The Commentariat -- March 16, 2016

Afternoon Update:

A Skin Head in Search of a Rug. Eliza Collins & Nick Gass of Politico: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott is calling on the Republican Party to come together and support Donald Trump. Scott -- in a Facebook post the day after his home state voted and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out -- said that Trump's victories Tuesday show it is time to rally around the businessman."

Charles Pierce: "I know you'll be shocked to learn that, yes, voter-suppression laws actually, you know, suppress votes. Especially in the newly insane state of North Carolina.... It's a good thing that John Roberts declared the Day of Jubilee because, otherwise, people might wildly speculate that there are certain kinds of people who other people would rather not have voting in their elections."

*****

Supreme Court

Michael Shear & Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "President Obama on Wednesday will nominate Merrick B. Garland as the nation's 113th justice, according to White House officials, choosing a centrist appeals court judge widely respected even by Republicans in hopes his choice will be considered by the Senate." CW: Guess Obama wasn't listening when I begged him not to nominate the old white guy.'

Sarah Almukhtar of the New York Times on President Obama's considerations in nominating Merrick Garland.

Lincoln Caplan of the New Yorker: "Garland has been a judge for almost nineteen years and a chief judge for three. He has developed an indisputably illustrious record; he has proved himself to be the moderate, first-rate judge whom, in the mid-nineties, Republicans as well as Democrats one-upped each other in predicting he would become."

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama will announce his nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court in the White House Rose Garden at 11 a.m., he said in an email to supporters Wednesday." Here's the full text of the e-mail.

Michael Shear: "The White House has created a new Twitter handle, he said -- @SCOTUSnom -- and he urged people to follow it for 'all the facts and up-to-date information.'... .... At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Obama said that Republicans must 'decide whether they want to follow the Constitution and abide by the rules of fair play that ultimately undergird our democracy and that ensure that the Supreme Court does not just become one more extension of our polarized politics.'"

The New York Times is liveblogging developments, which so far run to speculation & a lament the trains aren't running.

Bill Chappell of NPR: "Obama added that he had consulted with legal experts across the political spectrum before making his decision. And he listed three qualities he sought in a potential Supreme Court justice:

• An 'independent mind, unimpeachable credentials, and an unquestionable mastery of law.'
• A recognition of 'the limits of the judiciary's role.'
• Awareness 'that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook.'

     "... Obama said he wanted a candidate who had experienced life outside academic or justice settings, so they would understand the way the law 'affects the daily reality of people's lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly-changing times.'"

Reuters: "President Barack Obama is likely to announce either Judge Sri Srinivasan or Judge Merrick Garland as his pick for U.S. Supreme Court nominee and the announcement could come as early as Wednesday, a source familiar with the selection process said."

Paul Waldman: "A group of lawyers from the Supreme Court Bar, who argue in front of the Court, pen a letter to Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid arguing that the Court needs a full complement of justices in order to function properly, so the Senate should get its act together and confirm a nominee." The letter is here. The lawyers write, "We have different ideologies and no doubt would have many different views on any given case. But we are united in the belief that a fully functioning Supreme Court is of vital importance to the country."

Presidential Race

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The Missouri Secretary of State's office, which oversees elections in the state, is reporting that all votes are in and counted. Results are that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have won the state. Races on both sides are so close that recounts are likely because the law requires a recount if the loser requests it. That margin is 0.5 percent."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "At about eight-thirty last night, after the news came in that Donald Trump had trounced Marco Rubio in Florida, and that Hillary Clinton had won big victories over Bernie Sanders in Florida and North Carolina, Tony Fratto, who was a White House spokesman for George W. Bush's Administration, tweeted, 'What essentially happened today is @HillaryClinton was elected president. We have 8 months of hyperventilating before its official.'" ...

... Ezra Klein: "... the Clinton campaign couldn't ask for weaker opponents than Trump or Cruz."

Abby Phillip, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton won big victories Tuesday in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio, pushing her closer to the Democratic presidential nomination even as rival Bernie Sanders pressed on with his insurgent campaign.... Sanders ended the day further behind in the delegate count -- and needing to win a slew of upcoming states by improbably large margins." ...

... Jeremy Stahl of Slate: "Hillary Clinton gave every indication that she is going to start to pivot to a general election message against Republican front-runner Donald Trump in her victory speech on Tuesday, as wins for the former Secretary of State in Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina clarified the Democratic primary contest further. Here's Clinton's full speech:

... Josh Voorhees of Slate: "Hillary came into the night as the dinged-up cautious favorite; she'll leave it as the presumptive nominee." ...

