BABY STEPS: Saudi Arabia to allow foreign couples to rent hotel rooms. “Saudi women can rent hotel rooms and foreign unmarried couples can share a room as restrictions eased to boost tourism.”

The easing of stringent regulations governing social interactions comes after Riyadh launched its first tourist visa scheme, as part of efforts to open up the country to foreign visitors and diversify its oil-reliant economy.

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage posted the new requirements on Twitter on Sunday, confirming a Friday report by the Saudi daily Okaz.

The commission said women will be allowed to rent hotel rooms with proof of identity – an ID card for Saudi women, residency card for foreign residents living in the kingdom or passport for tourists.

The same would be required of foreign couples, without the need for them to present a marriage certificate. Previously women needed permission from a male guardian to rent a hotel room.

Plus: “Unmarried Saudi couples will still need to provide proof of a marital relationship.”

To each other?

HOLD ME I’M SCARED: Cory Booker warns, ‘If you come after Joe Biden, you’re going to have to deal with me.’

PROJECTION, ALL THE WAY DOWN: Lee Stranahan On The Clinton State Department Crony Origin Of The Russian Collusion Hoax.

JOHN FUND: The Longer Elites Ignore Populist Outcries, the More They’ll Be Surprised.

During the discussions, it became clear that much of the conventional media wisdom about populism in Europe is out of date. British academic David Goodhart noted that populist parties are generally portrayed in the media “as little more than a refuge for bigots, Rust Belt rejects, victims of the Great Recession, and angry old white men.”

In reality, the vote for Brexit in Britain took place as unemployment was at its lowest rate since the 1970s. Goodhart noted that Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party draw the bulk of their support from a diverse alliance of skilled workers, middle-class Conservatives, affluent pensioners, and the self-employed. Switzerland’s People’s Party often places first in elections in a country with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Similarly, the hostility of populist movements toward immigration is misunderstood. While certainly racists who oppose immigration often cast their votes for populist parties, it would be foolish to ignore the many populist voters who believe that the EU has prevented their countries from undertaking legitimate steps to control the pace and scale of immigration. Dismissing these voters as yahoos or white supremacists doesn’t help anyone understand why people are angry at their leaders.

Much of that anger stems from the fact that an educated elite increasingly controls the political process in Europe.

I’d quibble with the premise that they’re being ignored. Far from it. The elites are using every means at their disposal to paint populists as hate-filled bitter clingers, whose wishes ought to be ignored.

It’s a powder keg situation, and the elites are playing with matches — which they’ve mistaken for fire extinguishers.

PRIORITIES:

Not a good look.

INTIMIDATION: China’s military warns protesters they may be arrested for targeting Hong Kong barracks with laser light.

In the first direct interaction between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and protesters, the PLA raised a yellow flag with the arrest warning written in large letters, said a Reuters witness.

As a few hundred protesters shone laser lights on the barrack walls, troops in fatigues on the roof of the building shone spotlights at protesters and used binoculars and cameras to monitor protesters.

This is the PLA, not the local Hong Kong police.

OH FER CRYIN’ OUT LOUD: Obviously Toy Gun Prompts Lock-Down of 3 Florida Campuses.

CUE THE HOWLS OF OUTRAGE FROM THE SAME PEOPLE WHO CREATED THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE: Administration Proposes to Deny Visas to Those Without Health Insurance.

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT BE KING: Top Biden Donors Gather Amid Storm Clouds Over Campaign.

Over cocktails on Friday evening and a Saturday spent in a drab hotel conference room, Mr. Biden’s top financiers and fund-raisers received strategy briefings and PowerPoint presentations, and plotted the path forward for the former vice president, who suddenly found himself in fourth place in the money chase.

Only hours before the gathering began, the news broke that Ms. Warren, now seen as Mr. Biden’s chief rival, had out-raised him in the last three months by nearly $10 million — $24.6 million to $15.2 million. He lagged behind Senator Bernie Sanders ($25.3 million) and Mayor Pete Buttigieg ($19.1 million), too.

Nearly four million dollars behind Mayor Pete?

HMM: Glenn Beck drops Ukrainian recording so damning to Hillary no WONDER media isn’t sharing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump-Hating NBA Gives Commie China a Hug. “The National Basketball Association has had no problem whatsoever in recent years whenever any of its players or coaches have publicly expressed their hatred for President Trump. Over the weekend, the league finally found a political line it didn’t want anyone to cross: offending the People’s Republic of China.”

BY THE NUMBERS: Critics Versus Audiences: Movies We Disagree On. “Critics and movie audiences don’t always agree, and the disparities can be revealing, in part because critics are overwhelmingly leftist and, frankly, often pretentious. An analysis of 10,000 films made from 1970 to 2013 revealed the biggest critics vs. movie audience gaps in recent film history.”

The biggest gaps seem to be between left-leaning films beloved by critics but ignored by audiences, and right-leaning films the critics hated but audiences enjoyed.

WORKING ON THE RAILROAD: House Democrats believe they already have the 217 votes needed to pass articles of impeachment against Donald Trump even before investigations conclude, senior member says.

