I CAN THINK OF NINE JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD: On what planet is Beto O’Rourke not a presidential contender, even if he loses?

In little over a year, O’Rourke has built a thriving political movement in the country’s second largest state, with a strategy built purely on hustle, grassroots organizing, and his hunch that the standard-issue campaign playbook met its final demise in 2016. O’Rourke has raised over $23 million so far, all from small donors and a lot it from out of state. But his campaign money hasn’t gone to television ads or consultants. It’s gone to online advertising (Sanders’s digital firm, to be precise) and a T-shirt vendor in Austin tasked with pumping out thousands of heather gray “Beto for Senate” shirts. He’s Spanish-fluent and hails from a border city, El Paso, in a moment when immigration has become the hottest-burning political issue in the country. And at a time when Americans view politics through their mobile screens, O’Rourke passes the ever-fetishized “authenticity” test by a mile. That’s partly because he has a habit of sharing almost every moment of his day, from his morning runs to his burrito lunches, on Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook. But it’s also because, so far, O’Rourke doesn’t appear to be performing a version of himself. Nothing feels practiced. The voters I spoke with in East Texas all said the same thing when I asked why they liked him: he seems “real.”

And that seems to be O’Rourke’s defining characteristic. It’s not ideology that’s carrying him as much as relatability.

That worked for Obama in 2008, to whom O’Rourke is being endlessly compared. But Obama had at least won a few elections (albeit sketchily) before running for President against a huge, weak field — plus the completely unrelated Hillary Clinton.

MISS LIBERTY: John Locke’s Libertarian Philosophy In 5 Short Films.

HMM: Beto O’Rourke yard signs are everywhere. Where are Ted Cruz’s? “As O’Rourke’s yard signs are popping up in neighborhoods around the state, frustrated Cruz supporters are having trouble finding ones promoting the current U.S. senator’s re-election bid. Until recently, that was by design, according to Cruz’s camp.”

“The one question I get asked universally, everywhere is, ‘We’re seeing signs that say ‘Robert Francis’ in our neighbors’ yards, and we want to claim our territory and have your signs in our yards,'” McCloskey told Cruz, using O’Rourke’s birth name. “I think people here are wanting those. What can we do to get those in the hands of the folks that want to have them in their yard?”

“That’s a question we hear a lot,” Cruz said. “Yes, there are a lot of signs for my opponent, Beto O’Rourke. They invested a ton of money and they put that money, part of it, into having signs everywhere.”

The sign disparity is not necessarily indicative of an enthusiasm gap, but of differences in campaign spending priorities. But more broadly, Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe has an aversion to yard signs — he said he views them as a far-less-effective use of campaign money than door knocking, television and radio advertising, phone banking or direct mail. That’s not a new strategy in Cruz world. Roe said the Cruz 2016 presidential campaign spent no money on yard signs.

I watched Cruz’s 2016 primary ground game here in Colorado fairly close up. It was grassroots, it was successful, and I don’t recall seeing more than a handful of yard signs.

CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Russian Can’t Afford To Give Its Next-Gen Battle Tanks to Most of its Army.

In 2015 the United States and NATO received a rude shock: The Russian Army unveiled a new main battle tank, known as T-14 Armata. Together with the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle, which shares the same chassis as the T-14, the two armored giants would replace older T-72 tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles in Russian service, many of which dated back to the Cold War.

Three years later, reality has set in. Russian defense contractor Uralvagonzavod, maker of the T-90 main battle tank (itself an evolution of the Cold War-era T-72), ran into development troubles with the Armata platform. At the same time Russia’s defense budget, after years of increases, is facing cuts in large part due to the state of the Russian economy.

Russia originally planned to purchase 2,300 T-14 Armatas (and a similar number of T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicles) by 2025. Armatas cost $4 million apiece, making a total purchase approximately $9.2 billion just for the tanks. The high cost has Russia changing its tune, cutting the Armata purchase to rely instead on older [but modernized] T-72 and T-90 tanks.

The Armata looks good on papers, and even on parade. But it looks like Moscow will only get enough of them for a small parade.

HE’S DOING WELL ON THOSE: New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Don’t Want Impeachment for Trump. “They’re more interested in jobs and the economy, it turns out.”

Once upon a time, wise Democrats understood that it’s the economy, stupid.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Must Democrats Back Florida Man Who Beat Woman?