... Tim Egan, who has mocked & dismissed Bernie Sanders in previous columns: "But that doesn't mean the 74-year-old socialist-lite should get out. He's done a real service, for the party he only recently joined, and for the country. Clinton is a far better candidate because of him. More than that, the Democratic Party is paying attention to the angry millions in the margins, those who may be tempted by the demagogue who wants to make America white again. Thank Sanders for that."

He probably wouldn't [accept the presidential nomination] but everyone thinks he's Republican Jesus. -- GOP Senate staffer, on Paul Ryan ...

... Patrick Temple-West & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot. 'If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above,' Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference [in Boca Raton, Florida]. 'They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.'... In the same question-and-answer session here, Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as 'lucifer.' He previously called the Texas senator ... a 'jackass.'... Boehner ... said he voted for his governor, John Kasich." ...

     ... CW: Last week, the New York Times reported that Boehner had endorsed Kasich, but in fact he said -- as the Times reported -- only that he had voted (early) for Kasich in the Ohio primary.

Nick Gass & Eliza Collins: "Donald Trump on Wednesday sounded like a man ready to take the stage as the Republican Party's nominee by acclamation.... Denying him the GOP nomination as part of a contested convention, he declared, would 'disenfranchise' the millions of people he is bringing into the party and could spark riots. The only problem: Delegate math. Trump, who flooded the morning television shows with a deluge of off-camera telephone calls..., said that even if he doesn't amass a majority of delegates by July, the party should unite behind him anyway. But Trump has a ways to go when it comes to getting to the magic number of 1,237.... [Trump] also declared that he would not participate in Monday's Fox News debate in Salt Lake City, telling the network's morning show that he would instead speak at the convention for pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, in Washington. 'I think it's enough,' Trump said of the 12 GOP debates to date."

Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump rolled to victory in the Republican presidential primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Tuesday, driving Senator Marco Rubio from the race and amassing a formidable delegate advantage that will be exceedingly difficult for any rival to overcome. But with a victory in Ohio, his home state, Gov. John Kasich denied Mr. Trump one of the night’s biggest prizes and made it considerably harder for him to clinch the nomination outright before primary voting ends in June."

Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Years of carefully laid plans to repackage the Republican Party's traditional ideas for a fast-changing country came crashing down [in Florida] on Tuesday when Sen. Marco Rubio suspended his campaign for the presidency after a crippling defeat in his home-state primary."

Margaret Hartmann: "Donald Trump ... used his victory speech to underscore his disdain for the press, and his lack of concern about allegations of sexism. Compared to other Trump speeches, the front-runner's remarks at Mar-a-Lago were repetitive and disappointingly meat-free, but the real action was taking place just off his right shoulder. Rather than showcasing Chris Christie's look of horror, Trump signaled his support for campaign manager Corey Lewandowski by having him stand by his side."

Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker: "... in America, populism is driven not solely by distress at economic malaise but also by fears inspired by racial progress -- and the belief that these two things are synonymous. This is the reason the Tea Party took hold not amid the economic collapse that occurred during George W. Bush's tenure but in the midst of Barack Obama's Presidency, its anger siphoned into conspiracy theories about the President's Kenyan origins rather than Wall Street cronyism.... Trump's brand of populism is cemented in the ideal that he will not be out-Muslimed, out-Latinoed, or out-baited regarding any other signpost of American change. And it's selling. They are all Dixiecrats now."

Marco Rubio announced his withdrawal from the presidential race, which, apparently was for once God's fault instead of Obama's. "'It is not God's plan that I be president in 2016 or maybe ever,' and thus, 'today my campaign is suspended.'" On to Fox "News"! Oh, wait, as even probably forgot, he still has a job. ...

... Here's Marco's full speech announcing the suspension of his campaign:

... Jonathan Chait: "Rubio declared that he had decided not to take Trump's easy path for moral reasons. 'I chose a different route and I'm proud of that...' he said. 'That would have been the easiest way to win.' This is all revisionist nonsense. Until the very end, Rubio's response to the rise of Donald Trump was to co-opt him, not to confront him.... Rubio ran a different strategy not for moral reasons but because he thought it would work. His plan was to fashion himself as the front man for the Republican donor class.... He attached himself to wealthy patrons, and moved between politics and lobbying throughout his career, seamlessly blending public service with moneymaking.... It was entirely plausible to believe that Rubio could have smuggled his right-wing policies past the electorate by running on cheerful slogans and a winning smile.... His failure is a bullet dodged."

