EXCLUSIVE: Manafort to PJM: Trump’s Speech Had ‘Truth-Telling Tone’

MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE, CALL YOUR OFFICE:

Shot:  “Airplane! is an American comedy film, first released on 27 June 1980, produced, directed, and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. Airplane! starred Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lorna Patterson. For release in Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, Airplane! was re-titled as Flying High.”

—Found on the Wiki for Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken TV series.

Chaser: “Come high with me British Airways jet forced to make emergency landing after stench of CANNABIS fills plane.”

The London Sun, yesterday. It’s a not-so-entirely different kind of flying, all together!

(Classical reference in headline.)

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: College rifle, pistol-shooting clubs under fire, underfunded amid gun debate.

Mass shootings and increasing politicization of the gun debate have left the activity marginalized, especially at eastern schools “staffed by liberals who have never touched a firearm in their lives,” according to the Young America’s Foundation spokeswoman Emily Jashinsky.

“[As gun issues] become a hotter topic and the more conservatives voice their opinions, the more liberals will try to stifle them,” Jashinsky said, adding that universities are “the most insulated bubbles of leftist thought.”

Do tell.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Try Squats Instead Of Kegels.

BREAKING: Shooting spree at a shopping centre in Munich causes ‘multiple deaths’ as armed police hunt gunman.

GREAT MOMENTS IN MSM CHUTZPAH: Alex Wagner Un-Ironically Scoffs: ‘Being Presidential’ More Than ‘Being Able to Read a Teleprompter.’

As NewsBusters notes, Wagner is a former MSNBC anchor “and current Senior Editor of left-wing publication The Atlantic.” She’s been married since 2014 to Sam Kass, who from 2009 through 2014 “served as President Barack Obama’s Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy, as Executive Director for First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, and as an Assistant Chef,” as his Wikipedia bio notes. The Obamas attended their wedding – along with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Regarding Wagner’s complaint, perhaps we should give the final word to Obama’s old buddy, Teleprompter XD-235.

VIDEO: Trump pivots to the general election by questioning whether Cruz’s dad killed JFK — again.

SOCIALIST PROSPERITY: McDonald’s Restaurants In Venezuela Stop Selling Big Macs.

Bloomberg reports that Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. stopped selling Big Mac sandwiches in Venezuela this week amid a bread shortage.

The Buenos Aires-based company, which operates more than 2,000 restaurants, says the stop-sale is only temporary, and that other sandwiches are available.

“McDonald’s Venezuela is working to resolve this temporary situation,” Daniel Schleiniger, a spokesman for Arcos Dorados, tells Bloomberg. “Together with our supplier, we are evaluating the best options that will allow us to continue serving high quality food to our customers.”

Bad luck, I suppose.

OIKOPHOBIA, BIG DESTROYA: Liberal Journalists Seethe With Hatred on Twitter When Republicans Applaud Gay Speaker at RNC.

Take pity on the coastal DNC-MSM elites; it’s not easy watching your stereotypes about flyover country being destroyed before your eyes in real-time.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Amidst 38% Enrollment Decline, Nine Thomas Jefferson Faculty Retire.

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: What does Hillary want? Her only goal is an inauguration.

Read the whole thing.

ALLIES: Power Restored to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

After these last seven years, it doesn’t seem all that strange to wonder what we had to give up to get our NATO ally to switch the power back on at our nuclear airbase.

RIP NFL COACH DENNIS GREEN, 67: The former Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach died of cardiac arrest, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

FULL TEXT: Peter Thiel: Fake Culture Wars Only Distract Us From Our Economic Decline. Well, that’s what they’re meant to do.

Related: Rachel Maddow Rambles For Three Minutes on “Incredibly Radical” “Openly Gay” Republican Peter Thiel.

WELL, THAT WOULD MAKE A BIG DENT IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT, WHICH TRUMP PROMISED TO FIX: Mexico threatens: If Trump wins we will call back our citizens.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1170.

PHIL ROBERTSON: BUSH, KASICH, CRUZ ‘NEED TO LEARN HOW TO FORGIVE AND LOVE’ TRUMP.

BLUE MODEL BLUES: The Pension Vise Tightens in California.

Earlier this week, CalPERS—California’s pension fund for most public employees—reported abysmal annual earnings of 0.61 percent, a tiny fraction of the seven-and-a-half percent annual returns needed to keep it solvent over the long run. And its sister fund for teachers, CalSTRS, isn’t doing much better. . . .

As Steven Malanga has noted, both of these union-managed funds are notorious for pulling political stunts even as they face gaping shortfalls, going on a misguided “green” investing binge that flushed taxpayer money down the drain, and pulling out of tobacco companies on moral grounds just before those stocks began to rise.
But the underlying flaw with the funds is not their politicization. If anything, these kinds of moves are a distraction from more pressing crisis of public employee retirement systems: That state legislatures have epically over-promised the level of retirement benefits they can reasonably provide, and obscured this reality by presuming levels of investment returns that are impossible to sustain, especially in this era of historically low interest rates.

This long-running failure of governance may be irreversible. All that’s left for state governments to do now is reform pension systems for new employees, phasing out defined-benefit systems for 401(k)-style plans, and, where possible, trim benefits or raise contribution requirements for current workers. In the meantime, federal policymakers should start thinking about a reform-for-relief framework that will enable states and localities to honor their obligations to retirees while getting their finances back under control for the long haul.

Indeed.

GEORGE ORWELL, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Actual headline at the London Daily Mail: “How Harry Potter can make you hate Donald Trump: Study finds J.K. Rowling books made people more tolerant and lowered their rating of Republican nominee.”

Emphasis, mine. If you’re “more tolerant,” why would you “hate” a political figure you disagree with, instead of attempting a bit of empathy to understand both what makes him tick, and what his supporters admire about him?

LONG WAR JOURNAL: Treasury designates 3 senior al Qaeda members in Iran.

I had been assured that welcoming Iran back into the community of nations was essential to securing Tehran’s help in the fight against al Qaeda.

IT’S PETER THIEL’S REPUBLICAN PARTY NOW… OR SHOULD BE, Roger Simon writes.

YEAH, WELL, TOO BAD HE’S READ ALL OF HER EMAILS: It’s Official: Hillary Clinton Is Running Against Vladimir Putin.

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NEW CROWDFUNDING RULES ALLOW ANYONE TO INVEST ONLINE: As of May 16th, restrictions limiting who could invest in crowdfunding opportunities have been seriously reduced. Learn all about it at the NextGen Crowdfunding July 2016 Ignition Event.

Whether you just like crowdfunding as way to help small companies chase the American Dream, or you are a Crowdfunding Shark looking for interesting deals, this online Ignition event on July 27th at 5pm Pacific is for you!

You can watch and ask questions to companies with crowdfunding campaigns as they present at this unique live-online event. Optionally, you can also follow, track results or even invest.

Register to watch the event online, and submit your questions here.