TONI AIRAKSINEN: Feminist Research Less Likely To Get Funding Than Race Theory Research.

A MILLION HERE AND A MILLION THERE AND PRETTY SOON YOU’RE TALKING REAL CORRUPTION: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Implicated In $84 Million Campaign Finance Scandal.

THE BOT BEHIND THE CURTAIN: Leaks, Lawsuits, and Government Likely to Reveal Facebook Algorithm, Cyber Lawyer Says. “With 25,000 censors, it’s impossible to keep the secret sauce secret for long.”

FLORIDA, MAN: Gillum Wants 40% Corporate Tax Rate Hike. “Bernie Sanders-backed candidate Andrew Gillum has won the Democrat nomination for the governorship of Florida. Taxpayers beware: Gillum wants to impose a massive tax increase on Floridians, starting with a corporate tax rate hike of over 40 percent.”

It seems the Progressive Left has learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.

OVERREACH: Missouri Might Imprison You for False Meat Advertising.

The first statute of its kind in the United States, the law bans companies from describing meat substitutes as meat. These products, to be clear, are invariably marketed as alternatives to eating animals; no one is trying to pass them off as actual beef or pork or poultry.

Violations of the new law are punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or a year in prison. The Missouri Department of Agriculture can’t prosecute violators, but it can refer them to county prosecutors or the attorney general’s office.

The legislation’s foes include Tofurky, a company that uses tofu to make vegetarian meat alternatives. Yesterday, Tofurky filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri claiming the law violates the First Amendment. Tofurky’s co-plaintiffs include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for plant- and lab-based food substitutes.

“Americans don’t like censorship, and they don’t like the government picking winners and losers in the marketplace,” Good Food Institute Executive Director Bruce Friedrich said in a statement. “We’re confident that the Court will overturn this anti-competitive and unconstitutional law.” In their lawsuit, the groups say no consumers have complained to the state about being tricked by meat alternatives.

If anyone did get tricked once into eating fake meat, they probably never got tricked a second time.

WHO ELECTED GOOGLE? Google Maps unilaterally changed the name of Russell Senate Office Building to “McCain Senate Office Building.”

CHANGE: China’s Navy Could Soon Have an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group.

Building the ships and planes in one thing. Training up the crews and aviators, perfecting doctrine, and instilling institutional knowledge and esprit de corps take longer.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED TRUMP WAS DESTROYING OUR ALLIANCES: Japan Seeks Stronger Missile Defense Alliance With U.S.

PRIVACY: Yahoo Admits It Scans Emails to Collect Data to Sell to Advertisers.

WELL, GOOD: Colombia notifies Unasur of its decision to withdraw over Venezuela crisis.

The President of Colombia announced Monday that his government has notified the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) of its decision to withdraw from the bloc as the South American organization failed to denounce Venezuela’s “brutal treatment” of its citizens.

“I want to inform the Colombians that today, with precise instructions, the Foreign Minister of the Republic sent Unasur the letter where we denounce the constituent treaty of that entity and in six months the withdrawal of Colombia from this organization will be effective”, President Ivan Duque told media.

30 years ago, Colombia was the basket case and Venezuela was one of the richest countries in South America. Now that their roles are reversed, the rest of South America should be looking to Bogota, not Caracas, for an example of good governance.

THE MASK COMES OFF: UN Appointed Climate Science Team Demands The End of Capitalism.

STEPHEN KRUISER: The MSM’s Revisionist Love Affair With McCain Is a Bit Much to Stomach.

THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: Federal Court may alter NC congressional districts for 2018 election.

While the White House is thwarted on an almost hourly basis by federal district judges, the Tar Heel State languishes under the iron heel of the Fourth Circuit, a federal appellate court based in Richmond, Virginia. Once deeply conservative, the Fourth Circuit is now almost as liberal as the Ninth, and for a very simple reason: President Obama got to fill vacancies Senate Democrats kept from Bush in 2007 and 2008. (The judicial vacancy intrigue began long before Trump.)

The transformed Fourth Circuit quickly got to work striking down North Carolina’s laws on voter IDs, transgender bathroom accommodations, public prayer, and, of course, election districting, from races for lowly school boards to those for Congress. (I take no position on the wisdom of these policies, but don’t believe that federal courts should so lightly and frequently override an elected state legislature.)

