OUR DESPICABLE BETTERS: The Disciplinary Corporations.

The context is this: Hong Kong, a free, liberal, democratic, self-governing city was handed over to the powers that be in Beijing — a clutch of corrupt, brutal, dishonest, organ-harvesting, gulag-operating murderers — as part of an agreement with the United Kingdom, who once had sovereignty over Hong Kong as a colonial power. Beijing wants Hong Kong to be more like the rest of China, and the people of Hong Kong do not. They recently took to the streets to force the reversal of a decision that would have subjected Hong Kong residents to extradition to the so-called People’s Republic of China for certain crimes rather than be tried in Hong Kong under Hong Kong law. Because the junta in Beijing has no compunction about drumming up charges for political purposes, this would have represented a noose around the neck of every dissident in Hong Kong. Jun Takahashi tweeted his support for liberal democrats against mass-murdering national socialists.

And Nike sided with the mass-murdering national socialists.

Swoosh: There goes your soul.

Nike likes to position itself as a courageous sponsor of dissidents in the economically and racially charged world of sports, for instance giving the heroic treatment to controversial former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in a series of cinematic advertisements. Irrespective of your view on the particular merits of Kaepernick and his national-anthem protest, that is the sort of thing one likes to see a big corporation such as Nike do — to say, in essence: “Yes, this is potentially unpopular, and we may lose a few sales over it, but we’re Nike, and we’re big enough and rich enough to do what we think is right.” But of course there is rather less to it than that.

Trash.

Plus: “Ochlocracy — mob rule — sometimes takes the form of rioting or other kinds of open violence, as in the case of Antifa, but more often it consists in the mob bullying third parties — government or, increasingly, businesses — into implementing the mob’s agenda.” And frequently the third parties are actually happy to be “bullied.”

HORSERACE: Kamala Cruises in Post-Debate Poll.

Post-debate polling appears to confirm the conventional wisdom, with Biden and Harris suffering/enjoying the biggest momentum swings in their respective, opposite directions.

Post-Debate Politico/Morning Consult poll shows support for Kamala Harris doubling since the last Politico/Morning Consult poll from 6% to 12%.

RELATED: Biden leads among African-Americans, but Harris gains significantly.

I haven’t been calling Biden “the evitable nominee” for nothing. He’s always better on paper than he is on the campaign trail, and he isn’t all that great on paper.

CBS TOUTS BLUE STATES AND CITIES PASSING NEW TAXES, PLASTIC BAG/STRAW BANS.

To revise and extend the Gipper’s remarks, the DNC-MSM’s view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. And if people like it — ban it.

JOURNALISM: Here We Go Again: CNN Implies Cartoonist Was Fired Over Anti-Trump Cartoon. Turns Out He Wasn’t.

CHANGE? Hong Kong police fire tear gas in running battles after protesters trash legislature.

“One country, two systems” was always just a temporary patch until Beijing felt it could impose full control over Hong Kong. Xi, again, might have moved too early.

THE SNEAKER WORLD ACHIEVED MAXIMUM WOKENESS LAST NIGHT: In case you missed it, according to the Wall Street Journal, “Nike Nixes ‘Betsy Ross Flag’ Sneaker After Colin Kaepernick Intervenes.” But (apparently the bots at) Adidas UK really went for the gold in the Woke Olympics yesterday:

Kate of Canada’s Small Dead Animals blog quotes one wag on Twitter who responded, “This is what happens when you fire all the humans and let badly programmed shit make the decisions.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Never Trump exists within the media ecosystem, but has no detectable voting base.”

Plus: “According to Gallup polling, 89% of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. And this cannot be chalked up to a mass exodus from the party that left only core Trumpists. In May, Gallup found that 30% of the electorate identified as Republican, which is higher than it was when Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015 (25%) and around where it was when he effectively clinched the nomination in early May 2016 (31%). There have likely been some people who left the party and some people who now identify as Republican who did not before, but the bottom line is that Brooks is not broadly representative of the American electorate.”

