The Commentariat -- May 7, 2016

Afternoon Update:

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama delivered an impassioned call to civic action and responsibility at Howard University's commencement Saturday, giving an upbeat assessment of the nation's trajectory but cautioning that there remains 'so much more work that needs to be done.'" -- CW

Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Hillary Clinton won the Guam Democratic caucuses Saturday.... According to unofficial results announced by Guam Democratic Party chairman Joaquin Perez, Clinton won 60 percent to Sanders' 40 percent." -- CW

Liz Kruetz of ABC News: "During a campaign event in Oakland, California..., [Hillary Clinton] prescribed a new name for the man who is being called the Republican presumptive nominee: The 'presumptuous nominee.'" -- CW

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: Chief Justice John Roberts is "a fierce defender of the judiciary's independence and a firm believer in judicial restraint -- albeit a kind that at times is apparent only to him." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW: The top story in Saturday's New York Times is a longish piece on the rift in the GOP. The word "racist" or its derivatives never pops up once. Instead, it seems, Trump has an "outsider message." Right.

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "In a new wave of royal decrees, King Salman of Saudi Arabia on Saturday replaced a number of top ministers and restructured government bodies in a shake-up that paved the way for significant changes in how the state is run." -- CW

*****

Presidential Race

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "In a biting critique of the presumptive Republican nominee, President Obama said Friday that Donald J. Trump should be subjected to serious scrutiny and not be allowed to treat the presidential campaign like 'a reality show.'" The President also remarks on the Democratic race. CW: Watch the video:

ConservoHillary. Amy Chozick of the New York Times: Hillary "Clinton's campaign is repositioning itself, after a year of staking out liberal positions and focusing largely on minority voters, to appeal to independent and Republican-leaning white voters turned off by Mr. Trump.... Mrs. Clinton has broadened her economic message, devoted days to apologizing for a comment she previously made that angered working-class whites, and has pledged that her husband, former President Bill Clinton..., would 'come out of retirement and be in charge' of creating jobs in places that have been particularly hard hit. The effort is a striking turn after she spent the past year trying to to mobilize the liberal wing and labor leaders in the Democratic Party." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Luke Hammill of the Oregonian: "Trump and supporters from across Oregon -- which the candidate repeatedly pronounced 'Ore-gone' -- descended on Eugene, a city known as a strong outpost of progressivism, to kick off the weekend in what amounted to a victory party." CW: Hammill emphasizes the "NeverHillary" "progressives" who showed up at Trump's rally, clear evidence that progressives can be idiots, too.

The Narcissist at Work. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "During a joyful, victorious rally speech in West Virginia on Thursday night, Trump told his crowd of 13,000 that they no longer had to vote in Tuesday's Republican primary -- even though there are still a number of contested local races on the ballot." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal. And if the economy was good it was good, so therefore, you can't lose. -- Donald Trump, CNBC interview, Friday ...

... ** Washington Post Editors: "AMONG THE many misconceptions fueling Donald Trump's presidential campaign, one of the most stubborn, and most pernicious, is this: Government should run like a business.... Trump separately hypothezied that the United States 'can buy back [debt] at discounts....' [and he would 'make a deal.' with creditors]... The minute the United States tried to reduce its debt load by offering creditors less than 100 percent of principal and interest -- i.e., by 'discount,' or 'making a deal,' ... every institution that had taken this country at its word would be instantly destabilized. Those institutions would include the Chinese government and others abroad..., the Federal Reserve..., and the Social Security Trust Fund.... And don't get us started about pension funds, money market mutual funds and community banks.... Mr. Trump ... [set] a new record for economic recklessness by a major party presumptive nominee, in his first week in that role." ...

... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Every assessment of risk in the financial system is based on the idea that the least risky thing is lending money to the federal government. If that turns out to be much riskier than previously thought, then everything else becomes much riskier too. Business investment will collapse, state and local finances will be crushed, and shockwaves will emanate to a whole range of foreign countries that borrow dollars.... This is the second time this week that Trump has revealed a profound ignorance of an issue related to government debts. The early instance in which he kept proposing that Puerto Rico declare bankruptcy even though doing so is illegal was on a question that's very important to Puerto Ricans...."

... Josh Marshall of TPM: "It is not too much to say that centuries of American prosperity have been undergirded by the 'full faith and credit of the United States.' In other words, the US always pays its debts in full and on time. Indeed, it's black letter text in the US constitution that the country's debt can never even be questioned. Defaulting on the national debt would clearly be unconstitutional.... The entire architecture of the global economy and the United States place in it rests on the certainty and basic risklessness of US government debt obligations. It's as simple as that.... When it comes to macro-economics and global economics Trump is a huge ignoramus who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Treasury." -- CW ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "This jackass actually thinks defaulting on the US Debt would work just like arbitration after a bankruptcy where bond holders would settle for pennies on the dollar.... We're so fucked if this lunatic wins." -- CW

... CW: It's worth noting that the idiot who put this idiotic idea in Trump's idiotic brain was the idiotic three-named Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times & CNBC.

These Two People Had a Phone Conversation:

It wasn't like furious or anything; it was just like, 'What do I need to do?' And so I said, 'Listen -- my view is just relax and be gracious, and I will talk to Paul and we will try to work on this.' -- Reince Priebus, RNC Chair-for-Now, on his chat with Donald Trump

I told Reince that I thought it was totally inappropriate what Paul Ryan said and thought it was good for me politically. But Reince feels, and I'm okay with that, that we should meet before we go our separate ways. So I guess the meeting will take place and who knows what will happen. -- Donald Trump, on the same chat with Chair-for-Now

Gail Collins: "There's no reason you couldn't do the Republican vice-presidential search as a reality show.... The contest for the second slot is already a lot like 'The Celebrity Apprentice.' Everybody has to refer to the candidate as 'Mr. Trump' and pretend his boorish exhibitionism is actually a demonstration of sublime leadership." CW: Hilarious, but while you're laughing, remember that "President Trump" is not at all funny.

