ALL POLITICIANS ARE TO SOME DEGREE FAKE AND SCRIPTED. BUT HILLARY TAKES IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL: WaPo: The Making Of A Hillary Clinton Echo Chamber.

One day in May, operatives from a Washington-based super PAC gathered New Hampshire mayors, state representatives and local politicos at Saint Anselm College for a day of training.

They rehearsed their personal tales of how they met Hillary Rodham Clinton and why they support her for president. They sharpened their defenses of her record as secretary of state. They scripted their arguments for why the Democratic front-runner has been “a lifetime champion of income opportunity.” And they polished their on-camera presentations in a series of mock interviews.

The objective of the sessions: to nurture a seemingly grass-roots echo chamber of Clinton supporters reading from the same script across the communities that dot New Hampshire, a critical state that holds the nation’s first presidential primary.

The super PAC, called Correct the Record, convened similar talking-point tutorials and ­media-training classes in May and June in three other early-voting states — Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina — as well as sessions earlier this spring in California.

Presidential campaigns have for decades fed talking points to surrogates who appear on national television or introduce candidates on the stump. But the effort to script and train local supporters is unusually ambitious and illustrates the extent to which the Clinton campaign and its web of sanctioned, allied super PACs are leaving nothing to chance.

That’s because Hillary is a terrible candidate with poor speaking skills, an unappealing personality, and not much ability to think on her feet.

Best line: “The super PAC’s effort comes as Clinton struggles on the campaign trail to appear accessible and genuine.” If you can fake that, Hillary, you’ve got it made!

COULD WE HAVE SOME MORE OF THAT “OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY” PLEASE? WE’RE RUNNING LOW. Puerto Rican debt crisis forces its way onto presidential political agenda.

HOWARD KURTZ: HILLARY ROPING OFF PRESS IS LIKE DUKAKIS IN THE TANK: And note that Hillary and her Democratic operatives with bylines — as supine then as they are now — consented to playing the same rope games in 1992, as this vintage C-Span video illustrates. I wonder if they were using the same safeword back then as well?

REMAIN CALM. ALL IS WELL. China Markets Crisis: Government Efforts Fail to Halt Tumble. “Unprecedented steps aimed at propping up Chinese investor confidence failed to stop the country’s main stock markets from tumbling yet again on Wednesday. Within the first hour of trading some 1,400 companies — representing more than 40 percent of China’s stock market cap — had suspended trading. Some were frozen before the opening bell after petitioning the government while others quickly met the 10-percent daily limit on losses. Since the crisis began over three weeks ago, China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen Composites have lost more than 30 percent and 40 percent of their value respectively, adding up to $3 trillion dollars in equity lost.”

WELL, THAT’S HIS SPECIALTY, WHERE DOMESTIC ENEMIES ARE CONCERNED: GOP lawmaker: Obama saying ‘up yours’ to Congress.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on Tuesday said President Obama’s executive order regarding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could be summed up as: “Up yours.”

Young claimed the executive order announced earlier this year designating nearly all 20 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness to prevent oil and gas drilling is reflective of President Obama’s general attitude toward the legislative branch.

“We have a president that says ‘up yours’ to the Congress,” Young said on the House floor, bringing his hand to his nose and wiggling his fingers for emphasis. “That’s not the way to run this business. We have a responsibility as congressmen to do our job.”

The Alaska Republican offered an amendment to prohibit the use of funds to implement the revised conservation plan for the Arctic refuge during debate on the 2016 Interior Department appropriations bill. His amendment was adopted on a voice vote in the GOP-controlled House.

“When the president oversteps his bounds, we should take and accept our responsibility. And this is a law he cannot do, but he says, ‘I can do it,’ ” Young said.

“Between EPA and the Department of Interior, they’re trying to cripple this nation — trying to cripple my state,” Young added.

A wilderness designation would require congressional approval. But the Fish and Wildlife Service has already begun to manage the area as wilderness pending lawmakers’ consideration.

You know, maybe the rest of us should take a similarly . . . flexible . . . attitude toward the law.

