The Commentariat -- May 25, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "In a forceful challenge to the Obama administration’s stand on transgender rights, officials in 11 states sued the federal government on Wednesday, arguing that it had no authority to direct the nation’s public school districts to permit students to use the restrooms that correspond with their gender identity." -- CW 

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the 'security risks in doing so.' The inspector general, in a long awaited review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post in advance of its publication, found that Clinton’s use of private email for public business was 'not an appropriate method' of preserving documents and that her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure that federal record laws are followed. The report says Clinton ... should have printed and saved her emails during her four years in office or surrendered her work-related correspondence immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. Instead, Clinton provided those records in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office.... The 83-page report reviews email practices by five secretaries of state and generally concludes that record keeping has been spotty for years. It was particularly critical of former secretary of state Colin Powell...." -- CW ...

... The report is here, via the New York Times. ...

... Steven Myers & Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Mrs. Clinton and her aides have played down the inquiries, saying that she would cooperate with investigators to put the email issue behind her. Even so, through her lawyers, she declined to be interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general as part of his review. So did several of her senior aides.... Security and records management officials told the inspector general’s office that 'Secretary Clinton never demonstrated to them that her private server or mobile device met minimum information security requirements,' the report said." -- CW ...

... A. J. Vicens of Mother Jones: "Two State Department staffers in the office of the executive secretariat — the people within State who coordinate the agency’s work internally — told the IG’s investigators that they discussed their concerns about the use of a personal email account with their boss. 'According to [one] staff member, the [boss] stated that the Secretary’s personal system had been reviewed and approved by Department legal staff and that the matter was not to be discussed any further,' the report states, adding that there’s no evidence that the agency’s internal legal office reviewed or approved the arrangement. The report notes that the other employee who raised concerns was told to 'never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.'” -- CW 

Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Despite his promise to unite the Republican Party, Donald Trump attacked New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez — the chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association — on Tuesday night and accused her of 'not doing the job.'" CW: Martinez is a Latina woman -- for Drumpf, knocking her is a two-fer.

*****

Darrel Rowland of the Columbus Dispatch: "A federal court ruling Tuesday declaring Ohio GOP lawmakers' voting restrictions unconstitutional could easily wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court — and generate a 4-4 split decision, a voting-rights expert says.... Judge Michael H. Watson of U.S. District Court in Columbus said the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature violated the federal constitution and Voting Rights Act in 2014 when it reduced the state's early voting period from 35 to 28 days. The move also eliminated the so-called Golden Week in which eligible residents could register to vote and cast an absentee ballot at the same time. Even though Ohio's early voting period is among the most generous in the nation, the reduction disproportionately affected African Americans, Watson ruled. The judge noted that blacks took advantage of Golden Week 3½ times as often as white voters in 2008, and more than 5 times as often in 2012." The state will appeal the decision. CW: Watson is a Bush II appointee. ...

... Rick Hasen comments on the decision on his Election Law Blog. -- CW 

... Worst in the Nation. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "With a U.S. Supreme Court deadline looming, judges on a federal appeals court [in New Orleans] Tuesday questioned whether accommodations could be made to protect minority voters and save Texas’s strictest-in-the-nation voter-ID law. Among the 15 judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit who heard oral arguments Tuesday morning, there did not seem to be much support for striking down the law or blocking its use in November’s presidential election. But several questioned why Texas did not have more fallback provisions — as other states do — for voters who lack the kinds of identification that the state requires." -- CW 

Mark Berman & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors will seek the death sentence for Dylann Roof, the man accused of killing nine parishioners in a Charleston, S.C., church last year." -- CW 

Ryan Mac of Forbes: "Peter Thiel, a PayPal cofounder and one of the earliest backers of Facebook... , has been secretly covering the expenses for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against online news organization Gawker Media.... The involvement of Thiel, an eccentric figure in Silicon Valley who has advocated for teenagers to skip college and openly supported Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, adds another wrinkle to a case that has garnered widespread attention for its implications over celebrity privacy and a publication’s First Amendment rights." -- CW  

Presidential Race

Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "... Hillary Clinton and ... Donald Trump each won primaries in Washington state Tuesday. Trump's win helps him inch closer to clinching the GOP nomination for president. He is within 41 delegates of the number needed to become the Republican nominee. Clinton's win might give her some momentum, but it won't get her any delegates. There were no delegates at stake in the Democratic primary. Washington Democrats already awarded their delegates based on party caucuses. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won Washington's caucuses in March, getting 74 delegates. Clinton got 27. Republicans in Washington will allocate all 44 delegates to their national convention based on the primary results." -- CW ...

Washington State: In early results, Hillary Clinton received 54 percent of the vote 7 Bernie Sanders received 46 percent.

Washington State: Donald Trump received 76.2 percent of the vote, followed by Ted Cruz with 10.1 & John Kasich with 9.9 percent. ...

... The polls in Washington state close at 11 pm ET Tuesday. Only the Republican votes will affect delegate distribution.

Dave Weigel & Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) has requested a state-run recanvass of last week's Kentucky Democratic primary, hoping to earn at least one more delegate out of one of the year's closest races. The decision, first reported by the Associated Press, came just hours before the deadline to request a new look at the Kentucky vote. On election night, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton led Sanders by 1,924 votes out of 454,573 cast." -- CW 

Kevin Drum: David Brooks wants to know what Hillary Clinton does for fun. "Brooks has a point. It doesn't matter if you think it's fair or not. Modern presidents all know perfectly well that TV has brought the American public into their lives, and the public wants to know what they do for fun. They want to feel like their president is someone who relaxes at the end of the day and lets off a little steam. But Hillary Clinton won't let them see that." -- CW ...