Another NeverTrump Bush. Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "Jeb Bush won't be voting Republican this fall. The former presidential candidate wrote on Facebook Friday afternoon that he won't be voting for Donald Trump ... in the general election. But it looks like Bush will just skip voting for president, saying that he can't support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton either. 'Donald Trump has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character,' Bush wrote. 'He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy.'" -- CW ...

... And Another. Dana Bash of CNN: "Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Donald Trump's most outspoken Republican critics, says he will not vote for either Trump or Hillary Clinton for president this year." -- CW ...

... CW: The irony is that these guys are rejecting Trump for the wrong reason: that he's "not a reliable conservative Republican." They don't bother to mention that he's both a racist & an ignoramus; they don't get that part of the reason racist & ignoramus GOP voters support Trump is that he's pledged (not that his pledges mean squat) not to blow up their Social Security & Medicare & not to send their jobs to China (even though he's done that himself as a private b'nessman). ...

... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Friday brought another day of incredible division and revolt [within the GOP] with Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham falling in line not behind Trump, but behind House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said a day earlier that he cannot yet support the brash real estate mogul as his party's standard-bearer. Trump, instead of trying to make peace, lashed out. He fired off a vicious statement, calling Graham an 'embarrassment' with 'zero credibility.' Then he laced into both of his former rivals during his rally in Omaha, Nebraska.... 'But I won't talk about Jeb Bush. I will not say -- I will not say he's low energy. I will not say it,' Trump told a boisterous crowd who booed at the mention of his critics. '... And I won't talk about Lindsey Graham, who had like 1 point, you ever see this guy on television? He is nasty.... He leaves a disgrace, he can't represent the people of South Carolina well.' Trump also alternated on Friday between shrugging off Ryan's bombshell announcement and scorching him." -- CW

Shadi Hamid of The Atlantic: "It still remains (somewhat) unlikely that Donald Trump ... can win a general election. Regardless of the final outcome, however, the billionaire's rise offers up a powerful -- and frightening -- reminder that liberal democracy, even where it's most entrenched, is a fragile thing...The candidate has exposed the tension between democracy and liberal values -- just like the Arab Spring did." --safari

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Donald Trump appears to have escaped the possibility of an awkward federal class-action trial over his Trump University real estate program taking place just as his campaign for the White House shifts into high gear. At a hearing in San Diego on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel set the trial in the lawsuit to begin Nov. 28, with jury selection to begin a few weeks earlier, local press reports said." -- CW

... Yeah, well, he has the Darth Vader vote. Nick Gass of Politico: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney will support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, he told CNN on Friday." -- CW

CW: A contributor has noticed the white circles around this man's eyes, circles that show up in a lot of photos. She presumes, as do I, that he wears goggles when he spray-paints the tanning stuff on his pasty white face. (It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio said this man had "the worst spray-tan in America.") Weird that an old white guy who despises people of color goes to so much trouble to color his own face. The contributor made some unflattering comments about the man's face, but I would nevah mock a person's appearance, so you'll have to do that yourself.

Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "In spite of his insistence that he will not run, Mitt Romney is being courted this week by a leading conservative commentator to reconsider and jump into the volatile 2016 presidential race as an independent candidate. William Kristol, the longtime editor of the Weekly Standard magazine and a leading voice on the right, met privately with the 2012 nominee on Thursday afternoon to discuss the possibility of launching an independent bid, potentially with Romney as its standard-bearer." -- CW

Other News & Views

Scott Shane & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The anonymous source behind the huge leak of documents known as the Panama Papers has offered to aid law enforcement officials in prosecutions related to offshore money laundering and tax evasion, but only if he is assured that he will not be punished. 'Legitimate whistle-blowers who expose unquestionable wrongdoing, whether insiders or outsiders, deserve immunity from government retribution,' the source, who has still not revealed a name or nationality, said in a statement issued Thursday night." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Kyle Whitmire of al.com: "For the second time in his career, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore faces charges before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary and potential removal from office. Until that court hears and rules on those charges, Moore will be suspended with pay from his position atop the state's highest court. On Friday, the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission forwarded charges to the commission, accusing the chief justice of violating judicial ethics in his opposition to same-sex marriage." -- CW

Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "The federal Children's Health Insurance Program, known in Arizona as KidsCare..., a health care program for children of the working poor that had been left out of the budget approved by the Arizona Legislature this week, was resuscitated on Friday, after Democrats and moderate Republicans agreed to attach it to a bill expanding disabled students' eligibility for school vouchers.... The senators did so under intense protests from conservative lawmakers.... The House of Representatives had already passed it 38 to 21 late Thursday.... Late Friday afternoon, Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, wrote on Twitter, 'Just signed KidsCare.' Now, Arizona will no longer be the only state in the country where children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid yet too little to afford private insurance do not qualify for subsidized health care." -- CW

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Radley Balko of the Washington Post on how South Carolina "investigates" police shootings. -- CW

Sara Ganim of CNN: "There are now two allegations by men who say they were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, who also say they reported their abuse to the legendary coach [Joe Paterno] in the 1970s. One of those allegations was made public in a court order related to a lawsuit Penn State University filed against its former insurer over who should have to pay settlements to the more than 30 men who have come forward as victims of Sandusky. The victim was not identified, and the details come from a deposition that is sealed. The other has spoken to CNN, in great detail...."

Peter Beinart of The Atlantic: "Kudos to Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse for reaffirming in a widely discussed 'open letter' that he won't support Donald Trump. I just wish the letter weren't so self-righteously dumb. Sasse, often mentioned as a potential third-party candidate, addresses his missive to the 'majority of America' that believes that 'both leading presidential candidates are dishonest.' He goes onto declare that neither Trump nor Hillary are 'honorable people' nor 'healthy leader[s],' whatever that means." --safari

Way Beyond

Robert Booth of the Guardian: "Sadiq Khan has been elected mayor of London, reclaiming the post for Labour after eight years of Conservative rule and becoming the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital." CW: Donald Trump has said he would not rule out nuking Europe. Maybe he'll start with London, which could put a bit of a crimp in our "special relationship" with Great Britain.

