IT SURE LOOKS THAT WAY: Are the Democrats jumping off the cliff?

Put aside the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) format CNN in particular adopted of sensational voiceovers, over-the-top music, videos and treating it all like a caged match, the gotcha-questioning is designed not to truly explore issues but to drive a wedge between the candidates in the most trivial of ways.

Even more disturbing is how the candidates have taken the bait and gone so far as to criticize and condemn President Barack Obama, a man with a popularity rating greater than 90 per cent among Democrats in virtually all polls. Why in God’s name would these candidates, no matter how liberal, decide it was wise to rip into the former president?

All they have to do is not act crazy…

UH-OH: Tiananmen Redux? Troops Mass on Hong Kong Border With China as Protests Increase.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: 7 Huge Questions Remain Following ‘The Hunt’s’ Demise. “Just What’s in the Film, Exactly?” “What Were They Thinking?” “Will Jason Blum Defend His Own Film?” “Will Hollywood Stars Rally … or Stay Silent?” “Is This Another Sign of Hollywood Buckling to the PC Mob?” “What If The Hollywood Reporter Got It Wrong?” “Will ‘The Hunt’ Ever Be Released?”

COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATION: Huawei Covertly to Sell Smartphones in U.S. “Chinese telecom sought to circumvent U.S. government ban.”

U.S. intelligence agencies learned of the plans last month and alerted senior policymakers.

According to the officials, the Shenzhen, China-based company planned to ship a large number of its smartphones to Mexico where the smartphones would be re-labeled and shipped into the United States.

As non-Huawei devices, there would be no prohibition on selling them in the United States.

The phones, however, could be identified as Huawei devices by examining their electronic components that can be traced to the Chinese telecom.

No other details of the secret smartphone operation could be learned.

Huawei’s U.S. affiliate did not return emails seeking comment.

They’re desperate.

I BLAME THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR CLIMATE OF HATE: Suspect arrested after allegedly firing shots at ICE office.

IF PAVLOV’S DOGS HAD BEEN RABID: Trump Has Democrats Acting Like Pavlov’s Dogs.

BRYAN PRESTON: Four Questions as Hong Kong Rises to Protest China’s Communists. “2019 is an entirely different world. Social media has proliferated and the protesters are using it to great effect. But. YouTube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have all been collaborating with the ChiComs and bowing to pressure to censure content there. They have even reportedly helped China craft its ‘social credit score’ — a digital means of reinforcing oppression at an entirely new personal level. Will they censor content coming out of Hong Kong? So far they have not. That might change if Beijing leans on them hard enough. Just this week, Versace, Coach, and Givenchy have bowed to pressure and groveled over a T-shirt design. Will the left-dominated social media giants do the same? The safe bet is yes, they will.”

ROBERT VERBRUGGEN: Joe Biden Is Wrong. There Is No Compelling Evidence That Assault-Weapon Bans Work.

After the [assault-style weapons] ban was allowed to expire, experts were more or less unanimous that it hadn’t had a strong effect on overall homicides. Certainly there were fewer of the banned items in circulation than otherwise would have been the case, but the law’s definition of “assault weapon” focused on features that don’t really affect a gun’s lethality; few murders are committed with long guns of any kind, to say nothing of “assault weapons” in particular; and while smaller magazines force more frequent reloading, it takes only a second or so to pop a new one in.

Recently, though, some have claimed that the law reduced mass shootings in particular, which account for a tiny fraction of overall homicides but command an incredibly disproportionate amount of public attention. What seems to be true is that the ban years were relatively peaceful on this front, despite covering the rash of school shootings that included Columbine. They were especially peaceful compared with the past ten years or so, which have seen an alarming rise in this form of terrorism.

However, the three most important facts about mass shootings are (A) they have historically been incredibly rare, with entire years passing without one sometimes; (B) they are contagious, with high-profile incidents inpiring copycats and competitors; and (C) they are incredibly variable in the number of fatalities, from a low bound of wherever the researcher chooses to set it (the study Biden cites uses four, not including the perpetrator) all the way up to 58 at Las Vegas. Trying to detect a pattern in data like this, and then attributing the pattern to a single law change that covered the entire country for a ten-year period, is madness.

The new study doesn’t add much to what we already know and is downright bizarre at times.

So it’s a lot like Biden then.

CHANGE: JCPenney Company Faces New York Stock Exchange Delisting Due To Low Worth.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Fredo Lives! “My favorite part of the meltdown vid is when Cuomo says, ‘I’m an anchor on CNN,’ as if that gives him some sort of tough guy street cred. I know that if I am ever in a dangerous situation in a dark alley at night I hope a cable news guy will materialize at my side.”

DECOUPLING: The Trade War Hits China Where It Hurts.

The Chinese Communist Party’s policies created tremendous economic imbalances, saddled China with debt, and bred suspicion and disillusionment among trading partners. Even before 2016, many observers believed China was headed toward stagnation.