... Matt Yglesias: "... here I think we get to the sexist double standards that really do explain why Clinton is likely somewhat less popular than one might expect a similarly situated politician to be. For a would-be woman president to let her decisions be driven by 'feelings' and emotion [associated with sports] could be deadly, as would the impression that she's a dilettante. She needs to be all-professional and extravagantly qualified for the job. And yet having done all that, she's now this dreary, uncool workaholic who should play more golf." -- CW 

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday defended Bernie Sanders, saying the media should cut the Democratic presidential candidate some slack. 'I think we should just kind of lay off Bernie Sanders a little bit,' Reid told reporters after being asked whether he was concerned about Sanders’s 'tenuous loyalty' to the Democratic Party." -- CW

Jonathan Chait: "The liberal case against Hillary Clinton rests in large part upon her associations — people she surrounds herself with and whose judgment she relies upon. She has caught an enormous amount of flak, some of it fair, for her ties to figures in the finance industry or advisers with morally questionable worldviews. By the same token, what should we make of Bernie Sanders’s decision to appoint Cornel West as one of his advisers to the Democratic Party’s platform committee?" CW: As Chait amply points out, West is a crazed anti-Obama nut.

Abby Phillip & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has a new partner in her battle against Donald Trump: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who gave a speech Tuesday mirroring Clinton’s own talking points accusing Trump of profiting from the housing crash of 2008." Trump responded with name-calling slurs. -- CW ...

... Greg Sargent: "... Warren is making a broader argument about Trump’s fundamental cruelty.... [The argument is that] Trump is ... adeptly posing as the Man in the Street’s Billionaire. But he is personally cruel and rapacious: He, and his presidential candidacy, are directly screwing you.... One lingering question is what kind of affirmative argument Hillary Clinton will make in terms of how she’d be better than Trump on the economy." So far she has not made her case. -- CW  

** Trump's "Bitch-Slap." Josh Marshall: "... the three big networks and in fact the major national dailies continue to blast out Donald Trump's charges that Hillary Clinton's husband raped or assaulted other women. And yet, CNN, MSNBC, let alone Fox refuse to discuss that at least twice Trump has himself been accused of sexual assault or rape in sworn statements - once by his wife and again a decade ago in a lawsuit brought by a woman named Jill Harth.... Listen to Trump's words and you hear repeated lines about hurting Clinton, warning her to back off and not forcing him to hurt her again. Cut and paste them out of the context of a campaign article and they read like dialog from a made for TV movie about a wife-beater. [Emphasis added.]... Trump [is] basically the embodiment of 'dominance politics' and assertive violence." -- CW ...

... Joan Walsh of the Nation: "Donald Trump has signaled the direction of his general-election presidential campaign, and it’s straight down the sewer. The question is whether the media will follow him there." -- CW 

You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do. -- Donald Trump, to WashPo reporter (possibly Fahrenthold) who asked about the donation Monday ...

... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Almost four months after promising $1 million of his own money to veterans’ causes, Donald Trump moved to fulfill that pledge Monday evening — promising the entire sum to a single charity as he came under intense media scrutiny. Trump ... organized a nationally televised fundraiser for veterans’ causes in Des Moines on Jan. 28. That night, Trump said he had raised $6 million,  including the [$1 million] gift from his own pocket.... As recently as last week, Trump’s campaign manager had insisted that the mogul had already given that money away. But that was false: Trump had not." CW: Also, everything Trump's campaign staff say is fake. ...

... Kevin Drum: "Even for Trump, this is inexplicable. Whenever you think he can't possibly be a bigger douche, he proves you wrong. What a revolting human being he is." -- CW 

Donald Trump 'called theories of possible foul play "very serious" and the circumstances of [Vince] Foster’s death "very fishy.’” — Washington Post, May 24, 2016

There is nothing fishy or mysterious about Foster’s tragic suicide. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, after reviewing five investigations of Foster's suicide -- CW 

Brian McBride of ABC News: "Senior level Trump campaign sources confirmed to ABC News Wednesday that House Speaker Paul Ryan will be endorsing ... Donald Trump." CW: I'm so surprised.

CW: Oh, This Just In. Rick Santorum has endorsed Donald Trump. Sorry, no link to this riveting news at this time. Maybe later.