... Requiem for a Lightweight. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: Rubio "claimed to be the only candidate who could unite the Republican Party, but he could never unite enough voters behind him to persuasively make that case. And one crucial shortcoming was out of his control: his youth. Many Republicans were simply unwilling to entrust the presidency to a young first-term senator." ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic recalls the ups and downs and downs of the Rubio campaign. ...

... Eli Stokols & Shane Goldmacher of Politico Magazine: "Rubio's strategy was always an inside straight -- overly reliant on a candidate's ability to dominate free national media in order to outperform, outwit and eventually outlast a wide field of rivals. It was sketched out by an inner circle of advisers who believed they could eschew the very fundamentals of presidential campaigning because they had a candidate who transcended. That's exactly what happened in 2016; it just turned out Rubio wasn't the one transcending."

"Plan C." Ed Kilgore: "So as the pollsters predicted, Marco Rubio joined fellow Floridian Jeb! Bush on the scrapheap of the 2016 Republican presidential nominating field, going from everybody's smart-money candidate with the golden favorability ratings to toast in his home state with amazing speed. For the Trump-fearing, Cruz-hating Republican Establishment, the only survivor is John Kasich of Ohio, either as a potential nominee or as a stalking horse for some player-to-be-named-later, presumably at a 'contested convention.'" ...

... Gail Collins: "There was a time, people, when you would really not have been throwing confetti in the air just because a Republican governor ... won the presidential primary in his own state. But we are where we are.... Right now he certainly seems like the only non-appalling option the Republicans have, even though there are a lot of people in Ohio right now who are shaking their heads in stupefaction at the sight of their governor as the nation's poster boy for moderation. He's signed an absolute mountain of anti-abortion bills -- nearly half of the clinics in the state have shut down during his tenure. His enthusiasm for giving public funding to private, for-profit schools has been scandalous. And on the economic front he has the usual conservative contempt for taxing residents according to their ability to pay." ...

... Wait, Wait. Here's Plan D. John Harwood of CNBC: "House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he declined to rule out accepting it if a deadlocked party convention turns to him this summer."

Primary Results

Democrats

Florida. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Clinton. The AP has called the race for Clinton. With 98 percent counted, Clinton received 65 percent; Sanders 33 percent. The Florida Democratic party awards delegates proportionally.

Illinois. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning Clinton. With 48 percent counted, Clinton is leading Sanders 52-47, a percentage lead that has held pretty steady so far. With 94 percent of the vote counted, the AP has called Illinois for Clinton. With 97 percent counted, the current tally is Clinton 50, Sanders 49.

Missouri. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Clinton. With 28 percent counted, Missouri is leaning Sanders. With 98 percent counted, the tally is Sanders 50, Clinton 49. Too close to call. Whoops. With 100 percent of the vote counted, the tables have turned & Clinton leads 50-49 percent. Actual vote totals are about 1,500 apart. As CNN notes, Sanders has a right to contest the count. However, as the vote stands today, each candidate receives 34 delegates.

North Carolina. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Clinton. The AP has called the state for Clinton. With 99 percent counted, Clinton had 55 percent, Sanders 41.

Ohio. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Clinton. The AP has called the race for Clinton. With 85 percent counted, Clinton leads Sanders 58-43. The Ohio Democratic party awards delegates proportionally.

Republicans

Florida. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Trump. The AP has called the race for Trump. With 98 percent counted, Trump received 46 percent, Rubio 27, Cruz 17 & Kasich 7. Florida is a winner-take-all state for Republicans.

Illinois. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Trump. the AP has called the race for Trump. With 46 percent counted, Trump has 40 percent of the vote, Cruz 28 & Kasich 20.

Missouri. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Trump. With 28 percent counted, Trump has 43 percent & Cruz 41. With 62 percent counted, Trump & Cruz are tied at 42 percent. With 100 percent counted, Trump & Cruz are still tied, at 41 percent. Vote totals between Trump has about a 1,600-vote lead over Cruz. The AP has not called the race.

North Carolina. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning wa-a-ay Trump. The AP has called the race for Trump. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Trump has 40 percent, followed by Cruz with 37 percent, Kasich with 13 & Rubio with 8.

