The Commentariat -- May 4, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Gov. John Kasich f Ohio ... is ending his long-shot quest for the presidency on Wednesday, cementing Donald J. Trump's grip on the presidential nomination. Mr. Kasich was planning to announce his decision at a 5 p.m. news conference in Columbus, Ohio, according to three people briefed on Mr. Kasich's decision." -- CW

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.

Meanwhile, back in the real world... 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

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"

...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.

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

Eric Levitz of New York, 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

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

******

Presidential Race

Nate Cohn of the New York Times: "A general election matchup between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton became all but certain on Tuesday after Mr. Trump's decisive victory in Indiana. He would begin that matchup at a significant disadvantage. Yes, it's still a long way until Election Day.... But this is when early horse-race polls start to give a rough sense of the November election, and Mr. Trump trails Mrs. Clinton by around 10 percentage points in early general election surveys, both nationally and in key battleground states. He even trails in some polls of several states where Mitt Romney won in 2012, like North Carolina, Arizona, Missouri and Utah." -- CW

Dan Roberts & Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders threw a last-minute hurdle in front of Hillary Clinton's march toward the Democratic party nomination on Tuesday by clinching a surprise victory in the Indiana primary. Despite trailing by an average of seven points in opinion polls and losing a string of bigger, more diverse states on the east coast, Sanders once again proved his appeal to disaffected midwest voters by pulling off his 18th victory of 2016, according to Associated Press projections.... He is well placed to pull off similar wins in West Virginia on 10 May and Oregon on 17 May, before a final showdown next month in California, whose 546 delegates present the biggest prize of the contest." -- CW ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Sanders has been making a dubious argument for why he should stay in the race: that the Clinton-pledged superdelegates in states he's won should flip to him.... In truth, Sanders has a better argument for the staying in the race, one that was made by Clinton and her followers in 2008: When you have a mass movement, you owe it to your supporters to fight as long as possible to fight, in the words of Bill Clinton, 'until the last dog dies.'... He owes it to his supporters in California and other late states to give them a chance to vote." -- CW

With 33 percent of the Democratic primary vote counted in Indiana, Bernie Sanders leads with 51.6 percent to Hillary Clinton's 48.4 percent. With 64 percent counted, Sanders is leading Clinton 53.2-46.8. The race is too close to call. NBC News declared Sanders the winner at about 9:13 pm ET. With 73 percent reporting, the AP called the race for Sanders. Polls this past week had put Clinton out in front, one or two by quite a hefty margin.

With a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign. -- Ted Cruz

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is ending his presidential campaign, according to his campaign manager, bowing to the reality that his crushing loss in Indiana all but assured the nomination of Donald J. Trump." -- CW: It was all about the "basketball ring." Now Cruz can go back to his day-job, which requires shutting down the federal government, putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work & costing the economy billions. ...

... Claire Landsbaum of New York: "... the last memorable moment of his campaign will forever be that time he accidentally elbowed his wife in the face not once -- but twice":

     ... CW: Totally unfair to Heidi. Ted should have shoved Carly Fiorina off the podium.

... Dave Weigel, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump became the Republican party's presumptive presidential nominee on Tuesday night, after Trump's closest rival -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) -- withdrew from the race, following a crushing victory by Trump in the Indiana primary. The GOP's chairman, Reince Priebus, called Trump the 'presumtive [sic] GOP nominee' in a Twitter message about 9 p.m., and added a plea that 'we all need to unite and focus on defeating' Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton." CW ...

... Jonathan Martin & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump won Indiana's Republican primary on Tuesday, moving him closer to claiming the party's presidential nomination and delivering a devastating blow to Senator Ted Cruz and other Republicans hoping to stop him." -- CW ...

Gregor Aisch, et al., of the New York Times: "If Donald J. Trump maintains his current level of support in the remaining races, he will win a delegate majority before the convention." -- CW ...

... Olivia Nuzzi of The Daily Beast: "On the night he got everything he said he wanted, Donald Trump looked miserable...No longer the insurgent outsider, he's now faced with a choice. He can continue to be himself, peddling conspiracy theories and insulting every foe with the sophistication of a preteen mean girl. Or he can start acting like a statesman and risk losing the people who love him the way he is." --safari ...

... Jonathan Chait: "It is fitting that Donald Trump has essentially locked up the Republican presidential nomination on the same day he made yet another bizarre and senseless (that is, lacking any discernible purpose) comment by accusing Ted Cruz's father of having conspired to kill President Kennedy.... [Trump] is, as his rivals have described him, a charlatan, a con artist, a congenital liar, a man self-evidently unfit for office at any level, and especially the presidency.... Virtually the entire Republican apparatus will follow Trump sooner or later, because without the voters, they have no power. And those voters have revealed things about the nature of the party that many Republicans prefer to deny." -- CW ...

... Steve M.: In the general election, "We know that Trump will spread the most absurd gossip [about Hillary & Bill Clinton] on the campaign trail because he's spreading this story about Ted Cruz's father [& Lee Harvey Oswald] now." -- CW ...

... The Crazy Uncle Who Would Be President. Benjy Sarlin of MSNBC: "... whether by choice or by nature, [Trump] appears fundamentally unable to distinguish between credible sources and chain e-mails.... Many of the most egregious examples of Trump's false claims have a strong racial and ethnic component. Tuesday's JFK story was a perfect example: A smear whose effect was to make Ted Cruz and his Cuban-born father appear strange, foreign, and untrustworthy.... Underlying Trump's position [on immigration] ... is a fact-free conspiracy theory that charges the Mexican government with deliberately sending 'rapists' and other criminals to the United States."

     ... CW: If we assume that Trump actually believes these conspiracy theories, then it's also safe to assume that these beliefs are a sign of creeping senile dementia. I am not kidding about this. I think it entirely possible that Trump is less "pathological liar," as Cruz claims, & more a pathetic lunatic.