THEY’RE JUST MORE OPEN ABOUT BREAKING IT: To No One’s Surprise, Iran Breaches Limits on Enriched Uranium, Violating Obama’s Nuclear Deal.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Reimagining Legal Education: Why Shouldn’t Law Schools Be Run As Trade Schools?

Well, mostly because that would hurt the self-esteem of law professors.

AT AMAZON, summer deals in Car Care.

Plus, save on Office and School Supplies.

PUSHBACK: Leaders unite against ‘modern colonialism.’ “Britain’s Overseas Territories say they will ‘stand together’ to defend their right to self-government amid increasing concerns over ‘constitutional overreach’ from the UK. Any attempts to enforce legislation from Westminster on issues ranging from same-sex marriage to ‘belongership’ and financial services regulation will be strongly resisted, according to leaders of several territories, following talks in Grand Cayman this week. Despite the disparate concerns of the various territories, leaders from the Falklands to Bermuda were united in their opposition to the UK dictating policy from thousands of miles away.”

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Did Portland Violate the First Amendment by Selectively Tolerating Violence?

PIERS MORGAN(!): Ivanka’s smarter, classier and way more qualified to run America than AOC – so the ex-bartender who’d bankrupt the country in months should stop b*tching.

GREAT AGAIN: U.S. economy sets growth record — 10 years — without recession.

NOW OUT: Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys: 50th Anniversary Edition. I read this years ago and it’s a great story. I met Collins back in the 1980s when I was writing my space law book, and he was a nice guy who gave me some helpful advice. (Bumped).

WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE. ‘CAUSE GIRL, THERE’S A BETTER LIFE, FOR ME AND YOU. The Grauniad: “‘We all suffer’: why San Francisco techies hate the city they transformed.” Though based on the first three paragraphs, there doesn’t appear to be much transformation going on here, except for the addition of e-scooters and Uber:

It was a beautiful winter day in San Francisco, and Zoe was grooving to the soundtrack of the roller-skating musical Xanadu as she rode an e-scooter to work. The 29-year-old tech worker had just passed the Uber building when, without warning, a homeless man jumped into the bike lane with his dog, blocking her path.

She slammed on the brakes, flew four feet into the air and landed on the pavement, bleeding. “It was one of those hardening moments where I was like, ‘Even I am being affected,’” she recalled.

It should be noted that Zoe, who asked not to be identified by her real name because she was not authorized by her employer to speak to the press, is not the stereotypical tech bro who moves to San Francisco for a job and immediately starts complaining about the city’s dire homelessness crisis. She arrived in 2007 to study at San Francisco State University and had a career in the arts before attending a coding bootcamp and landing a job at a major tech company.

* * * * * * * *

For Zoe, the newfound financial security from working in tech does not counterbalance a constant sense of being unsafe in the city. She now earns three to four times more than when she was a “starving artist”, but she says she is terrified to walk at night. She no longer rides scooters and says she feels “triggered” when she sees them around the city. She takes Ubers everywhere after dark and asks drivers to watch to make sure she gets inside her apartment building.

“Mark Zuckerberg lives nearby, but our corner is the main prostitution corner in the city,” she said of the Mission District apartment she shares with her boyfriend. “There’s condoms and syringes. It’s absolutely crazy with how much we pay for rent … It’s tough, because we work in tech, but we ask ourselves every day if we should move.”

Expect more of the same if you’re planning a move to Austin: “Starting today, so long as they are not presenting a hazard or danger, people will be able to sleep, lie and set up tents on city-owned sidewalks,” the Austin Statesman reports.

As Iowahawk tweets, “I’m guessing the sidewalks in front of city council members’ houses aren’t included in this.”

(San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1964.)

I’M CYNICAL ENOUGH TO SUSPECT THAT THE DIVISION IS INTENTIONAL, AND DRIVEN BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT: Hong Kong Protesters Storm Legislature, Dividing the Movement.