21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Parents accused of leaving 2-year-old alone so they could play Pokemon GO.

ANYONE BELIEVE HER? Hillary Clinton Claims She Doesn’t Want to ‘Repeal the Second Amendment’

…Anyone?…Bueller?

RECOVERY SUMMER: Construction spending falls to one-year low in June.

Construction spending declined 0.6 percent to its lowest level since June 2015 after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent dip in May, the Commerce Department said on Monday. Construction outlays were up 0.3 percent from a year ago.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast construction spending rising 0.5 percent in June after a previously reported 0.8 percent drop in May. Their June estimates were largely based on the government’s assumptions for private residential and nonresidential construction spending in the advance GDP report.

The anticipated downward revision will come unexpectedly.

VIA WIKILEAKS: Paris strikes astonishing partnership with secret Isis sponsor tied to Hillary Clinton.

ANALYSIS: Hillary Clinton is delusional.

When asked about her home-brewed server in an interview with Chris Wallace on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton maintained she did nothing wrong and her previous statements were consistent with what Mr. Comey said.

“Chris, that’s not what I heard Director Comey say, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity, in my view, to clarify. Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the e-mails. I was communicating with over 300 people in my e-mailing,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“They certainly did not believe and had no reason to believe that what they were sending was classified. In retrospect, different agencies come in and say, well, it should have been, but that’s not what was happening in real time,” she said.

The lies are confounding — she actually still believes she holds the correct narrative. And I say narrative because her statement has no factual basis in truth, it’s make-believe.

According to her own top aide, Clinton is “often confused.”

JUST IMAGINE HOW THE DNC-MSM WOULD HAVE REPORTED THIS STORY HAD IT HAVE BEEN ONE OF DUBYA’S DAUGHTERS: Malia Obama Caught on Video Twerking and Flashing the Crowd at Lollapalooza.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 Steps To Take When Your Gun Is a Lemon.

ARIEL EZRACHI & MAURICE STUCKE: The Stars You Meet Along the Way – The Top 99 Presentation Dynamics Which Will Be Engraved in Your Memory.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1180.

WHILE TRUMP BATTLES THE MEDIA HILLARY IS STILL OUT THERE LYING: Chris Wallace interviewed Hillary yesterday. I missed it but just watched the video. Did Hillary really claim FBI Director Jim Comey said her statements were truthful? Why–seems she did. This woman is delusional. Yeah, Comey sold out the rule of law but he also excoriated her. Hillary definitely sent classified information through her unsecured server system. But that’s not what she heard! It’s like when she remembered…she remembered she was shot at by snipers in Bosnia…Except she wasn’t.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Where Was Hillary When Captain Khan Gave His Life in Iraq?

RED LINES: As Obama Dithers, Syrian Rebels in Aleppo Brace for Putin’s Onslaught.

The Russians are pursuing a strategy lifted from their playbook in Grozny during the last Chechen war, and Aleppo could soon become the new “most destroyed city on earth.”
…
A top official of the Syrian opposition said he’s convinced Russia’s intent is use the methods it deployed to destroy Grozny. The capital of the Chechen Republic was the scene of bloody combat in 1994-95, and then again in 1999-2000, early in Putin’s first presidency. At that point leaflets were dropped offering people safe passage out of the city, and after a brief pause the real devastation began. In 2003, the United Nations reportedly called Grozny “the most destroyed city on earth.” The war was over, and on Putin’s terms.

Even the Obama administration, long accused by its critics of fecklessness and of appeasing the Assad regime’s two outside supporters, Iran and Russia, mustered a strong verbal response.

Well then.

CONGO SLIDES TOWARD NEW CIVIL WAR: The Congolese government is delaying November’s long-anticipated presidential election. Why? President Joseph Kabila wants an unconstitutional third term and his lackeys are buying time. Yes, it’s already a mess, but it’s going to get worse.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has rejected fresh demands from the opposition that elections be held and President Joseph Kabila step down by December 20 of this year.

Some background from a recent StrategyPage update.

SCOTT JOHNSON ON Venezuela’s New Forced-Labor Decree.

In his column “Socialism for the uninformed,” Thomas Sowell observed: “socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

Sowell cited the slow-motion catastrophe in Venezuela as a case in point: “While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families.”

All is proceeding as Sowell foretold. This week’s news brings the latest chapter in Venezuela’s descent. Andrew Pestano reports for UPI: “At the end of last week, Maduro signed a decree that would give Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Social Process of Work the ability to order any Venezuelan with the physical or technical capabilities to join a government effort to work in the agriculture sector for up to 120 days.” If you have a problem with that, they will help you get your mind right.

Pestano adds that “Venezuela’s farming association in June said only 25 percent of the country’s agricultural land is being used to farm.” Gee, why would that be?