Clare Malone of 538: "Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name.... He’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump." -- CW 

Run, Mitt, Run. David French of the (right-wing) National Review: "At this moment, American voters face a choice between two historically corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent politicians....Both are walking impeachment risks who would bring horror shows of unending scandal and shame to the Oval Office.... And at this point, Mitt Romney is the only man who combines the integrity, financial resources, name recognition, and broad public support to make a realistic independent run at the presidency." -- CW 

Congressional Races

Tamar Hallerman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "All of Georgia’s congressional incumbents appeared to survive their primaries last night, extending their political fortunes until at least November during an election year that many had predicted would be a rebuke of all things Washington.... U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson ... trounced his two primary opponents Tuesday evening." -- CW 

Donald Who? Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "One after another, Republican senators on the front lines of the effort to hold their fragile majority dodged, diverted or acquiesced halfheartedly when asked if they would appear with Trump on the campaign trail. As the Manhattan mogul cements his position as the GOP standard-bearer, these down-ballot contenders are trying to save their jobs by running away from their party’s presumptive nominee." -- CW 

Beyond the Beltway

David Goldstein of CBS Los Angeles: "A comparison of records ... has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County.... CBS2 compared millions of voting records from the California Secretary of State’s office with death records from the Social Security Administration and found hundreds of so-called dead voters. Specifically, 265 in Southern California and a vast majority of them, 215, in Los Angeles County alone.... In some cases..., they voted year after year.... It remains unclear how the dead voters voted but 86 were registered Republicans, 146 were Democrats...." -- CW

Baylorgate. Former Special Prosecutor Impeached or Something over Sexual Assault Cover-up. Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle: "Baylor refused to confirm or deny a report that it planned to fire school president Kenneth Starr in response to the sexual assault scandal rocking the school's football program. On Tuesday morning, Scout.com's Chip Brown reported that Starr had been fired. The Waco Tribune-Herald later published a story saying that numerous current and former regents wouldn't confirm or deny the report.... Baylor is accused of failing to respond to rape or sexual assault reports filed by at least six women students from 2009-2016. There were reports of rape and assault against at least five Baylor football players, with two of those players - Tevin Elliot and Sam Ukwuachu - being convicted of rape." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update: Phillip Ericksen of the Waco Tribune-Herald: "Ken Starr remained as Baylor University’s president Tuesday, despite media reports that he had been fired from the job earlier in the day, outgoing board of regents Chairman Richard Willis said. Willis declined to elaborate on Starr’s future Tuesday afternoon, but confirmed that Starr was still the president Tuesday and told the Tribune-Herald by phone that the board will provide more information soon." -- CW 

Nicholas Confessore & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: The "widening influence" of Dandong, "one of China’s largest agricultural importers..., is coming under scrutiny by federal prosecutors, who are examining the relationship between Dandong’s wealthy and connected chairman, Wang Wenliang, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat who was elected in 2013." -- CW 

Maxine Bernstein of the Oregonian: "Portland Mayor Charlie Hales on Tuesday placed Police Chief Larry O'Dea on paid administrative leave a day after new details emerged that the chief misled an investigator about his involvement in an eastern Oregon hunting accident. Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told The Oregonian/OregonLive that O'Dea initially indicated that his friend accidentally shot himself April 21 during the off-duty trip." -- CW 

Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "Prosecutors in Pennsylvania on Tuesday crossed their final hurdle to bring Bill Cosby to trial on charges that he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman he once mentored, with a judge ruling that enough evidence existed for the case to move forward." -- CW ...

... Chiqui Esteban & Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "... at least 58 women ... have said [Bill Cosby] raped or sexually harassed them between the mid-1960s and the late 2000s, including dozens who say he drugged them before the alleged assaults." -- CW 

Way Beyond

Mujib Mashal & Zahra Nader of the New York Times: "The Taliban broke their silence early Wednesday over the death of their leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, confirming in a statement that he had been killed in an American drone strike. Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a deputy to Mullah Mansour, was selected as the new leader of the Taliban...." -- CW 

The Commentariat -- May 24, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Baylorgate. Former Special Prosecutor Impeached or Something over Sexual Assault Cover-up. Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle: "Baylor refused to confirm or deny a report that it planned to fire school president Kenneth Starr in response to the sexual assault scandal rocking the school's football program. On Tuesday morning, Scout.com's Chip Brown reported that Starr had been fired. The Waco Tribune-Herald later published a story saying that numerous current and former regents wouldn't confirm or deny the report. Baylor issued a statement of its own Tuesday afternoon: 'The Baylor Board of Regents continues its work to review the findings of the Pepper Hamilton investigation and we anticipate further communication will come after the Board completes its deliberations. We will not respond to rumors, speculation or reports based on unnamed sources, but when official news is available, the University will provide it. We expect an announcement by June 3.' Baylor is accused of failing to respond to rape or sexual assault reports filed by at least six women students from 2009-2016. There were reports of rape and assault against at least five Baylor football players, with two of those players - Tevin Elliot and Sam Ukwuachu - being convicted of rape." -- CW

*****

Oliver Holmes of the Guardian & agencies: "Barack Obama has said Washington supports Vietnam's territorial claims against Beijing in the South China Sea and promised it greater access to security equipment. 'In the South China Sea, the US is not a claimant in current disputes, but we will stand with our partners in upholding key principles like freedom of navigation,' the US president said in a speech in Hanoi." -- CW ...

