GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM: This Honda lawn mower will go 150 mph.

Unfortunately, it can’t mow at top speed.

JOHN SEXTON: No Records Of The Small Business Senate Candidate Jacky Rosen Claims She Built.

One of the places where Democrats hope to unseat a Republican incumbent is in Nevada where Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen is challenging incumbent Sen. Dean Heller. One of the qualifications Rosen has repeatedly cited as part of her campaign for the seat is that she built a small business as a computer programmer which her campaign claims she ran between 1993 and 2002. But Monday, when everyone was focused on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported that there is little documentation from any source to back up Rosen’s claims about her business.

State officials told the Gazette-Journal that Rosen wouldn’t have needed a state license because her business never had any employees. But she would still have needed a local license in Henderson, Nevada. The city doesn’t keep files beyond a year, so there’s no proof to show if Rosen ever had the required license (her campaign claims she did). The companies also don’t seem to have any records demonstrating Rosen did the contract work she claims to have done.

I guess she didn’t build that.

READINESS: Germany’s soldiers forced to use BROOMSTICK for a gun as Donald Trump blasts Angela Merkel over NATO spending.

NICHOLAS BALLASY: Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates described parents allowing their teenage daughters as young as 14 in Mexico to travel to the U.S. to marry men they did not know as an “act of love.”

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Kavanaugh Visits Capitol Hill as Durbin Predicts ‘Wild West D.C.’ If Confirmed. “Senate Dems vow to ‘look into what went on and what assurances were made that brought this name to the top of the list’.”

I believe those Senate Dems are referencing this bit of Fake News:

Deb Heine reported yesterday that “Left-wing news sites like Alternet, Think Progress, Mother Jones, and the New Republic immediately disseminated the sketchy story (based on one anonymous source). As of this writing, all but one (Mother Jones) still have their stories up.”

When you’ve lost Mother Jones…

#METOO: Air Force F-16s & A-10s Need More Laser-Guided Rockets.

THE RETURN OF LABOR MOBILITY: Workers are quitting their jobs at a rate not seen since dotcom bubble.

Despite a tick down in the number of open jobs, there are still more open jobs than there are unemployed people—only the second time in two decades that has happened.

Businesses advertised 6.64 million available jobs in May, down from 6.84 million the month before. But there were only 6.1 million unemployed people.

The proportion of workers quitting their jobs, known as the quit rate, reached the highest level since April 2001. Quits are seen as a positive sign that workers are confident they can find another job. Most people who quit do so for higher-paying positions.

This is unalloyed good news. I suspect the headline’s dotcom bubble reference was a lame attempt at putting a dark lining on a silver cloud.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Paging Lisa Page and Much, Much More. “The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former DOJ lawyer Lisa Page for testimony today and her lawyer says she will not be showing up as demanded.”

AUTOMATION: Oil’s New Technology Spells End of Boom for Roughnecks. “One of the last industries where blue-collar laborers can earn high salaries is being transformed as artificial intelligence and automation replace workers.”

The energy sector had been shielded from pressure to innovate by high oil prices. When prices fell 75% over 20 months beginning in 2014, oil and gas companies were finally forced to modernize to squeeze out profits. Many found they could use new technologies to do the work better and cheaper, with fewer people. They have invested billions of dollars on what the industry dubs “digital oil fields,” embracing artificial intelligence, automation and other technologies.

Oil prices are back up to their highest levels in more than three years. U.S. production has topped record levels, hitting 10.9 million barrels a day in the last week of June, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, compared with its high of 9.6 million in 2015. But as of May, nationwide oil and gas employment is down 21% since 2014, according to state and federal data compiled by Karr Ingham, an economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, an industry group.

That’s a huge hit.

THAT’S (NOT) A MAN, BABY: Infighting at Business Insider Over Pulled Column on Transgender Issues. “Conservative columnist defended casting Scarlett Johnansson as a trans man.”

Greenbaum’s column (which can be found cached, here) took issue with criticism Johansson and her colleagues faced after her casting as trans male in the soon-to-be-released film Rub and Tug. The reasoning given by BI was that the column violated the the publication’s editorial standards (which seem to have been established, or re-established, ex-post facto). How can someone who isn’t trans, portray a trans character, so goes the argument.

As reported earlier today by the Daily Beast, BI global editor-in-chief Nich Carlson, announced via email that henceforth all “‘culturally sensitive columns, analysis, and opinion pieces’ would now be reviewed by the company’s executive editors before publication.” So now Business Insider has editorial standards. Great. But how, exactly, does it plan to implement them?

I’m not sure how, but I am certain in which direction.

#WALKAWAY: The Democratic Party left me behind — and I’m not alone. “I’m no Trump supporter, but I’ve been repulsed by the political and cultural left’s hatred, demonization and mistreatment of the president.”

SIGNALING VIRTUE SIGNALING: I confronted Scott Pruitt in a restaurant. I’d do it again in a second. “We’ve all got to do what we can.”

Some say it wasn’t “civil” of me to approach Pruitt at lunch and that it’s a sign of dark times ahead for our political climate. But these arguments are not genuine: The bogus “civility” argument has arisen because conservatives are losing on the content of the arguments.

The truth is that this administration doesn’t want the media to pay attention to protesters who chanted through Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s dinner for her leading role in separating children from their families at the border. This administration wants to distract from the fact that the owner of the Red Hen refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she’s publicly defended both Trump’s desire to bar transgender people from the military and his despicable “zero tolerance” policy that’s ripped apart immigrant families.

