ROGER SIMON IN REAL CLEAR POLITICS: Nashville’s Next Mayor May Be a Black Conservative Woman. “After John Briley served as interim mayor, a full-term election is now in  progress.  And that election is being shaken up by Carol Swain, a woman who is — of all things in traditionally Democratic Nashville, a blue stronghold in a red state — a no-holds-barred black, Christian Republican conservative. Swain’s vitae resembles neurosurgeon/cabinet member Ben Carson’s, but is in some ways more extraordinary.”

Read the whole thing.

SAFE PREDICTION: Tonight’s Democratic Debate Will Be Long on Personal Attacks and Increased Government: Most Democratic candidates are to the left not just of Americans but of their own party.

HEH, INDEED: Snopes Issues Pre-Approval Of All Statements Made During Tonight’s Democratic Debate.

Note to Snopes: It’s the Babylon Bee, so it’s satire.

But this isn’t: Babylon Bee has retained a law firm to go after Snopes for ‘dishonest and disconcerting’ smear campaign.

EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATICAL: NBA Teams Phasing Out All-Female Dance Squads Thanks to the #MeToo Movement.

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: Toxic Masculinity or Cultural Misandry? The etiology of the mental health crisis facing boys and men. “The authors of the guidelines report exploit narrow definitions of masculinity for their own ends. The view that violent and abusive behaviors are engrained in cultural prescriptions of traditional masculinity and reflected in masculine character is not based on the lived experiences of men and boys with mental health issues. Such a reductionist perspective taints the entire APA report.”

AT AMAZON, Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals – Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used Products.

Plus, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

MUST-SEE TV: ‘The Squad’ Campaign Ad for Trump Hits Democrats Where it Hurts. Good Times.

OF COURSE SHE DID: Ilhan Omar shares tweet mocking violence against GOP senator.

IT’S THE OLD KIND, NOT THE NEW GENETICALLY-ENGINEERED KIND, BUT IT WORKS: What many diabetics don’t know: you can buy inexpensive, over-the-counter insulin in U.S.

JUST NBC THE AMNESIA! MSNBC producer says there’s no evidence Trump was at Ground Zero after 9/11. He must’ve missed the NBC News video of it.

ALLIES: Erdogan: ‘Whoever Is On the Side of Israel…We Are Against Them.’

HOW POLIO inspired the creation of Candy Land.

HEH: In Week 1, Boris Johnson Turns His Pursuit Of Brexit Into ‘Game Of Thrones.’

It started with a “Wednesday massacre” of the Cabinet established under former prime minister Theresa May. On July 24, the same day Johnson officially became the new resident of No. 10 Downing St., he sacked 11 ministers in an hour, including the nine who backed his opponent, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, for the PM job. Six other ministers, including Hunt, resigned.

Observers called Johnson’s move the “bloodiest cabinet reshuffle in modern history.” Johnson’s friend Nigel Evans referred to it as “a summer’s day massacre.” British media gave Johnson a new nickname: the Godfather.

Then there was a class reunion of Brexiteers. Johnson appointed Dominic Cummings, the chief political strategist of Brexit in 2016, to be his senior adviser. U.K. liberal media called Cummings a “master of dark arts” and blamed his messaging for successfully convincing a slight majority of Britons to vote “leave” from the European Union in 2016.

Besides getting Cummings on his side, Johnson organized a war Cabinet of six senior ministers who all support a “no-deal” Brexit.

Johnson is merely pursuing Brexit as though he means to obtain it, which means getting rid of Theresa May’s deadwood.

I’M PRETTY SURE THIS IS WHERE BLOFELD BUYS THE REAL ESTATE FOR HIS UNDERGROUND LAIRS: 250-million-year-old volcano up for sale for $60G.

Also, would be an excellent target for practicing the lost art of volcano lancing.

MUST BE A REPUBLICAN RAT: Rat Photo-Bombs Reporter’s Live Coverage of Baltimore’s Decay. A loyal Democratic rat would have stayed off-camera, to support the narrative.

MARK ELLIS: Don’t Get Cocky, But Things Look Good for Trump.

NOT THE ONES THEY ADVERTISE TO MSNBC VIEWERS: Catheter method may help stroke victims get back to normal, trial suggests. “A catheter-based method of clot removal treatment is continuing to show success in getting stroke victims back to normal, new research shows. Endovascular thrombectomy helped 31 percent of stroke patients regained functional independence, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Neurology. Those findings are compared to only 14 percent who returned to normal through medical management.”

THOMAS LIFSON: Deep State apoplectic over the appointment of John Ratcliffe as DNI — for good reason. “The miscreants and their friends understand very well what is ahead, and they are acting accordingly. . . . Barr continues to state that federal grand juries under the supervision of U.S. attorneys Huber (Utah) and Durham (Connecticut) are active and will handing down indictments of senior members of the DoJ, FBI, and Intelligence Community. With Ratcliffe as head of the DNI, top-down pressure can be added to discover who did what, what memos and documents were created, and what budgets were established to carry out the Russia Hoax. The Deep State wants these to remain secret, of course, but with Barr’s declassification powers and Ratcliffe’s access to the files, that is much more difficult than before.”

THREAT, OR MENACE? Here’s More Proof That Social Media Is Hurting Young People’s Mental Health: A new study suggests that each hour of screen time increases the severity of depressive symptoms in teens.

Plus: Our Digital Addictions Are Killing Our Kids.

Not sure if I mentioned it already, but I have a book out.

JURY: KATY PERRY’S ‘DARK HORSE’ COPIED CHRISTIAN RAP SONG.

“They’re trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone,” Perry’s lawyer Christine Lepera said during closing arguments Thursday.

The defendants’ musical expert testified that the musical patterns in dispute were as simple as “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

But the jury of six women and three men disagreed, finding that the bumping beat and riff at the center of “Joyful Noise” were original enough to be copyrighted.

Perry and the song’s co-authors testified during the seven-day trial that none of them had heard the song or heard of Gray before the lawsuit, nor did they listen to Christian music.

Gray’s attorneys had only to demonstrate, however, that “Joyful Noise” had wide dissemination and could have been heard by Perry and her co-authors. They provided as evidence that it had millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify, and that the album it’s included on was nominated for a Grammy.

“They’re trying to shove Mr. Gray into some gospel music alleyway that no one ever visits,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Michael A. Kahn during closing arguments, when he also pointed out that Perry had begun her career as a Christian artist.

Earlier: Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams to pay $5 million to Marvin Gaye estate for ‘Blurred Lines.’

AND THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT: I Played Trump in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Debate Prep. Here’s What It Takes to Beat Him.

SCREEN TIME: THREAT, OR MENACE? Naomi Schaefer Riley: Big Tech vs. Our Kids.

Not sure if I mentioned it already, but I have a book out.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: How Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden plans to increase Social Security benefits.

Former vice president Joe Biden, who is currently leading among Democratic candidates in the polls, wants to make Social Security solvent.

The presidential hopeful also wants to boost benefits for retirees, particularly those who have been receiving checks for more than 20 years, had their spouse die or are living close to the poverty line.

Biden joins other Democratic candidates who are also calling for expansion of the program. Those proposals should challenge Republicans to come up with their own plan, according to one advocate.

So the plan is to spend Social Security into solvency.