CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: The Hill: K Street Bundlers Flock To Hillary.

Of the presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton had the most support from K Street bundlers in the second quarter of 2015, new reports show.

Clinton’s team of 40 lobbyists cobbled together nearly $2.1 million in donations during the period that falls between April and July.

The help comes from some of Washington’s hottest firms and the nation’s largest companies — including lobbyists for Starbucks, Microsoft and Exxon Mobil.

But remember, she’s fighting for the little guy against the big corporations.

CAN KATE STEINLE GET JUSTICE IN “JIM CROW” SAN FRANCISCO? “Here’s the $64,000 question: If the homicide investigation is inadequate; if the prosecution is not vigorous; if the sanctuary city concept or immigration is put on trial instead of the defendant; if the Sheriff’s Department is not held accountable–will the Department of Justice come in as it did in Ferguson and Baltimore? Or will the West Coast version of Jim Crow prevail in San Francisco?”

GAY MARRIAGE VICTOR SCREAMS AT GUY IN WHEELCHAIR, GETS BUMPED FROM FLIGHT: The guy in the wheelchair happened to be Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, about to board a flight at New York’s JFK Airport back to Austin, Jim Treacher writes at the Daily Caller: 

Now, it’s fine to disagree with Greg Abbott about gay marriage, or about anything else. It’s fine to express your agreement. But if you start yelling at him — “loud enough to be apparent to the crowd of passengers,” according to the Morning News — and then you make it clear that you’re going to cause further disruption on his flight, why should the governor, the airline, or anybody else have to put up with it?

If you don’t want your travel plans to get disrupted, maybe you could try not being such a dick. You got your gay marriage, champ. You won. Get over it.

Congratulations to this unnamed leftist hero, though. Yelling at a Republican and being minorly inconvenienced for it isn’t exactly a burning at the stake, but today’s martyrs have to make do with whatever they get.

To paraphrase Dan McLaughlin’s tweet last month, the competition for angriest winner rolls on.

GOOD: Rick Perry turns Planned Parenthood question back on reporter.

A journalist had the tables turned on him Thursday morning after he asked former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to weigh in on the scandal this week involving a Planned Parenthood executive who was caught on tape discussing the group’s practice of trafficking in the organs of aborted children.

The moment occurred as Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin questioned the governor during appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Why are you so troubled by this video?” the Bloomberg journalist asked, referring to a statement Perry had already issued on the matter.

The 2016 presidential candidate took a moment to note that Planned Parenthood does provide certain services that “are good for women’s health,” including cancer screenings, but then he turned the question back to Halperin.

“Mark, let me ask you: You looked at that video and you’re good with it?” he asked.

Halperin answered, “I think the video raises a lot of questions and you and others have raised them.”

“It does indeed,” a satisfied-sounding Perry agreed. “And I think you just answered the question for us. Thank you.”

We need more of this.

ROGER SIMON: Obama’s Iran Deal Should Die In Chattanooga.

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Also, deals in Office Supplies & Electronics.

DON’T WORRY, YOUR HEALTHCARE RECORDS WILL BE FINE: How OPM Betrayed Me: I trusted it with my most sensitive information. But it didn’t bother securing the data.

VIDEO: Watch It Happen: IRS Robs Convenience Store. “In June 2014, the government seized Ken Quran’s entire bank account—more than $150,000. This was money that Ken worked for years to earn, and that he was counting on for his retirement. Ken had no prior warning before the government seized the account. The government told him they were taking the money because he withdrew cash from the bank in amounts under $10,000.” Tar. Feathers.

JOURNALISM: Journalists complaining about too much government disclosure … when that disclosure relates to journalists’ requests for government disclosure.

THE HILL: Tennessee gunman wrote about Islam in blog. “Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez’s blog had only two posts, both dated July 13, according to the Daily Beast. In the first, he wrote that life is a test ‘designed to separate the inhabitants of Paradise from the inhabitants of Hellfire.'”

FBI CONFIRMS CHATTANOOGA SHOOTER MOHAMMOD YOUSSUF ABDULAZEEZ, SAYS MOTIVE SPECULATION ‘PREMATURE.’

Meanwhile, no matter how reality may intrude on it, MSNBC has a narrative that just won’t be budged:

Slow news day, especially in the south. RT @TheRickWilson: MSNBC chyron, right now. pic.twitter.com/r74HbGzg5y

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) July 16, 2015

BORN IN KUWAIT, PALESTINIAN FATHER, KUWAITI MOTHER: What we know about the gunman in Chattanooga attack.

DILEMMA: My cat has a terminal illness. Should I cancel my two-week European tour to stay by his side?

YA THINK? Expert: Chattanooga Proves That Military Must Rethink Gun-Free Zones.

APOCALYPSE PAO: I fought the trolls in the trenches: Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao describes her plight in op-ed as she warns ‘trolls are winning the battle for the internet.’

You know, if you view your customers as subhuman, your job as the equivalent of hand-to-hand infantry combat in a World War, and the Internet as a pitched battle between good and evil to be ultimately won, rather than a shared communication network for all, you might just be unsuited for the job of CEO of a communications platform.