Yeah, that’s some seriously bad luck.

Related: Don’t Be A Sucker For Socialism.

It is a common misconception that socialism is about helping poor people. Actually, what socialism does is create poor people, and keep them poor. And that’s not by accident.

Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. But under socialism, powerful people become rich. When you look at a socialist country like Venezuela, you find that the rulers are fabulously wealthy even as the ordinary citizenry deals with empty supermarket shelves and electricity rationing.

The daughter of Venezuela’s socialist ruler, Hugo Chavez, is the richest individual in Venezuela, worth billions of dollars, according to the Miami-based Diario Las América. In Cuba, Fidel Castro reportedly has lived — pretty much literally — like a king, even as his subjects dwelt in poverty. . . .

But poverty isn’t a byproduct of socialism: It’s a requirement, as illustrated by Cato Institute analyst Juan Carlos Hidalgo’s report concerning Venezuela:

A couple of years ago, the then minister of education admitted that the aim of the regime’s policies was “not to take the people out of poverty so they become middle class and then turn into escuálidos” (a derogatory term to denote opposition members). In other words, the government wanted grateful, dependent voters, not prosperous Venezuelans.

As the Rainmakers sang, back in the 1980s, “They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.” That’s socialism in a nutshell. The “equality” talk? That’s just for the suckers. Don’t be a sucker.

Well, don’t be.

BUT OF COURSE: Erdogan wants spy agency under his control.

“We are going to introduce a small constitutional package (to parliament) which, if approved, will bring the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and chief of staff under the control of the presidency,” he told A-Haber television in an interview.

The government would need support from opposition parties to push through the shift as a super majority of two-thirds of deputies is needed to make constitutional changes.

Erdogan added that in the wake of the July 15 coup bid “military schools will be closed… and a national military university will be founded” as part of a wide-ranging shake-up of the army.

He also said that in future the heads of the land, sea and air forces will also have to report directly to Defence Minister Fikri Isik.

The changes, announced just over two weeks after the coup, appear aimed at giving Erdogan more control over the armed forces and intelligence.

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

NATO COMMANDER AGREES: MEMBERS SHOULD PAY UP.

NOTHING’S SHOCKING: ObamaCare And Net Neutrality Are Doing Exactly The Damage Their Opponents Predicted.

But they do provide plenty of opportunities for graft.

ROGER SIMON: Who Does Putin Want to Be President?

TRUMP IN COLORADO: I support legal marijuana if the states want it.

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YES, 24/7: Howard Kurtz wonders if the press is pushing Hillary’s argument that Trump is dangerous.

KYLE SMITH: Why ‘white trash’ Americans are flocking to Donald Trump.

Read the whole thing, whatever your opinion of Trump.

QUESTION ASKED: Why did Hillary’s State Department urge U.S. investors to fund Russian research for military uses?

Consider Skolkovo, an “innovation city” of 30,000 people on the outskirts of Moscow, billed as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley—and a core piece of Mrs. Clinton’s quarterbacking of the Russian reset.

Following his 2009 visit to Moscow, President Obama announced the creation of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state directed the American side, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov represented the Russians. The stated goal at the time: “identifying areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people.”

The Kremlin committed $5 billion over three years to fund Skolkovo. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department worked aggressively to attract U.S. investment partners and helped the Russian State Investment Fund, Rusnano, identify American tech companies worthy of Russian investment. Rusnano, which a scientific adviser to President Vladimir Putin called “Putin’s child,” was created in 2007 and relies entirely on Russian state funding.

What could possibly go wrong?

Read the whole thing. It’s behind the WSJ paywall, but you might find a way around it here.

GOLD STAR HYPOCRISY:

Where, though, was Hillary Clinton at the hour Captain Khan stepped forward in the face of our common foe? She, after all, had cast one of the votes that sent him to war (a majority of Democratic senators did so). Yet as it became clear that the fight would be tougher than she had imagined, Mrs. Clinton had begun to retreat. Though she claimed to Larry King of CNN that she didn’t regret her vote to give the president war authority, she started to cavil.

“The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration,” she told King. “It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared. But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right.” Imagine that. In sending our GIs into combat, President George W. Bush really thought he was right. What did Mrs. Clinton think?

If Mrs. Clinton didn’t think she was right, why did she vote for the war in the first place? And if she thought she was right, why did she maneuver to retreat? The Larry King interview in which Mrs. Clinton started waffling was on April 20, 2004. On June 8 that year, Captain Khan stepped forward in the face of the enemy. President Bush would step forward, too, ordering a surge of American GIs to secure Iraq’s victory. Mrs. Clinton opposed him tooth and nail.

Read the whole thing.