Ohio. With less than one percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning Trump. A few more precincts counted, & it's leaning Kasich. The AP has called the race for Kasich. Ohio is a winner-take-all state for Republican candidates.

The New York Times' primary results are here.

The New York Times reports first poll closing times for today's primaries.

Gail Collins & Arthur Brooks have a conversation about the state of the race.

Eliza Collins of Politico: "Hillary Clinton on Monday defended the intervention in Libya that she championed as secretary of state, telling MSNBC's Chris Matthews that the United States 'didn't lose a single person.'... [Now I'll write something stupid:] Clinton may have been referring strictly to the U.S.-backed overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, which indeed saw no loss of American lives and cost just around $1 billion. But her comments ignore the 2012 attacks at the U.S. mission and CIA outpost in Benghazi, which killed four people including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens."

Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Three influential leaders in the conservative movement have summoned other top conservatives for a closed-door meeting this Thursday in Washington D.C. to talk about how to stop Donald Trump and, should he become the Republican nominee, how to run a third-party 'true conservative' challenger in the fall. The organizers of the meeting include Bill Wichterman, who was President George W. Bush's liaison to the conservative movement, Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and longtime conservative convener, and Erick Erickson, the outspoken Trump opponent and conservative activist who founded RedState.com." CW: So, adult men acting silly. ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Donald Trump has exploited the wedge between the party's voters and the ideologists of its master class, placing the latter in an awkward spot.... The ... National Review's Kevin Williamson['s' ... antipathy for Trump has expanded to include Trump's white working-class supporters.... To the libertarian true believer, capitalism is a value system.... Capitalism means economic freedom. People are entitled to their economic rights (meaning their market income) in exactly the same way as they are entitled to their political rights.... The marketplace hasn't failed the white working class; the white working class has failed capitalism[, according to Williamson & his ilk]. Measured in political terms, this is a suicidal mentality for the Republican Party. But who says ideas must be measured in political terms?" ...

... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "One of the great conceits of conservative punditry over the past 15 years has been the notion that American politics is dominated by affluent liberal snobs who disdain white working-class America and its communities. Typically, arguments in this vein -- like recent pieces from Charles Murray and Clive Crook -- do not adduce specific evidence of such snobbish disdain.... But now that white working-class voters are beginning to unsettle the conservative political establishment by flocking to Donald Trump, some conservative pundits are unleashing sentiments about white working-class communities that are a good deal more vicious than snobbish disdain.... These are politically explosive thoughts because the basic political reality is that Republicans rely on heavy majorities among white working-class voters to win elections.... It was taken for granted that the governing class had an obligation -- a practical one, if not a moral one -- to actually make the system work for average people. Over the past 20 years, that idea has been increasingly abandoned on the American right." ...

... ** Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Thanks to Donald Trump, the specter of class war is haunting the Republican Party. But this isn't a traditional class war wherein the masses overthrow capitalism. Instead, it features the poor and the working class destroying the country-club establishment. In response to Trump's successful use of populist rhetoric (although rarely populist policies) to woo less well-to-do Republicans, some conservative intellectuals have taken the curious tack of wholesale condemnation of the working class.... The [National Review] was founded as the organ of a distinctively aristocratic conservatism, one that in the early days never concealed its scorn for ordinary people. In recent decades, that aristocratic conservatism has sometimes been obscured by a populist mask, but under the pressure of Trumpism, National Review is showing its true face."

Nicholas Confessore & Karen Yourish of the New York Times: "Of all the ways Donald Trump has shocked the political system, one of the most significant is how he wins primary after primary with one of the smallest campaign budgets.... The big difference between Mr. Trump and other candidates is that he is far better than any other candidate -- maybe than any candidate ever -- at earning media [as opposed to paid advertising].... Over the course of the campaign, he has earned close to $2 billion worth of media attention, about twice the all-in price of the most expensive presidential campaigns in history. It is also twice the estimated $746 million that Hillary Clinton, the next best at earning media, took in. Senator Bernie Sanders has earned more media than any of the Republicans except Mr. Trump." ...

... Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "... as the Trump [media] spectacle overshadows the other candidates, it also drowns out a much-needed conversation about issues of vital importance, including those that help explain why Trump and Sanders have generated so much passionate support.... For the corporate media, clicks and ratings amount to profits, and Trump undoubtedly attracts more eyeballs than deep reporting on, say, trade policy. Last month, CBS President and Chief Executive Les Moonves bluntly acknowledged the motives behind the media's election coverage. 'It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS,' he said of Trump's rise, adding, 'The money's rolling in and this is fun.'"

Kevin Freking of the AP: "President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was dismayed by 'vulgar and divisive rhetoric' directed at women and minorities as well as the violence that has occurred in the 2016 presidential campaign, a swipe at Republican front-runner Donald Trump that also served as a challenge to other political leaders to speak out and set a better example. 'The longer that we allow the political rhetoric of late to continue and the longer that we tacitly accept it, we create a permission structure that allows the animosity in one corner of our politics to infect our broader society,' Obama said. 'And animosity breeds animosity.'"

Eun Kim of NBC: "Donald Trump tells Today's Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie "the biggest people in the party" are already calling to sit down with him as the presumptive GOP nominee."

Jessica Roy of New York: "You know that video that's going around highlighting some of the most upsetting things Donald 'What's going on?' Trump has said about women? Though its star may look and sound exactly like Trump, it actually wasn't at all. According to his spokesperson Katrina Pierson, it was his TV character saying stuff like, 'A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a ten.' Our mistake!" ...

     ... P.S. That was not Marie Burns who shut down the Comments section on accounta its being hijacked by opera buffos. That was the Constant Weader. Totally different. (Opera fans [& others] can still read yesterday's Comments by clicking on the heading "The Commentariat -- March 15.")

The Great Schism of 2016. Jon Ward of Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump's candidacy has sparked a civil war inside American Christianity. Trump's popularity among self-identified evangelical Christians has led national figures in American Christianity to question whether large swaths of the church even know what their faith teaches, and how it applies to public and political life.

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Jerry Springer, the former Democratic mayor of Cincinnati who is most famous for hosting a raucous talk show that often leads to guests brawling onstage, says that the 2016 race has become too lowbrow even for him.... 'This is not a joke,' said Mr. Springer, whose show Tuesday featured women wrestling in an inflatable pool. 'The symbol of America is the Statue of Liberty, not a wall.'"

Nick Gass: "Even if he loses in his home state of Florida on Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio said he will continue on the campaign trail. 'Tomorrow, our plan is to be in Utah campaigning irrespective of tonight,' Rubio told Orlando sports talk station WDBO on Tuesday." CW: Turns out that was a bit of a feint. ...

... Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "The Republican party will be consigned to the wilderness at November's US presidential election 'and beyond' if it chooses Donald Trump as its candidate, rival Marco Rubio has said. In an interview with the Guardian on Monday evening, the Florida senator -- whose fate is likely to be sealed if he fails to win his home state on Tuesday night -- said the New York billionaire was an embarrassment who would not be respected around the world."

Manu Raju of CNN: "Senior Senate Republicans are calling on Sen. Ted Cruz to rebuild his trained relationships with his colleagues and apologize to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before the party establishment considers consolidating behind his presidential bid.... Republican senators said that Cruz must return to Capitol Hill and make the case directly to his colleagues to help ease long-festering tensions. And a large number of Republicans said the fence-mending starts with this: Apologizing to McConnell for calling him a liar last year on the floor of the Senate. That message was personally delivered by fellow Texan and McConnell's chief deputy, Sen. John Cornyn, who spoke with Cruz by phone after the candidate won their home state's primary earlier this month."

Katherine Krueger of TPM has more on Ben Carson's remarks regarding his endorsement of Donald Trump: "... while he wished there was a 'path' for him to endorse another candidate, he's anticipating a role in Republican Donald Trump's possible administration." (CW: I linked another report on the same interview yesterday.)

Other Election News

CBS Chicago: Rep. "Tammy Duckworth cruised to a decisive victory on Tuesday's Democratic primary for U.S Senate. Her victory creates a dramatic showdown with incumbent Mark Kirk, which is expected to be one of the most expensive and closely watched contests in the country."

AP: "Voters have ousted the Chicago area's top prosecutor in a Democratic primary race focused on the office's handling of the shooting death of a black teenager at the hands of a white police officer. Kim Foxx's victory Tuesday over Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez sends her to a November matchup in which she will be heavily favored." ...