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "The general election, [Donald Trump] suggested in an interview, will not find him dialing back his scorched-earth approach to winning. 'Her past is really the thing, rather than what she plans to do in the future,' Trump said. 'Her past has a lot of problems, to put it bluntly.'" -- CW

Molly Ball of The Atlantic: "Where were you the night Donald Trump killed the Republican Party as we knew it?...But the party was broken before Trump came along, and Cruz helped to break it." --safari

John Avalon in The Daily Beast: "The Republican Party woke up in Trump Tower after Election Day, lying in a marble bathtub full of ice. Its back hurt and a kidney was missing. Hitting rock bottom hadn't come overnight. The troubles had been brewing for years, well before it sealed the deal with Donald Trump one night in Indiana." --safari

Daily Beast: "After Donald Trump’s Indiana victory and Ted Cruz’s subsequent campaign dropout, Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted a series of tweets criticizing the presumptive nominee. 'There's more enthusiasm for [Trump] among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political part he now controls,' she wrote, adding that the controversial real-estate mogul 'built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia.'" --safari

Eric Levitz of New York: "The most revealing debate of the 2016 primary was held on the side of a road in Marion, Indiana, on Monday. In a widely circulated video, Ted Cruz asks a Trump supporter wearing dark sunglasses and a contemptuous grin to kindly explain what he finds so appealing about the Donald. 'Everything,' the man replies.... With patience and courtesy, the Texas senator tries to engage his interlocutor in a fact-based discussion of Trump's merits as a candidate, only to be rebuffed and then humiliated by the ecstatic epistemological closure of the Trumpen proletariat....Cruz didn't lose the Republican primary because of his commitment to principle and reason; he lost because he is the second-most-talented liar his party has to offer." -- CW

With 29 percent of the voted counted, the AP has called the Indiana primary race for Donald Trump, who leads with 53.5 percent of the voted, followed by Ted Cruz with 35.7 percent & John Kasich with 8.1 percent.

The New York Times has Indiana results here.

The New York Times' Indiana primary liveblog is here.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Isaac Chotiner of Slate: "On Tuesday night, one of our two major political parties was captured -- or rather consumed -- by a bigoted quasi-fascist and fraud, a dangerously unstable demagogue.... The Republican Party is now a white nationalist party, or at least a party with a white nationalist as its figurehead.... And yet ... our larger cultural response -- at least as seen through our television media -- will seem incomprehensible. On TV Tuesday night, there was hardly a whimper.... Large chunks of the media have spent so long domesticating Trump that his victory no longer appeared momentous. He is the new normal.... It was as if CNN had decided to cover 9/11 as a story about real estate in Lower Manhattan...." -- CW

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton ... fired back at one high-profile [protester] who had stood outside her West Virginia event on Monday. 'I heard Mr. Blankenship was outside my event yesterday protesting me,' Mrs. Clinton said on Tuesday, referring to Donald L. Blankenship, the former chairman and chief executive of the Massey Energy Company. Mr. Blankenship, one of the wealthiest men in Appalachia, was sentenced in April to a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards after an explosion killed 29 men in 2010.... 'If Donald Trump wants the support of someone like that, he can have it,' Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, said at a rally here on Tuesday, pointing to legislation she supported that would put into effect additional workplace safety measures and attempt to hold executives accountable." -- CW

It Depends on the Meaning of "Working Class." Nate Silver: "It's been extremely common for news accounts to portray Donald Trump's candidacy as a 'working-class' rebellion against Republican elites. There are elements of truth in this perspective.... [But] As compared with most Americans, Trump's voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data.... It's well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It's also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both." CW: So Trump supporters are actually just selfish, aggrieved bigots, or as Paul Waldman labels them, jerks. ...

... Paul Waldman in the Week: "... America's worst people, who were terrible before this election began and will be terrible after it's over, have found their champion.... Trump's success so far is proof that we have more than our share of jerks here in America, and they're coming out for him in force." -- CW

Alex Roarty of Roll Call: A study shows that anti-Trump ads can dissuade some women from voting for him, but the ads have no effect on men. Via Paul Waldman.

Dana Milbank: In my Chevy Chase neighborhood, "a heavyset white woman shouting at, and then pouring a bottle of liquid onto, a woman in a Muslim headscarf seated outside a Starbucks on a recent weeknight. Police are investigating a possible hate crime. The victim said the attacker called her a 'worthless piece of Muslim trash' and a 'terrorist.' And the attacker said she was supporting Trump because he would send the Muslims 'back to where you came from.'" CW: That would be to Minneapolis, where the victim was born.

Alex Seitz-Wald of MSNBC: "Mark Salter was for years [John] McCain's closest aide, serving as strategist, speechwriter, Senate chief of staff and biographer to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. But now, Salter says he'll break with the Republican Party if it nominates Trump and vote for Clinton instead. 'Basically, I think she's the more conservative choice and the least reckless one,' Salter told MSNBC in an email. '[Trump's] policy views are like some drunk's rant. If he tried to do anything like he says he will, we'd have no allies, a lot more enemies, and more of them with nukes. Finally, he's unfit for the office, too, temperamentally and morally, a narcissistic bigot.'" -- CW ...

... Eli Stokols of Politico: "Steve Schmidt, the GOP strategist who ran McCain's 2008 campaign..., predicted that 'a substantial amount of Republican officials who have worked in Republican administrations, especially on issues of defense and national security, will endorse Hillary Clinton in the campaign.'" -- CW

Matt Flegenheimer: "Senator Ted Cruz, who for months last year embraced Donald J. Trump as a force for good in the Republican presidential race, unburdened himself as never before on Tuesday in a searing, personal barrage hours before the Indiana primary. 'I'm going to do something I haven't done for the entire campaign,' he told reporters in Evansville, Ind. 'I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.'" -- CW ...

This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. -- Ted Cruz, on Donald Trump ...

This is going to make things awkward when Cruz endorses Trump. -- Paul Waldman

Presidential? Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ted Cruz hurled every slight in the book at Donald Trump on Tuesday, but it might not be enough to stave off a debilitating defeat in Indiana. The Texas senator is bracing for a loss that could cripple his chances to block Trump's ascent to the Republican presidential nomination. He spent his morning skewering the New York billionaire -- 'utterly amoral,' 'a serial philanderer,' 'a pathological liar' and even ridden with venereal disease. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: Liar? Check. Amoral? Check. Philanderer? Check. Venereal disease? Wow. Ted's hackers must be working overtime. Melania may want to visit the doctor. Is this the sort of temperament we need in a president? Cruz is a whiny, bullying, holier than thou hypocrite. But calling Trump a pathological liar is rich coming from a guy whose greeting "Nice morning, isn't it?" would have to be fact checked.