Helena Smith of the Guardian: "In a letter - leaked three days before eurozone finance ministers are scheduled to discuss how best to put the crisis-plagued country back on its feet -- IMF chief ChristineLagarde issued her most explicit warning yet: either foreign lenders agree to restructure Greece's runaway debt or the Washington-based organisation will pull out of rescue plans altogether." --safari note:Maybe they should call up the Donald. His brain is bigly.

The Commentariat -- May 6, 2016

Afternoon Update:

ConservoHillary. Amy Chozick of the New York Times: Hillary "Clinton's campaign is repositioning itself, after a year of staking out liberal positions and focusing largely on minority voters, to appeal to independent and Republican-leaning white voters turned off by Mr. Trump.... Mrs. Clinton has broadened her economic message, devoted days to apologizing for a comment she previously made that angered working-class whites, and has pledged that her husband ... would 'come out of retirement and be in charge' of creating jobs in places that have been particularly hard hit. The effort is a striking turn after she spent the past year trying to to mobilize the liberal wing and labor leaders in the Democratic Party." -- CW

The Narcissist at Work. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "During a joyful, victorious rally speech in West Virginia on Thursday night, Trump told his crowd of 13,000 that they no longer had to vote in Tuesday's Republican primary --even though there are still a number of contested local races on the ballot." -- CW

Scott Shane & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The anonymous source behind the huge leak of documents known as the Panama Papers has offered to aid law enforcement officials in prosecutions related to offshore money laundering and tax evasion, but only if he is assured that he will not be punished. 'Legitimate whistle-blowers who expose unquestionable wrongdoing, whether insiders or outsiders, deserve immunity from government retribution,' the source, who has still not revealed a name or nationality, said in a statement issued Thursday night." -- CW

*****

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "President Obama commuted the sentences of 58 inmates Thursday as part of his ongoing initiative to release federal prisoners who have received severe mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenses.... Obama [now] has granted clemency to a total 306 inmates, 110 of whom were serving life sentences. Obama has said he will continue granting commutations during his final months in office to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the Justice Department." -- CW

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration made final sweeping new rules that for the first time extend federal regulatory authority to e-cigarettes, popular nicotine delivery devices that have grown into a multibillion-dollar business with virtually no federal oversight or protections for American consumers. The 499-page regulatory road map has broad implications for public health, the tobacco industry and the nation's 40 million smokers. The new regulations would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to Americans under 18...." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Shane Harrisof The Daily Beast: "Two senior U.S. intelligence officials said recently that defense and intelligence employees have an 'unbelievable' amount of child pornography on their work computers and devices, and that child porn has been found on the systems of the National Security Agency, the country's biggest intelligence organization. But the NSA, which is responsible for keeping tabs on its own computers as well as military and intelligence agency networks, cannot say...how many times such cases have been referred to law enforcement for investigation and potential criminal prosecution." --safari

"Jesus Didn't Wear a Rolex." Garrison Keillor, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Every time Bob McDonnell talks about his corruption conviction in Virginia, he mentions how Jesus Christ is sticking with him all the way, which surely is true.... The Lord has always been there for thieves and malefactors, but this is mercy; it doesn't mean that Jesus approves of taking more than $150,000 in gifts from a man cozying up to a governor, as Mr. McDonnell seems to suggest.... His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endures to all generations. And wherever two Corinthians are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them." -- CW

Lori Aratani & Paul Duggan of the Washington Post: "The commutes of hundreds of thousands of Washington-area residents will be upended when Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld on Friday unveils his long-awaited plan for a massive overhaul of the struggling rail system." -- CW

Olga Oxman of the Guardian: "A group of more than 2,000 physicians is calling for the establishment of a universal government-run health system in the US, in a paper in the American Journal of Public Health. According to the proposal released Thursday, the Affordable Care Act did not go far enough in removing barriers to healthcare access. The physicians' bold plan calls for implementing a single-payer system similar to Canada's, called the National Health Program, that would guarantee all residents healthcare." CW: Hmmm. Sounds familiar.

Vann Newkirk of The Atlantic: "...Maybe some of the difficulty in talking about race today is attributable to the unhelpful euphemisms of 'racial conflict,' 'racial tension,' and other phrases that suggest an equal amount of instigation across racial groups, if not a perfectly balanced battle. But not all 'racial conflicts' or 'racially fraught' sentiments are the same. Equating them even via casual euphemism dilutes the potency of a truth that has undergirded every aspect of American society for as long as American society has existed." --safari

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Roberts of Vox: "... that whole superstructure of US politics built around two balanced sides, there will be a tidal pull to normalize this election.... So there will be a push to lift Donald Trump up and bring Hillary Clinton down, until they are at least something approximating two equivalent choices.... No institution needs a competitive election more than the media.... What's more, the campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan, which precludes adjudicating political disputes.... To date, the anti-Trump position has been safely inside the Washington consensus. That will change once the GOP apparatus inevitably swings around behind Trump and begins accusing journalists who write critical stories of bias." -- CW ... (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Paul Krugman writes what Roberts writes, & adds a bit about the racism that drove the Tea Party & is the prime force behind Trumpism. "I can almost guarantee that we'll see attempts to sanitize the positions and motives of Trump supporters, to downplay the racism that is at the heart of the movement and pretend that what voters really care about are the priorities of D.C. insiders.... That is, after all, what happened after the rise of the Tea Party." -- CW

Presidential Race

Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Here's one reason Bernie Sanders is reluctant to give up the fight: May is shaping up to be a pretty good month for him. On the heels of his Indiana victory Tuesday, Sanders is well-positioned for wins in the upcoming West Virginia and Oregon primaries.... For Hillary Clinton, the prospect of additional Sanders wins is more headache than threat." -- CW

Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday vowed to invest billions of dollars in coal-mining communities to create jobs, seizing on the issue as Hillary Clinton faces a backlash for promising to put coal companies out of business. The Vermont senator brought up the future of coal miners while campaigning across West Virginia, which holds its primary on Tuesday, and spoke about poverty at a food bank in Kimball." -- CW

The Los Angeles Times editors interviewed Hillary Clinton. Here's the transcript. -- CW

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors and FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server have so far found scant evidence that the leading Democratic presidential candidate intended to break classification rules, though they are still probing the case aggressively with an eye on interviewing Clinton herself, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter." -- CW ...