... Simon Denyer of the Washington Post: "China warned President Obama on Tuesday not to spark a fire in Asia after he announced the lifting of a longstanding embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam. Obama unveiled the historic step on Monday during his first visit to Vietnam, insisting the move was 'not based on China' while simultaneously acknowledging that both nations share a common concern about China's actions in the South China Sea." -- CW

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "According to US officials, the [Obama] administration has deals in place to send approximately two dozen longtime Guantánamo detainees to about half a dozen countries." -- CW

Jonathan Chait: "... it has begun to dawn on some conservatives that the Republican Party faces a distinct handicap: The Democrats will have two popular ex-presidents to campaign for them, and the GOP will have none." Why, oh, why is that? Conservatives attribute this to "bad luck," but "The answer, I'd suggest, is something along the lines of by governing competently rather than presiding over a flaming wreck of a presidency. But this answer presumes a level of introspection ... that is absent from both columns, and from conservative thought in general." -- CW

Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic: "One of the key trends in modern American politics is what I've called the class inversion -- the shift since the 1960s of working-class whites from the Democratic Party to the Republican, and the parallel movement of more white-collar whites from the GOP to the Democrats since the 1980s. A Clinton-Trump race that could prove more competitive than many expected threatens to finally uproot the last vestiges of the class-based political alignment that defined U.S. politics from Franklin Roosevelt through the 1960s." -- CW

John Sides of the Washington Post: "Our internal pictures of the opposite party are terribly inaccurate. When asked about the groups historically associated with each party, we think these groups make up a vastly larger fraction of each party than they really do. In other words, we think each party is essentially a huge bundle of stereotypes -- and this tendency is particularly pronounced when we're characterizing the opposite party.... The more we exaggerate the differences in the social bases of each party, the more tribal partisanship becomes." CW: Hey, how about this, Professor? Ninety-eight percent of Republicans are greedy bigots. The remaining two percent are confused. AmIrite?

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "In November, 17 states will have voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Eleven of those states will require their residents to show a photo ID. They include swing states such as Wisconsin and states with large African American and Latino populations, such as North Carolina and Texas. On Tuesday, the entire 15-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans is to begin hearing a case regarding the legality of the Texas law, considered to be the most stringent in the country." -- CW

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Former President Jimmy Carter, who has long put religion and racial reconciliation at the center of his life, is on a mission to heal a racial divide among Baptists and help the country soothe rifts that he believes are getting worse. In an interview on Monday, Mr. Carter spoke of a resurgence of open racism, saying, 'I don't feel good, except for one thing: I think the country has been reawakened the last two or three years to the fact that we haven't resolved the race issue adequately.' He said that Republican animosity toward President Obama had 'a heavy racial overtone' and that Donald J. Trump's surprisingly successful campaign for president had 'tapped a waiting reservoir there of inherent racism.'" -- CW

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "One Of The Most Aggressive Gerrymanders In The Country Just Lost In The Supreme Court.... On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal brought by three Republican members of Congress who hoped to maintain [Virginia's] old [gerrymandered] maps. Though the Court's decision in Wittman v. Personhuballah expresses no view on the merits of the case, it effectively allows the lower court's order to stand." -- CW

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a black Georgia death row inmate who claimed that prosecutors kept African Americans off the jury that convicted him of murdering an elderly white woman. The court ruled 7 to 1 that Georgia prosecutors had improperly considered race when selecting a jury to judge Timothy Tryone Foster. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone African American on the court, dissented, saying that the evidence that prosecutors acted improperly was not strong enough to overturn Foster's conviction." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Brief Return of Sanity. Richard Wolf of USA Today: "The Supreme Court gave a black death-row prisoner new life Monday by ruling that prosecutors unconstitutionally barred all potential black jurors from his trial nearly 30 years ago. The 7-1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed Georgia courts that had refused to consider claims of racial discrimination against Timothy Foster for the murder of an elderly white woman. The ruling is likely to fuel contentions from death penalty opponents that capital punishment is racially discriminatory." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... AND ...

... Lydia Wheeler of The Hill: "The Supreme Court dimissmed a GOP challenge Monday to a court remedy for an unconstitutional congressional redistricting plan in Virginia. A unanimous court held that Reps. Rob Wittman and other Republicans from Virginia, including Reps. Randy Forbes and David Brat, lacked standing to pursue the appeal because none of them could show they were injured by the new court-ordered race-neutral plan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

     ... Akhilleus: Bet you can't guess the lone dissenter in the first case. There'd have been two if you know who was still around. In the Virginia case, I'm surprised the standing argument worked, even though it's one of Roberts' favorite strategems for refusing to act on a claim. Brat and the other Virginia Confederates could sustain great injury now that their power grab has been found unconstitutional. They could be voted out of office in a truly democratic election. Jeez, Johnny, c'mon. ...

... Thomas Advocates Low-Tech Lynching. Ian Millhiser: "In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas appears astounded that his colleagues could care that new evidence shows that Foster's constitutional rights were violated. 'The notion that this "newly discovered evidence" could warrant relitigation of a Batson claim is flabbergasting,' Thomas writes.... Indeed, Thomas appears much more concerned with the extra work Foster is going to create for himself and his fellow justices than with the fact that a man was going to be executed unconstitutionally." -- CW ...