... ** Robert Schlesinger of US News: "Perhaps the most unexpected twist of the campaign season is that I just watched an extended rant by Ted Cruz on television and agreed with just about every word he said. I didn't think it was possible for me to agree with Ted Cruz for any period of time, whether on philosophy or substance (where he often, ahem, seems to reside in his own special reality) -- this is through-the-looking-glass, end-of-days-type stuff. The topic, of course, was Donald Trump." -- CW

Senate Races

Nora Kelly of The Atlantic: "As battleground-state Republican senators glad-hand their way through recess this week, Democrats and conservative groups alike are working to make sure constituents bug members about Merrick Garland, the Obama administration Supreme Court pick whose nomination has stalled in the upper chamber.... In recent days, the Washington-centric battle has moved firmly to senators' home turf." --safari

Other News & Views

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "President Obama will travel to Flint, Mich., on Wednesday to hear firsthand from residents about the public health crisis caused by contaminated water and to learn more about the highly criticized government response to the problem. The president is traveling there after an appeal from an 8-year-old girl, Mari Copeny, who asked to meet with the president when she went to Washington for a Flint hearing on Capitol Hill in March. Instead, the president will travel to Flint and meet with her there." -- CW

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama is poised to declare the first-ever national monument recognizing the struggle for gay rights, singling out a sliver of green space and part of the surrounding Greenwich Village neighborhood as the birthplace of America's modern gay liberation movement.... Protests at the site, which lasted for six days, began in the early morning of June 28, 1969 after police raided the Stonewall Inn, which was frequented by gay men. While patrons of the bar, which is still in operation today in half of its original space, had complied in the past with these crackdowns, that time it sparked a spontaneous riot by bystanders and those who had been detained." -- CW

"The Best Healthcare System in the World." Ariana Cha of the Washington Post: A new study, "published in the BMJ [CW: whatever that is] on Tuesday, shows that 'medical errors' in hospitals and other health care facilities are incredibly common and may now be the third leading cause of death in the United States -- claiming 251,000 lives every year, more than respiratory disease, accidents, stroke and Alzheimer's." -- CW

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "Citizens United let rich people buy candidates; now they may be able to purchase office-holders, too. That's the message from the Court's argument last week in the appeal of Bob McDonnell, the former governor of Virginia.... The same concept is at the heart of both the Citizens United and McDonnell cases.... In both cases..., the Court seems determined to define quid pro quo so narrowly that it's practically impossible to find." -- CW

Campbell Robertson & Timothy Williams of the New York Times: "Conservative state lawmakers around the country are pressing to weaken an array of gun regulations, in some cases greatly expanding where owners can carry their weapons. But the legislators are encountering stiff opposition from what has been a trusted ally: law enforcement." -- CW

Ha. Ha. Good for This Guy. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A citizen gadfly in Maryland has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Senate leaders' decision not to act on President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Liberal activist Brett Kimberlin filed the suit against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley late last month in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.'"Defendants have waived their right to advice and consent by (a) stating publicly and on the Senate floor that they refuse to advise and consent on the nomination of Merrick Garland, (2) putting pressure on other Republicans not to advise and consent, and (3) refusing to advise and consent,' the suit asserts." -- CW

Paul Duggan & Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "Throughout [Washington, D.C.'s subway system] Metro’s 40-year history, the National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly raised questions about the agency's safety culture that have not been adequately addressed, its three-jurisdiction governance model has proven 'uniquely dysfunctional' and the federal agency that sought safety oversight of the transit agency has made recommendations that are 'non-enforceable.' That summary, from NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart, came during his opening statement Tuesday at the meeting where the panel will present its findings about the probable cause of the Jan. 12, 2015, smoke crisis in a Yellow Line tunnel near Metro's L'Enfant Plaza station." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... New Lede: "Metro's long history of deficiencies -- including poor maintenance, a loose safety culture, a blindness to potential hazards and a chronic failure to learn from previous disasters -- all contributed to last year's deadly smoke crisis in a Yellow Line tunnel, federal officials said Tuesday in a report that reads like an indictment of the beleaguered transit agency."

Beyond the Beltway

Elliot Hannon of Slate: Nathan Deal, "Georgia's Republican governor, vetoed Tuesday a campus carry bill broadly supported by his own party and easily passed by the state legislature that would have allowed college students to carry concealed guns on campus at the state's public colleges and universities.... Each of the 29 presidents of public institutions and their police chiefs all opposed the bill." CW: What with his also vetoing the so-called "religious liberty" bill last month, one might think Nathan Deal, who is term-limited, is the last responsible Republican in the South.

Benjamin Weiser and Vivian Yee of the New York Times: " Sheldon Silver, who rose from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to become one of the state's most powerful and feared politicians as speaker of the New York Assembly, was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in prison in a case that came to symbolize Albany's culture of graft. The conviction of Mr. Silver, 72, served as a capstone to a campaign against public corruption by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which has led to more than a dozen state lawmakers' being convicted or pleading guilty." Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker offers a history of Mr. Bharara's career. -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Robin Pogrebin of the New York Times: "The surprising departure of Jed Bernstein last month after just 27 months as president of Lincoln Center was prompted not by a change in career plans, as announced, but by the discovery that he ... had been in a consensual relationship with a woman in her 30s who worked for him -- and whom he had twice promoted...." -- CW

Jennifer Rankin of the Guardian: "Doubts about the controversial EU-US trade pact are mounting after the French president threatened to block the deal.François Hollande said on Tuesday he would reject the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership 'at this stage' because France was opposed to unregulated free trade...The gulf between the two sides was highlighted by a massive leak of documents on Monday, first reported by the Guardian, which revealed irreconcilable differences on consumer protection and animal welfare standards." -- safari

News Ledes

Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Prince was found dead one day before he was scheduled to meet with a California doctor in an attempt to kick an addiction to painkillers, an attorney with knowledge of the death investigation said Tuesday." -- CW

AP: "The entire population of the Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray, Alberta, has been ordered to evacuate from a wildfire that officials said destroyed whole neighborhoods.... The wildfire, whipped by unpredictable winds on a day of unseasonably hot temperatures, worsened dramatically in a short time and many residents were given little notice to flee." -- CW

The Commentariat -- May 3, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Paul Duggan & Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "Throughout [Washington, D.C.'s subway system] Metro's 40-year history, the National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly raised questions about the agency's safety culture that have not been adequately addressed, its three-jurisdiction governance model has proven 'uniquely dysfunctional' and the federal agency that sought safety oversight of the transit agency has made recommendations that are 'non-enforceable.' That summary, from NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart, came during his opening statement Tuesday at the meeting where the panel will present its findings about the probable cause of the Jan. 12, 2015, smoke crisis in a Yellow Line tunnel near Metro's L’Enfant Plaza station." -- CW

Presidential? Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Ted Cruz hurled every slight in the book at Donald Trump on Tuesday, but it might not be enough to stave off a debilitating defeat in Indiana. The Texas senator is bracing for a loss that could cripple his chances to block Trump's ascent to the Republican presidential nomination. He spent his morning skewering the New York billionaire -- 'utterly amoral,' 'a serial philanderer,' 'a pathological liar' and even ridden with venereal disease. ...

