DAN MITCHELL: Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, and Other People’s Money.

AS VENEZUELA COLLAPSES, IT’S WORTH REVISITING THIS 2013 SALON PIECE: Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle: The Venezuelan leader was often marginalized as a radical. But his brand of socialism achieved real economic gains.

It’s easy to look good when you haven’t run out of other people’s money yet.

SOCIALISM: “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one.”

Said President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, where “Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left. At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table. Doctors preparing for surgery cleaned their hands with bottles of seltzer water. ‘It is like something from the 19th century,’ said Dr. Christian Pino, a surgeon at the hospital.”

Well, to be fair, socialism is a 19th century ideology.

DAN MITCHELL: Everything You Wanted to Know about the Economics of Redistribution in One Image.

AP EXPLAINS: Standoff, dying economy drive Venezuelan crisis.

Venezuela is being wracked by an increasingly belligerent standoff between the government and opposition, while many Venezuelans are becoming fed up with a floundering economy marked by long lines for food and the world’s highest inflation. President Nicolas Maduro has declared a state of emergency to let him deal with the economy by decree, but the opposition is vowing to push ahead with its campaign to force a recall referendum seeking his ouster.

A political “standoff” didn’t create breadlines and brownouts, destroy the value of the Bolivar, or cripple Venezuela’s oil industry — socialism did.

Ok, the new job is REALLY eating into my posting so this story is dying before I've even gotten TO it.  But I'll throw some stuff out there regardless:

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “For the last seven years the American public has been living through a postmodern narrative crafted by an extremely gifted and unspeakably cynical political operative whose job is to wage digital information campaigns designed to dismantle a several-decade old security architecture while lying about the nature of the Iranian regime. No wonder Americans feel less safe—they are.”

—“Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal,” Lee Smith, the Weekly Standard.

IT’S OKAY.  NO ONE SANE BELIEVED THEM: White House admits it played us for fools to sell Iran deal.  Fool us a hundred million times, definitely shame on us.

JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: The New York Times profiles Ben “Lonesome*” Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, or as they dub him “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” who all but tells the Grady Lady their reporting stinks on ice

Seven Takeaways from the NY Times Profile of Failed Novelist Ben Rhodes.

THE CURSE OF THE POTATO: “Grains crops transformed the politics of the societies that grew them, while tubers held them back.”

HOW RACISM AND NATIVISM ENABLED THE NEW DEAL.

Related: Dixiecrats Triumphant — The menacing Mr. Wilson.

although they COULD fit into other catagories if I really WANTEd them to

KIDS (IN THE HALL) SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS: “This sketch from over 20 years ago anticipates the current mood of political correctness, triggering, and all the other campus cliches pretty well.”

Shot: “ How Congress Mysteriously Became a ‘Small Business’ to Qualify for Obamacare Subsidies.”

—Headline, the Daily Signal, Wednesday.

Chaser:  When told [in 1993 that HillaryCare] could bankrupt small businesses, Mrs. Clinton sighed, “ I can’ t be responsible for every undercapitalized small business in America.”

—Tony Snow, “ Queen Tut,” July 8, 1999.

Yes she can!

We're about done with Mizzoue because, well, Mizzou is about done.

Meet Mizzou Protestor Jonathan Butler: Stealing, Misogyny, Crack Songs

Agency Dumps Mizzou SJW: Weird Videos He Doesn’t Want You To See

In other news - SOMEBODY saw this mess coming: The amazing 1969 prophecy that racial preferences would cause the exact grievances of protesters today

As a result of these disparate admissions standards, many students spend four years in a social environment where race conveys useful information about the academic capacity of their peers. People notice useful social cues, and one of the strongest causes of stereotypes is exposure to real group differences. If a school commits to doubling the number of black students, it will have to reach deeper into its pool of black applicants, admitting those with weaker qualifications, particularly if most other schools are doing the same thing. This is likely to make racial gaps larger, which would strengthen the negative stereotypes that students of color find when they arrive on campus.

SO THERE’S HOPE FOR AMERICA: Vietnam, ruled by communists for 40 years, is now the No. 1 fan of capitalism on the planet.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Study Finds Employers Are Hiring More Freelancers To Avoid Obamacare.

And building more robots to avoid minimum wage hikes. Who could have predicted such developments?!

THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO: Former McDonald’s CEO warns jobs will go to robots under $15 minimum.

RELAX, GUYS, WE’RE HEADING INTO ANOTHER “RECOVERY SUMMER!” Obama Presides Over the Feeblest Post-WWII Recovery. “It is now certain that President Obama will be the only U.S. president in history that did not deliver a single calendar year of 3.0%+ economic growth, and the fourth-worst in history in terms of average RGDP growth while in office.” If he were a Republican, the press coverage would be nonstop Grapes Of Wrath stuff. Instead, it’s all about the joys of staycations and funemployment, while only a few cranks talk about how seniors are suffering.

As I watched this episode I felt I was missing something but couldn't put my finger on it.  Scott Shackford does.  It’s Not Hedge Funds That Caused Puerto Rico to Fail to Manage Its Debts

California: The Ultimate Nanny State.

Related: California Democrats Brand John Wayne ‘Racist,’ Reject Marking Day in His Honor.

That’s what happens when a once all-American state is fundamentally transformed. Somewhere in hell, the ghosts of the Frankfurt School old boys are chuckling at this development.

KINSLEY GAFFE: Democrats admit they want to make the government ‘irritating:’

It’s rare when a politician is as honest about his strategy as the New York City councilman largely responsible for the plastic-bag fee about to hit New York City. For his candor, Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) ought to be considered a new American hero.

Here is progressive politics in 2016: “It works by irritating us into changing our behavior,” Lander said of the bag tax.

It works by irritating us. There can be some debate about the accuracy of one of those verbs, but not the other. Government, when it’s being honest, acknowledges it isn’t your buddy, your helper, your protector, your go-to source for inspiration and dreams.

Reminder, this is out of New York, whose political class is better suited to Star Wars’ cantina: Charles Schumer, Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, Anthony Weiner, Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton, and possibly joining them in November, Donald Trump. Outside of Sacramento, nobody does political irritation like New York “liberals.”

A student visiting Hillsdale College a few years back asked why they didn't have a school of journalism.  "We think you should know somethingbefore you write about it." was the response.

Which is why a lot of our polling & numbers articles could also be posted under "media."

Twice, or a hundred times, whatever …

Not All Polls Are Created Equal (Some Are Badly Written)

I'll pay more attention to this in the future:  When Did Trump Become Unstoppable?