EDI-TED: UNIVISION’S DECEPTIVELY EDITED TED CRUZ INTERVIEW: “You guys talk about sex, I talk about the Constitution.”

JUNK SCIENCE = GARBAGE POLICY: “This spring, Dr. Johannes Bohannon and a team of German scientists discovered that people on low-carbohydrate diets could lose weight faster if they used one weird trick: Eat a bar of chocolate every day,” T. Becket Adams writes at the Washington Examiner:

Newsrooms around the world responded eagerly to Bohannon’s findings.

“Excellent News: Chocolate Can Help You Lose Weight!” Huffington Post India declared in a report.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail blared in a headline, “Pass the Easter Egg! New study reveals that eating chocolate doesn’t affect your Body Mass Index…and can even help you LOSE weight!”

In the United States, Modern Healthcare wrote, “Dieting? Don’t forget the chocolate.”

The story continued to grow, with news of the sweet discovery spreading from the Internet to print and television. Even Europe’s highest-circulation newspaper, Bild, got in on the action, publishing a report titled “Slim by Chocolate!”

Journalists and readers looked past the too-good-to-be-true nature of the findings and devoured the story wholesale.

But Bohannon’s research was a hoax.

The health study was deliberately faked to test the hypothesis that scientists and reporters rarely detect junk science. No one caught on to this ruse.

Unexpectedly.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Only Republican In The Sociology Department:

I mentioned to a professor who had been in the department for decades the surprised response to my workplace the night before and asked, “Is it unusual to have conservatives in the department?”

“Sociology is a pretty liberal field. Let’s see . . . we had one once . . . ” He thought hard before mentioning a professor who used to be in the department. “I know he voted Republican.” That was the end of his list. And that’s when he told me everyone would whisper behind my back.

“But it shouldn’t really be an issue . . . it’s not like you’re going for a Ph.D.!” I’d have to be careful then — that’s much more complicated, he explained. As a master’s student I’d be pretty harmless, since my original work would be limited and the degree was more about skills, not research. Nothing to worry about.

It’s good that they’re so open-minded. . . .

WHO MAKES THE FOX NEWS DEBATE AND IS IT FAIR, ASKS ROGER SIMON: “It’s still very unlikely but I will say this — an actual election between Dr. Ben Carson and Hillary Rodham Clinton would be one of the most extraordinary events in American history.  If that long shot came to pass, oddly enough, I’d be betting on Carson, possibly by a landslide.   Standing next to Ben Carson, Hillary would look like a character from The Exorcist – and you know which one.”

HASN’T SHE SUFFERED ENOUGH CRANIAL TRAUMA ALREADY? Warren bill could create headache for Hillary. “Warren’s re-introduction on Tuesday of Glass-Steagall, which would require big banks to split up commercial and investment banking, is popular amongst the liberal base. Proponents contend that President Bill Clinton’s repeal of the legislation in 1999 was part of deregulation that contributed to the 2008 economic collapse, an allegation that many economists — and the Clintons — vehemently dispute.”

SO IF I WERE TRUMP, I’D BE CALLING FOR LEGISLATION WITHHOLDING FEDERAL FUNDS FROM “SANCTUARY CITIES” NOW: Illegal deported five times who shot woman: I came back to San Francisco because it was a sanctuary city. I mean, with Steny Hoyer and Hillary Clinton coming out against sanctuary cities, who can disagree? Don’t turn illegals over to ICE, lose all your federal funding. Trump can barnstorm on this one every time there’s a splashy new crime by an illegal. And if you can afford to pay people to research and publicize those, that’s going to be often.

GOVERNMENT AS CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY: New Docs Reveal DOJ, IRS, and FBI Colluding to Prosecute Obama Opponents.

HILLARY “WHITE POWER” CLINTON: Clinton tweets, then deletes, photo of man with ‘white’ tattoo.

WHEN WITCH-HUNTS ARE WAGED BY WITCHES: The Tim Hunt Reporting Was False. Royal Society, Please Give Him Due Process.