CHANGE: Why so few teenagers have jobs anymore.

The share of teens participating in the labor force peaked 40 years ago and has declined ever since. In 1979, nearly 60% of American teenagers were employed, an all-time high. Today, just over one-third, or 35%, of teens between the ages of 16 and 19 are part of the workforce.

Teens are less likely to work part-time while in school and also less likely to work over the summer, according to a study by the Hamilton Project and Brookings Institution.

“High school has become more intense,” said Lauren Bauer, a co-author of the study.

“We have increasing demands on what it is that high schoolers need to be doing and how much time that takes,” she said, including “not only homework and course requirements but other graduation requirements like public service.”

“There is less time in the day to hold down a job.”

Flashback: Millennials Lack Crucial Work Skills.

THEY BELIEVE MONEY IS EVIL ANYWAY: Venezuela can’t sell its oil and storage tanks are full — so it’s giving it away to Cuba.

Related: Cuba is slowly losing a lifeline as Venezuela collapses.

Maybe if Cuba hadn’t spent the last 60 years on a failed economic model, they wouldn’t need so many lifelines.

BOOM! British PM Johnson to EU: ‘We’re Packing our Bags and Walking Out’ in 25 Days.

THEY FIGHT: A new GOP comes out swinging.

One example can be found in the confrontation between Indiana congressman Jim Banks and NPR’s Michel Martin this past Wednesday. Martin was fulfilling NPR’s unwritten charter of putting the wildest fringe leftist thinking into comfortable terms to make them acceptable to the denizens of the suburbs. Banks, a freshman representative who saw service in Afghanistan, wasn’t having any.

Martin was attempting to put across the accepted narrative about the Trump/Zelensky call – that Trump asked the Ukrainian president for dirt on Biden as a “favor,” that he immediately turned the conversation to Hunter Biden, that there was a “quid pro quo,” and so on, all backed up by her claim that she had the transcript “in front of her.”

Banks immediately cut to the chase on that, shutting down Martin with a single line: “…read the part of the transcript that would indict the president on high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Of course, Martin could do no such thing, and despite some further word games, that was the end of it, leaving myriads of NPR listeners clutching their worry beads in shock and alarm.

Along with Elise Stefanik’s bold defiance of the House Democratic elite, this is a serious indication that a new GOP is pecking its way out of the shell.

Nice, isn’t it?

UPDATE (From Ed):

Just think of NPR as Democratic Party operatives with bylines and soothing monotone radio voices, and it all makes sense.

(Updated and bumped).

BOYS WILL BE BOYS: Headmistress of Elite Girls’ School: Some Students Claim to Be Trans to Cause ‘Turbulence at School.’

GAME OVER: Celebrity ‘Impeachment Task Force’ Is Formed to Hold POTUS ‘Accountable for Crimes.’

We’re doomed.

IT ISN’T ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY: HUGE if true –> YUP, the whistleblower is a registered Democrat but it gets worse, SO much worse.

BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE IS: Greta Thunberg is tipped to win the Nobel Peace Prize next week after her angry climate change speech to the UN.

OVERREACH: Xi’s embrace of false history and fearsome weapons is worrying. “China’s leader is stoking hair-trigger nationalism with his idea that the Communist Party never makes mistakes.”

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Florida Man Friday: The Naked Car Burglar.

That’s car, not cat.

VAPING: ‘Toxic chemical fumes,’ not oils, may be causing vaping illness, Mayo Clinic researchers find.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic examined lung biopsies from 17 patients suspected of having a perplexing vaping illness that’s sickened more than 805 people since April. Doctors have previously said it resembled a rare form of pneumonia caused by the accumulation of fatty substances known as lipids.

However, none of the cases examined by the Mayo Clinic researchers showed any evidence of lipoid pneumonia, according to the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. It’s the first formal study examining tissue samples of patients who have fallen ill from vaping.

“It seems to be some kind of direct chemical injury, similar to what one might see with exposures to toxic chemical fumes, poisonous gases and toxic agents,” said Dr. Brandon Larsen, a surgical pathologist at Mayo Clinic Arizona and a lead author of the study. “Based on what we have seen in our study, we suspect that most cases involve chemical contaminants, toxic byproducts or other noxious agents within vape liquids.”

Vape black market stuff and you take your chances. Government overreaction will push more vapers into the black market.

CHANGE: Samsung ends mobile phone production in China.

The shutdown of Samsung’s last China phone factory comes after it cut production at the plant in the southern city of Huizhou in June and suspended another factory late last year, underscoring stiff competition in the country.

The South Korean tech giant’s ceased phone production in China follows other manufacturers shifting production from China due to rising labor costs and the economic slowdown.

Sony also said it was closing its Beijing smartphone plant and would only make smartphones in Thailand.

But Apple still makes major products in China.

Samsung’s share of the Chinese market shrank to 1% in the first quarter from around 15% in mid-2013, as it lost out to fast-growing homegrown brands such as Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi Corp, according to market research firm Counterpoint.

So this is about Samsung’s weak position in the Chinese domestic market, and not a response to tariffs, or a concern for human rights, or anything like that. Still, not a great look for Apple.