The Commentariat -- May 5, 2016

Afternoon Update:

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oops! Chuck beat Akhilleus to it:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presidential Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... At least Dana Milbank has principles:

Senate Races

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

Beyond the Beltway

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

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

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

Way Beyond

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

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

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

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

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

News Ledes

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

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

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."