HER APPEAL IS BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE: Tickets to Hillary Speech On Sale, 66% Off. “Hillary Clinton will be speaking at the 1STBANK Center next week in Broomfield, Colorado. But it appears event organizers are having a hard time selling out: tickets to the event have been put on sale, and are now selling for 66 percent cheaper than the original sale price.”

Or maybe the problem is with the sales pitch:

Hillary Rodham Clinton served as the 67th US Secretary of State from 2009 until 2013, after nearly four decades in public service. Her “smart power” approach to foreign policy repositioned American diplomacy and development for the 21st century.

Yeah, how’s that workin’ out for us?

ONE CAN HOPE: Is Putin’s Ukraine Takeover Failing? But at this point, it’s mostly hope.

I GUESS WE’LL NEED ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE “RECOVERY SUMMER” THINGS! Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the first quarter according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

HOW’S SHE DOING, ANYWAY? White House summit on concussions may help keep focus on Hillary Clinton’s health.

JAMES TARANTO: Watch It, Kinsley: A liberal writer gets a stern warning from the Thought Police.

Sullivan grudgingly acknowledges that “thanks to the principles of the First Amendment–Mr. Kinsley is certainly entitled to freely air his views.” But she scathes Kinsley’s editor at the Times, Pamela Paul, for allowing him to do so in that newspaper.

“There’s a lot about this piece that is unworthy of the Book Review’s high standards, the sneering tone about Mr. Greenwald, for example; he is called a ‘go-between’ instead of a journalist and is described as a ‘self-righteous sourpuss.’ . . . Surely editing ought to point out gaping holes in an argument, remove ad hominem language and question unfair characterizations; that didn’t happen here.”

By “here,” Sullivan means in the editing of Kinsley’s review. But she herself characterizes the review unfairly. . . . Here is where Kinsley runs afoul of Times doctrine. As this column has noted repeatedly, the paper’s editorial page has championed harsh restrictions on political expression while also claiming that the rights of “media companies” such as the New York Times Co. are absolute or nearly so.

Kinsley’s offense is to question the authority of the press, not its freedom; Paul’s is to allow such dissent to appear in the pages of the New York Times. Sullivan’s title is “public editor,” but what public interest is served when she acts as the Thought Police?

Hey, the gleichschaltung must proceed.

CATHY YOUNG: From Toxic Misogyny To Toxic Feminism.

STOP THE PRESSES: Roll Call: ObamaCare Still Unpopular.

GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE: Inspector General: Veterans wait 115 days for care in Phoenix Veterans Affairs system.

More than 3,000 military veterans were found waiting for an appointment with a primary care physician in the Phoenix Veterans Affairs system, with 1,700 left in limbo by being excluded from an electronic waiting list, an inspector general has found.

The average wait time for a vet’s first appointment? 115 days.

An interim report by the Veterans Affairs inspector general has found that “inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic” throughout the Veterans Health Administration, with a particularly acute problem in Phoenix, where those who have been left off of the waiting list for care “continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix Health Care Center’s convoluted scheduling process.”

The report found that in Phoenix, senior executives “significantly understated” wait times, which also happens to be a main performance indicator for salary increases and bonuses.

Could this be the basis of a False Claims Act suit?

THE WORM EATS ITSELF: Comcast Spokeswoman Calls for Cable Company to Ban NBA Games.

GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE: ‘Troubling’ report sparks new wave of calls for VA chief’s resignation. “On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Mark R. Udall (Colo.) became the first sitting Democratic senator to call for the resignation. He was soon joined by Sen. John Walsh (Mont.), Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.), Sen. Al Franken (Minn.), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), and Rep. Scott Peters (Calif.), Rep. Bruce Braley (Iowa), Rep. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio) and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.).”

NOEMIE EMERY: How’s That Whole Technocracy Thing Workin’ Out For Ya?

They had a dream. For almost a hundred years now, the famed academic-artistic-and-punditry industrial complex has dreamed of a government run by their kind of people (i.e., nature’s noblemen), whose intelligence, wit, and refined sensibilities would bring us a heaven on earth. Their keen intellects would cut through the clutter as mere mortals’ couldn’t. They would lift up the wretched, oppressed by cruel forces. Above all, they would counter the greed of the merchants, the limited views of the business community, and the ignorance of the conformist and dim middle class. . . .

