BEWARE THE RISKS OF LOSING WEIGHT TOO QUICKLY.

“BUDGET.” YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: Trump-Pelosi budget deal sends deficit soaring.

THIS IS CNN: CNN’s Angela Rye: White Men Who Criticize Tlaib and Omar are ‘Greatest Terrorist Threat.’

VIDEO: Lindsey Graham to Meet with Attorney General Barr this Week to Discuss Rollout of SpyGate Docs.

HMM: AHA Endorses Prescription Fish Oil for High Triglycerides.

Related: Twenty thousand papers later, researchers are still debating whether omega-3s are all they’re cracked up to be.

GRAMSCIAN DAMAGE: Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Paints Mt. Rushmore as Monument to White Supremacy.

As Patrick Poole tweeted last month, “Gadsden flags. Betsy Ross flags. Apollo 11. Sure is interesting watching everything authentically American get deemed ‘racist’ by our brave firefighting media.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: WSJ: The Great Student Loan Scam.

Defaults have fallen for most forms of consumer debt as the economic expansion continues. Mortgage delinquencies last quarter hit a historic low. But severely delinquent student loans have soared since 2012 and are now 35% of “severe derogatories”—more than credit cards (23%), auto loans (21%) and mortgages (11%).

About 10% of the $1.5 trillion federal student-loan portfolio is 30 days or more past due. Another 20% is in deferment or forbearance, and about 30% is in income-based repayment plans that allow most borrowers to cap monthly payments at 10% of discretionary income and discharge the remaining balance after 20 years or 10 for folks in “public service.” . . .

Income-based repayment plans have also encouraged schools to raise prices and enroll students who probably won’t earn enough to pay off their loans. Someone with a master’s degree in dance from New York University shoulders on average $96,000 in debt, according to government data. Imagine if the government created income-based repayment plans for mortgages. . . .

But many loans will be written off long before then due to the Obama repayment plans. “We are running a big experiment here: No generation before has carried student debt burdens anything like what today’s students are carrying,” former Obama higher-education adviser James Kvaal told Bloomberg. “There will be substantial amounts of student debt that will never be repaid.” Now he tells us, though he should have done so in 2010.

The student loan program isn’t a subsidy for students. It’s a subsidy for a vital Democrat-supporting industry. Understand that and a lot of other things make sense.

If only there had been some sort of warning.

TELL, DON’T ASK: Facebook to stop stalking you off-site – but only if asked.

AND IF YOU’RE NOT ON SOCIAL MEDIA AT ALL, I GUESS THAT MAKES YOU A “LONER” AND HENCE POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS TOO: The Government Wants a ‘Red Flag’ Social Media Tool. That’s a Terrible Idea. They’re idiots who couldn’t even keep Jeffrey Epstein alive. I don’t trust them with the tools they have, much less with any new ones.

THEY’LL NEVER INVITE HIM BACK ON CNBC: Bank of America’s CEO has one simple reason why he doesn’t see a recession looming.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST THE WEEK: The New York Times surrenders to the left on race. “There’s no denying that the much-lauded ‘1619 Project’ at The New York Times is a remarkable achievement. Whether it’s an achievement that the paper and its staff should be proud of is another matter.”

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why are fewer Frenchwomen sunbathing topless?

YOU DON’T HAVE TO FALL IN LOVE, YOU JUST HAVE TO FALL IN LINE: Team Biden to Dems: Sorry, You’re Stuck with Joe.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THIS IS BY DESIGN: Governors Are Losing the Space to Govern. “As the bulk of state spending shifts toward mandatory programs, experimentation is grinding to a halt in the laboratories of democracy.”

GOOD GUY WITH A GUN: Man stops what deputies said would otherwise have likely been a mass public shooting.

CHINA’S WARNING TO GLOBAL CEOS: Toe The Party Line On Hong Kong.

TYLER O’NEIL CONTINUES HIS EXCELLENT COVERAGE OF THE SPLC: 5 Reasons the SPLC Is Profoundly Wrong About Two Notorious Christian ‘Hate Groups.’

THAT’S NICE, BUT DON’T GET COCKY, KIDS. A ‘recession dashboard’ from Credit Suisse indicates the economy is nowhere near a recession.

THE THRILL IS GONE? Dems Seem Bored with Their Presidential Candidates.

JAMES LILEKS ON THE PROS AND CONS OF ‘80S NOSTALGIA:

The problem with nostalgia is the way you burnish and polish the past, until you’ve a curio that bears little resemblance to your actual experience. The question isn’t whether things were somehow Better when there were post-modern geometric patterns at Taco Bell; the question is why in the NAME OF GOD you would even begin think things were better. Because they weren’t, and I know it. Some things were, but there was an underlying dread of an existential sort that today’s climate-emergency hyperbole can’t touch.

Let me put it this way: we were, at any time, a few hours away from a series of mistakes or overreactions which would result in the destruction of our civilization.

If that didn’t happen, we would all get SEX CANCER.

On the other hand, glass blocks made a comeback in architecture, and that was cool.

For everyone who lived through the 1970s, with one disaster after another (the Penn Central bankruptcy, Watergate, the oil crisis, the disastrous last days of the Vietnam War, leisure suits, the Iranian hostage crisis, sky-high unemployment, inflation and interest rates, nuclear winter, Super Train, and Hello Larry, etc., etc.) that mid-1980s period of Miami Vice, MTV and the last vestiges of modern architecture and cool European design really did seem like “Morning in America,” and helped George H.W. Bush get elected in the hopes the good times would continue. (Until the DNC-MSM convinced voters that they wouldn’t.) Read the whole thing.

NIGHT RICOCHETS, CAPE COD: Soldiers from the 1058th Transportation Company, Massachusetts National Guard, conduct a night base defense live-fire exercise under the illumination of a green flare. Photo taken August 1st, 2019.

WELL, CNN: Medical Exam Disputes CNN Report, Shows Detained Immigrant Was Not Lactating, ICE Says.

HIS WORDS WERE ILL-ADVISED, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE MAKEUP OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE: Vice chancellor resigns after receiving criticism for calling Republicans rednecks, neo-Nazis.

HONG KONG CRISIS CONTINUES: Demonstrators confront Beijing’s disinformation campaign –including fake tweets. Remember, all the demonstrators ask is that Beijing honor the Sino-British Declaration of 1984 which guaranteed a distinct system of rule until 2047.

BREAKING NEWS: Check out Michael Yon’s website for his video updates. He posted his latest video today, a report on the civil unrest at Yuen Long train station.

RELATED: A recent StrategyPage.com podcast which analyzes the Hong Kong demonstrations and provides background on the crisis.

SNAPSHOT FROM 2008: The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk anchors in Victoria Harbor, preparing for a port call in Hong Kong. Good photo — it caught the city in in the background.