... Charles Pierce: "Before we go on, it's important to remember that Justice Clarence Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall, the legal titan who first brought down separate-but-equal and who drove a stake through the heart of Plessy v. Ferguson.... [The Foster case] was so nakedly About Race, although nothing ever is About Race, and the prosecutorial misconduct so egregious, that it revolted even Chief Justice John Roberts, the man who never misses a chance to declare the Day Of Jubilee." -- CW

Kim Palmer of Reuters: "A federal judge in Cincinnati temporarily blocked the implementation of a[n Ohio] state law that would have effectively de-funded 28 Ohio Planned Parenthood clinics, in a ruling on Monday. U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett granted a two-week stay halting the diversion of federal funding in a ruling on a May 11 lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Southwest Ohio. The Ohio law signed in February by Republican Governor John Kasich stripped $1.3 million in federal taxpayer funds from any healthcare organization that provides abortion services. The law was scheduled to go into effect on Monday." -- CW

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors are investigating campaign contributions to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), and what they consider to be suspicious personal finances, as part of a public integrity probe that has lasted for more than a year, according to two officials familiar with the inquiry." -- CW

Presidential Race

Rachel La Corte of the AP: "More than a million voters have sent in their ballots for Washington state's presidential primary, even though the results will be used only to allocate delegates to the Republican National Convention. Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system. Democrats opted for the caucus system to allocate their delegates and will therefore ignore the results of Tuesday's primary.... Sanders overwhelmingly won the district caucuses March 26." -- CW

Trump economics is a recipe for lower wages, fewer jobs, more debt. He could bankrupt America like he's bankrupted his companies. I mean, ask yourself: How can anybody lose money running a casino? Really. -- Hillary Clinton, Monday ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "... Hillary Clinton has turned down an invitation to debate Senator Bernie Sanders ahead of California's primary, her campaign said on Monday. The announcement came hours after Mrs. Clinton unleashed a biting critique of Donald J. Trump while addressing a union convention, mocking his business record and offering a glimpse at how she might confront him in the general election. Mr. Sanders's campaign last week tentatively accepted an invitation by Fox News to participate in a debate before California's June 7 primary, and expressed hope that Mrs. Clinton would agree to face off against the senator." -- CW ...

... Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "An army of Hillary Clinton's surrogates in battleground states will blast Donald Trump on Tuesday over his past statements about the housing market and his business record, according to a campaign aide. The coordinated push is the first of their efforts to frame the likely Republican nominee in the minds of swing voters...." CW

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "... Hillary Clinton should not pick a senator from a Republican-controlled state as her vice president, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned Monday. 'If we have a Republican governor in any of those states, the answer is not only no, but hell no. I would do whatever I can, and I think most of my Democratic colleagues here would say the same thing,' Reid told MSNBC's 'AM Joy' when asked about the possibility of Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) or Sherrod Brown (Ohio) being named Clinton's No. 2. Reid added that he would 'yell and scream to stop that.'" -- CW ...

... Paul Waldman: "One alternative scenario: if Clinton pickedWarren and she resigned her Senate seat immediately, there would be an early special election that could elect another Democrat in time for the start of Clinton's presidency." -- CW

Cathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times: Campaigning in California over the weekend, Bernie Sanders & Bill Clinton appear to have declared a truce. "Gone were some of Sanders' harshest condemnations of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House. Gone too was Bill Clinton's occasional belittling of the Vermont senator's policy proposals." -- CW

Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders was given unprecedented say over the Democratic Party platform Monday in a move party leaders hope will soothe a bitter split with backers of the longshot challenger to Hillary Clinton -- and Sanders immediately used his new power to name a well-known advocate for Palestinian rights [-- James Zogby --] to help draft Democratic policy." -- CW ...

... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Top Bernie Sanders supporters Dr. Cornell [sic.] West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be among those on the Democratic Party's important Platform Drafting Committee after the Vermont senator won a key concession as he looks to leave his mark on the party's platform." -- CW ...

     ... CW: Worth mentioning here: Cornel West is a blowhard loon, who, to say the least, does not play well with others. He belongs on a platform committee (or any committee) like a fox belongs on a committee of broody hens fighting for free-range justice.

Jose DelReal & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is reviving some of the ugliest political chapters of the 1990s with escalating personal attacks on Bill Clinton's character amid a concerted effort to smother Hillary Clinton's campaign message with the weight of decades of controversy. Trump's latest shot came Monday when he released an incendiary Instagram video that includes the voices of two women who accused the former president of sexual assault, underscoring the presumptive Republican nominee's willingness to go far beyond political norms in his critique of his likely Democratic rival." -- CW ...

Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, the grotesquely misogynistic Republican nominee released an Instagram ad titled, 'Is Hillary really protecting women?' The 15-second spot layers clips of women tearfully accusing Bill Clinton of sexual assault over a menacing photograph of the former president smoking a cigar -- until the voices of the victims are drowned out by Hillary Clinton's maniacal laughter." -- CW ...

... digby: "In other words, there is nothing he won't do to win. And as he's made clear in the past, he believes that once you have won something, you are given license to bully and dominate.... When are we going to start thinking about this is psychological terms? That's not a normal way of thinking for a well-balanced, mature adult." -- CW ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: Donald Trump "frequently proclaimed himself to be an admirer of [Bill] Clinton.... For years, Trump dismissed or minimized the sex allegations against Clinton, even after [Kathleen] Willey and [Juanita] Broadderick went public with their claims. His main concern is that Clinton did not handle the public relations of the Lewinsky scandal right; Trump dismissed the women involved as losers and not attractive. Trump even suggested that Americans would have been more forgiving if Clinton had slept with more beautiful women. Trump's bottom line, even years later, was that the Clinton sex scandals were 'totally unimportant.'" -- CW ...