... Akhilleus: Liar? Check. Amoral? Check. Philanderer? Check. Venereal disease? Wow. Ted's hackers must be working overtime. Melania may want to visit the doctor. Is this the sort of temperament we need in a president? Cruz is a whiny, bullying, holier than thou hypocrite. But calling Trump a pathological liar is rich coming from a guy whose greeting "Nice morning, isn't it?" would have to be fact checked.

Benjamin Weiser and Vivian Yee of the New York Times: " Sheldon Silver, who rose from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to become one of the state's most powerful and feared politicians as speaker of the New York Assembly, was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in prison in a case that came to symbolize Albany's culture of graft. The conviction of Mr. Silver, 72, served as a capstone to a campaign against public corruption by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which has led to more than a dozen state lawmakers' being convicted or pleading guilty." Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker offers a history of Mr. Bharara's career. -- Akhilleus

*****

Presidential Race

Democrats & Republicans hold presidential primaries in Indiana today.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "With the Democratic presidential nomination system working the way it does, there are essentially two possible outcomes: A candidate will either win in a blowout, or he or she will need superdelegate votes to gain a majority.... 'It is virtually impossible for Secretary Clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by June 14 with pledged delegates alone,' [Bernie Sanders] said [Sunday]. 'She will need superdelegates to take her over the top.... In other words, the convention will be a contested contest.' That's true -- mostly because, unlike in 2008, Sanders will contest it.... But that doesn't mean he has any real shot at winning." -- CW

** Ryan Cooper explains Bernie's "revolution" to boomers. CW: If you've been reading too much Krugman, this should help! -- CW

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton came to campaign in coal country -- and she had her feet held to the fire. As Mrs. Clinton stepped onto the sidewalk on Monday to tour a health and wellness center [in West Virginia], a crowd of protesters stood in the rain, many of them holding signs supporting the leading Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, and chanted, 'Go home!'" ...

     ... CW: This is pretty sad, as Clinton, to the best of my knowledge, is the only candidate who has a specific plan to help people who lose dirty-energy jobs. It didn't help her, of course, when she boasted in March, that "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." OR, as contributor Gloria puts it, "Dilemma for [laid-off coal miner]: Vote for someone who has a plan to help transition the communities to a productive, modern economy, and offers a safety net on the way. Or vote for someone who wants to take away your food stamps, healthcare and social security." Sad thing is, a lot of the dimwits will go with Plan GOP. ...

Hillary, Taking Credit Where Little Is Due. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Iran nuclear deal, signed last year after months of direct negotiations with Iranian officials, is likely to be remembered as Mr. Obama's most consequential diplomatic achievement. In [Hillary] Clinton's campaign to succeed him, she is claiming her share of the credit for it.... But ... interviews with more than a dozen current and former administration officials paint a portrait of a highly cautious, ambivalent diplomat, less willing than Mr. Obama to take risks to open a dialogue with Iran and increasingly wary of Mr. Kerry's freelance diplomacy.... The secret history of the Iran nuclear diplomacy, parts of which have never been reported before, lays bare stark differences between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, going back to the 2008 campaign, over how to approach one of America's most intractable foes." -- CW

Steve Peoples & Jill Colvin of the AP: "... Donald Trump has so far ignored vital preparations needed for a quick and effective transition to the general election.... [He] has collected little information about tens of millions of voters he needs to turn out in the fall. He's sent few people to battleground states compared with likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, accumulated little if any research on her, and taken no steps to build a network capable of raising the roughly $1 billion needed to run a modern-day general election campaign. [This] leave[s] him with little choice but to rely on his party's establishment allies -- the Republican National Committee, above all.... That's even as he rails against his party's establishment daily as corrupt." -- CW

Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "The New Hampshire Republican Party, under pressure from Donald Trump's supporters, has canceled a controversial planned vote on a slate of delegate committee assignments that would have left Trump's supporters off all the influential committees at the national convention in July." -- CW

Surrogates Say the Darndest Things. If Donald Trump is going to win the general election, he's going to have to prove to the public that he's not Adolf Hitler, which is going to be easy for him to do. If Hillary Clinton is going to win the nomination, she's going to have to prove that she's not Hillary Clinton. That's going to be much harder to do. -- John Phillips, a radio host & Trump surrogate -- CW

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "A range of experts agree that "Donald Trump's proposed punitive actions against the U.S.'s trading partners "are more likely to deepen [trade] problems, particularly if China or other targeted nations retaliate, rather than accept his demands. Starting a trade war might be cathartic for workers who have lost jobs, but it is unlikely to create a lot of factory work.... The removal of trade barriers has played a significant role in reducing global poverty and encouraging peace between nations, achievements that could be eroded by tit-for-tat backsliding." -- CW

Charles Pierce writes about what Donald Trump means to his supporters & suggests Trump doesn't get that. CW: It sure gave me that old fascist feeling. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... AND, tho Pierce had something nice to say about Chuck Todd, I guess he missed the segment Driftglass illuminates. It sounds like one of those teevee-smashing moments, especially when you realize that folks out in the Heartland are nodding along with the Muzak. -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