As Edsall asked, “Is the federal government capable of managing the provision of a fundamental service through an extraordinarily complex system?” The answer is probably no, and even if it is yes, it’s abundantly clear that the uber-class of super-professionals aren’t the people to do it. Their faith in academics and experts had failed this new class of liberals, as would soon become obvious. Their related belief that the opinion of the less-elite classes should not be important would soon fail them, too.

Even though the media class pretty much bought into the whole idea of rule by people like them.

SHIKHA DALMIA: Does NYT’s Jill Abramson Have It Worse Than Her Indian Sisters?

Now, much of the agenda of American feminists—wage gap, not enough female CEOs, tax payer-covered birth pills, and, the emerging cause celeb, the absence of paid menstrual leave—strikes me as special pleading masquerading as gender justice. (What’s next? All expenses paid bikini waxes?) But sexism—holding women to different behavioral standards than men—is a genuine issue in America, especially in workplaces.

That’s true, but the double-standards work both ways. All sorts of behavior that would be punished as sexual harassment if done by men is ignored when done by women, for example.

THE ISSUE’S IMPORTANT, BUT I CAN’T SAY I TRUST ‘EM TO GET IT RIGHT: Isla Vista Shooting Prompts Consideration of Mental Health Bills.

Related: The Drugging Of The American Boy.

JACK DUNPHY: Could Elliot Rodger Have Been Stopped? “Whatever anti-gun laws are forthcoming, don’t expect them to be of any hindrance to the next Elliot Rodger.” It’s never about stopping killers. It’s about control.

THE HILL: Is it Ted Cruz’s Texas now?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wasn’t up for reelection this year, but his presence was felt up and down the GOP primary ballot in the Lone Star State.

The only candidate Cruz endorsed won her primary fight on Tuesday, while incumbent candidates he ignored went down to defeat.

More generally, the upstart candidates who toppled Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst and 91-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall appealed to the same state conservatives who see Cruz as a hero.

“[Cruz] provided a playbook for conservative candidates to overcome the establishment,” said Texas-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, who advised John Ratcliffe’s campaign, who beat Hall. “In every race, there was a Cruz dynamic.”

“He showed that if you raise enough money to be competitive, and if you run a good campaign and really mobilize the conservative base in Texas, that it can be done,” Mackowiak continued.

Cruz’s influence is also shaping state races that will influence Texas politics for years to come.

And not just Texas’s.

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VIDEO: See the Reception Obama Received From the U.S. Military Academy That CNN Anchor Says Is ‘Pretty Icy.’

MCCARTHYISM in the 21st Century.

WELL, YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF VIRUSES YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT, AND MOST ARE ENTIRELY HARMLESS: 69% of Healthy Americans Have HPV. “The good news is that it’s probably harmless; only four of the 103 infected people researchers looked at had one of the two HPV strains most likely to cause cancer or genital warts.”

THIS IS COOL: Lost Camera Found After Two Years at Sea, Photos Intact. The camera was well on its way to becoming an artificial reef, but the memory card survived. They’re pretty tough.

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BLAME HOLLYWOOD: “Do you know what the ‘Hunger Games’ movies are about?… It’s teenagers killing other teenagers.”

Plus: “Rodger was the rich kid who reasoned that since he already had the money, he should already be the man to whom women yield. They didn’t, and in his impoverished mind, he couldn’t get any farther than that. He had to walk out of the rom-com showing on screen 1 in the multiplex and into the slasher film on screen 2.”

THE BRITISH SOLDIER who spared Hitler. “When war erupted the 49 year old tried to rejoin his regiment to see to it that, ‘he didn’t escape a second time,’ [2] but failed the physical due to wounds received at the Battle of the Somme. Nonetheless he did his bit on the home front, volunteering wherever he could be of service but was always haunted by an act of decency to an indecent man. Henry Tandey VC DCM MM died without issue in Coventry in 1977 aged 86, in accordance with his wishes he was cremated and interred at the British Cemetery in Marcoing alongside fallen comrades and close to where he won his Victoria Cross 60 years earlier.”

IT’S A BURDEN, I CAN TELL YOU. 11 Reasons Being Super Hot Looking is Problematic.

DATA: How Statisticians Found Air France Flight 447 Two Years After It Crashed Into Atlantic.