So what happens next at Reddit?  “The news-and-opinion website’s founder may end up destroying the site in order to ‘save” it,'”

Charles C. W. Cooke warns:

Reddit, however, is not a magazine or a repository of a certain strain of thought. Rather, it is an oversized bulletin board, the key attraction of which is its openness. Outside of those prohibitions that are inherently neutral in nature — say, a ban on pornography involving minors; restrictions on the promulgation of sensitive personal information; speech that is illegal under federal law — any attempt to “purge” the “bad” elements from the site will inevitably be open to abuse. Contrary to America’s would-be arbiters of public discussion, there is in fact no objective way of determining which opinions are “dark” and which are light; there is no means by which an administrator can evaluate objectively which sentences are “hateful” or “offensive” and which are to be cherished; there is no chance that a moderator will be able to keep his own preferences out of his job. How long can it be before we hear it said that the management is taking sides?

Viewpoint discrimination is just that: discrimination. At present, Reddit is a place where people can duke it out for themselves without fear of outside intervention. If that changes, the site as it has heretofore existed will be dead, dead, dead. If its owners are set upon getting out of the say-anything business and moving slowly toward sanitization, that is their prerogative. But they might do us the honor of admitting upfront that they have gazed into the ugly side of the open web, and they have not liked what they’ve seen.

Pao has done that, but also exposed quite a bit of her own crusading SJW worldview in the process.

RELATED: Ellen Pao, hedgie husband are losing power-couple status.

INDOCTRINATION: All Those Books on Identity and Victimization That Dominate Freshman Summer Reading. “There may be good cause to learn about those topics, but when they become the dominant trend for summer reading programs over multiple years, one starts to wonder what really is the intent of these programs. Such consistent pounding away at similar themes, given the entire vast array of books from which to choose, suggests the programs are meant to introduce students to a certain worldview.”

FULL METAL HILLARY: “Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she once visited a recruiting office in Arkansas to inquire about joining the Marines,” the New York Times reported in 1994:

She told the group gathered for lunch in the Dirksen Office Building, according to The Associated Press, that she became interested in the military in 1975, the year she married Bill Clinton and the year she was teaching at the University of Arkansas law school in Fayetteville.

She was 27 then, she said, and the Marine recruiter was about 21. She was interested in joining either the active forces or the reserves, she recalled, but was swiftly rebuffed by the recruiter, who took a dim view of her age and her thick glasses. ‘Not Very Encouraging’

“You’re too old, you can’t see and you’re a woman,” Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. “Maybe the dogs would take you,” she recalled the recruiter saying.

Hillary claiming that sexism played a role seems kind of odd, considering that women served in the Marines in World War I – and World War II (see also: Bea Arthur, WWII Marine truck driver), and that Hillary’s spouse wasn’t exactly a pro-military guy himself during this period.

In any case, “It was not a very encouraging conversation,” Hillary claimed. “I decided maybe I’ll look for another way to serve my country.”

Which leads us to…2001: A Hillary Odyssey! “When she was younger, Hillary Clinton dreamt of being an astronaut:”

That’s what the 2016 Democratic frontrunner said during a New Hampshire town hall event on Thursday when Clinton was asked if she supports space exploration and investment in NASA.

“When I was a little girl, I guess I was a teenager by then, I was you know like 14 I think and the space program was getting started and I wanted to be an astronaut,” Clinton said. “I wrote to NASA and I said what do I have to do to be prepared to be an astronaut and they wrote back and said thank you very much but we’re not taking girls.”

Clinton added that she doesn’t lose sleep over the rejection, noting “that thankfully changed with Sally Ride and a lot of the other great women astronauts.” But the former secretary of state made clear that she wholeheartedly supports NASA’s planetary exploration.

And speaking of daunting explorations, Hillary of course also once claimed she was named after the man who bested Mount Everest – despite her being born in 1947 and Sir Edmund Hillary reaching the top of Everest in 1953.

(And don’t get her started on taking sniper fire in Bosnia.)

No word yet if Hillary also took the initiative to clean up the pollution at Love Canal, invented the Internet and/or inspired Erich Segal’s Love Story.

HEH: Parents Dedicate New College Safe Space In Honor Of Daughter Who Felt Weird In Class Once.

TRUMP IS THE GHOST OF ROSS PEROT, Jonathan Last writes at the Weekly Standard, with a bonus Jesse Ventura flashback. “So before we go any further, consider: Donald Trump — the Donald Trump — holds in his hands something like veto power over the Republican quest to win the White House. Sit with that for a moment:”

There are only two reasonable conclusions to be drawn from the Trump Contingency: (1) Democracy doesn’t work and we all need to get behind Sweet Meteor of Death 2016; or (2) To the extent that Trump is standing in front of any sort of movement, that movement needs to be co-opted, not vanquished, if Republicans want to have a chance of victory this cycle.

If you want option #2 — and I understand if you prefer #1 — then you have to start by figuring out what Trump is selling that attracts voters. And this doesn’t seem like rocket science.