... AND Kenny Likes Bill. Bill Clinton is the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation. His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear. It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him -- that he genuinely cared. The 'I feel your pain' is absolutely genuine. -- Ken Starr, Whitewater Independent Counsel, this week

Dana Milbank: "A generation after Ronald Reagan denounced the 'welfare queen,' the Grand Old Party is evidently on the verge of nominating its first welfare king.... The Post's Drew Harwell reported over the weekend that, for at least two years in the late 1970s..., Trump paid no federal income taxes. Several tax experts I spoke with said it's entirely possible that Trump has continued to report negative income -- and therefore not pay taxes -- because of loopholes and dubious deductions that benefit powerful real estate interests.... The corporate welfare Trump receives is nothing to be proud of -- not least because Trump ... has condemned corporate executives who 'make a fortune' but 'pay no tax.'" -- CW

Ed Kilgore on the dying of the right -- or at least the fading of #NeverTrump. -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Joe Heim & Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A judge found police officer Edward M. Nero not guilty of all criminal charges in the case of Freddie Gray, whose death last year in police custody sparked riots and widespread anger in the city. The acquittal by Judge Barry G. Williams, announced Monday in a packed courtroom, is the first verdict reached in the Gray case. Nero is the second officer to face trial on charges related to Gray's arrest and subsequent death. The first officer's trial ended in a hung jury." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Alison Smale of the New York Times: "Alexander Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old economics professor and former Green Party leader, won Austria's cliffhanger presidential election on Monday, defeating his far-right rival by the slimmest of margins and pledging to unite the divided country. Austria had to wait almost 24 hours after polls closed on Sunday for the authorities to count almost 700,000 valid mail-in ballots." -- CW ...

... CW: If you followed the Austrian election at all, you know that it could have gone either way. AND, as Steve M. notes, "... the demographics of this election look very similar to polls of the U.S. presidential election -- not just in terms of social class or place of residence, but in terms of gender."

The Commentariat -- May 23, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a black Georgia death row inmate who claimed that prosecutors kept African Americans off the jury that convicted him of murdering an elderly white woman. The court ruled 7 to 1 that Georgia prosecutors had improperly considered race when selecting a jury to judge Timothy Tryone Foster. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone African American on the court, dissented, saying that the evidence that prosecutors acted improperly was not strong enough to overturn Foster's conviction." -- CW ...

Brief Return of Sanity. Richard Wolf in USA Today: "The Supreme Court gave a black death-row prisoner new life Monday by ruling that prosecutors unconstitutionally barred all potential black jurors from his trial nearly 30 years ago. The 7-1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed Georgia courts that had refused to consider claims of racial discrimination against Timothy Foster for the murder of an elderly white woman. The ruling is likely to fuel contentions from death penalty opponents that capital punishment is racially discriminatory." ...

... AND ...

... Lydia Wheeler on The Hill: "The Supreme Court dimissmed a GOP challenge Monday to a court remedy for an unconstitutional congressional redistricting plan in Virginia. A unanimous court held that Reps. Rob Wittman and other Republicans from Virginia, including Reps. Randy Forbes and David Brat, lacked standing to pursue the appeal because none of them could show they were injured by the new court-ordered race-neutral plan."

     ... Akhilleus: Bet you can't guess the lone dissenter in the first case. There'd have been two if you know who was still around. In the Virginia case, I'm surprised the standing argument worked, even though it's one of Roberts' favorite strategems for refusing to act on a claim. Brat and the other Virginia Confederates could sustain great injury now that their power grab has been found unconstitutional. They could be voted out of office in a truly democratic election. Jeez, Johnny, c'mon ...

Joe Heim & Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A judge found police officer Edward M. Nero not guilty of all criminal charges in the case of Freddie Gray, whose death last year in police custody sparked riots and widespread anger in the city. The acquittal by Judge Barry G. Williams, announced Monday in a packed courtroom, is the first verdict reached in the Gray case. Nero is the second officer to face trial on charges related to Gray's arrest and subsequent death. The first officer's trial ended in a hung jury." -- CW

*****

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration announced Monday that the United States would fully lift a longstanding U.S. embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam, a decision that reflects growing concerns about China's military clout and illustrates the warming bilateral ties between the former enemy nations. President Obama unveiled the new arrangement at a news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang during the opening day of his first visit to the country. Obama emphasized that his decision reflected a maturing relationship and deepening cooperation on security and economic investment four decades after the end of the Vietnam War." -- CW ...

... Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "President Obama arrived in the steamy capital of Vietnam ahead of schedule on Sunday night to begin three days of meetings in hopes of luring yet another Southeast Asian country away from China's tight embrace." -- CW

Mujib Mashal of the New York Times: "The leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, was killed by an American drone strike, the Afghan intelligence agency said on Sunday. Some Taliban commanders vehemently denied that Mullah Mansour was present in the area of the strike, which occurred on Saturday near the Afghan border in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, but a statement from the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, was unambiguous." -- CW ...

... Gardiner Harris: "Calling the death 'an important milestone,' President Obama said in a statement, released just as he was meeting with top officials in Vietnam, that the United States had 'removed the leader of an organization that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and coalition forces.'" -- CW

E.J. Dionne: "We'll hear lots in the coming months about the rise of 'populism.' But unless this talk is harnessed to policies that provide real help for real people, it will have all the depth of a splenetic, ill-considered tweet." -- CW

Presidential Race

I do not want Americans and, you know, good-thinking Republicans, as well as Democrats and independents, to start to believe that this is a normal candidacy. -- Hillary Clinton, regarding Donald Trump, Sunday on "Meet the Press" ...