... Del Wilber of the Los Angeles Times: "Huma Abedin, a close aide to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, was questioned last month by FBI agents investigating whether classified material was mishandled on the private email server used by the former secretary of State and her aides, according to a person familiar with the investigation." -- CW

** How to Tank the Economy in One Idiotic Remark. Benyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "One day after assuring Americans he is not running for president 'to make things unstable for the country'..., Donald J. Trump said in a television interview Thursday that he might seek to reduce the national debt by persuading creditors to accept something less than full payment. Asked whether the United States needed to pay its debts in full, or whether he could negotiate a partial repayment, Mr. Trump told the cable network CNBC, 'I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.'... Such remarks by a major presidential candidate have no modern precedent. The United States government is able to borrow money at very low interest rates because Treasury securities are regarded as a safe investment, and any cracks in investor confidence have a long history of costing American taxpayers a lot of money." -- CW ..

... Unbelievably, this is from the same interview. Eric Levitz of New York: "Appearing on CNBC's Squawk Box, Trump reiterated his commitment to a massive increase in infrastructure spending. 'Maybe my greatest strength is the economy, jobs, and building,' Trump said. 'We do have to rebuild our infrastructure.'" CW: There will be no infrastructure spending if nobody will buy U.S. Treasury notes, you bonehead.

Benjy Sarlin of MSNBC: "Two days into his general election campaign, Donald Trump has already signaled he may abandon his positions on two major policy issues: a minimum wage increase and tax cuts for the rich.... Trump's willingness to blithely abandon past positions has made conservative activists deeply skeptical, but it also presents a general election challenge for Democrats: How do you hold a candidate accountable for his positions after he has looked Americans in the eyes during a debate and, with a straight face, denied he ever held contrary views?" ...

     ... CW: I'll tell you how: you just point out that the poor old codger suffers from dementia. Of course he can't remember what he said last month, & of course he imagines he saw things that never happened (like imagining New Jersey Muslims cheering the 9/11 terrorist attack). As you know, I'm serious about this. ...

... Russell Burman of The Atlantic: "Trump's slipperiness on policy details has been a theme of his candidacy and, quite possibly, a core part of his appeal to voters. He's a dealmaker, and as he has said repeatedly when pressed about his positions, 'Everything is negotiable.'...Yet Trump's ability to be a political chameleon has significant implications for how Democrats go after him in the fall. 'This is what makes @realdonaldtrump an elusive target,' David Axelrod, President Obama's former top strategist, tweeted on Thursday. 'He believes in himself. Everything else is fungible.' --safari

Olivia Nuzzi of The Daily Beast: "For someone so inclined to overshare -- about his penis size, his sexual prowess, his wife's bathroom habits, her lack of cellulite -- Donald Trump is an intensely private person. He's so private that the privacy terms he forces those in his orbit to agree to verge on unconstitutional, and his opaque plans to enforce privacy measures of undisclosed range as President of the United States have potentially grave implications for the Republic." --safari

Tim Egan on the "new" Donald Trump. -- CW

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: ""The Candidate": "What do we do now?" -- CW

Trump and the mob. Tom Robbins in The Marshall Project (April 27th): "...One helpful lens for determining Trump's views on crime and law enforcement is via his past encounters with those alleged to be on the wrong side of the law. That's his history with the mob. And for all of his tough law and order rhetoric, the record shows the GOP frontrunner has been remarkably tolerant. In the course of his forty years of business deals, Trump has encountered a steady stream of mob-tainted offers that he apparently couldn't refuse." --safari...

...If you prefer video, here is Tom Robbins explaining Trump's mob connections via Democracy Now! (The interview starts around 4:45)

Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has named an ex-Goldman Sachs partner, Hollywood financier and former Hillary Clinton supporter as his national finance chairman. Steven Mnuchin brings with him an impressive list of contacts in Hollywood and Wall Street. The founder of film finance company Dune Capital, he backed action movies including the X-Men franchise and James Cameron's box office record-breaker, Avatar." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Click on photo to see larger image.Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "On his social media accounts, including Twitter, Mr. Trump shared on Thursday afternoon a photo of himself eating what he called a taco bowl and offering a thumbs up at his desk in Trump Tower, along with the message: 'Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!'... The Tower Grill does not, in fact, offer taco bowls, but the Trump Café has them on Thursday's Cinco de Mayo menu as a 'Taco fiesta!'" -- CW ...

... Chris Plante of the Verge illuminates "everything terrible about Donald Trump's taco bowl tweet." Here's one thing Plante learned on the Intertubes from a guy named Benny: "Donald Trump is eating a taco salad on top of a bikini-clad photo of his ex-wife, Marla Maples." (See circled area of photo.) CW: I'm pretty sure "taco bowls" (which I'll admit I never heard of) are more a Tex-Mex thing than a traditional "Hispanic" favorite.

