless of course the agreement was merely for show.

JOEL KOTKIN: California For Whom?

California has been bleeding people to other states for more than two decades. Even after the state’s “comeback,” net domestic out-migration since 2010 has exceeded 250,000. Moreover, the latest Internal Revenue Service migration data, for 2013-2014, does not support the view that those who leave are so dominated by the flight of younger and poorer people.

Of course, younger people tend to move more than older people, and people seeking better job opportunities are more likely to move than those who have made it. But, according to the IRS, nearly 60,000 more Californians left the state than moved in between 2013 and 2014. In each of the seven income categories and each of the five age categories, the IRS found that California lost net domestic migrants.

Nor, viewed over the long term, is California getting smarter than its rivals. Since 2000, California’s cache of 25- to 34-year-olds with college, postgraduate and professional degrees grew by 36 percent, below the national average of 42 percent, and Texas’ 47 percent. If we look at metropolitan regions, the growth of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees since 2000 has been more than 1.5 to nearly 3 times as fast in Houston and Austin as in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Even New York, with its high costs, is doing better.

In fact, the only large California metropolitan area which has seen anything like Texas’ growth has been the most unlikely – the Inland Empire. The coastal areas, so alluring to the media and venture capitalists, are losing out in terms of growing their educated workforces, most likely a product of high housing prices and, outside of the Bay Area, weak high-wage job growth.

The location of migrants tells us something about where the allure of California remains the strongest and where it has been supplanted. Almost all of the leading states sending net migrants here are also high-tax, high-regulation places that have been losing domestic migrants for years – New York, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey. In contrast, the net outflow has been largely to lower-cost states, notably Texas, as well as neighboring Western states, all of which have lower housing prices.

You could revitalize California by making it as easy to get a building permit as it is to vote. I remember talking to the Investor’s Business Daily folks a few years ago — they were headquartered in Marina Del Rey, a lovely place but one where they were constantly visited by inspectors, tax people, etc., all posing problems. When they opened an office in Texas, the state and local government people were all “tell us if we can help you.” Very different experience.