And so the court strikes again.

Read the whole thing.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE: NY Times Accuses Conservatives Of ‘Pouncing’ On Vatican Sexual Abuse Scandal.

The most recent flare up in this controversy occurred earlier this week, when Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former top Vatican diplomat to the U.S., released a letter accusing Pope Francis of covering up Cardinal McCarrick’s abuses while also taking his counsel on appointing bishops. (RELATED: Former Vatican Diplomat Accuses Pope Francis Of Complicity in Covering Up McCarrick’s Abuses, Calls For His Resignation)

According to the article, conservatives are using the letter and the scandal to push for a stronger condemnation of homosexuality from the Catholic Church.

The article said, “An ideologically motivated opposition has weaponized the church’s sex abuse crisis to threaten not only Francis’ agenda but his entire papacy.”

Related: Pope Francis Concerned With Climate Change Over Sexual Predator Clergy.

Is there anyone the NYT won’t cover for if they’re pushing a “progressive” agenda?

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The Trump Bump and Much, Much More. “Rep. Darrel Issa told Fox news Ohr ‘has a poor memory. He seems to not remember a lot of details and, you know, poor memories are often claimed by people who want to stick to what they can say and not be caught in perjury,’ Issa told Fox News.”

COMPETITION: Intel’s 9th Gen Chip Prices Leak.

Three stores leaked the pricing for the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, and Core i5-9600K, they are Alza.cz, PC21.FR, and Informaticazone. Even if we quote the most expensive price (after converting Euros to US dollars and subtracting the VAT) the Core i9-9900K is expected to cost just $534. Still expensive, but certainly not bank-breaking.

The Core i7-9700K is expected to cost $416. Remember, it’s a chip that also offers eight cores but is limited to eight threads and runs at 3.6GHz turbo boosting to 4.9GHz. Then we have the Core i5-9600K (six cores, six threads, 3.7GHz boosting to 4.6GHz), which is expected to cost $257.

We probably have AMD to thank for this level of pricing if it turns out to be correct. AMD’s recent resurgence by offering new processors with impressive performance have meant Intel doesn’t have the market pretty much to itself anymore. It’s a clear reminder of why healthy competition is so important for consumers and the market in general.

I built an Ubuntu machine a couple months ago for video encoding, based on a 12-core AMD Threadripper CPU. It’s by far the least-expensive x86 computer I’ve ever owned, and the performance is impressive… most impressive.

CHANGE? Rand Paul Endorses Gary Johnson for Senate. “The ‘libertarianish’ Republican becomes first major GOP figure to bypass his own party and back the Libertarian challenger to New Mexico’s Democratic incumbent.”

Paul’s endorsement is sure to add pressure on [Republican] Mick Rich to step aside and give Johnson, the two-term former governor of the state, a clear shot at challenging what until now has been considered a safe Democratic seat. In the only poll taken since Johnson officially entered the race two weeks ago, the Libertarian was up on the Republican 21 percent to 11 percent (versus Heidrich’s 39), and even held a slight edge among registered Republicans.

Both Johnson and his main political adviser, Ron Nielson, told me this month in interviews that a three-way race would be difficult to win in this heavily Democratic state. So it’s no surprise that today’s news has the candidate stoked.

I’m curious to see what, if anything, a republicanish Libertarian and a libertarianish Republican might accomplish in the Senate.

TOM FRIEDMAN ASKS THE QUESTION ABSOLUTELY NO ONE IS ASKING: What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Given the right to larger families, Chinese may hold off.

China’s moves to combat an ageing population by relaxing decades-old curbs on family size have hit an unexpected snag: many parents are no longer interested in having more babies.

The government has indicated it will scrap its policy which limits the number of children per family through tough fines — and sometimes through forced abortions and sterilisations.

The world’s most populous country introduced its one-child policy in 1979 and last tweaked it in early 2016, raising the limit to two children as the nation scrambled to rejuvenate a greying population of some 1.4 billion.

But the pent-up demand for more children has ebbed, experts say. Couples have increasingly delayed having even one child as they devote more time to other goals, such as building their careers.

Just three weeks ago on this same topic I asked, “Can the State cajole a country out of a State-induced demographic tailspin?” Maybe we have our answer.