Robert Costa of the Washington Post interviewed Donald Trump, who, you know, "said a lot of things." Like, Cruz & Kasich "did a great thing for the party because we can now start on all the things that we have to start on." -- CW

Greg Miller of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump will soon be getting briefings from U.S. spy agencies. It might not go well.... 'It beggars the imagination,' said former CIA director Michael V. Hayden, who was among those who briefed President Obama after the 2008 election. 'Given that [Trump's] public persona seems to reflect a lack of understanding or care about global issues, how do you arrange these presentations to learn what are the true depths of his understanding?'... The decision on how much to share and when are traditionally made by the sitting president." -- CW

Paul Ryan Not Yet Ready to Back Trump. Eric Bradner of CNN: "House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday he cannot yet support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump's presidential campaign. 'I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now,' Ryan's position makes him the highest-level GOP official to reject Trump...Ryan's comments were striking because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday night that he'd back Trump." ... (Also linked yesterday.)

... Akhilleus: There must be some kind of logical fallacy term for the situation in which one self-promoting fraud opts out of supporting another self-promoting fraud. Not to mention a situation in which a different self-promoting fraud DOES decide to support self-promoting fraud number one. Republicans are so confusing!. ...

... Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump said on Friday that he was 'surprised' by the rebuke from Representative Paul D. Ryan..., on Thursday, and added that the party needed to come together.... He confirmed that there were efforts to broker a meeting between the two men next Wednesday in Washington, although he cautioned that there are 'a lot of days' from now till then." CW: It is somewhat surprising that Short Fingers didn't know how many days there are between now & Wednesday, because you can count five days on one hand, no matter how stumpy the fingers. Trump should consider "a lot of days" to be six or more. ...

... Dana Bash of CNN: "Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told CNN Thursday he will support Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee and will do everything he can do to help him get elected.... When Perry was a candidate for president earlier in the 2016 cycle, he was the first to come out and criticize Trump and question his conservative credentials, calling his candidacy a 'cancer on conservatism.'" --safari

... BUT. David Sanger & Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "Alarmed by Donald J. Trump's grip on the Republican presidential nomination, world leaders are wrestling with the possibility that, even if he loses the general election, his ascent reflects a strain of American public opinion that could profoundly reshape the way the United States addresses security alliances and trade. From Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul to the headquarters of NATO in Brussels and the vulnerable Baltic nations along Russia's western border, officials and analysts said in interviews that they saw the success of Mr. Trump's 'America first' platform as a harbinger of pressure for allies to pay up or make trade concessions in return for military protection." -- CW

Dahlia Lithwick remembers Ted Cruz from their days on the college debate circuit & from his turn as Texas solicitor general. Entertaining. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Alan Blinder & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The Republican leaders of North Carolina's General Assembly defiantly announced Thursday that they would not meet a Monday deadline to suspend or repeal a state law limiting bathroom access for transgender people, setting up a potential legal showdown over what has become one of the nation's most explosive cultural issues. 'We will take no action by Monday,' said Tim Moore, the speaker of the State House of Representatives, referring to the deadline the Justice Department gave the state to tell federal officials whether the law would stand." -- CW

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could lead to nearly 400 death-row prisoners receiving life sentences, a move experts say could be the country's single biggest jettisoning of death sentences in decades.... The uncertain situation dates back to January, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's unique system of imposing death sentences as unconstitutional because it let judges, rather than juries, make the final call. Florida promptly revamped its death penalty, which Gov. Rick Scott (R) said at the time would 'allow families of these horrific crimes to get the closure they deserve.' Left unanswered, though, was whether this Supreme Court ruling was retroactive...." -- CW

Charles Thompson of Pennlive: "A new bombshell dropped in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal Thursday. It came in the form of a single line in a court order on a related insurance coverage case involving Penn State.... The line in question states that one of Penn State's insurers has claimed "in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU's Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky." --safari

Way Beyond

Tim Arango & Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "In pursuit of more power, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has purged the judiciary of enemies, jailed journalists and crushed anti-government protests. Now, he has ousted his closest political ally, the country's prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, whose modest effort to check Mr. Erdogan’s ambition was too much for the president. Mr. Davutoglu, publicly loyal to Mr. Erdogan even as he pushed back privately on some of his excesses, said Thursday that he would step aside as the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., and give up his position as prime minister." -- CW ... (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

... Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "Erdoğan is well on his way to becoming a dictator, if he isn't one already.... [President] Obama and Erdoğan are supposed to meet today in Washington. Let's hope President Obama skips the diplomatic language and goes straight to the point: that any leader who jails journalists -- and arms Al Qaeda and bombs the Kurds and jails his opponents -- is no friend of the United States." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Police said three people have been shot at Westfield Montgomery Mall at 7101 Democracy Blvd. in Bethesda on Friday morning and that a suspect is at large. Soon after, a woman was fatally shot at a grocery store several miles away, and authorities are investigating whether the incidents are linked." -- CW ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "A frantic 22 hours of mayhem at a school, a mall and a grocery store jolted two counties as it left three dead and three wounded before a suspect was captured Friday afternoon in a Maryland parking lot near the scene of the final killing. The arrest of Eulalio 'Leo' Tordil, a 62-year-old federal law enforcement officer, followed a manhunt that forced Montgomery County schools, government buildings and retail establishments to lock down." -- CW

New York Times: "After months of gravity-defying gains, the American jobs machine cooled slightly in April, as employers took their cue from other signs that economic growth was slowing by easing up on new hiring. The 160,000 increase in payrolls in April reported by the Labor Department on Friday comes after the best two-year stretch for the job market since the tech-fueled boom of the late 1990s. The unemployment rate stayed at 5 percent." -- CW

The Commentariat -- May 5, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration made final sweeping new rules that for the first time extend federal regulatory authority to e-cigarettes, popular nicotine delivery devices that have grown into a multibillion-dollar business with virtually no federal oversight or protections for American consumers. The 499-page regulatory road map has broad implications for public health, the tobacco industry and the nation's 40 million smokers. The new regulations would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to Americans under 18...." -- CW

Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has named an ex-Goldman Sachs partner, Hollywood financier and former Hillary Clinton supporter as his national finance chairman. Steven Mnuchin brings with him an impressive list of contacts in Hollywood and Wall Street. The founder of film finance company Dune Capital, he backed action movies including the X-Men franchise and James Cameron's box office record-breaker, Avatar." -- CW

David Roberts of Vox: "... that whole superstructure of US politics built around two balanced sides, there will be a tidal pull to normalize this election.... So there will be a push to lift Donald Trump up and bring Hillary Clinton down, until they are at least something approximating two equivalent choices.... No institution needs a competitive election more than the media.... What's more, the campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan, which precludes adjudicating political disputes.... To date, the anti-Trump position has been safely inside the Washington consensus. That will change once the GOP apparatus inevitably swings around behind Trump and begins accusing journalists who write critical stories of bias." -- CW ...

... Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "Erdoğan is well on his way to becoming a dictator, if he isn't one already.... [President] Obama and Erdoğan are supposed to meet today in Washington. Let's hope President Obama skips the diplomatic language and goes straight to the point: that any leader who jails journalists -- and arms Al Qaeda and bombs the Kurds and jails his opponents -- is no friend of the United States." -- CW

Paul Ryan Not Yet Ready to Back Trump. Eric Bradner of CNN: "House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday he cannot yet support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump's presidential campaign. 'I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now,' Ryan's position makes him the highest-level GOP official to reject Trump.... Ryan's comments were striking because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday night that he'd back Trump."

... Akhilleus: There must be some kind of logical fallacy term for the situation in which one self-promoting fraud opts out of supporting another self-promoting fraud. Not to mention a situation in which a different self-promoting fraud DOES decide to support self-promoting fraud number one. Republicans are so confusing!

*****

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama arrived [in Flint, Michigan,] Wednesday to check in on a disadvantaged city that has been denied a most elemental government service -- safe drinking water -- but his visit turned into an outpouring of emotion from a community aggrieved by years of neglect from its elected officials." -- CW ...

... Timothy Cama of The Hill: President Obama took a drink of filtered tap water from Flint, Mich., Wednesday while visiting the city to address its lead contamination. Obama drank the water in a show of solidarity with the city of 100,000 and to demonstrate his faith in the treatment and filtering. The sip came after he met for about 90 minutes with local, state and federal officials about the water crisis, according to a pool report from the meeting. 'Filtered water is safe and it works,' he said at the event... 'Generally I haven't been doing stunts, but here you go,' before taking a sip." -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... President Obama's full speech is here.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "The nation's consumer watchdog is unveiling a proposed rule on Thursday that would restore customers' rights to bring class-action lawsuits against financial firms, giving Americans major new protections and delivering a serious blow to Wall Street that could cost the industry billions of dollars. The proposed rule, which would apply to bank accounts, credit cards and other types of consumer loans, seems almost certain to take effect, since it does not require congressional approval." -- CW

Wingers for Garland. Leigh Ann Caldwell of NBC News: "Hours after Donald Trump became the likely GOP nominee, the conservative website RedState urged the Senate to confirm President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Site managing editor Leon Wolf argued that Trump can't beat likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton -- and warned that she would chose somebody more liberal than Garland. 'Republicans must know that there is absolutely no chance that we will win the White House in 2016 now. They must also know that we are likely to lose the Senate as well. So the choices, essentially, are to confirm Garland and have another bite at the apple in a decade, or watch as President Clinton nominates someone who is radically more leftist and 10-15 years younger, and we are in no position to stop it.'" -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... BUT. Lauren Fox of TPM: "Mitch McConnell is going to keep blocking President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland even if that means Donald Trump ultimately gets to fill the court vacancy. In a statement to reporters Wednesday morning, McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said ... McConnell still plans to wait to 2017 to allow the Senate to vote on a Supreme Court nominee." -- CW ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "... Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday night that he will back Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee, declaring he can stop 'a third term of Barack Obama.'" -- CW

North Carolina Discrimination Bill Deemed Illegal: Jim Morrill of the Charlotte Observer: "U.S. Justice Department officials rebuked North Carolina's House Bill 2 on Wednesday, telling Gov. Pat McCrory that the law violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act and [suggested] that it could jeopardize the state's federal education funding. The department gave state officials until Monday to address the situation 'by confirming that the State will not comply with or implement HB2'.... North Carolina could lose millions in federal school funding. During the current school year, state public schools received $861 million in federal funding." --Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "A group of Illinois students and parents sued the Obama administration Wednesday over its stance on transgender students' access to school bathrooms and locker rooms, arguing that the U.S. Education Department is illegally forcing local authorities to let children use facilities that correspond to their gender identity." -- CW

Tiny Trigger Fingers. Jack Healy, et al., of the New York Times: "With shootings by preschoolers happening at a pace of about two per week, some of the victims were the youngsters' parents or siblings, but in many cases the children ended up taking their own lives.... In 2015, there were at least 278 unintentional shootings at the hands of young children and teenagers, according to Everytown's database." -- CW

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Chuck Todd, Chapter 25 (or so).

And already we see the normalization of Trump. In a couple of months when Trump is on with Upchuck Todd and starts spouting off about all the people Hillary has had killed, Todd will nod politely and ask Drumpf if he is still planning on nuking Syria his first day in office, all without blinking, acting as if this isn't the most surreal moment in television history. -- Akhilleus, in yesterday's Comments

Oops! Chuck beat Akhilleus to it:

Are we really going to be here for six straight months, six straight months of the two most unpopular people running for president, probably going down a low road, led by Trump -- Clinton probably feeling, doing the same thing, and it's sort of this race to the bottom? -- Chuck Todd, commentary on MSNBC's coverage of the Indiana primary results ...