E.J. Dionne: "... a phony celebrity populism plays well on television at a time when politics and governing are regularly trashed by those who claim both as their calling. Politicians who don't want to play their assigned roles make it easy for a role-player to look like the real thing and for a billionaire who flies around on his own plane to look like a populist." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker: Like Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan was a cartoonish entertainer, but Trump is no Reagan. "As with his threats about the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, Trump's main foreign-policy position seems to be about making other countries pay for things.... Thirty years after Reagan dared his greatest adversary to tear down the Berlin Wall, we have Trump boisterously claiming he wants to build a new one, not to keep out Communists, or even the ISIS terrorists he mysteriously claims to know how to eliminate, but people from Mexico, our closest neighbor to the south, a friendly nation, and one on which we rely for a significant percentage of our labor market, as well as our imported oil. If this is not a downsizing of history, then what is?" -- CW

Greg Sargent on why Trump will not be cake-walking to the White House, as he says he will. -- CW

Dana Milbank: "... if [Carly] Fiorina picked investments the way she picked her candidate, you can see why HP stopped requiring her services. She bought Cruz at the peak, when polls showed him close in Indiana. But an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll Sunday found [Donald] Trump up 15 points. And now Cruz and Fiorina have to explain all those [nasty] things she used to say about him.... Cruz now also has to defend Fiorina's record at HP, where she let go thousands and sent jobs to India and China." -- CW ...

... CW: This was weird. Immediately after introducing Ted Cruz & family at an Indiana rally, Carly Fiorina fell off the stage. Boom! Heidi Cruz saw her fall & started to help her, but then decided it was better to wave to the crowd. Ted ignored Carly altogether. For a guy who claims to be such a big fan of "The Princess Bride," Ted is more the evil Prince Humperdinck that noble Westley. Not, of course, that Carly is any Princess Buttercup. (Come to think of it, Carly is more like actor Robin Wright's current character, the scheming Claire Underwood.):

... Lauren Fox of TPM: "'She fell off the stage the other day, did anybody see that? And Cruz didn't do anything. Even I would have helped her, okay?' Trump said on the stump Monday in Indiana. Trump kept criticizing Cruz, calling it the 'weirdest thing.' 'They just showed it to me coming in.... I said, "wow, that's really cruel,'" Trump said. 'She just went down. She went down a long way, right? And she went down right in front of him and he was talking, he kept talking.'" -- CW

A Vote for anyone other than Cruz is evil. ABC News: "Urging voters to pick him over rival and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, presidential candidate Ted Cruz framed the battle to win the Indiana primary as a choice between good and evil. 'I believe in the people of the Hoosier state. I believe that the men and women gathered here and the goodness of the American people, that we will not give into evil but we will remember who we are and we will stand for our values,' Cruz said at a rally in La Porte, Indiana"-- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

I implore, I exhort every member of the Body of Christ to vote according to the word of God, and vote for the candidate that stands on the word of God and on the Constitution of the United States of America. And I am convinced that man is my son, Ted Cruz. The alternative could be the destruction of America. -- Rafael Cruz (The Body of Christ is apparently the creepy name of a Christian sect or denomination. -- CW) ...

... In response, Trump accused Rafael Cruz of being an associate of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. CW: And, no, I didn't make that up. Here's Snopes on the veracity of Trump's claim. This might be a good time to retire your complaints about how the Democratic candidates are criticizing each other. ...

     ... Brendan O'Connor of Gawker has more, including video of the supposed "Rafael Cruz," who -- according to Snopes -- wasn't living in the Dallas area at the time. -- CW

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: At a rally in Indiana Sunday, Ted Cruz suggested a 12-year-old heckler needed a spanking.: "'You know, in my household, when a child behaves that way, they get a spanking,' said Cruz." ...

... CW: Ted seems kinda invested in spanking his daughters -- and others. In January, he "said voters 'have a way of administering a spanking,' [to Hillary Clinton] similar to how he spanks his 5-year-old daughter."

Senate Races

Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... an advertisement in Arkansas' Senate race is a preview of how Democrats are likely to tie Republican opponents who support Trump's candidacy to incendiary remarks [Donald Trump] has made in the past":

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Democrats are preparing another round of attacks against Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, releasing new poll numbers that show the veteran Iowa senator's favorability ratings are tumbling as he plays a key role in blocking Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.... Grassley is still favored to win reelection, despite running in a purple state that President Barack Obama won in both 2008 and 2012." -- CW

Other News & Views

The Absent Congress. Rachel Bade & Colin Wilhelm of Politico: "When Puerto Rico took its first major step toward a catastrophic default on Monday, lawmakers on Capitol Hill -- where Puerto Rican officials looked for help -- were nowhere to be found, having gone home for a one week recess last Friday. The island began defaulting on most of a $422 million debt payment Sunday at midnight, but much bigger problems are just around the corner. Congress has just a handful of weeks to hammer out a legislative fix to save the island from financial ruin ahead of a second default on a $2 billion debt payment due in early July." -- CW

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Take ... together [Dennis Hastert's dubious actions as Speaker] with the shocking revelations of sexual abuse of youths placed in the trust of Mr. Hastert, a popular and successful coach, and he emerges as a deeply flawed figure who contributed significantly to the dysfunction that defines Congress today. Even his namesake Hastert rule -- the informal standard that no legislation should be brought to a vote without the support of a majority of the majority -- has come to be seen as a structural barrier to compromise.... His portrait has been removed from the speaker's lobby. But the impact of his reign lingers." ...

     ... CW: This might be a good place to post a reminder of the homoerotic thrill that comes with contact sports. Love that football pile-on! Wrestling has to be at the top of the thrill list. It was not by accident thatHastert made his mark as a wrestling coach, nor is it an accident that Donald Trump is one of pro wrestling's biggest boosters -- he even has a place in the WWE's Hall of Fame.

