UNDERPANTS GNOME CONSERVATISM: The Republican Industrial Complex Has Turned Missteps Into Millions.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THERE IS REAL NEWS OUTSIDE OF CLEVELAND: Take, for example, the Government Accountability Office’s report that the cost of tax breaks for special interests, $1.2 trillion, now exceeds the cost of discretionary spending, $1.1 trillion, in the federal budget last year.

Then there’s sentencing of Warren Graves to three years in prison and a fine of $55,000? Who is Graves and what crime did he do? He was a key aide to three District of Columbia mayors, including most notably the infamous Marion Barry, and Vincent Gray, whose campaign was plagued by allegations of serious campaign finance abuses. What Graves did is filing a false tax return.

UNFAIR TO LUCIFER? Ben Carson defends connecting Hillary Clinton to Lucifer.

QUESTIONS THE PRESS WON’T BE ASKING: Five Lingering Questions From Clinton’s Email Scandal: Incompetence is no excuse for endangering national security.

5. Why did Clinton lie repeatedly if she did nothing wrong?

For more than a year Clinton consistently told the American people that she did not have more than one mobile device, she did not send classified information through her private server, she turned over all work-related emails and that her lawyers read all the emails she turned over. None of these things were true. Why did she lie?

Because she could.

CATHY YOUNG: How many feminists does it take to catch a ghost? — That’s not funny!

Exit quote: “Something tells me that flipping off a part of your fan base in not a very smart marketing strategy.”

GET READY FOR TED: Cruz Prepares for High-Stakes Convention Speech with Eye on 2020.

The Texas senator has largely kept a low profile since exiting the presidential race in May, but he will be front and center on Wednesday. His speech will serve both as a formal reintroduction to millions of party faithful, the majority of whom did not support Trump in the primaries, and as the first public step in another presidential campaign. So while Trump uses Cruz’s appearance to project a semblance of party unity, the Texas senator will do his part to underscore the deep divisions in the GOP on the eve of Trump’s coronation — and to suggest tacitly that he, not Trump, is the face of the party’s future.

Going into [Wednesday] night’s speech, Cruz undoubtedly has Ronald Reagan’s 1976 convention speech in mind. Though Reagan narrowly lost the nomination to Gerald Ford that year, his speech succeeded in convincing the delegates gathered in Kansas City that they had chosen the wrong man. (Paul Manafort, now Trump’s campaign chairman, was at the time a young operative instrumental in wrangling delegates on Ford’s behalf.)

Even if Trump wins this year — unlike Ford in ’76 — he’ll be 74 in 2020.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Lefties chant ‘Two-Four-Six-Eight … Your Politics Are Full of Hate’ — at the RNC.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “I feel I kind of ruined my life by going to college.”

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HEY, BIG SPENDER: Bush’s three delegates cost $50 million each.

Jeb was the wrong candidate running the wrong campaign in the wrong year, which everybody in the world seemed to know except for his donors.

AND WE’LL CONTINUE TO PIN TARGETS ON THEM. Obama to nation’s law enforcement officers: ‘We have your backs.’

SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE: New from Nate Silver: “Election Update: Clinton’s Lead Is As Safe As Kerry’s Was In 2004.”

SHE LISTENED TO US, AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! Andrew Ferguson on the laments of Hillary’s Wise Young Beta Males.

MAYBE IT’S TIME TO RETHINK MY FITNESS REGIMEN: Crossfit Games to award Glock pistols to winning athletes.

The founder of the hugely popular competition, for which Reebok is the title sponsor, recently announced he would give away the pistols to the winners, referring to the plan as “glock for the podium.”

“The top male athlete, the top female athlete, and every member of the winning team will receive a GLOCK pistol,” Dave Castro, Director of the CrossFit Games and a former Navy SEAL, wrote in a posting on the Facebook page for the CrossFit Games, along with a flashy video highlighting the popular pistol.

The CrossFit Games began Tuesday at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

People immediately expressed outrage over Castro’s announcement on social media and in comments on the post, saying that it was in poor taste given recent tragedies like the Orlando and Dallas massacres and spate of police-involved shootings.

Funny, but I don’t recall any news items about CrossFit athletes shooting cops.

READY FOR HILLARY: Pennsylvania Democrat Delegate Shoots Her Husband.

WHY NOT? THERE ARE DOUBLE STANDARDS FOR EVERYTHING ELSE. Is there a plagiarism double standard?

Melania is a potential first lady, not the actual candidate, so the criticism she’s getting seems outsized compared to the plagiarism (h/t Heavy) of past candidates Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

When Biden was running for president in 1987, he had to admit to plagiarizing a law review article when he was in law school. He claimed at the time that his plagiarism was not “malevolent” but merely a “mistake” because he “misunderstood the need to cite sources carefully.”