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Continuing to treat a victory over Senator Bernie Sanders as a fait accompli, Hillary Clinton on Sunday questioned Donald J. Trump's business record and assailed his ideas, warning that the coming weeks represented a critical period in which, if left unchallenged, Mr. Trump could 'normalize himself' as he seeks to broaden his support. But Mr. Sanders pointed to polls showing Mrs. Clinton with dangerously high percentages of people who have unfavorable views of her and asked whether a choice between her and Mr. Trump in the fall would force voters to pick the 'lesser of two evils.'" -- CW

     ... CW: See also SNL's cold open, embedded yesterday. Really. ...

... Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "... Bernie Sanders said he believes front-runner Hillary Clinton could beat ... Donald Trump in November, but that his campaign brings more excitement that could help the Democratic Party gain control of the Senate. 'I'm not saying she cannot beat Donald Trump. I think she can. There's a good chance she can,' Sanders told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview Sunday on 'State of the Union.' 'I am the stronger candidate because we appeal to independents. People who are not in love with either the Democratic or Republican Party, often for very good reasons.'" -- CW ...

Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "The Clinton and Sanders camps are, in the usual schoolyard fashion, pointing fingers at each other. The truth is, both sides are to blame. But the onus is on Clinton, not Sanders, to turn down the temperature. If she intends to unify the party, now is the time to prove she can do it -- that's her burden as the frontrunner and likely nominee." CW: Shephard provides a good overview of the dynamics of the "disunity."

Remembrances of Clinton Past. Paul Krugman puts on rose-tinted glasses & recalls the economic boom that occurred during Bill Clinton's administration. "What was Mr. Clinton's role? Actually, it was fairly limited, since he didn't cause the technology takeoff. On the other hand, his policies obviously didn't get in the way of prosperity. And it's worth remembering that in 1993, when Mr. Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, Republicans uniformly predicted disaster." ...

     ... CW: This is true enough, but it would be worth remarking on the deregulation policies Bill Clinton initiated, which didn't show their full, disastrous effects for nearly a decade. So is it wise to put Bill "in charge of revitalizing the economy," as Mrs. Bill has proposed? I don't think so. It's about time Hillary Clinton put Krugman on her payroll. ...

... Ben Casselman of 538 (May 20): "... the [Bill] Clinton boom, and even some specific Clinton policies, also helped sow the seeds for the far more severe Great Recession of the late 2000s. Mortgage-backed securities and subprime loans weren't invented in the 1990s, but they expanded greatly during the period, part of a broader 'financialization' of the U.S. economy that contributed directly to the severity of the Great Recession." CW: Read the whole post. Casselman & Krugman don't disagree, but Casselman provides a more balanced view of Bill's impact on the economy (not much).

... Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: Bill Clinton's appearance at a Billings, Montana, campaign event did not inspire the female voters in attendance to accept him as Hillary's "economy czar." -- CW

William Saletan of Slate, published in Business Insider: "Trump's collaborators, like the 20th-century politicians who collaborated in segregation, internment, and McCarthyism, don't want to face the full meaning of their complicity. But they ... must explain to the public, under scrutiny from the press, why they're willing to suspend the fundamental values of the United States. I've put together an indictment [of] 10 counts, each one specific to a transgression or a target group. These aren't just character flaws. They're insinuations, accusations, and threats that make Trump a menace to minorities and to the country as a whole." --safari

John Myers of the Los Angeles Times: "A federal lawsuit alleging widespread confusion over California's presidential primary rules asks that voter registration be extended past Monday's deadline until the day of the state's primary election on June 7.... At issue is whether voters understand the rules for the presidential primary, which differ from those governing other elections in California. Unlike statewide primaries -- where voters now choose any candidate, no matter the political party -- the presidential contests are controlled by the parties themselves. Democrats have opened up their primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to voters that have no political affiliation, known in California as having 'no party preference.' But the lawsuit alleges elections officials in some of California's 58 counties aren't making that clear to these unaffiliated voters." One of the plaintiffs is a group supporting Sen. Sanders. -- CW

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump refuted ... Hillary Clinton by insisting that he was 'not advocating guns in classrooms,' but at the same time argued that 'teachers should have guns in classrooms.' On Sunday's edition of Fox & Friends, host Clayton Morris pointed out that Hillary Clinton had recently attacked Trump for his position that 'every school' in American should have guns in classroom. 'They're just words,' Trump scoffed in response." CW: And my words are always meaningless because everything I say is fake.

Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times: Donald Trump may be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, but Washington state's GOP convention awarded 40 out of 41 elected delegate slots to Ted Cruz." -- CW

Ed Kilgore: "Yes, it must be fun and ego-gratifying to be Donald J. Trump right now...Maybe so, but not for long. Throughout the pre-primary and primary phases of the GOP presidential-nominating process,Trump had a bunch of advantages he will soon lose...Perhaps Trump will be luckier and more skillful than I suspect in the very different context of a general election. But anyway you cut it, he's going to have a lot of white-knuckle moments from here on out. And it just isn't going to be as much fun." --safari

The War on Women, Ctd. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "The future of the Supreme Court -- and reproductive freedom, it seems -- currently rests on the public spectacle of nothing happening. Decisions not happening aren't news...You know what's news? Donald Trump's shortlist of Supreme Court nominees. The list shows -- maybe even more effectively than the dissents in Hobby Lobby -- why women's reproductive freedom is in real peril, because it shows Trump's eagerness to seat justices who will do away with the right to choose." --safari

