LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela was named the most dangerous country to live for the second year in a row.

OUT ON A LIMB: Democrats’ I.T. Scandal Set to Explode — Or Not.

BLUE STATE BLUES: Californians May Have to Choose Between Showers and Laundry with New 55-Gallon Water Limit. “They’re now paying the price for decades of Democrat inaction on the problem.”

Urban water suppliers will monitor water usage by California residents, with the law stipulating that they “shall use satellite imagery, site visits, or other best available technology to develop an accurate estimate of landscaped areas.” Note the use of the word “shall,” which means they must do it.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the average American uses 80-100 gallons of water per day.

Plus, water rationing for thee but not for me:

Wealthy California residents, however, got a special dispensation from the legislature. There are to be special provisions for swimming pools, spas, “and other water features” that use a lot of water.

Read the whole thing.

Exit question: How many clean, nuclear-powered desalination plants could California have built for the money they’ve wasted on high-speed rail?

“THEY TRIED TO GET ME TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE, BUT SOMEONE WOULD ALWAYS COME ALONG & SPOIL IT:” The High Price of Stale Grievances.

Read the whole thing.

RED MEETING: Kim Jong Un terrified someone will kill him at Singapore summit.

WHEN A COMMUNITY ORGANIZES AGAINST THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: Obama’s Surprising New Foes.

SPENGLER: Israel Shows What Alliances Are For.

I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S COVERED UNDER THE LATEST ADD-ONS TO AMAZON PRIME: Should Amazon tribes be allowed to kill their young? Foreign Policy editors aren’t sure.

BEN DOMENECH: Why It’s Absurd To Pretend The Enlightenment Is Responsible For Racism.

But it sure is convenient, if you’re trying to trash its accomplishments.

AND THEN THEY ALL PLAYED HANDBALL OFF THE MONOLITH: Massive Genetic Study Reveals 90 Percent Of Earth’s Animals Appeared At The Same Time.

BARNEY FRANK TO LGBT VOTERS: ‘People Have a Right to be Bigots,’ Don’t ‘Trash Them in Return.’

INTERESTING: California Desperately Needs A State Electoral College.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Why is the holy month of Ramadan quintessentially the month of jihad? Ramadan 2018 Death Toll So Far: 355.

OUCH: Some Airbus Superjumbos Head to Scrapyards Due to Weak Demand.

Two of Airbus SE’s flagship A380 superjumbos are headed for the scrap heap after a search for new operators failed to secure firm bids.

Negotiations with British Airways, Iran Air and Hi Fly, a Portuguese charter specialist, ended without any deals, German investment fund Dr. Peters, which manages the planes, said in a statement to shareholders. The aircraft are already parked in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, where they will be filleted over the next two years by a specialist company and sold in parts.

It’s an inglorious end to the pair of double-deckers just a decade after they entered service, a fraction of the time commercial aircraft typically ply the globe.

There’s no established second-hand market for the A380, making a sale to a new owner harder. Further complicating any transaction was the perceived lack of commitment from Airbus to the aircraft in recent years, said Anselm Gehling, chief executive officer of Dr. Peters.

“Given the size of the investment, some airlines weren’t sure about the future plans for the aircraft,” Gehling said in an interview. “That’s a factor that has complicated negotiations.”

If you’ve ever been trapped in customs immediately after a fully-loaded A380 has disgorged, you won’t miss them.

OHHH THEY HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: And that’s enough for the University of Denver to suspend a female undergrad for her alleged use of racial slurs and other expression, despite 11 out of 12 witnesses (12 witnesses? For this?) saying they never actually heard her say any of them, but that they heard someone else say she said it. One wonders if her alleged expression of sentiments such as “we don’t care about that minority bullshit” might have had more to do with this abomination of due process, which included an administrator driving the accused student to tears.

DAVID HARSANYI: No, Donald Trump Hasn’t Been Especially Bad For ‘The Rule Of Law.’ “You don’t get to fabricate a new Constitution just because you don’t like the president.”

At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that “elites” often seem more concerned about the “mellifluous” tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power. “Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential,’” he writes, “Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens.”

But while Obama’s agreeable tone had plenty to do with his lack of media scrutiny, many largely justified, and even cheered, his abuses because they furthered progressive causes. But not only did liberals often ignore “the rule of law” when it was ideologically convenient, they now want the president to play by a set of rules that doesn’t even exist.

Partisans always tend to conflate their own policy preferences with “rule of law” — or “democracy” or “patriotism.” Even taking that tendency into consideration, the pervasive claim that Trump undermines law typically amounts to little more than questions of how he comports himself. Rarely, if ever, does it have anything to do with the Constitution.