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "In a scathing rebuke of [South Dakota]'s health care system, the Justice Department said on Monday that thousands of patients were being held unnecessarily in sterile, highly restrictive group homes. That is discrimination, it said, making South Dakota the latest target of a federal effort to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities and mental illnesses, outlined in a Supreme Court decision 17 years ago." -- CW

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A doctor who performs abortions at a hospital in Washington, D.C., filed a federal civil rights complaint on Monday, charging that the hospital had violated the law by forbidding her, out of concerns for security, to speak publicly in defense of abortion and its role in health care. The doctor, Diane J. Horvath-Cosper, 37, an obstetrician and gynecologist, has in recent years emerged as a public advocate, urging abortion providers not to shrink before threats." -- CW

Voter Suppression Laws Work the Way They're Intended. Michael Wines & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "As the general election nears -- in which new or strengthened voter ID laws will be in place in Texas and 14 other states for the first time in a presidential election -- recent academic research indicates that the requirements restrict turnout and disproportionately affect voting by minorities. The laws are also ... reshaping how many campaigns are run -- with candidates not only spending time to secure votes, but also time to ensure those votes can be cast." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Brian Beutler: "The successes of the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns have revealed large cross-ideological constituencies that are hostile to existing free trade regimes and suspicious of American military adventurism. They have additionally served as reminders that universal benefit programs, like Medicare and Social Security, are overwhelmingly popular.... [So] why do experienced political journalists so often peer into the heart of whatever they think of as 'real America' and come away with the sense that real America is clamoring for entitlement reform and new trade deals?" Beutler tries to answer the question. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Alanna Richer of the AP: "Republican lawmakers in Virginia will file a lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's decision to allow more than 200,000 convicted felons to vote in November, GOP leaders said Monday. Republicans argue the governor has overstepped his constitutional authority with a clear political ploy designed to help the campaign of his friend and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the important swing state this fall." -- CW

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: Paul "Gatling's exoneration [for a murder for which he served nine years but did not commit] will be the 20th time in the last two years that the [Brooklyn district attorney's] Conviction Review Unit has helped to clear defendants found guilty in Brooklyn of crimes they did not commit.... [Mr. Gatling's request for a review of his case] his request began an inquiry that led investigators into a tale of legal malfeasance...." -- CW

When a "hero" with a gun intervened in a violent domestic dispute in Arlington, Texas, he wound up dead. -- CW

News Ledes

AP: "Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday that an American serviceman has been killed near Irbil in Iraq. 'It is a combat death,' Carter said at the outset of a news in Stuttgart, Germany where he has been consulting with European allies this week."

New York Times (May 2): "A historic Serbian Orthodox church in Manhattan that plays an important role in New York's Serbian community was gutted by flames on Sunday, just hours after parishioners had filled its pews for Easter services. The New York Fire Department said it received the first report of the blaze at the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, on West 25th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in the Flatiron district, shortly before 7 p.m.... The church, which has served for decades as the backbone of New York's Serbian Orthodox community, was previously known as Trinity Chapel, an Episcopal church that was sold to its current owners in 1943." ...

... CBS/AP: "Investigators in three cities are looking into large fires at Orthodox churches that occurred around the religion's Easter celebrations and caused widespread damage. The blazes in New York City, as well as Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, caused only minor injuries, according to multiple reports."

The Commentariat -- May 2, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Voter Suppression Laws Work the Way They're Supposed to. Michael Wines & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "As the general election nears -- in which new or strengthened voter ID laws will be in place in Texas and 14 other states for the first time in a presidential election -- recent academic research indicates that the requirements restrict turnout and disproportionately affect voting by minorities. The laws are also ... reshaping how many campaigns are run -- with candidates not only spending time to secure votes, but also time to ensure those votes can be cast." -- CW

Charles Pierce writes about what Donald Trump means to his supporters & suggests Trump doesn't get that. CW: It sure gave me that old fascist feeling. ...

... AND, tho Pierce had something nice to say about Chuck Todd, I guess he missed the segment Driftglass illuminates. It sounds like one of those teevee-smashing moments, especially when you realize that folks out in the Heartland are nodding along with the Muzak. -- CW

E.J. Dionne: "... a phony celebrity populism plays well on television at a time when politics and governing are regularly trashed by those who claim both as their calling. Politicians who don't want to play their assigned roles make it easy for a role-player to look like the real thing and for a billionaire who flies around on his own plane to look like a populist." -- CW

A Vote for anyone other than Cruz is evil. ABC News: "Urging voters to pick him over ... Donald Trump..., Ted Cruz framed the battle to win the Indiana primary as a choice between good and evil. 'I believe in the people of the Hoosier state. I believe that the men and women gathered here and the goodness of the American people, that we will not give into evil but we will remember who we are and we will stand for our values,' Cruz said at a rally in La Porte, Indiana"-- Akhilleus

*****

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Senate Republicans have left town for another recess with their yearlong claim that the Senate is 'back to work' an increasingly tough sell to voters.... But the chamber is on pace to work the fewest days in 60 years, the party continues to insist it won't act on President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nomination, and Republicans' ballyhooed strategy to shepherd all dozen spending bills through the chamber is in serious trouble." -- CW

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "... it appears the absence of [Justice Antonin] Scalia will be felt on the court's work next term.... The court has accepted only six cases since Scalia died Feb. 13. The number is low compared with the average, Scotusblog.com editor Amy Howe said at an event last week reviewing the Supreme Court's work. And none of the cases that the court has accepted for the term that begins in October approach the level of controversy that have marked the dramatic rulings of recent years." -- CW

John Pfaff, in a New York Times op-ed: "... despite this constitutional guarantee [of a government-appointed lawyer for criminal defendants who cannot afford one], state and county spending on lawyers for the poor amounts to only $2.3 billion -- barely 1 percent of the more than $200 billion governments spend annually on criminal justice. Worse, since 1995, real spending on indigent defense has fallen, by 2 percent, even as the number of felony cases has risen by approximately 40 percent." -- CW

** Ezra Klein & Dylan Matthews of Vox: "The joke of President Barack Obama's performance on Saturday was that he wasn't joking." -- CW

Julie Davis & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Malia Obama, the older daughter of President Obama, plans to attend Harvard University beginning in the fall of 2017, the White House announced on Sunday, waiting until her father leaves office to begin her college career." -- CW ...

