LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Interest Groups Ready to Fight Trump’s Citizenship Exec. Order. “The president held a press conference with A.G. Bill Barr to announce the administration would not continue to fight to get the citizenship question onto the census. Progressive left interest groups sued the administration and for some inexplicable reason, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the nutters. Do you ever wonder if ‘certain people’ have some dirt on Roberts? He sure delivers for the left on really important issues. I digress. AG Barr reiterated that the SCOTUS determined that putting a question on the census was legal but due to time constraints, the administration would not furnish a more agreeable rationale to the court and continue to fight. Instead they were taking new path using an executive order.”

HONG KONG DEMONSTRATIONS INTENTIONALLY INVOKE TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE:

Despite drastic efforts to literally erase the event’s historical reality, for three decades, Tiananmen’s dark “tiger” has haunted the regime, seeding distrust of regime motives and encouraging quiet resistance to the party dictators.

The Politburo knows it’s distrusted. It spends massive amounts of money attempting to control information (e.g. digitally erasing internet mention of Tiananmen) and police Chinese citizens. Its Social Credit Rating system collects data on a particular person from cellphones, public video cameras, internet activity, travel logs and the opinion of neighbors. Security operatives analyze the individual’s behavior, looking for criminal patterns or — get ready — signs of anti-government behavior.

Hong Kong’s citizens reject Beijing’s “socialist system.” That’s why they’re demonstrating in the streets.

APACHE ON A GERMAN PAD: An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter undergoes routine maintenance at Katterbach Army Airfield in Ansbach, Germany.

DON’T WORRY, THIS WILL BE AIRBRUSHED OUT OF FUTURE PARTY ENCYCLOPEDIAS, COMRADE: On July 1, Nike Ditched the Betsy Ross Flag. On July 4, These African Immigrants Became Citizens Under It.

(Classical reference in headline.)

BLUE ON BLUE: Democratic lawmaker unloads on Ocasio-Cortez, chief of staff for ‘using the race card.’

“What a weak argument, because you can’t get your way and because you’re getting pushback you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable. That’s unbelievable to me,” [Missouri Congressman Lacy] Clay said. “I could care less. I could really care less. I agree with the Speaker. Four people, four votes out of 240 people, who cares.”

In an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez accused Pelosi of singling out newly elected women of color.

Pelosi had previously been dismissive of the four freshman female lawmakers, saying that despite their large presence on social media, they only account for four votes in the Democratic caucus.

“It shows you how weak their argument is when they have to resort and direct racist accusations toward Speaker Pelosi … it’s very disappointing to me,” Clay said.

The Missouri Democrat also described Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti and the progressive group Justice Democrats as “juvenile” and “ignorant.”

Ocasio-Cortez is making enemies out of so many high-profile Democrats in Washington, that it’s almost impossible to imagine her not getting primaried next year.

MICHAEL BARONE: Democrats: Prisoners of the past on the economy.

We are all, to some extent, prisoners of the past. Things that have already happened — or that we remember as having happened — constitute the world that we know. Anything else is a product of imagination.

But it can also be a pitfall for a politician, particularly for those seeking national visibility when they’re running for president. It’s jarring to see candidates ignore recent changes and describe a world that no longer exists. As when they were asked lead-off questions about the economy in the first two Democratic debates.

Night one: “It’s doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.” “The economy has got to work for everyone and right now we know it isn’t.” “Not everyone is sharing in this prosperity.” “This economy is not working for average Americans.” “There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands.”

So spoke Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, and Bill de Blasio.

Night two: “The bottom 60% haven’t seen a raise since 1980.” “We have three people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America.” “We do have enormous inequality.” “The economy is not working for working people.” “Forty years of no economic growth for 90% of the American people.”

Those were Tim Ryan, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Michael Bennet.

These are reasonably accurate descriptions of the macroeconomy in the years after the financial crash and recession of 2008 — which is to say, during the Obama presidency — and plausible descriptions of the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency. . . .

But now, there are signs that those trends are reversed. Wage gains in percentage terms seem to be increasing most for those at the bottom of the wage scale. Blue-collar incomes are apparently rising more rapidly than white-collar ones. Unemployment has dropped to levels not seen for 50 years, and unemployment among blacks and Hispanics seems to have dropped to the lowest levels since measurement began.

It’s possible that these trends will turn out to be just momentary reversals of dominant long-term trends. And it’s possible that these trends were not caused by any policies or actions of the Trump administration. Perhaps, as some Democrats argue, they’re even a delayed result of policies of the Obama administration.

But the fact remains that candidate Trump promised an economy whose gains would go more than in the recent past to those less well-off, to blue-collar workers in particular, and to blacks and Hispanics. And that’s exactly how the economy has performed in the 30 months he has been in office. It looks like he delivered.

Yeah, that’s the Democrats’ biggest problem.

WHAT THE HELL HAS BEEN GOING ON AT BOEING? Boeing 737 program manager is retiring as Max jet remains grounded.

HMM: Tech vanguard is dodging Pentagon.

The Pentagon’s cybersecurity mission is facing a classic supply and demand problem: There’s a nationwide shortage of tech talent and an oversupply of jobs.

