NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuelans fleeing their nation’s humanitarian crisis find hope in Philadelphia. “Now that I’m in Philadelphia, no one can take me out of here.”

Benavides echoes Torres Luzardo’s concerns over ignorance about Venezuela, particularly that of the results of socialism.

In a city like Philadelphia, where there are so many academics and so many liberal intellectuals, socialism is hailed, he said. For example, at Temple, Benavides noted, there is a group called “Defensores del Proceso Chávez” (Defenders of the Chávez Process).

“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say that the things that Bernie Sanders mentioned during his campaign didn’t sway or entice me,” Benavides admitted sadly. “The ideas of universal education, universal healthcare, all of these benefits for the whole population, the promise of equality and justice, those are all beautiful.

“But, I know the results of socialism. Venezuelans know the result of socialism. Cubans know the result of socialism. All it does is generate poverty and generate a diaspora.”

Who you gonna believe: Bernie Sanders or Benavides’ lying eyes?

VOTE FOR ME AND I’LL SET YOU FREE: Erdoğan vows to lift state of emergency if re-elected.

BLUE WAVE? The GOP’s Rapid Retreat in the Midwest.

Josh Kraushaar:

Ohio is becoming a major warning sign for the GOP’s fortunes in the upcoming midterms—and beyond. The state backed Trump by a healthy 8-point margin in 2016, fueled by dramatic swings towards Republicans along the blue-collar eastern spine of the state. Trump’s winning margin in bellwether Ohio was nearly identical to his winning margin in ruby-red Texas. Given the promising political trends from Trump’s election, Republicans were hopeful that they could upset Brown and hold the governorship with an established figure like Attorney General Mike DeWine. Early polling showed the Senate race competitive and DeWine holding a healthy lead over the opposition.

But the political movement in Ohio is headed in the opposite direction, even with Trump’s recent uptick in popularity. Trump’s job approval in the state is at 43 percent with 54 percent disapproving, according to a new Quinnipiac survey. Nearly half of respondents to a Suffolk University poll of Ohio voters said their midterm vote would be a check on the president, compared to 28 percent saying their vote would be to support Trump’s agenda. And Brown now holds a commanding double-digit lead over Rep. Jim Renacci in the latest public polls, with Democrat Richard Cordray inching ahead of DeWine.

If you want to make a difference, spend less time on the internet and more time volunteering for a local campaign.

WELL, GOOD: Lockheed, Pratt Disclose F-35 Cost-Cutting Moves As Air Force Secretary Presses For Economies.

The Air Force has set a goal of reducing projected operating and support costs across the lifetime of the F-35 program by 38%, which is a tall order for a program that until recently was focused on other matters — like proving its capabilities in the biggest flight-test program ever executed. Now that the capabilities are demonstrated though (F-35 is achieving 20-to-1 kill ratios against adversary aircraft in exercises) Wilson really wants to get the price down.

She has not been subtle in telling contractors what the stakes are. Simply put, if the cost of “sustainment” — operations and support — doesn’t fall by the requisite 38%, then the Air Force may have to buy hundreds fewer planes than it was planning. It took Marillyn Hewson, CEO of lead airframe contractor Lockheed Martin, about two nanoseconds to get the message. She formed an internal review panel that figured out how to meet Secretary Wilson’s cost goals.

Imagine that.

HMM: Trump Tariffs Will Lead to Higher Prices for U.S. Consumers, Experts Warn. “In the short term there might be some gains from the U.S. steel industry, but the problem is the U.S. steel industry doesn’t even have the capacity to actually produce the extra steel that the U.S. will require.”

TYLER O’NEIL: Did Pro-Clinton FBI Bias Get Donald Trump Elected?

TYLER O’NEIL: Georgetown Civil Rights Page Urges Donations to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, SPLC.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Palestinians Prep 5,000 Kite Bombs in Gaza to Mark End of Ramadan.

BLUE WAVE? Rick Scott Pulling Away From Bill Nelson Among Hispanics in Florida. “The Spanish-speaking Republican governor is bringing his conservative message to Hispanics in Florida. It’s working.”

BEST. NEWS. EVER. $17 Supermarket Brand Scotch Named Best in the World.