... Gap Year. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Malia Obama's decision to take a year off before attending Harvard University in the fall of 2017 reflects a growing trend among high-achieving teenagers to pursue other interests and get a respite from the academic grind that has come to define high school for many young Americans. But it will also provide her with a chance to experience college as the glare of the presidential spotlight has begun to ease...." -- CW

Presidential Race

Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he and Hillary Clinton were heading to a 'contested' convention this summer because she will need superdelegates to secure the nomination, a claim that clashes with the accepted definition of a contested convention.... Mr. Sanders urged superdelegates in states that he has won and those who came out in support of Mrs. Clinton before he declared his candidacy to switch their support to him." -- CW

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said he raised $25.8 million in April, well shy of his eye-popping totals of recent months. The figure comes as Sanders's chance of defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination have dwindled, with his loss to her in the New York primary on April 19 widely viewed as a turning point in the race." -- CW

Scammer-in-Chief. Ken Vogel & Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "In the days before Hillary Clinton launched an unprecedented big-money fundraising vehicle with state parties last summer, she vowed 'to rebuild our party from the ground up.'... But less than 1 percent of the $61 million raised by that effort has stayed in the state parties' coffers, according to a Politico analysis.... The venture, the Hillary Victory Fund, is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The set-up allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers.... Most of the $23.3 million spent ... has gone towards expenses that appear to have directly benefited Clinton's campaign...." CW: As I've written before, this is a scam, yet journalists who should know better unwittingly claim that Clinton is helping the party while Sanders is not. Clinton controls who gets what, & it turns out who gets what is mostly Clinton.

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Just hours after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against a new Indiana abortion law, Hillary Clinton stumped miles away from the state capitol and filed a sort of amicus brief. 'I will defend a woman's right to make her own health-care decisions,' Clinton said to a few hundred supporters packed into a sweltering recreation center. 'I'll tell ya, I'll defend Planned Parenthood against these attacks. And I commend the women of this state, young and old, for standing up against this governor and this legislature.'" -- CW

Mark Hensch of the Hill: "... Donald Trump on Monday said that CNN's news coverage favors ... Hillary Clinton. 'They do call it "the Clinton network,"' he told Chris Cuomo on the network's 'New Day' after the host questioned his blunt campaign rhetoric. Trump said that his recent remarks attacking Clinton's gender and China's currency manipulation are not controversial." -- CW

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton threw some practice jabs in interviews broadcast on Sunday, signaling a general election that could focus heavily on Mrs. Clinton's gender and on her more hawkish foreign policy. 'The only card she has is the women's card,' Mr. Trump said, continuing to contend that Mrs. Clinton would not have won more than five percent of Democratic primary votes if she were a man.... Mrs. Clinton said she planned to ignore Mr. Trump's 'bullying' and 'temper tantrums' and focus on issues if they face off in the general election." --CW

Brittny Mejia, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Thousands of people took to the streets in the annual May Day marches in downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights on Sunday to advocate for immigration reform, police accountability and an end to racism. The diverse array of protesters shared one thing in common: all were offended by something Donald Trump had said. The Republican presidential candidate literally loomed over one of the rallies in the form of a giant balloon effigy carrying a Ku Klux Klan hood. 'He's plastic, he doesn't have a heart, he doesn't have a brain,' organizer Francisco Moreno said...." -- CW

Bienvenidos, Cubanos! Patricia Mazzai of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump is the catalyst who could force a decisive break between Miami-Dade County's influential Cuban-American voters and the Republican Party, a new poll has found. Local Cuban Americans dislike Trump so much -- and are increasingly so accepting of renewed U.S.-Cuba ties pushed by Democratic President Barack Obama -- that Trump's likely presidential nomination might accentuate the voters' political shift away from the GOP, according to the survey shared with the Miami Herald and conducted by Dario Moreno, a Coral Gables pollster...." -- CW BUT, see also Beyond the Beltway. Not every Cuban-American is, um, on board.

Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary handily nearly three months ago, but state GOP officials are pushing a plan to block all of Trump's delegates from serving on any of the key committees at the national convention in July. Instead, the coveted convention slots would go entirely to delegates assigned to Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Ted Cruz, even though Trump won 35 percent of the vote, more than double his closest competitor." -- CW

There are scores of recent migrants inside our borders charged with terrorism. For every case known to the public, there are dozens and dozens more. We must stop importing extremism through senseless immigration policies. -- Donald Trump, foreign policy address, April 27

Trump gave a prepared speech for once, with even a teleprompter. So one would presume that someone would have looked this stuff up before writing it into his speech. Alas, there is no evidence that 'scores' of 'recent migrants' are charged with terrorism, and that for every case made public, there are 'dozens and dozens more. -- Michelle Lee, Washington Post

Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Sunday criticized Donald Trump's foreign policy after the Republican presidential front-runner outlined his 'America first' model. 'I think, based on the speech, you'd have somebody who doesn't understand the difference between a business negotiation and a negotiation with sovereign powers,' Gates said on ABC's 'This Week.'" -- CW

** Ripe for Tyranny? Andrew Sullivan of New York: "Could it be that the Donald has emerged from the populist circuses of pro wrestling and New York City tabloids, via reality television and Twitter, to prove not just Plato but also James Madison right, that democracies 'have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention ... and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths'?" --safari ...

     ... CW: See also discussion in today's Comments.

Lauren Collins of the New Yorker: "The temptation is to dismiss Melania [Trump] as a dummy, a compliant figure remarkable less for her personality than for her proportions.... If we take the office of First Lady seriously, then it's worth trying to figure out who Melania is as a person, versus a product to be placed." --safari

Trump the Boomer. Stephen Metcalf of Slate: "I think we can trace Trump's political instinct to a less personal, more sociological source. In this we need only look to his birth certificate. There we see that Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946. Is it possible Trumpismo, in its disdain for norms of speech and conduct, in its underlying craving for apocalyptic violence, is traceable to one simple fact? In almost plain sight, beneath the worldly swagger and breathtaking arrogance, lies Donald Trump the baby boomer." --safari

Olivier Laughland & Mae Ryan of the Guardian: "Although Trump has touted himself as 'the greatest jobs president that God has ever created', these workers [at Trump's Las Vegas hotel] point to the fact they are paid on average $3 less than the thousands of unionised hotel workers in Las Vegas who work identical jobs and enjoy a host of other benefits, including pensions and free health insurance, not available to Trump employees....Workers argue they have been subjected to surveillance, intimidation, and unlawful dismissal as they have sought to organize." --safari

Indiana -- #NeverTrump's Last Gasp. Chas Danner of New York: "A new NBC News/WSJ/Marist poll shows Donald Trump beating Ted Cruz by 15 points in Indiana, where the vote on Tuesday is seen by many as the actual last opportunity to halt Trump's first-ballot nomination in Cleveland....Cruz's 'Hail Carly' -- as USA Today deftly characterized the candidate's sudden choice of Carly Fiorina as a running mate last week -- has apparently had only a modest impact on Cruz's poll numbers. In the meantime, Cruz himself continues to profess his belief in an outcome which, so far, projections do not support... Appearing on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Cruz again insisted that 'it is going to be a contested convention' -- though he and his staff seem to have also acknowledged that if Trump wins Indiana, his nomination will be impossible to block." -- CW