... no: Hillary Clinton does not travel the same highway system as Donald Trump.... Trump travels a low road of his own plowing.... Here Todd was, drawing a low-road comparison between Trump and Clinton on the very day that the former ... cited a risible National Enquirer story linking Rafael Cruz, the father of his rival, to the JFK assassination. -- Erik Wemple, writer for the World Champion Both-Sides-Do-It Bezos-WashPo Consortium, but who still can't stomach Upchuck

** Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "Every election cycle brings questionable news coverage. (Remember the potential president Herman Cain?) But this season has been truly spectacular in its failings. It has been 'Dewey Beats Truman' on a relentless, rolling basis. The mistakes piled up -- the bad predictions, the overplaying of every slight development of the horse race to the point of whiplash, the lighthearted treatment of what turned out to be the most serious candidacy in the Republican field." -- CW

** Steve M.: "I still think Clinton will win -- but the press will keep the race close." Steve explains why & how.

CW: Watch for the media tricks Steve outlines. Remember, they want the race to be close. Nail-biters = Clicks. President Obama beat Mitt Romney 281-191 in the Electoral College vote, but on election night, even Mitt & Ann Romney, not to mention, "experts" like Karl Rove, thought Romney had won. Why? Because they believed the media's narrative (including, maybe, Peggy Noonan's scientific rich people's yard-signs poll).

Katherine Krueger of TPM: "A live microphone Tuesday night picked up MSNBC's Chris Matthews raving about Melania Trump's appearance after her husband, presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, won in Indiana. 'Did you see her walk? Runway walk. My God is that good,' Matthews said, according to Variety. 'I could watch that runway show.'... It's far from the first time Matthews has made sexist remarks on the air. In 2011, he said rising Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin 'could not be hotter as a candidate,' called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 'witchy' and said she only had a political career because 'her husband messed around.'" CW: Luckily, Donald Trump won't be the least bit offended by Matthews' remarks.

Presidential Race

Wilson Andrews, et al., of the New York Times: "If today's general election polling holds true, Hillary Clinton will easily defeat Donald Trump":

Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "Like Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, and Christine O'Donnell, Trump is tailor-made for a distrustful and angry plurality of the Republican Party.... Like his predecessors on the fringe, Trump is anathema to ordinary voters.... Donald Trump begins the general election with a huge deficit in head-to-head polls, deep unpopularity, and major demographic headwinds. Unless he wins unprecedented shares of black and Latino voters, or, barring any improvement with nonwhite voters, unless he wins unprecedented shares of white voters, he loses." -- CW ...

... BUT. Danielle Allen in a Washington Post op-ed: "Donald Trump has set a big, fat trap for Hillary Clinton, and so far she has stepped right into it. He turned his attacks against women against her. She is, he argued, playing the 'woman card.' And Clinton anted up, offering her supporters the chance to buy a 'woman card.'... If Clinton routinely responds to those attacks, Trump will turn her into the 'women's candidate,' and she will lose. She is already perilously close to being that candidate.... Polling shows that Trump has a problem with women, but CW

Lisa Lerer & Catherine Lucey of the AP: "With Donald Trump's remaining rivals bowing out of the race, clearing his path to the nomination, Hillary Clinton is looking for ways to woo Republicans turned off by the brash billionaire.... 'Let's get on the American team,' Clinton said, making an explicit appeal to independents and Republicans, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday." -- CW ...

Julian Hattem of the Hill: "A federal judge on Wednesday opened the door to interviewing ... Hillary Clinton -- as part of a review into her use of a private email server as secretary of State. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia laid out the ground rules for interviewing multiple State Department officials about the emails, with an eye toward finishing the depositions in the weeks before the party nominating conventions. Clinton herself may be forced to answer questions under oath, Sullivan said, though she is not yet being forced to take that step." -- CW ...

... Cynthia McFadden, et al., of NBC News: "The Romanian hacker who first exposed Hillary Clinton's private email address is making a bombshell new claim -- that he also gained access to the former Secretary of State's 'completely unsecured' server. 'It was like an open orchid on the Internet,' Marcel Lehel Lazar, who uses the devilish handle Guccifer, told NBC News in an exclusive interview from a prison in Bucharest. 'There were hundreds of folders.'... When pressed by NBC News, Lazar, 44, could provide no documentation to back up his claims, nor did he ever release anything on-line supporting his allegations, as he had frequently done with past hacks. The FBI's review of the Clinton server logs showed no sign of hacking...." -- CW

Hillary Clinton, 1994. "Shoulda coulda woulda" press conference on Whitewater.... Hillary Clinton has never been truly vetted before. Particularly by the media. -- Katrina Pierson, Trump spokesperson

Yeah, except for maybe the college-era palling around with Saul-Alinksy thing, Whitewater, cattle futures, Rose law firm billing records, Vince Foster "murder," Travelgate, healthcare fiasco, fake Bosnian sniper attack, Benghaaazi!, corrupt Clinton Foundation donor-buddies, E-mailgate, Wall Street speeches. Other than that, mostly puff pieces. -- Constant Weader

Seth Masket in Vox: "The recent withdrawal of Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the Republican presidential nomination race makes Donald Trump the party's assured nominee for 2016. This represents the most colossal failure of an American political party in modern history.... Democrats are likely to rally to Clinton's side over the next few months, while Trump's ability to rally those Republicans not already in his corner is far from certain.... The Republican Party today is little more than an organization lying in service to Donald Trump, a candidate who owes it nothing." -- CW

Jordan Rudner of the Texas Tribune, in the Washington Post: "For the first time since his own presidency, George H.W. Bush is planning to stay silent in the race for the Oval Office -- and the younger former president Bush plans to stay silent as well. Bush 41, who enthusiastically endorsed every Republican nominee for the last five election cycles, will stay out of the campaign process this time. He does not have plans to endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, spokesman Jim McGrath told The Texas Tribune." -- CW

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Gov. John Kasich of Ohio ... ended his long-shot quest for the presidency on Wednesday, cementing Donald J. Trump's grip on the presidential nomination." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon. Story has been updated.)

Patrick Healy of the New York Times: In a series of interviews, Donald Trump "has sketched out" his plans for the first 100 days of his presidency. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Maggie Haberman & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he expected to reveal his vice presidential pick sometime in July -- before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland -- but added that he would soon announce a committee to handle the selection process, which would include Dr. Ben Carson." -- CW

     ... Paul Waldman: "With Ben Carson vetting the prospective choices, what could go wrong?"

