ROGER L. SIMON IS NOW REVIEWING BOOKS, TOO: Trumping Obama: A Must-Have Book for the 2020 Election.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Here’s the book link.

NICE TRY, BUT NO: Amy Klobuchar: Trump Called Baltimore ‘Nothing But a Home for Rats.’

NICE: U.S. Private Employers Added 156,000 Jobs in July, More Than Expected, ADP Says.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: In Virginia, 80 percent of the highest-paid public employees are in higher education: Six-figure salaries for deans, directors, vice presidents.

You know, at this rate, some cynics might conclude that “higher education” is mostly about transferring taxpayer money to the Democrat overclass.

ON AN AUSTRALIAN BEACH: U.S. Marines conduct an amphibious assault during exercise Talisman Sabre 19 in Bowen, Australia, July 22, 2019.

DEEP FAKES AND THE NEW AGE OF DECEPTION:

Forgeries, malign innuendo, smears, hoaxes and outright lies are primal psychological and emotional weapons. From lovers’ quarrels to great-power warfare, they are innate factors in human conflict.

Unfortunately, we have entered the age of deep fakes (aka deepfakes), where new digital “bottles” can instantaneously, pervasively and persuasively deliver vintage lies and classic smears.

MORE:

…If it can be done, it has been done: The heads of well-known celebrities have already been superimposed on the bodies of porn actors. Presto! Deep-fake porn videos.

Read the entire column.

RELATED: China covertly trying to foil Trump’s re-election.

LAST NIGHT’S DEBATE AND THE DEMOCRATS’ STILLBORN REVOLUTION: The tepid centrists may not be inspiring, but they signify a problem for the likes of Sanders and Warren.

OH: False Jim Jordan Quote Goes Viral After Fooling Prominent Liberals.

CONTAGION: UMich social justice agenda is now ‘spreading beyond’ campus.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Dem. Debate Had Fairy Tale Economics, Dark Psychic Forces. “Keep in mind that the Democrat primary universe is not the general election universe. These wacky policies are not going to play in the general election. How will the chosen stooge walk this crap back once they have to address the public? Taking people’s health care away in favor of a Veterans Administration-like system run by the post office is not appealing ( 90% have healthcare coverage, by the way.) The tax cuts, the ones the media has tricked people into thinking only went to the rich, will disappear along with your 401k invested in the stock market. The green new deal will cost a household $70K in the first year. But any argument against these policies are dismissed as Republican talking points. Do people hate Trump more than they want to see these crazy policies? I guess we will find out.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Scientists create contact lenses that zoom on command.

CHINA CLAIMS A LOT OF THINGS: China claims most Muslim detainees have been released from Xinjiang camps.

IT’S LITERALLY JUST A SLOGAN AND A RANDOM COLLECTION OF DUMB IDEAS: Green New Deal to cost up to $100,000 per home in first year.

HELP WANTED:  If you are a conservative or libertarian lawyer living in the DC area with a strong interest in civil rights issues, click here.  Yes, this is a paying job.

CHANGE: Sign of the times: China’s capital orders Arabic, Muslim symbols taken down.

HMM: Suburban women recoil as Trump dives into racial politics.

“I just don’t like the way he talks about other people,” Evans, a 79-year-old retired data entry supervisor, said recently as she walked through a shopping mall in Brookfield, Wisconsin, days after Trump fired off a racist tweet at Democratic congresswomen.

The president’s recent return to racial politics may be aimed at rallying his base of white working-class voters across rural America. But the risks of the strategy are glaring in conversations with women like Evans.

Many professional, suburban women — a critical voting bloc in the 2020 election — recoil at the abrasive, divisive rhetoric, exposing the president to a potential wave of opposition in key battlegrounds across the country.

In more than three dozen interviews by The Associated Press with women in critical suburbs, nearly all expressed dismay — or worse — at Trump’s racially polarizing insults and what was often described as unpresidential treatment of people. Even some who gave Trump credit for the economy or backed his crackdown on immigration acknowledged they were troubled or uncomfortable lining up behind the president.

This is more anecdata than actual data, but definitely keep an eye on suburban women as the election draws closer. This particular demo is the primary reason I’m not getting cocky.

YOU’RE NEVER GONNA BE THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE WITH THIS KIND OF HONESTY: Delaney on Medicare-for-All: “This Isn’t About Health Care, This is an Anti-Private Sector Strategy.”

Yep. Just as the Green New Deal isn’t really about climate change, it’s about government control of the economy.

WILL DEMOCRATS DENOUNCE THIS FOREIGN INTERFERENCE? China Covertly Subverting Trump Reelection.

Related: During all the Russia hacking hype, China is rising in influence: While Russia’s role in the 2016 election dominates the news, China’s spying and alarming influence within our borders is too little noticed.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Everything We Know About the Air Force’s Secret X-37B Spaceplane.

The X-37B is so secretive, maybe they should have headlined it with “Everything We THINK We Know…”

HARMONY AND UNDERSTANDING, SYMPATHY AND TRUST ABOUNDING. NO MORE FALSEHOODS OR DERISIONS. GOLDEN LIVING DREAMS OF VISIONS: New Age Marianne Williamson is breakout winner of Democratic debate.

MARK LEVIN: ‘Democrats must defend each other’ on Baltimore because they’re destroying America’s cities.

“The fact of the matter is the Democrats must defend each other in their handling of these various metropolitan areas, because these various metropolitan areas have been in control of the Democrat Party for half a century or more,” Levin explained. “In the case of Baltimore, since the 1940s.”

“And they are unraveling, the civil societies are collapsing,” Levin continued of Democrat-run major cities. “They attack their own police forces. They appoint liberal activist judges. They keep raising taxes. They keep pushing out individuals who pay taxes. And so you have the decline — severe decline — of living standards in these communities. Not because of race, not because of the federal government, not because of rich people: Because of the Democrat Party and those who run these cities.”

Levin went on to point out that “Baltimore’s not alone” and mentioned the problems of Democrat-run cities Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. “Who runs these cities? Republicans don’t run these cities. Democrats run these cities.”

Democrats defend these lousy results because they’re getting exactly what they want: A landed (er… condo’d?) gentry lording over the dependent masses. Middle-class flight is a feature, not a bug.

MCCLATCHY: 2020 Democrats keep shifting left. Moderates fret they’ll shift even further. Well, once Trump denounces cannibalism they’ll be all-in for anthropophagy.