TWO CNNs IN ONE! Just as the Democratic commentator is saying Republicans can only win through voter suppression, she’s radically undercut by the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

CHANGE: On big things and small, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem more alike each day.

BREAKING?

BREAKING FIRST ON @Morning_Joe: Multiple sources say an independent conservative candidate will announce his candidacy for president today.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 8, 2016

I’ll believe it when I see it.

UPDATE: Word is it’s Evan Mcmullen, Chief Policy Director for the House Republican Conference.

More to come.

MORE:

Key players in GOP’s anti-Trump movement are preparing to launch an independent presidential campaign for Evan McMullin — a CIA veteran and the chief policy director of the House Republican conference — sources close to the effort told BuzzFeed News.

Veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a Florida-based media consultant and outspoken Trump critic, is expected to be involved in McMullin’s campaign. Sources said Wilson was in Washington on Sunday meeting with members of McMullin’s prospective campaign — which includes some who were involved in a group called Better for America, which has been pushing an independent presidential bid.

McMullin did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed News.

AND A REMINDER:

As inane talk of a conservative run against @realDonaldTrump returns @stevechaggaris reminds: ballot access gone in 27 states, 35 by Friday

— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) August 8, 2016

“Quixotic” doesn’t even begin to describe this effort, although I suspect the real goal is to protect the GOP brand from Trumpism.

RUSSELL BERMAN: Are Trump And Obama Really That Different?

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: “In Western societies, there is now a tremendous disconnect between the traditional political and business elites and the citizenry. The populations of the West now find themselves ruled by a transnational elite who see tradition, loyalty, and patriotism as primitive, and whose promoters within academia, nonprofits, government bodies, labour unions, NGOs, and the media teach that nations, citizenship, borders, and law defined by elected parliaments are irksome problems to be overcome.”

WHAT’S DRUDGE TRYING TO SAY?

I actually think that this is a stealth Hillary campaign line — “”She’s so sick, you’ll really be electing Bill in the role of Edith Wilson!”

THIS BLOCKBUSTER BOOK EXPLORES THE STATE OF HILLBILLY AMERICA: Mark Hemingway of the Federalist reviews J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.

THOSE DAMN EMAILS: Iran Executes Nuclear Scientist Who Was Convicted of Spying.

Shahram Amiri defected to the U.S. at the height of Western efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. When he returned in 2010, he was welcomed with flowers by government leaders and even went on the Iranian talk-show circuit. Then he mysteriously disappeared.

He was hanged the same week that Tehran executed a group of militants, a year after Iran agreed to a landmark accord to limit uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Amiri first vanished in 2009 while on a religious pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia. A year later, he reappeared in a series of contradictory online videos filmed in the U.S. He then walked into the Iranian-interests section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and demanded to be sent home.

In interviews, he described being kidnapped and held against his will by Saudi and American spies. U.S. officials said he was to receive millions of dollars for his help in understanding Iran’s nuclear program.

Then there’s this:

Hillary Clinton used her private email server to discuss details of the Iranian nuclear scientist who has executed for giving information to the CIA.

Shahram Amiri, who was hanged on Sunday for ‘revealing secrets to the enemy’, was in the US and allegedly informing on Tehran’s extensive nuclear program during the Democrat’s controversial reign as Secretary of State.

At the time she stressed researcher had been there of his ‘own free will’ and was described as ‘our friend’ in correspondences.

But he maintained he had been kidnapped by intelligence agents.

Emails sent by Clinton’s advisers point to the scandal involving Amiri – suggesting it was a ‘diplomatic, psychological issue’, but not a ‘legal one’.

One aide also warned he would lead to ‘problematic news stories’.

Indeed.

FLASHBACK: Loose Lips Sink Ships: Clinton’s Criminal Negligence Hurts More Than the Election.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Tim Kaine Says Clinton Wasn’t Lying About Her Emails—Just ‘Talking Past’ Her Interviewer: The transcript clearly shows otherwise.

A 21ST CENTURY RORKE’S DRIFT: Cut-off, surrounded and outnumbered – the incredible untold story of the 88 British soldiers who spent 56 days holding off 500 Taliban fighters… and survived.

BLACK COLLEGE DEMOCRAT TURNS REPUBLICAN: How one millennial decided to think for himself.

SPACE: Franklin Chang’s VASIMR plasma engine readies for key test. “Ad Astra’s Chief Operations Manager Juan Ignacio del Valle said the goal for this year is to maintain a plasma firing for about one hour. That would represents a mayor milestone for the VASIMR current prototype, known as VX-200SS. The device has only fired plasma discharges lasting a few seconds, he said. AdAstra has completed more than 10,000 firings of its prototypes since 2005.”

SHOT: Massive crowd rallies for democracy in Turkey.

CHASER: Turkey’s ongoing media purge.

Freedom-lovers in Turkey might have been better off rallying for last month’s coup attempt.

PROGRESS: Hunger haunts Venezuela, especially its children.

Malnourished children who faint in class. Children who, in the worst cases, die from hunger, their bodies nothing but skin and bones, the outlines of their ribs visible.

Images like those have become common in Venezuela, where critical food shortages are pushing hundreds of thousands of children under a blanket of misery and hunger more often seen in the poorest countries in Africa.

“We are seeing cases not seen for 40 years,” said William Barrientos, a physician and part of the opposition bloc in the legislative National Assembly who produced and posted a video on YouTube to highlight the issue of malnutrition among Venezuelan children.

Socialism is about caring.

TODAY IS INSTAPUNDIT’S 15TH ANNIVERSARY. That’s right, I started the blog on August 8, 2001. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. If you’d like to see how it started, go here and scroll.

It’s kind of weird to think that the Web’s been around for just 25 years, and InstaPundit has been around for 15 of them.

DO TELL: The State Of The European Union Is Bleak. “Long considered the most stable region in the world outside of North America, Europe is now wracked by multiple crises. If anything, the U.S. is still not paying enough attention to the decay in the stability of some of our closest allies. It’s easy for Americans and Europeans to criticize one another, and both sides score some fair hits. But increasingly both sides of the Atlantic have a set of problems in common that elites seem unable or unwilling to address.”

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: The Internet Is Freaked Out About Those Weird Purple Spots All Over Michael Phelps’ Body. Zika? Hickies? What are they???