VIRGINIA ALLEN: The Importance of Dads in an Increasingly Fatherless America.

There is a “father absence crisis in America,” according to National Fatherhood Initiative, and the results are sobering.

Studies have found that children raised without a father are:

At a higher risk of having behavioral problems.
Four times more likely to live in poverty.
More likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
Twice as likely to never graduate high school.
At a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy.
More vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
Twice as likely to be obese.

From education to personal health to career success, children who lack a father find themselves at a disadvantage to their peers raised in a two-parent household.

Murphy Brown was wrong and Dan Quayle was right.

BULL DURHAM AT 30: An Unrequited Love Story. “Three decades after the film’s release, writer-director Ron Shelton reflects on the making of the (maybe) best sports movie of all time.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Angela Merkel’s political near-death experience in Bavarian brawl. “Fight over migration risks toppling chancellor’s alliance — and her government.”

Merkel’s refusal to endorse a plan by her Bavarian interior minister to turn back some refugees at the German border set the stage for a showdown that, barring a last-minute compromise, could bring down her government.

“I consider illegal immigration to be one of the biggest challenges for the European Union and think that we therefore should not act unilaterally, without consultation and at the expense of third parties,” Merkel said Thursday at the end of a day packed with crisis meetings.

The dispute ostensibly revolves around the question of whether Germany should turn back refugees who have applied for asylum in other EU countries. Merkel opposes the policy on the grounds it could hasten the collapse of Europe’s system of open frontiers by forcing Germany’s neighbors to re-impose border controls.

The root of the dispute has less to do with that narrow question, however, than with Merkel’s broader refugee policy, which the CSU has resisted from the beginning.

Worst German Chancellor since… you know.

FEY WRAY: Nothing in Inspector General’s Report ‘Impugns the Integrity’ of FBI or Workforce.

HEH: California Might Split Into 3 States. The US Should Only Keep One of Them.

A modest proposal from Jon Gabriel:

The new map would create a centrist Southern California, including much of the agricultural heartland, Riverside, and San Diego; a leftist state called California, running up the coast from LA to Monterey; and an essentially communist state called Northern California above them both. (A better name for the latter would be “Woke-ifornia.”)

If voters support the new map, both houses of the California Legislature would need to confirm it. Then it would go through the courts, the US Congress, and whoever sews new stars on the flag.

Quickly looking at the map, the problem for conservatives is quickly apparent. Instead of offering two bat-guano leftist senators, we’d end up with at least four and as many as six. No bueno.

Nevertheless, I support the plan wholeheartedly. Voters should split Cali thrice, have Sacramento give its blessing, and ship the paperwork to DC. At that point, Congress should endorse it … but only allow Southern California to remain in the union.

Well, OK… but only if they’re on double-secret probation.

TOM ROGAN: The crazy reason the FBI didn’t search the devices of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle.

The agents’ primary excuse was to point to “the culture of mishandling classified information at the State Department which made the quantity of potential sources of evidence particularly vast” (see page 153).

Put another way, the agents thought that they might find so much classified information on unauthorized servers and systems that they would become lost in the maze. Horowitz, in what can only be described as a generous admonition, counters by noting “that [this excuse] fails to acknowledge that the team was not required to take an all-or-nothing approach. For example, a middle ground existed where those devices belonging to Clinton’s three top aides – which the team determined accounted for approximately 68 percent of Clinton’s email exchanges – would have been reviewed, but devices belonging to other State Department employees would not.”

This suggestion by Horowitz seems rather, well, obvious.

From my perspective, by failing to investigate material held on the personal devices belonging to Clinton’s senior leadership team and senior aides, the FBI failed in their duty to fully pursue realistic and feasible avenues of profitable investigation.

The only thing they failed to do was get Hillary over the finish line.

ON THIS DAY: June 15, 1389: Islam Enters and Conquers Eastern Europe.

ABOUT TIME: House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte: We’re ‘Very Shortly’ Going to Subpoena Strzok.

OH: The director of Northeastern University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program claims it is “logical to hate men,” asserting that it is time for feminists “to go all Thelma and Louise…on their collective butts.”