It’s against this context that the Trump trade policy has put such pressure on Beijing. The first wave of U.S. trade actions was announced in March 2018, and included strategic tariffs on Chinese products, restrictions on investment in several key industries, and a World Trade Organization case challenging Beijing’s institutionalized theft of technology and intellectual property.

When Beijing refused to meet U.S. demands, the White House increased the countertariffs, dealing another major blow to the Chinese economy. While trade talks will continue, Mr. Trump has now announced that the U.S. will impose a 10% tariff on an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods beginning Sept. 1.

The tariffs are working. Big tech companies are taking their manufacturing out of China; retailers are pulling out as well. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reports that in July Chinese factory activity declined for the third month in a row. That means fewer jobs. The South China Morning Post recently reported that economists at China International Capital Corp. , an investment bank, say China’s industrial sector has lost five million jobs in the past year, nearly two million of them because of the trade war with the U.S.

Exports so far this year have increased only 0.6% while imports, an indicator of domestic economic strength, fell at a 5.6% annual rate in July, according to China’s General Administration of Customs office. The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that China dropped from being the top U.S. trading partner to third behind Mexico and Canada for the first half of 2019.

I love foreign trade, but not so much when it’s with thieves with imperial ambitions.

WINNOWING: Candidates scramble to qualify for third debate as deadline nears.

Nine candidates have already qualified for the fall debates and two others are getting close, an analysis of fundraising and polling data by The Hill found.

But for the other 13, the prospects appear increasingly dim. None have met the 130,000-donor benchmark set by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and only three have at least one qualifying poll to their name.

The candidates have until Aug. 28 to qualify. And with less than three weeks to go, those who haven’t are scrambling for a spot on stage, acutely aware of the risks that failing to make the debate will run.

To qualify for the third and fourth debates this fall, candidates have to amass the support of 130,000 donors and register at least 2 percent support in four DNC-approved polls.

My liver is indebted to the DNC if they can get these debates back down to one night each.

THEY CAN’T ALL COMMIT SUICIDE UNDER QUESTIONABLE CIRCUMSTANCES: William Barr Has A Message For Jeffrey Epstein’s Co-Conspirators.

TO BE FAIR, MANY OF THEM WERE ALREADY THERE OR QUITE CLOSE: The Get Trump Mob Has Failed — So They’ve Gone Berserk.

CLEARLY THESE ILLEGAL PURCHASES AREN’T ILLEGAL ENOUGH: Friend of Dayton Shooter Charged with Illegally Purchasing Some of the Equipment Used in Massacre.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for August 12, 2019. “Biden continues to lead the field despite his senior moments, witches boost Williamson, and Harris has become really unpopular…among black voters.”

OMELETS, EGGS: NY Times Fantasizes About El Paso Murders Reviving Beto’s Campaign.

THE BIG LIE: 7 Times MSNBC Hosts Compared Trump to Hitler … in July.

It was Nazis who perfected “the big lie” technique. Just sayin’.

YES: The US Navy says no to touchscreens—maybe automakers should, too.

The US Navy has had enough of touchscreens and is going back to physical controls for its destroyers, according to a report last week in USNI News. Starting next summer the Navy will refit its DDG-51 destroyer fleet with a physical throttle and helm control system. The effort is a response to feedback the Navy solicited in the wake of a pair of fatal crashes involving that class of ship during 2017.
…
It’s a warning that the auto industry could do well to listen to. Touchscreens continue to proliferate into car infotainment systems, a trend fueled by the plaudits given to Tesla for its huge touchscreens as well as a general belief that CES-primed customers are asking for more and more consumer tech in their vehicles. But there’s mounting evidence that touch interfaces are an awful idea for a driver who is supposed to be—literally—focusing on the road ahead, not hunting for an icon or slider on a screen.

I still use an old-school iPod Classic for playing music in the car, because the clickwheel doesn’t require you to look. Touchscreens do.

‘TIS A PITY THEY BOTH CAN’T LOSE — ACTUALLY, THEY CAN! Not Enough Room in Dem Primary for Sanders & Warren.

UH-OH: Protest cripples airport as Beijing raises stakes with ‘terrorism’ warning.

That kind of language makes it sound like Beijing is prepping the media battlespace for a violent crackdown.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Liz Warren’s Radical Anti-Second Amendment Agenda. “Never mind that illegal gun transitions won’t be subject to Warren’s punitive taxes, or that millions of us spent the Obama years stockpiling ammo. And, oh by the way, all my firearms and ammo were lost in a tragic fishing accident, and I was too drunk at the time to remember which lake.”

YOU DON’T SAY: Barr Cites ‘Serious Irregularities’ at Federal Jail Where Epstein Died.

CNN FACT CHECK: Sanders Has Been Repeating False Claim About Health Care Spending For a Decade.

COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: California Introduces Radical Anti-Semitic High School Curriculum.