SO, BASICALLY, THERE’S NO PART OF THIS STORY THAT ISN’T A MAJOR GOVERNMENTAL FUCKUP: Illegal Immigrant Who Killed Kate Steinle Reportedly Used Federal Agent’s Gun.

A WASHINGTON FREE BEACON SUPERCUT VIDEO: 12 Times the Obama Administration Caved to Iran on Nuclear Deal.

AMERICA’S FUTURE: IS IT CALIFORNIA OR TEXAS? To follow up on Glenn’s earlier post, I know how I’m betting: Ed and Nina’s Excellent Adventure…or GATT (Gone—Almost—to Texas), a new post by my wife, over at Ed Driscoll.com.

To put it in graphic terms:

AND THEY SAY SHE LACKS A SENSE OF HUMOR! ‘People should and do trust me,’ says Hillary Clinton.

UNHAPPY WITH THE STATE OF THE NATION? Read Kurt Schlichter’s book. Already read it? Read it again.

“BAD LUCK:” America’s Future: California Or Texas? If California is America’s future, then that future is overrun with poverty. “Note that in Texas, all four groups’ poverty rates are below the national average, while in California all four groups suffer a poverty rate above the national average.”

SOCIALIST UTOPIAS AT HOME AND ABROAD:

● “Puerto Rico: The Progressive Utopia is Here Now,” the latest Scott Ott Thought video.

● The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore at Fox News: “As Greece Collapses, the Big Loser is Socialism.”

● And as Kevin D. Williamson adds at NRO, “The Greeks have their Bernie Sanders. What they need is their Chris Christie.”

● “Chinese chaos worse than Greece: A stock market crash there has seen $3.2 trillion wiped from the value of Chinese shares in just three weeks, triggering an emergency response from the government and warnings of “monstrous” public disorder.”

Nonsense. “One-party autocracy,” Thomas Friedman assures me, “when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today,” is the best of all possible governments. Other than Greece and the EU, that is.

SOCIAL ENGINEERING PILED ON TOP OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING: California’s ZEV Tax Rebates Are Now Income-Dependent: The state’s tax rebates on fuel cell and electric cars just got a lot bigger for average-income families—and disappeared for the very wealthy. More like kinda wealthy. Or maybe “comfortably well off.” I mean, Elon Musk is very wealthy. A doctor who makes $250K a year is not.

FASTER, PLEASE: Blocking brain protein could stop memory loss caused by ageing.

There might be a way to stave off the memory loss people experience as they get older.

As people age, a protein that disrupts brain cell repair gradually builds up. The offending protein, called beta2-microglobulin (B2M), has now been shown to affect how mice perform in memory tests.

Work is already under way to identify drugs that mop up or destroy B2M which will allow the researchers to test if the same applies to humans. If so, the same drug could offer a solution.

“Right now, the idea is to develop antibodies or small molecules that can either block the effects of the protein or help to remove it from old blood,” says Saul Villeda of the University of California at San Francisco.

Villeda’s discovery is the first detailed investigation of a so-called “anti-elixir” factor, in other words one that builds up with age and causes brain degeneration.

Most research aimed at reversing ageing so far has focused on “elixir” factors – agents that bring back lost youth. For example, when the the blood of young mice is injected into old mice, it halts brain and muscle degeneration, helps fractured bones heal and prevents heart damage.

Ultimately, the best strategy to combat ageing might be through treatments combining “pro-youthful” factors with drugs that neutralise “pro-ageing” factors like B2M.

Well, speed it up, guys. None of us is getting any younger.

IS HILLARY CLINTON PROMISING TO BE A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT IF ELECTED? “This is my last rodeo,” Hillary, who would be 69 in January 2017, vows in her speech today in front of crowd of 250 at the Iowa City Public Library. Will any interviewer ask her if she’s hinting that she’s planning to forgo another “rodeo” of a reelection bid in 2020 if she’s elected next year?

Or would that risk another painful hogtying by Hillary the wannabe rodeo queen?