We’ll have to take him at his word that back in the 1960s, people who made it through high school, their undergraduate studies and into law school wouldn’t properly know how to cite sources.

Biden also stole passages from the Welsh Labor Leader Neil Kinnock during a visit to a state fair. Biden has used quotes from Kinnock before, but had always credited him.

Biden also straight up stole details from Kinnock’s life and used them as his own, like claiming he was the first in his family to go to college. Oh, and Biden also stole passages from Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.

Despite the blatant, serial plagiarism, Biden has been our vice president for the past eight years. It might have kept him from the presidency (not really, he wasn’t that well known in 1988 and in 2008 he was up against Barack Obama), but it didn’t keep him from the Senate or the vice presidency.

President Obama also plagiarized a part of a speech. In 2008, he gave a speech that sounded suspiciously similar to a 2006 speech from then Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Patrick closed party ranks and defended Obama after the accusation.

Democrats do that for their own. And so does the press.

WELL, SOMEBODY HAD TO: Chris Christie Prosecutes Hillary Clinton on the RNC Floor.

FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN FRESNO, CALIFORNIA, Victor Davis Hanson proffers the top ten reasons why Trump could win.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Ice Cube Refuses to Stop Performing ‘F*ck the Police’ after Cop Shootings.

NOAH ROTHMAN: Hillary Clinton Is Off Her Game.

In her most recent one-on-one sit down with a member of the press (the only format to which she seems inclined to agree), Clinton was asked by CBS News journalist Charlie Rose how she would respond to Comey’s contention that her custodianship of classified material was characterized by “real sloppiness.” Clinton initially denied that Comey had ever said such a thing (he did). When that didn’t work, she then asserted that there were “probably at least 300 people on those emails, the vast majority of whom are experienced professionals in handling sensitive material.” This is an admission against interest; not only does this acknowledge the truth of the public record, that Clinton freely compromised her “homebrew” server with such a large network of email recipients, but that only the “vast majority” of them were experienced in the field of information security. Hopefully, those who are not included in that “vast majority” weren’t as careless with government communications as Clinton.

“Was it wrong?” Rose asked.

Clinton replied: “Well, it was wrong because,” she paused, “look at what it has generated.”

To be fair, Clinton’s game was never very good.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: ‘I’m worried it’s going to be open season now:’ What it’s like living in Baton Rouge.

The Albertsons employee gazed across the street at the B-Quik mart where, just 24 hours before, he saw two police officers and a sheriff’s deputy killed before his eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead, which was lined with worry.

“It had a movie feel to it,” said the employee, who asked not to be named because it could jeopardize his job. The chaos, the crackle of gunfire, the shouts of “officer down” — it might have been a Hollywood battle scene.

He had seen gunfire before. He lived in Baton Rouge, after all. Guns could be quickly acquired from the sporting goods store down the interstate. Bullets, it sometimes seemed, were expended just as easily.

But this was different. These were police, crouching behind cars in tactical gear. In stunned, scared silence, he and his colleagues hunkered down for eight hours, until an official told them it was finally safe to leave.

“There’s a lot going on right now,” he said. “After everything that’s happening — Orlando, Dallas, what happened in France. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. It’s all over the place.”

What’s all over the place?

“Murder,” he said.

Life in the era of Hope & Change.

MAKING THE RUBBLE BOUNCE: Bankruptcy Judge Denies Gawker’s Efforts to Shield Nick Denton from Hulk Hogan.

CHANGE: Twitter Opens Verified Accounts Process To All Users.

Before Twitter permanently banned Milo Yiannopoulos last night, the social media giant had revoked his coveted blue “verified” check for some unspecified infraction. So it’s fair to wonder if Twitter is broadening its verification program in order to create a wider avenue for punishment and blackmail of its users.

LIBERALISM: IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT: Liberals Shriek That Pat Smith Has Absolutely No Moral Authority To Mention Hillary Clinton’s Negligent Murder of Her Son.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE END OF SECULAR TURKEY: Turkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50,000.

The purge of those deemed disloyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan widened on Tuesday to include teachers, university deans and the media.

The government says they are allied to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who denies claims he directed the uprising.

PM Binali Yildirim said the preacher led a “terrorist organization”.

“We will dig them up by their roots,” he told parliament.

Perhaps most ominous, “Turkey’s media regulation body on Tuesday also revoked the licences of 24 radio and TV channels.”

It wasn’t a failed coup; it’s a successful purge.