In 2012, the entire Republican field was caught by surprise when it turned out that immigration was the defining issue of the primary campaign. Without anyone having noticed, immigration displaced abortion as the major litmus test for GOP candidates. And then, to show that 2012 wasn’t an aberration, two years later an unknown, unfunded, econ professor bushwhacked Eric Cantor by 11 points in a Republican House primary in Virginia. His primary issue-indeed, just about his only issue-was immigration.

So Republican strategists (and their candidates) ought to understand that Republican voters care a lot about immigration. And yet, the attitude of the GOP establishment towards these folks seems to be, as Mickey Kaus jokes, they just “cling to their rage about immigration because they can’t get what they really want: Low capital gains taxes.”

And speaking of the GOP establishment, right on cue, John McCain in incensed that Trump has “fired up the crazies” in Arizona. “People who otherwise might be more centrist are angry about this border situation.”

Yes, this happens when voters finally despise being insulted by the officials they elect, being pandered to, and strung along:

JOURNALISM: CBS’s Charlie Rose, who on the eve of the 2008 election claimed “I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is” (a ludicrous statement at that late date, especially considering Rose had an entire newsroom of reporters at his beck and call) interviews Major Garrett on CBS This Morning. “Rather than defend his colleague’s tough question, co-host Charlie Rose chose to ask if he had any regrets or ‘second thoughts’ surrounding his actions.” To his credit, Garrett replied:

And the whole point of the question Charlie was why were these four Americans not accounted for in the context of negotiating a wide range of issues with the Iranians? Remember, in the final hours of this deal, the Iranians put other things on the table that hadn’t been previously discussed. The arms embargo on conventional weapons and ballistic missiles. If those could be introduced, it seems to that it’s reasonable to ask the Commandeer in Chief if other issues on the American side could have been introduced. I suggested there might have been one, the fate of four Americans. I stand by that.

At long last, Charlie is having his question answered — and doesn’t like what he hears.

I bet Sharyl Attkisson could tell Garrett what happens at CBS when journalists there covering the Obama White House actually do their job.

RELATED: Palace Guard swings into action: CNN Blasts CBS News’s Major Garrett for Asking Obama Tough Question, and “unexpectedly,” Time-Warner-CNN-HBO spokesman Bill Maher formerly the host of a show called “Politically Incorrect,” plays the race card.

If only Garrett had thrown a shoe at the president, CNN would be singing his praises.

McDONALD’S FRANCHISEES HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS DEPRESSED:

The six-month outlook for franchisees is at an all-time low, according to a small survey by Mark Kalinowski, a long-time restaurant industry analyst.

Some 29 franchisees, who collectively own and operate 208 McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, were asked to give their six-month forecast from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The average response was 1.69, the lowest in the survey’s 12-year history.

“Corporate has no answers,” one respondent said. “They are throwing ideas at the wall hoping something will stick. Their collective arrogance has come home to roost.”

The handwriting was on the wall a few months ago, when Steve Easterbrook, their British-born CEO announced his plans to transform McDonald’s into a “modern, progressive burger company:”

McDonald’s is almost certainly doomed. Or at the very least, Easterbrook is the wrong guy to head up the burger chain — any burger chain, for that matter.

To understand why I’ve come to this conclusion, read the very next line from the story:

Easterbrook plans to unveil his plan for turning McDonald’s into a “modern, progressive burger company” on May 4.

Now maybe I should withhold judgement until I see this plan next week. Maybe a bold headline like “McDonald’s Is Doomed” is just the kind of baseless clickbait fear-mongering I try to resist indulging in.

But a progressive burger company? Really?

How about a barber shop with shampoo laced with Nair? No, that doesn’t seem like a good idea to you? Let’s talk about it at my bar, where I water down the scotch. No, you’d rather not? Well, that’s how I feel about a “modern, progressive burger company.”

A progressive burger chain is like a quiet rave, a smoke-free poker game, or a free & fair Chicago election.

A burger chain serves up the sandwich version of meat & potatoes — the very antithesis of “progressive” anything. A fast-food burger is supposed to be simple, hearty, wholesome, perhaps-not-entirely-healthy fare designed for families on a budget and on the go.

* * * * * *

This shouldn’t be rocket math. Progressivism has come to mean top-down, pre-engineered, overpriced, “we know what’s best for you,” nannystatism — which is not what I consider to be a fun meal with the kids.

A fun meal with the kids is decent, fast, inexpensive dining on American food. There’s nothing “progressive” about it. And any attempt to force that square peg into the round hole of our hungry mouths is doomed to failure.

As with pretty much everything that’s sold to the public as a “progressive” idea.

IS THAT WHAT HE CALLS IT? Neil deGrasse Tyson Tells Colbert He’d Prefer a Bigger Pluto.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S REAL CRIME: MAKING US NOTICE: As Andrew McCarthy writes, their “real offense is not harvesting body parts. It is showing us, so insouciantly, what we’ve become.”

RELATED: Rick Perry turns Planned Parenthood question back on MSNBC’s Mark Halperin: “Mark, let me ask you: You looked at that video and you’re good with it?”

IS TNR IN THE TANK FOR HILLARY, and implying that Bernie Sanders is a pedophile?