... Meaghan Murphy of the New Republic: "The Black Lives Matter movement scored a big electoral win in Chicago.... The well-funded incumbent [Anita Alvarez] lost her primary with just 29 percent of the vote.... This is mostly thanks to the #ByeAnita campaign, led by young black activists who creatively combined direct action with electoral strategy. They ousted Alvarez without even endorsing an opponent, spending just $1,000."

Winger Takes All. Theodoric Meyer of Politico: "Businessman Warren Davidson ... beat out more than a dozen other Republicans today in the primary to fill former House Speaker John Boehner's vacant seat in Ohio. Davidson, who was endorsed by House Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan and the conservative Club for Growth, handed the conservative Republicans who ousted Boehner another victory."

Other News & Views

Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "Under rough questioning from lawmakers, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest region repeatedly refused Tuesday to acknowledge that she or her agency did anything wrong in the tainted-water disaster in Flint, Mich., though she acknowledged that officials 'could have done more' for residents. Susan Hedman, speaking publicly for the first time since she resigned in January, told a congressional committee that she 'did not sit on the sidelines,' 'did not downplay any concerns raised by EPA scientists' and did not retaliate against an official who was raising concerns about the lead contamination in the city's water supply."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the decision [to rescind its proposal allowing Atlantic oil drilling] was driven by many factors, but two stood out: an organized outpouring of opposition from the mayors and municipal councils in more than 100 of the coastal communities in the four states that would be affected by the drilling, and concern from the Pentagon that oil and gas exploration could threaten activities around Virginia's Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base.... While Obama administration officials knew they would face an angry response to the move, they also benefited politically from another factor: The price of oil has plunged to near record lows, easing the public demand for fresh drilling."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve is expected to leave its influential interest rate unchanged after the central bank's top officials wrap up their meeting in Washington today, following a rocky start to the year in the financial markets that is forcing them to reevaluate their plans."

Jennifer Hansler of ABC News: "A bill to recognize magic as a 'rare and valuable art form and national treasure' was introduced into the House of Representatives Tuesday.... Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) introduced HR 642. Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA), Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY), Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) are co-sponsors. It has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." CW: So please refrain from suggesting that the Republican Congress is a do-nothing Congress. OR, as Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) tweeted: "@HouseGOP believes in magic but not climate change."

John Eligon of the New York Times: "The City Council [of Ferguson, Missouri,] voted on Tuesday to approve a settlement with the Justice Department to overhaul the city's police and courts, capping a tense few weeks of indecision over how to push forward a community at the center of more than a year and a half of racial upheaval in America. With the 6-to-0 vote, the Council reversed itself and avoided an expensive legal fight with the federal government. Ferguson must now begin the long, deliberate and costly process of carrying out reforms to a criminal justice system that has been under fire since a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in 2014."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "An Iranian naval commander said Tuesday that Iran retrieved thousands of pages of information from devices used by U.S. sailors who were briefly detained in January. The claim, published by Iranian state media, marks the latest example of how the authorities in Tehran has kept an incident considered embarrassing to the United States in the media in the two months since it occurred."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Hadas Gold of Politico: "Breitbart ... sent out cease and desist letters to some of the employees who left the company in the past week.... Six staffers resigned in the past few days, citing the aftermath of how the site handled one of its reporters, Michelle Fields, accusing Donald Trump's campaign manager of strong-arming her as she tried to ask the candidate's attention. Several of the now former employees issued scathing statements about the company as part of their resignations, and some have given interviews on television and in major newspapers. Breitbart has gotten into legal battles with former employees in the past."

Beyond the Beltway

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "After years of emotional legal wrangling, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that a member of a violent drug gang who killed two undercover detectives on Staten Island more than a decade ago will not face the death penalty. Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote in a decision marked by notes of hesitation that the gang member, Ronell Wilson, was ineligible for execution because he was considered to be intellectually disabled under a relatively recent Supreme Court ruling." ...

... Jen Kirby of New York: "Wilson, a reputed gang member who committed the gruesome crime in 2003, was the last New Yorker on federal death row. (New York State abolished capital punishment in 2007, and all death sentences were converted to life imprisonment; Wilson, though, was prosecuted in federal court, which still has the death penalty, though no one's been executed since 2003.)"

Way Beyond

Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "An all-female crew lands a plane in Saudi Arabia. But they can't drive from the airport."

News Lede

Washington Post: "The University of Virginia student being held in North Korea was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel in Pyongyang. Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio, was convicted after a one-hour trial at North Korea's Supreme Court, China's Xinhua news agency ... reported Wednesday."