Focusing on where, when, or how a concerned citizen speaks up is what a person does when they don’t have an adequate response to the concerns being voiced.

Kristin Mink is confused. Her freedom of speech doesn’t require that anyone pay her any attention, and if her side were winning on “content,” then she and others wouldn’t be resorting to incivility.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: California City Will Experiment with $500/Month Universal Basic Income. “Stockton is selecting 100 residents to receive the money with no strings attached.”

DEBRA HEINE: Anatomy of a Fake News Story, Kavanaugh Edition.

JOHN HAWKINS: The Ten Essential Traits of Alpha Males.

STICKER SHOCK: Tesla hikes prices in China as trade war hits US cars.

BRUCE BAWER: Their Finest Hour?

What more do you need to know about the difference between Eastern and Western Europe in 2018? When Donald Trump visited Poland last July, he was greeted with wall-to-wall cheers, a sea of American flags, and enthusiastic chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” When he goes to Britain on Thursday, he’ll supposedly be welcomed by massive protests and “a giant ‘Trump Baby’ balloon” floating in the skies over central London — a puerile insult for which Sadiq Khan, that city’s Trump-hating mayor, has approved a permit (even as his police force has refused to allow a pro-Trump rally during the presidential visit). This in a country where Members of Parliament from all parties, it will be remembered, argued after his election victory for him to be banned from the UK.

This isn’t Churchill’s Britain.

I’M NOT SURE THAT MANY WANT TO HAVE IT: Gay Sex Could Be Decriminalized For 1.3 Billion People.

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Nicaragua’s Ortega rules out elections as violence continues.

“We have a minimum of 14 dead, but it could be more,” Nunez said.

“That includes at least one anti-riot officer, one paramilitary member and two police officers.”

The violence came less than a day after President Daniel Ortega rejected calls for early elections.

Heavily armed groups of individuals in black-hooded civilian clothes demolished the opposition barricades in Diriamba and Jinotepe areas alongside police, according to videos filmed by residents, who posted them on social media.

Mechanical equipment dismantled the barricades, opening up access to more than 350 cargo trucks stranded on the highway in Jinotepe for more than a month.

The government has not commented on the violence, but police blamed “terrorists with firearms” for the deaths of two officers.

At least that’s a change from wreckers, hoarders, saboteurs, Trotskyites, kulaks, Yankee Imperialists, counterrevolutionaries, and Jews.

THE ART OF THE DEAL: Kim Jong Un Will Get ‘Rocket Man’ CD Later, Plus Surprise ‘Little Gift.’ North Korea did not take kindly to the content of Pompeo’s visit, which covered what the U.S. definition of denuclearization is and what would be needed for sanctions relief.

There’s been plenty of handwringing over what a mess the North Korean negotiations are, but anyone who thought this would go smoothly was either a fool or setting up a false expectations trap for Pompeo and Trump.

HEH: Schumer to Stall Trump Pick Until GOP Sweep.

TRUMP SCOTUS PICK DENIED WOMAN EQUAL PAY: Stormy Daniels’ D.C. debut is overshadowed by Trump’s Supreme Court announcement as the adult film star failed to lure a crowd for both of her performances at strip club.

TYLER O’NEIL: Blame the Left for Making the Supreme Court Too Political. “The ‘living Constitution’ let loose the dogs of political warfare.”

ASHE SCHOW: MSNBC Floats Conspiracy That Republicans Ignored Election-Meddling Concerns While In Russia.

SUMANTRA MAITRA: No, Trump Is Not To Blame For NATO’s Chaos, Nor For Breaking Up The Liberal Order.

NATO is a mess — and that’s nothing new:

NATO enlargement post-Cold War was essentially a push from the liberal internationalist lobby within the Clinton administration, led by Madeleine Albright and backed by the German leaders like Volker Rühe. Evidence suggests there was significant academic opposition to NATO expansion during that time, including from the father of the strategy of Cold War containment, George F Kennan. He said NATO expansion would end up being the greatest blunder of our times.

There still remains a significant academic as well as strategic opposition to further NATO expansion, as almost everyone in the strategic community foresaw that an inexorable push of frontiers towards a former superpower like Russia would not only invite an understandable military backlash but install a hardline regime with a siege mentality within a former adversary.

Also, the cost-benefit analysis of providing an American taxpayer-funded security umbrella to corrupt, violent smaller countries not only is a heavy and needless burden based on a flawed strategy but encourages those smaller countries to risk conflict assuming that American cavalry is just around the hills.

However, the current ongoing debate on NATO funding is not that. It is not new, either. One of the strongest speeches against NATO was from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2011. He highlighted, almost prophetically, that if NATO leaders failed to immediately increase their funding and improve hardware, retention, and deployment capabilities, future American presidents would find it hard to justify to the electorate why they should pay for rich countries like Germany to have bloated social security programs, and not invest more in their submarine fleet or air force. Incidentally, Germany has only four serviceable Typhoons in the Luftwaffe and has refused to increase its NATO budget.

Ideally, after winning the Cold War, NATO should have thrown itself one hell of a victory party, then promptly disbanded. The former member states could have maintained close military relations in a strictly de facto entente cordiale, but a defensive alliance with no external enemy is a contradiction in terms. That contradiction, plus unwise expansion into Eastern Europe, have given us the worst possible outcome: Provoking Russia while encouraging allied free-ridership.