** Married to the Mob. David Cay Johnson in Politico Magazine: "I've covered Donald Trump off and on for 27 years, and in that time I've encountered multiple threads linking Trump to organized crime. Some of Trump's unsavory connections have been followed by investigators and substantiated in court; some haven't. And some of those links have continued until recent years, though when confronted with evidence of such associations, Trump has often claimed a faulty memory.... Trump's career has benefited from a decades-long and largely successful effort to limit and deflect law enforcement investigations into his dealings with top mobsters, organized crime associates, labor fixers, corrupt union leaders, con artists and even a one-time drug trafficker whom Trump retained as the head of his personal helicopter service." -- CW

Brian Beutler: "... to the extent that #NeverTrump captured the public imagination at all, it was thanks to a different, largely unspoken, but potentially profound reading of the term: the implicit acknowledgment that Hillary Clinton's candidacy isn't abnormal, reckless, or morally irresponsible in the way that Trump's is.... For the sizable faction of the conservative elite that recognizes Clinton is a conventional Democrat, and that the country can survive four or eight more years of Democratic rule, they owe it to the public to be crystal clear about the fact that Trump is a unique threat.... But as long they continue to approach the challenge in such a muddied, blinkered way, their efforts will be largely wasted." -- CW

Kristina Wong of the Hill: "... Marine Corps veteran [Alexander McCoy] is organizing a protest on Monday against presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, demanding he apologize for overstating his donations to veterans groups. 'We just cracked $6 million, right?' Trump said at the end of [a January 2016 fundraising] event.... Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski now says, however, that the fundraiser netted about $4.5 million, and told the Post the shortfall was due to Trump's acquaintances pledging donations, but not following through.... Lewandowski later told CNN ... the $4.5 billion figure he had given the Post earlier was inaccurate. 'Donald has attempted to use the respect that American voters have for veterans to obscure the fact that he is completely unfit to be our commander in chief,' McCoy, 27, told The Hill." -- CW

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. The Frankenstein Network. Simon Maloy of Salon: "It's official: Donald Trump has conquered Fox News. The last redoubt of resistance collapsed last week when Megyn Kelly, Trump's nemesis from the primary debates, served up a toothless, meatless primetime interview with Trump that served only to verify that the Murdoch network is now squarely behind the Republican presidential nominee.... Fox helped create his political career, then it tried to tear him down, and now that he's forced Fox News back into his corner it will go to the mat to try and lift him up to the presidency." -- CW

Tom Kludt of CNN Money: "Michelle Fields, the conservative reporter who had Donald Trump's campaign manager charged with battery..., is heading to the Huffington Post, where she will cover the 2016 campaign with a specific focus on Trump and the Republican Party." -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Patrick Keefe has a long piece in the New Yorker on Hervé Falciani, the H.S.B.C. employee who stole data to expose much of the the Swiss bank's dirty business. "Clients were not only placing their fortunes in accounts that were 'undeclared' to tax authorities; H.S.B.C. bankers were actively assisting clients in hiding their money, by setting up shell companies and sham trusts in the British Virgin Islands and Panama.... like Edward Snowden, with whom he claims a strong affinity, Falciani was a systems guy." CW: Fascinating, in a made-for-Hollywood way.

Philip Oltermann & Kate Connolly of the Guardian: "Austria's political future is on a knife-edge, with the candidate bidding to be the European Union's first far-right president holding a wafer-thin lead over his rival. According to the public broadcaster ORF, Norbert Hofer of the rightwing populist Freedom party (FPÖ) was neck and neck on 50% with his rival Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green party leader who is running as an independent." --safari...

...BUT Simon Tisdall of the Guardian: "From Essex to Essen and from Athens to Aarhus, the scale of the vote for the far right will be seen as a death sentence for familiar post-war, centrist politics-as-usual." --safari

Trump's brethren. AFP in the Guardian: "The Philippines president-elect [Rodrigo Duterte] accused the Catholic church on Sunday of hypocrisy, saying the bishops who had condemned him during his campaign had been asking favours from the government.... About 80% of Filipinos belong to the Catholic church...'You sons of whores, aren't you ashamed? You ask so many favours, even from me,' he said, addressing Catholic bishops." --safari

Leon Neyfakh of Slate: "While academic fraud exists all over the world, the pervasiveness of the deception in Russia is unparalleled, as is the extent to which it is tolerated...It didn't used to be this way. Though it wasn't unheard of to find Communist Party bosses with ill-gotten diplomas in the Soviet era, academic fraud was not perpetrated as brazenly, or at such an enormous scale, until the 1990s." --safari...

...safari: I'm not sure which one is worse, Russians who falsify their intelligence, or Americans who openly shun it. In the article, the writer tries to give a comparison as if Paul Ryan plaigarized Paul Krugman. While that certainly would be a scandal, it'd never happen. Here in the US, American politicians have countless, well-positioned pseudo-academics and think tanks that'll produce whatever Paul Ryan wants to hear. Or, he'll just throw in some magic asterisks and earn praise for his "wonkiness". Choose your poison I guess.

News Lede

Washington Post: "A wave of bombings in Syria killed at least 65 people Monday in a coastal area where Russian troops are based, Syrian state media reported. The attacks struck at one of the key strongholds for President Bashar al-Assad outside Damascus and the hub for Russian military operations backing his government." -- CW