AP EXPLAINS: Standoff, dying economy drive Venezuelan crisis.

Venezuela is being wracked by an increasingly belligerent standoff between the government and opposition, while many Venezuelans are becoming fed up with a floundering economy marked by long lines for food and the world’s highest inflation. President Nicolas Maduro has declared a state of emergency to let him deal with the economy by decree, but the opposition is vowing to push ahead with its campaign to force a recall referendum seeking his ouster.

A political “standoff” didn’t create breadlines and brownouts, destroy the value of the Bolivar, or cripple Venezuela’s oil industry — socialism did.

CHANGE: Census shows big U.S. cities continue to grow.

All but one of the nation’s 20 largest cities saw their population grow last year, with metropolises like Austin, Denver and Houston among those seeing the most significant growth, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday.

With the exception of New York City, each of the 15 cities that gained the greatest number of people between 2014 and 2015 were in the South or the West.

People do seem to be voting with their feet against the blue model.

HEADLINES FROM 2008: Hillary is running a painfully stupid campaign.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: You can now put a sunroof in your private jet.

RIGHT ANGLE: PJTV alums Bill Whittle, Scott Ott, and Steve Green take on the waste and corruption behind the latest Veteran’s Administration “fix.”

Full disclosure: I’m Green.

1099 NATION: Obama extends overtime pay to 4.2 million Americans.

The updated rule, which takes effect Dec. 1 and doubles the salary threshold below which workers automatically qualify for time-and-a-half wages to $47,476 from $23,660 a year, or from $455 to $913 a week. Hourly workers are generally guaranteed overtime pay regardless of what they make.

“We’re strengthening our overtime pay rules to make sure millions of Americans’ hard work is rewarded,” President Obama said in a statement. “If you work more than 40 hours a week, you should get paid for it or get extra time off to spend with your family and loved ones.”

But the NPR writeup adds this:

“What our members have told us, what many other employers have told us, is there’s not a golden pot of money out there sitting in employers’ pockets where they can all of a sudden pay a lot more overtime pay,” said David French, vice president of the National Retail Federation. “Instead, they’re going to make the rational change and they’re going to change jobs.”

Dropping full-time workers with their costly benefits and overtime requirements, then hiring new workers as 1099 employees, means never having to say you’re sorry for supporting Obama.

And one more thing:

Secretary Perez says employers have a variety of ways they can comply with the new rule when it takes effect Dec. 1. “People are going to get at least one of three benefits,” Perez said. “They’re either going to get more money … more time with their family, or everybody is going to get clarity.”

Clarity?

MICROAGGRESSED: Students protest Seattle dean who recommended book with racial slur in title.

Jodi Kelly, the dean of the university’s Matteo Ricci College, told a black student last year that she should read the book “N—–: An Autobiography by Dick Gregory.” The unnamed student told The Stranger that she was unable to attend class after hearing Kelly, who is white, say the book title.

The student said Kelly “used the n-word… she said it three or four times. The full word.”

Goodness gracious.

CORN, POPPED: Clinton, Democrats Confronting Dangerous Divisions Within Party.

The split outcome in Tuesday’s primaries gives Clinton little leverage to push Sanders to unify his supporters behind her in preparation for an expected campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who is using the extended primary contest to attack Clinton’s standing with her own party.

Sanders showed no intention of dialing back his fight against Clinton or urging his supporters to fall in line. His spokesman said Sanders is considering seeking a recount in Kentucky, where Clinton was clinging to a lead of a half percentage point.

“We are in until the last ballot is cast,” Sanders told supporters at a rally in Carson, California, saying he believes he can win the June 7 primary in the nation’s most populous state. “We have the possibility — it will be a steep climb, I recognize that — but we have the possibility of going to Philadelphia with the majority of the pledged delegates,” Sanders said of the July nominating convention.

Never give up, Bernie — never surrender!

YUGE: Donald Trump, Republicans Finalize Joint Fundraising Deal.

Raising money jointly with the party allows Mr. Trump to raise funds more efficiently. Instead of finding a broader base of donors to write checks of up to $2,700, he can tap a smaller set of wealthy donors for larger checks. But the joint fundraising committees are also limited in what they can transfer to his campaign and spend on his behalf.

The deal effectively raises the maximum individual donation to $449,400.

THE LAST LAUGH: Woman skewers Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in amazing obituary.

TOO HOT FOR TWITTER: Virginia Congressional Candidate Accidentally Tweets Screencap with Porn Browser Tabs.

STAYING POWER: Russians building army base at Syria’s Palmyra site.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED, EU EDITION: Kids Will ‘Torture and Kill for ISIS,’ German Intel Chief Warns.

