China Syndrome: In a stark warning to protesters and all of Hong Kong, China has amassed troops and armored vehicles on the border in Shenzhen within easy striking distance of the semi-autonomous city. They are posted in the parking lot of a sports stadium.

  It’s a reminder of the bloody 1989 Tien an Men crackdown on Democracy activists in Beijing. In a worrisome escalation of rhetoric, officials in Beijing have called the protesters’ actions “close to terrorism.”

  The Hong Kong protests started weeks ago in reaction to a proposed law that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland for trial, where conviction is almost a certainty. Although the law was withdrawn, the protests have developed a life of their own and it’s an affront to China’s hard-nosed leader, Xi Jinping.

Shoot the Messenger:There’s no bad news about President Trump that isn’t the fault of the press, even Trump’s favored Fox News. The President yesterday denounced Foxfor its recent poll showing him losing head-to-head match-ups against four of the top Democratic presidential candidates.

  “There’s something going on at Fox , I’ll tell you right now. And I’m not happy with it,” Trump said. It just has to be something wrong at Fox because it certainly couldn’t be the President.

  Fox’s poll gives Trump a 43 percent job approval and 56 percent disapproval.

  The President followed up with a threat about televised debates. “And I think Fox is making a big mistake,” Trump said. “Because, you know, I’m the one that calls the shots on that — on the really big debates.”

   He doesn’t control the debates. The only thing he can do is refuse to show up.

  Trump tweeted, “With all that this Administration has accomplished, think what my Poll Numbers would be if we had an honest Media, which we do not!”

   His favorite target is The NY Times. “The Failing New York Times, in one of the most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history, got caught by a leaker that they are shifting from their Phony Russian Collusion Narrative (the Mueller Report & his testimony were a total disaster), to a Racism Witch Hunt.” He went on, “Journalism” has reached a new low in the history of our Country. It is nothing more than an evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party. The reporting is so false, biased and evil that it has now become a very sick joke.”

  The Washington Posthas chronicled Trump in more than 10,000 lies and falsehoods since he became President.

Full Auto Words: Asked about the prospect of banning high-capacity magazine for guns, President Trump said the following: “I remember, growing up, we had mental institutions. Then they were closed — in New York, I’m talking about. They were — many of them were closed. A lot of them were closed. And all of those people were put out on the streets. And I said — even as a young guy, I said, ‘How does that work? That’s not a good thing.’ And it’s not a good thing.”

  He went on, “Unrelated to that, I believe that the concept also of voter identification has to be looked at, because you can’t have great security for the voter. People that vote, you can’t have that national security unless you’re going to have voter identification.”

 A reporter followed up asking, “What does that have to do with guns?”

The Comeback Kid: Political reporter Mark Halperin is testing whether it’s possible to make a professional recovery in the era of comeuppance for sexual harassment. The politics author and former political director for ABC News  was professionally buried by credible accusations of sexual misconduct on the job. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

 Now, conservative publisher Judith Regan has agreed to publish Halperin’s new book,  “How to Beat Trump: America’s Top Political Strategists on What It Will Take.” Regan said in a statement that she has lived long enough “to believe in the power of forgiveness, second chances, and offering a human being a path to redemption.”

  Halperin’s accusers do not. An organization called “Press Forward” comprised of Halperin accusers said, “”Americans will continue to lose trust in the news media if a journalist who covers scandals can commit the same crimes he reports on and face no serious consequences, then continue to be a narrator of the national conversation.”

The Obit Page:Jack Whitaker, the sports broadcaster who was a fixture on weekend television for nearly 40 years on CBS and ABChas died at age 95.

  Whitaker started at CBS Sports in the late 1950s. He covered the first Super Bowl in 1967 and Secretariat’s 1973 win of horse racing’s Triple Crown. Whitaker moved over to ABCwhere he announced the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 1984 and 1988.

Going, Going:The rare 1939 Porsche Type 64 created during Germany’s Nazi era failed to sell at auction in Monterey, California after the auctioneer’s accent threw the bidding off by tens of millions of dollars.

  Bidding was supposed to start at $13 million but it sounded like the auctioneer said “thirty”  and the numbers on the board ran up to $70 million until the auctioneer declared the car sold at “seventeen” million. The sale was cancelled.

  The bulbous machine-age car was one of the first creations of Ferdinand Porsche as a showpiece of Nazi power. It has a 32-horsepower engine.

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