This leaves the Pentagon starved of the cyber-sentries needed to defend its digital networks as the nation’s top computer scientists and software engineers often choose careers in the private sector that offer fat salaries and generous benefits.

“They are so talented and in such high demand,” then-acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said of the Pentagon’s red team members, cybersecurity experts who test and defend Defense Department computer networks, at a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in May. “We really get out-recruited.”

MEANWHILE, IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR: Amazon to Retrain a Third of Its U.S. Workforce.

The company announced Thursday that it will retrain 100,000 workers by 2025 by expanding existing training programs and rolling out new ones meant to help its employees move into more advanced jobs inside the company or find new careers outside of it. The training is voluntary, and most of the programs are free to employees, the company said.

“Technology is changing our society, and it’s certainly changing work,” said Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon’s world-wide consumer business, adding that the initiative is meant to help workers “be prepared for the opportunities of the future.”

Maybe there’s a training-for-service option the Pentagon could look into.

SMART DIPLOMACY: Even the New York Times is noticing. “As he tries to tackle the greatest challenges to American power in Asia, President Trump is overturning policy toward China and North Korea that for decades was as canonical as Confucian ritual. . . . The shifts were prompted by internal changes in each country, combined with Mr. Trump’s unorthodox instincts and the views of his senior Asia advisers. The administration now has growing bipartisan support in Washington to widen an emerging global conflict with China and build diplomacy with North Korea. . . . the aggressive approach to China has drawn many supporters, including some Obama administration officials and Democratic leaders.” First Trump was Hitler. Then he was incompetent. Now. . .

YEAH, I GET WHAT THAT’S ABOUT:  “TV Ignores Conservative Authors of #1 Book in the Country, While Putting Liberal Author of #3421 on Major Tour.”

SHE’S GONNA HAVE TO DO BETTER IF SHE WANTS TO TAKE ON COCAINE MITCH: CNN Panel Rips Amy McGrath for Kavanaugh Flip-Flop: ‘She probably can’t recover from this.’

PRIVACY: Who’s Listening When You Talk to Your Google Assistant?

Verheyden says he gained access to the file and more than 1,000 others from a Google contractor who is part of a worldwide workforce paid to review some audio captured by the assistant from devices including smart speakers, phones, and security cameras. One recording contained the couple’s address and other information suggesting they are grandparents.

Most recordings reviewed by VRT, including the one referencing the Waasmunster couple, were intended; users asked for weather information or pornographic videos, for example. WIRED reviewed transcripts of the files shared by VRT, which published a report on its findings Wednesday. In roughly 150 of the recordings, the broadcaster says the assistant appears to have activated incorrectly after mishearing its wake word.

Some of those captured fragments of phone calls and private conversations. They include announcements that someone needed the bathroom and what appeared to be discussions on personal topics, including a child’s growth rate, how a wound was healing, and someone’s love life.

Google says it transcribes a fraction of audio from the assistant to improve its automated voice-processing technology. Yet the sensitive data in the recordings and instances of Google’s algorithms listening in unbidden make some people—including the worker who shared audio with VRT and some privacy experts—uncomfortable.

It’s one thing to say, fine, don’t use any Google products or services (I don’t). It’s quite another when you find out that it is literally impossible to use the internet, any internet-connected devices, or any internet-connected services without Google having a digital dossier on you.

HARSH, BUT FAIR:

NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Peggy Noonan: “Ocasio-Cortez emerges as a one-woman Committee to Re-Elect the President.”

What do I suspect The Squad may know now that they didn’t know then? That grandma has been observing them and sees what others see. She doesn’t mind that they’re hot, aggressive and ideological, but they don’t confine their fire to outside the tent. They attack moderates as sellouts, racists, child abusers.

And no one who disagrees with them ever operates in good faith. There is a disrespect there. They’re tough, they’re bringing it, not winging it; but they’re so immersed in ideology that they never give a thought to mercy. With Ms. Omar and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez especially, it’s all identity politics and the accusing finger—you’re criticizing me because you’re greedy, misogynist, classist. And they always claim victimhood—they receive death threats and are called bigoted things, people are mean to them.

People are mean to everybody.

AOC especially is not without skill and talent. She is energetic, determined, verbally fluid, has a gift for acting, for seeming ingenuous. She weeps when she hears tragic testimony at committee hearings. She feels for everyone. Well, for some people. Not for Mrs. Pelosi. “I think sometimes people think that . . . we have a relationship,” she said, slyly, to Mr. Remnick. “I was assigned to two of some of the busiest committees. . . . Sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to keep me busy.” Oh Einstein, they may be!

Plus some thoughts on Nancy Pelosi backstage, versus her “almost never not confusing” press conference persona.

Related: John Hinderaker at Power Line on the reaction from Democrats on being dubbed racists by AOC and Saikat Chakrabarti, her chief of staff. “Unbelievable? Why? This ‘weak argument’ is the one Democrats deploy on virtually every occasion. They just don’t like to see it turned against themselves.”

As the man said in the umpteenth remake of Godzilla, “Let them fight.”

THAT’S BEEN OBVIOUS FOR AT LEAST A DECADE: Politicians Don’t Actually Care What Voters Want: Does that statement sound too cynical? Unfortunately, the evidence supports it.

Also obvious for at least as long: This isn’t because the politicians are smarter.