“When you know how ISIS treats children … then you have to assume that you are dealing with people who are willing to unconditionally torture and kill for ISIS,” said Maassen, who is in charge of Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

In February, a 15-year-old Muslim girl was arrested for attacking a German police officer with a knife at Hanover train station. She had been indoctrinated by ISIS’ online propaganda.

However, security officials in Germany are limited in their actions against minors. The legal system prohibits surveillance of people aged under 16 and children are held “non-accountable” until the age of 14.

In Angela Merkel’s Germany, the Children of the Corn are real.

QUESTION ASKED: Has Europe had enough of Erdogan?

Yes.

HOPE: Rift Between Labor and Environmentalists Threatens Democratic Turnout Plan.

The rift developed after some in the labor movement, whose cash flow has dwindled and whose political clout has been increasingly imperiled, announced a partnership last week with a wealthy environmentalist, Tom Steyer, to help bankroll a new fund dedicated to electing Democrats.

That joint initiative enraged members of the nation’s biggest construction unions, already on edge about the rising influence of climate-change activists. The building-trades unions view Mr. Steyer’s environmental agenda as a threat to the jobs that can be created through infrastructure projects like new gas pipelines.

The dispute, laid bare in a pair of blistering letters sent on Monday to Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., underscored the tensions between the two pillars of the Democratic coalition.

There are plenty of these rifts to be exploited in the Democrat coalition, including Millennials vs the university system which exploits them, and African Americans vs the public eduction system which exploits them, too.

If only someone had written a book about that…

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 2 Yellowstone visitors reportedly take bison calf for a ride in SUV.

Park rangers ticketed the pair, a man and his son who were visiting from another country, after they pulled up to a ranger station Monday with the animal in the vehicle, according to the news website. They apparently thought the calf was cold.

“They were demanding to speak with a ranger,” Karen Richardson told the news website. “They were seriously worried that the calf was freezing and dying.”

The calf and, remarkably enough, the tourists are all fine.

HOPENCHANGE: Despite $10B ‘Fix,’ Veterans Are Waiting Even Longer To See Doctors.

This part is instructive:

Congress and the VA came up with a fix: Veterans Choice, a $10 billion program that was supposed to give veterans a card that would let them see a non-VA doctor if they were more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or they were going to have to wait longer than 30 days for a VA provider to see them.

There was a problem, though. Congress gave the VA only 90 days to set up the system. Facing that extremely tight time frame, the VA turned to two private companies to administer the program and help veterans get an appointment with a doctor and then work with the VA to pay that doctor.

Although the idea sounds simple enough, the fix hasn’t worked out as planned. Wait times have gotten worse — not better.

You don’t fix a broken program by putting it in charge of a new program.

IT’S A METAPHOR FOR EIGHT YEARS OF PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT: Woman taken to Fla. hospital with dead shark attached to arm.

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE LIKE HIM: Little Is Off Limits as Donald Trump Plans Attacks on Hillary Clinton

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Sorry, We Don’t Take Obamacare.

AMY MOSES and her circle of self-employed small-business owners were supporters of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. They bought policies on the newly created New York State exchange. But when they called doctors and hospitals in Manhattan to schedule appointments, they were dismayed to be turned away again and again with a common refrain: “We don’t take Obamacare,” the umbrella epithet for the hundreds of plans offered through the president’s signature health legislation.

“Anyone who is on these plans knows it’s a two-tiered system,” said Ms. Moses, describing the emotional sting of those words to a successful entrepreneur.

They were warned.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Murder Rates Spiking Dramatically in 20 Major U.S. Cities, Stats Show.

BIG SPENDER: GOP mega-donor Adelson to give Trump up to $100 million.

Trump will indeed need the support. Much of the billionaire businessman’s success in the primary race came from his ability to fund his own campaign and tell voters that he is not beholden to corporate, Wall Street or lobbyists’ interests.

However, his own wealth and small-donor contributions would be no match for those of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic machine behind her if the front-running Clinton becomes Trump’s general election opponent.

That money would be better spent on upgrading Trump’s nonexistent GOTV machine than on lame TV spots which enriched consultants and ad buyers, but did nothing to help Romney four years ago.

THE 1980S CALLED: UK jets intercepted 3 Russian military aircraft en route to the Baltics.

CHANGE: When smuggling Colo. pot, not even the sky’s the limit.

With margins of as much as 300%, smugglers are willing to take big risks.

“What we’re hearing from out of state is that that best dope around is Colorado dope,” says Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force, which operates in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. “It’s high quality, and then you have the edibles and the hash oil.”

No offense to my friends in Oregon, but I remember when Colorado was known for brewing the best beer.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR THE AIR FORCE THUNDERBIRDS?

Bill Whittle hosts today’s Right Angle for BWDC.