WHAT’S FUNNY IS THAT THESE RACIST “POCKETS OF WHITE AFFLUENCE” USUALLY VOTE DEMOCRATIC.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: “So, basically, my butt refuted The New York Times.”

REMEMBER WHEN “MONEY IN POLITICS” WAS BAD? Wealthy donors on left launch new plan to wrest back control in the states. “The plan embraced by the Democracy Alliance, an organization that advises some of the Democrats’ top contributors, puts an urgent new focus on financing groups that can help the party regain influence in time for the next congressional redistricting process, after the 2020 elections. The blueprint approved by the alliance board calls on donors to help expand state-level organizing and lobbying for measures addressing climate change, voting rights and economic inequality.”

Remember: People get the most excited about Presidential elections, but as these people realize, there’s a lot of important stuff going on all the way down the ticket.

TOM BLUMER: The Potemkin Economy: The press has hidden the holes in the economy for months. But can they do it until November, 2016?

CLINTON FATIGUE: John Fund: The Dirty Business of the Billary Machine, Again. “Ambitious” is an understatement, and the public is wary. With reason.

BYRON YORK: The road to ELLE: ClintonWorld’s plutographic presidential rollout.

As part of the rollout of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton chose the Huffington Post to publish a new “epilogue” to her tepidly-received 2014 memoir, Hard Choices. A significant part of the chapter is about Clinton’s happiness at becoming a grandmother, now that daughter Chelsea Clinton has had a daughter of her own, Charlotte. But the epilogue’s broader point is Clinton’s intention to make much of her 2016 campaign about fighting inequality.

“I have always believed that every child should have the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential,” Clinton wrote. “I’m more convinced than ever that our future in the 21st century depends on our ability to ensure that a child born in the hills of Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta or the Rio Grande Valley grows up with the same shot at success that Charlotte will.”

With those carefully-chosen regions and the voting groups they represent — Appalachia for working-class whites, the Delta for blacks, Rio Grande for Hispanics — Clinton took care to associate herself with opportunity for those parts of the American electorate struggling the most to get ahead, or just to maintain their place, in today’s economy.

All of which made another part of the Clinton rollout — a new photo spread in the trendy fashion magazine ELLE featuring Chelsea Clinton modeling high-priced clothing, jewelry and shoes while discussing equal opportunity — all of that made for a discordant note in ClintonWorld’s big week.

One photo in the ELLE article featured this caption:

Chelsea Clinton in a Gucci dress, Mateo New York bracelet, Cartier bracelet, Garland Collection ring, Halleh ring.

Another photo featured this caption:

Derek Lam blouse, Stella McCartney trousers, Bulgari necklace, Tiffany & Co. bracelets, Trollbeads bangle, Garland Collection ring, Halleh ring, Brian Atwood pumps.

Cartier, Gucci, Bulgari — they are some of the most expensive names in the fashion business, and in this case they are the background to Chelsea Clinton’s thoughts on equality of opportunity, especially for women.

Just marry well, or choose a good father, and you too can fight women’s inequality!

BRENDAN O’NEILL: The Real Problem With Rolling Stone’s Campus Rape Fiasco: The hysteria over “rape culture” is still alive and kicking.

What these responses share in common is a desire to draw attention back to the alleged real stuff: female students not being believed; a warped campus culture that needs intervention; the need to turn campuses from alleged sites of violence back into “environments of security.”

They’re still buying the core misconception of Ederly’s article, the really rotten part: the idea of a culture of rape, a culture of evil. According to Columbia’s report, Ederly wanted to find a “single, emblematic college rape case” that would show, in Ederly’s own words, “what it’s like to be on campus now… where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment / rape culture.” And much of the response to Columbia’s report is basically saying: Her emblematic case was hooey, yes, but she’s right about the pervasive-culture thing.

Only she isn’t. And if we correct Rolling Stone without challenging the rape-culture myth, then we leave the colossal problems here untouched.

Media feminists have been even more explicit in their demand that we swiftly turn our eyes away from Rolling Stone’s failings and back to the alleged tsunami of sexual assault on campus.

You know, “hysteria” is exactly the right word.

DANIEL MITCHELL: More Statist Propaganda from the Taxpayer-Funded OECD. “How else would you describe a bureaucracy that consorts and cooperates with leftist groups like Occupy Wall Street and the AFL-CIO and routinely published propaganda in favor of Obama’s agenda on issues such as global warming, government-run healthcare, so-called stimulus, and class-warfare taxation. And never forget that American taxpayers finance the biggest chunk of this bureaucracy’s budget. Adding insult to injury, the bureaucrats at the OECD get tax-free salaries, which makes their relentless support for higher taxes on the rest of us even more obnoxious.”

GOT ANYBODY IN MIND, MARSHA? Blackburn: GOP should put woman on ’16 ticket.

THE PRESS: DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES. New Host of Face the Nation Advised Obama in 2013 to ‘Destroy the GOP.’

WELL, TRUDEAU IS AN INTELLECTUAL COLONIALIST: Adherents of Islam, second largest religion in the world, are a “powerless, disenfranchised minority”?

In that mindset, non-westerners are perpetual victims, to be indulged and excused precisely because they carry more than a whiff of inferiority about them.