That didn’t work out very well for Thelma or Louise.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): As a colleague said at the time, what really happens in the Thelma & Louise movie is that two women get out from under male supervision, immediately do a lot of stupid things, then commit suicide. And the only voice of sanity is the older white male cop (Harvey Keitel), whom they ignore. And yet it’s portrayed as some sort of feminist masterpiece.

DAVID HARSANYI: 3 Takeaways From The IG Report That Seriously Undermine The FBI’s Credibility.

Here’s one:

Former FBI director James Comey’s actions are roundly condemned in the report. The IG concludes he violated long-standing procedure and policy, and basically did whatever his capricious idealism told him to do. The more you read the IG report, the more obvious it becomes that Comey had absolutely no basis for clearing Hillary.

Page texted Strzok at one point about the possibility of using fewer agents to interview Clinton, since “she might be our next president,” and they don’t want to upset her. (Not that it really mattered, since the investigatory conclusions were reached before the end of the witness interviews). Comey functioned under the same rules.

In the eyes of liberals, Comey’s sin was sending a letter to Congress when new evidence in the server case emerged. But, by that point, Comey had no choice but to tell Congress, which he likely did unilaterally. If the Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner laptop kerfuffle had been leaked, Comey would have looked like he was actively political.

Would Comey have done the same if he believed Trump had a chance to win? That’s a different story.

Madam President was supposed to return the favor and provide all the cover Comey needed, but she failed.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Baseball, Comey’s Reckoning, The Bible, and Much, Much More.

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today.

WOW: A Stalin-era Gulag survivor never saw her husband again. USA TODAY found him.

Khachatryan’s only “crime” was that she fell in love with, and then secretly married, a Yugoslavian military officer who was studying in Moscow. She was 17. As part of her arrest and then punishment in a subarctic climate in Siberia, Khachatryan endured horrible indignities. She also never saw her husband, Radojica Nenezic, again.

When Khachatryan was finally released from the Gulag after Stalin’s death in 1953 she did not know what had become of her “Yugloslav” as she likes to call Nenezic; nor he, her. For more than 70 years that was mostly the end of their story, such as it was.

Then, in the late spring of this year, journalism the connector, as I learned, intervened.

A grandchild of Nenezic’s, the result of another marriage that produced a daughter, was alerted to a sad tale published in a major U.S. newspaper of a woman who sounded a lot like the “Lyudmila” who they grew up hearing about from their grandfather.

(Nenezic had died more than a decade earlier from a heart attack.)

“We just want to tell Lyudmila that our grandfather never stopped loving her and that even we know the story about his love for her,” this grandchild wrote to me in a Facebook message, from Croatia, a country that was previously part of Yugoslavia until a series of political crises caused that nation to break apart in the early 1990s.

“I thought there is nothing that could be worse than prison and the Gulag camp in the world. But now I know, it can be. It is possible to kill a person twice,” she wrote in reply to the letter from Nenezic’s daughter, referring to confirmation of his death years earlier.

“It is to kill me a third time,” Khachatryan added in that letter.

Heartbreaking — but that’s how Real Socialism™ always turns out.

BRINGING OUT THE BIG GUNS: New Army Artillery Doubles Attack Range & Outguns Russian Equivalent.

CONFIRMING WHAT I’VE LONG SUSPECTED: Comcast disabled throttling system, proving data cap is just a money grab.

My wife and I don’t stream much video, but still manage to find ourselves bumping up against Comcast’s one terabyte data cap, and occasional going over it. And at $10 per ever 50GB over, it’s one helluva money grab.

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuela just keeps on delivering new economic absurdities.

Anyone who has flirted or is flirting with the idea that socialism offers a reasonable remedy for the drawbacks of capitalism should mull the utter absurdity of Venezuela’s current plight.

Considering importing additional oil into a country where it is already more abundant than anywhere else is not just ridiculous but also a reflection of an economic system that doesn’t work.

The common refrain is that capitalism makes what is scarce abundant, whereas socialism makes what is abundant scarce. It seems like that is happening in this case.

The possible importing of oil is of course just the latest laughable move by the South American country.

Maybe Maduro believes that real absurdity has never been tried before.