Steve M. is pretty upset & way surprised to learn Trump won't self-fund his general election campaign but instead will establish a 'world-class finance organization.' "This really is the day America lost its innocence." -- CW

Gail Collins takes a look at the new, presidential Donald Trump. CW: I maintain my view that the Trumpster is suffering from dementia. And I'm not kidding. What presidential-acting presidential candidate, on the day he clinches the presidential nomination, says, "We're going to win bigly, believe me"? -- One who can't remember actual adverbs connoting "large," that's who. One whose mind is going, going, but not quite gone. One's whose vocabulary has receded to the level of a two- or three-year-old who is experimenting with the intricate inconsistencies of the English language & whose sweet, logical little mind tells him that "bigly" should work.

Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: "Wednesday morning, Trump was on MSNBC's Morning Joe and the show's hosts asked him how he planned to frame his various controversial positions, including ... [his remark that women should be "punished" if they had abortions, if abortions were made illegal], now that he's the presumptive Republican nominee. His response ... is one of the most garbled sacks of nonsense verbiage that has been emitted in the history of human civilization." Includes video. Here's Trump's word-salad "answer" -- CW :

No, he was asking me a theoretical, or just a question in theory, and I talked about it only from that standpoint. Of course not. And that was done, he said, you know, I guess it was theoretically, but he was asking a rhetorical question, and I gave an answer. And by the way, people thought from an academic standpoint, and, asked rhetorically, people said that answer was an unbelievable academic answer! But of course not, and I said that afterwards.

... CW: So Palin for veep, definitely. ...

... OR the Tailgunner. No Hard Feelings. Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would consider making Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) his running mate." CW: It was only two days ago that Ted called Donald "'utterly amoral,' 'a serial philanderer,' 'a pathological liar' and even ridden with venereal disease." Now Donald says he "respects" Ted.

... Speaking of Scarborough, he is one tough, principled Republican. Nick Gass of Politico: "If Donald Trump maintains his hard-line stance on immigration and his call to bar Muslims from entering the United States in the general election against Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Republican nominee is in for a bruising defeat, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Thursday, remarking that he would not vote for him in November if he does not start turning away from his more extreme views." -- CW

... At least Dana Milbank has principles:

Senate Races

Eric Levitz of New York Magazine, adumbrates Confederates' Garland Conundrum: "...down-ballot Republicans face a pair of bad options: embrace Trump and pray that high turnout among Hillary-hating conservatives compensates for the backlash that six months of Trump's misogynistic ravings are bound to produce, or run away from him and pray that moderates turn out to vote for divided government. Thanks to Merrick Garland, Senate Republicans will have little time to choose." -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

How to destroy the GOP in 3 steps. Thomas Geoghehan in The Nation: "It has become clear that the only way to deal with the most serious economic issues facing our country -- inequality, underemployment, wage stagnation -- is not just to elect a Democrat as president in the November elections but to completely destroy the Republican Party." --safari

Rebecca Rosen of The Atlantic: "As people move up the income ladder, they escape material shortages and consume more. They have 'things' -- goods, houses, and, most importantly, education -- to show for their higher earnings, but they do not have healthy finances....The failure to put a proper name on this dynamic is a part of a broader failure to understand it -- and to see it as a problem at all...In the absence of a good understanding of what is going on, people frequently disparage those who are suffering." --safari note: This article is in part a continuation of Neal Gabler's article linked here a while back.

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "A South Carolina tow truck driver [and Donald Trump backer] said God told him to leave a disabled Bernie Sanders supporter stranded along the interstate." -- CW

Way Beyond

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "A new cease-fire arranged by the United States and Russia went into effect early Wednesday in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo, the State Department announced. While there were 'reports of continued fighting in some areas,' it said, there had been an 'overall decrease in violence.'" -- CW

Heather Stewart of the Guardian: "Speaking at a joint press conference at 10 Downing Street alongside his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, [British Prime Minister David] Cameron said, having come through the tough primary process, Trump 'deserves our respect'...However, he added: 'What I said about Muslims, I wouldn't change that view. I’m very clear that the policy idea that was put forward was wrong, it is wrong, and it will remain wrong.'...Abe visibly smirked -- before rearranging his face into a serious expression -- when the idea of Trump gracing the table at next year's G7 summit was mentioned." --safari

Constanze Letsch of the Guardian: "The Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has announced his resignation after 20 months in office, consolidating Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's position as Turkey's unrivalled political leader and highlighting concerns about the country turning increasingly authoritarian. The resignation...paves the way for President Erdoğan to appoint an even more loyalist party member Davutoğlu's successor, a move dubbed a 'palace coup' by critics and opposition politicians."--safari

London's First Muslim Mayor? Matt Ford in The Atlantic: "Britain is holding local elections this week on what some have dubbed 'Super Thursday,' but only one contest is worthy of the moniker: the race to succeed Boris Johnson as London's mayor...Labour's Sadiq Khan, a 45-year-old son of working-class Pakistani immigrants who fled the chaos of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in the 1940s, is poised to claim victory Thursday.... It would also usher in the first Muslim mayor of the European Union's largest city." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

...Akhilleus: One can only imagine the visit by a President Trump to London. He'd have to ask if there were any non-terrorist officials he could visit the strip clubs with.

News Ledes

AP: "A massive wildfire raging in the Canadian province of Alberta has grown to 85,000 hectares (210,035 acres) in size and officials would like to move south about 25,000 evacuees who had previously fled north. More than 80,000 people have emptied Fort McMurray in the heart of Canada's oil sands." -- CW

Guardian: "The local police investigation into the death of Prince is being beefed up with staff from the US attorney's office and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as a California doctor who specializes in prescription drug addiction revealed the singer's representatives reached out for urgent help the day before he died.." -- CW