He's been winning the women's vote in state after state. Ted is an immigrant. He is Hispanic. He can unify this party. -- Heidi Cruz, in Indiana Saturday

Dave Weigel: "Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite subjects, the Canadian birth of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), at an afternoon rally inside the city's largest sports arena. His cue came from the senator's wife, Heidi, who tripped over a word at a Saturday GOP presidential campaign rally and appeared to say that her husband was an immigrant. 'Heidi Cruz -- nice woman,' Trump began. 'She said this one: "My husband's an immigrant!" He's an immigrant! That's what I've been trying to say!'" -- CW

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "... as the gravitational pull of [Donald] Trump's recent primary landslides draws more Republicans toward him, [Ted] Cruz's support among the party's 2,472 convention delegates is softening, threatening his hopes of preventing Mr. Trump's nomination by overtaking him in a floor fight." -- CW

Joanna Walters & Alan Yujas of the Guardian: "Ted Cruz made a last-ditch series of attacks on Donald Trump on Sunday, going so far as to call him corrupt, dismiss fellow Republicans, and invoke Trump's endorsement by 'a convicted rapist'.... Cruz blitzed television airwaves on Sunday morning.... He accused Trump and [Hillary] Clinton of being agents of a corrupt system. 'They've both gotten rich exploiting Washington, exploiting government power,' he said on NBC's Meet the Press. On two other shows, he called the pair 'enmeshed in corruption', 'ultimate Washington insiders' and members of a political 'cartel'." The "convicted rapist" is Mike Tyson, whose endorsement Trump touted last week in Indiana -- the state where Tyson committed the crime. -- CW ...

... Watch sack o'shit Ted Cruz lie to a severely disabled man & his family about ObamaCare. Twice. In 30 seconds. -- CW Via Tommy Christopher of Mediaite.

Marc Caputo of Politico: "Marco Rubio won't be endorsing Ted Cruz during the Republican presidential primary, but he's likely to back the Texas senator at a contested convention -- if it gets that far. The de facto plan, Rubio's backers say, is designed to help Cruz. It also, however, protects Rubio's political future, including if he decides to make another run for the White House." CW: Because it's All About Marco.

Beyond the Beltway

Seattle Times: "Hurling rocks, bricks and even Molotov cocktails, anti-capitalist protesters clashed with police in downtown Seattle Sunday, as May Day mayhem erupted again following a peaceful march. By 10:30 p.m., at least five officers had been injured and at least nine people had been arrested, Seattle police reported. One injured officer suffered a gash to his head when he was struck by a rock." -- CW

Annie Ramos & Catherine Shoichet of CNN: "The first U.S. cruise ship bound for Cuba in decades set sail Sunday as salsa music played and protesters picketed nearby."

Michelle Kaske, et al., of Bloomberg: "Puerto Rico will default on a $422 million bond payment for its Government Development Bank, escalating what is turning into the biggest crisis ever in the $3.7 trillion market that U.S. state and local entities use to access financing." -- CW

Alene Tchekmedyian & Cindy Chang of the Los Angeles Times: "A top Los Angeles County sheriff's official has resigned amid mounting criticism over emails he sent mocking Muslims, blacks, Latinos, women and others from his work account during his previous job with the Burbank Police Department, the Sheriff's Department announced Sunday. After previously saying that he had no immediate plans to discipline his chief of staff, Sheriff Jim McDonnell said in a statement that he had accepted Tom Angel's resignation and intended to turn the controversy into a 'learning opportunity' for his department employees." CW: Right. Because he & his staff had no idea demeaning women & minorities wasn't A-OK. ...

... Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, who in 2013 ruled that New York City's stop-and-frisk policy had violated the rights of minorities, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg [& Police Commissioner Michael Kelly] 'really never appreciated what was wrong' with the Police Department's procedure." CW: Too bad Bloomberg & Kelly didn't treat the ruling as a "learning opportunity." Because they have no idea that being stopped by a cop & subjected to a patdown for Walking While Black isn't A-OK.

A number of people ... stated that during the course of being stopped by the NYPD they were inappropriately touched, sexually harassed, and/ or sexually assaulted. Several interviewees described having their genitals touched or groped by the NYPD during searches and/or were told or forced by the NYPD to remove their clothes in public. Speaking out against inappropriate touching can lead to a charge of resisting arrest. These experiences often leave people feeling disrespected and violated. As one individual described, 'It made me feel violated, humiliated, harassed, shameful, and of course very scared.' -- Report, Center for Constitutional Rights, 2012

... CW P.S. If Tom Friedman & the rest of the Bloomberg for President Cheerleading Squad want to know what this man should never be president, Judge Scheindlin just gave them part of the answer: he "just doesn't get it."

Screw the People. CW: My excellent governor, Rick Scott (R-Crook), is off in California, trying to convince California companies to move to Florida because the minimum wage here is so low. He also says he's trying to get individuals to move to Florida because they "can't afford" to live in California. Yo, Rick, they can't afford to live in Florida, if they need to work.

Chelsea Manning in the Guardian: "[S]olitary confinement in the US is arbitrary, abused and unnecessary in many situations. It is cruel, degrading and inhumane, and is effectively a 'no touch' torture. We should end the practice quickly and completely.... Unfortunately, conditions similar to the ones I experienced in 2010-11 are hardly unusual for the estimated 80,000 to 100,000 inmates held in these conditions across the US every day." -- safari

Way Beyond

Paul Krugman: EU countries are still in bad economic shape because Europe's political leaders have no idea how macroeconomics work.

Michelle Kaske, et al., of Bloomberg: "Puerto Rico will default on a $422 million bond payment for its Government Development Bank, escalating what is turning into the biggest crisis ever in the $3.7 trillion market that U.S. state and local entities use to access financing." --safari

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Supporters of Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced their withdrawal from Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on Sunday, packing up and leaving just a day after they stormed parliament and began a sit-in. Addressing the demonstrators, Akhlas al-Obaidi, a protest organizer, urged people to go home to give political decision-making a chance...." -- CW