Except for perhaps the Fourth and Fifth amendments, for too many liberals the Constitution is to be ignored unless it can be used as a cudgel against the right.

MICHAEL WALSH: As the Wiseguys Turn: McCabe, Comey, and the FBI Boys.

It seems we’ve flipped the script: what began as an investigation into Russian “collusion” on the part of the Trump campaign and perhaps the president himself, is now steadily being revealed as the sham byproduct of the fixed-fight “probe” of the Clinton email “matter” that allowed the former secretary of state to head into the 2016 election “cleared” of any wrongdoing by the Obama “justice” department. Vengeful over her surprising (but not to me) loss, the Woman Scorned and her cronies in the former administration and the intelligence community then concocted the “collusion” narrative, obligingly peddled to the public by the Democrat-controlled media, to strangle the Trump presidency in its cradle.

And they almost got away with it.

Read the whole thing.

ROSEANNE WASN’T CANCELED BECAUSE OF RACISM. IT WAS BECAUSE HER CHARACTER VOTED FOR TRUMP:

The Conners believe the American Dream has left them behind. She voted for Trump, perhaps out of desperation, but in any event that sends a signal to the great mass of humanity we call the American electorate that maybe it was okay to do so because, as I said, she’s relatable.

That makes her dangerous (again, we’re still talking about the character on television, not the real person). Her sympathetic attitude towards Trump runs counter to the memes, many of which may have been crafted sub rosa by the image masters who populate Hollywood, that he’s a sexist, homophobic, bigoted, fount of all evil demagogue who must be resisted at every turn.

Having Roseanne Conner—the lead character in a monster hit watched by tens of millions of Americans—say nice things about him, and profess a liking for him because she approves of the things he said he’d do while campaigning, undoes a lot of hard work and money that’s gone into branding him the anti-Christ.

Likability can be transferable. Hollywood found that out when people started to like Archie Bunker, something Norman Lear didn’t intend to happen when he created the socially conscious sitcom that made the character a household name. Fool me once, as they say.

The Trump haters understood that Roseanne Conner had to go. They just had to wait for Roseanne Barr to give them a reason.

Read the whole thing.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Gov. Candidate Blames ‘Progressive’ Policies For Making Calif. a Poverty-Stricken Racist Dystopia.

BLESS HIS HEART: Brian Williams Likens NFL Caving to Trump to Kennedy Appeasing Hitler.

You better listen to him — he knows firsthand what it was like to fight totalitarianism during WWII.

Also, the subtext is  your daily reminder of what the DNC-MSM thinks of Trump’s base.

WELL PAST TIME: It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela.

Nearly two decades of creeping authoritarianism and large-scale economic mismanagement have taken a staggering toll on Venezuelans. Moreover, with reports of low voter turnout in an otherwise stage-managed electoral process and rising military dissension, clearly the Maduro regime is “taking on water,” as Juan Cruz, the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in May at a panel discussion hosted by the Council of the Americas.

But if time is running out, it’s less clear exactly for whom: the Maduro regime or those struggling for a restoration of democracy in that benighted country? After all, Cuba — which serves as Maduro’s ideological mentor — has demonstrated that a strategy of forcing out the discontented and subjugating the rest, while muddling along with a dysfunctional economy, can sustain an authoritarian regime for decades.

The question thus becomes, as the New York Times editorial board wrote, “how to get rid of Mr. Maduro before he completes the destruction of his country.”

A coup, as nasty as that would be, would almost certainly be an improvement. But unless it comes with a complete denunciation of “Bolivarian Socialism” and an expose of Chavez, Maduro, and even the military’s political and economic crimes, Venezuela will be right back here someday.

BLUE WAVE? Did California Democrats sleep through election day? “Final numbers on voter participation won’t be in for a while, but turnout seems unexceptional. With more than 97% of the precincts reporting, less than 21% of registered voters had cast ballots. That’s in line with the anemic turnout in the 2014 primary, and far, far below the five previous midterm election primaries.”

And this low turnout was despite the fact that California’s “jungle primary” system encouraged almost as many Democrats to run for California office as there are California Democrats.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Rev. Al Sharpton: Democrats ‘too tame to deal with Trump.’

WELL, GOOD: Trump consumer chief Mick Mulvaney ousts Obama-era advisory panel members.

Mark Hemingway tweets, “Now all he needs to do is tear the building down and salt the earth where it stood.”