Trump supports candidate with anti-Semitic leanings. Here’s her dad, btw, he’s anti-Semitic too. The apple does not fall far from the tree. No, Trump’s support is not subtle. Yes, it matters.
Telegraph:
French election results and exit polls live: Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen win first round, according to projections
Melanchon, the defeated socialist, has not yet endorsed. With LePen in the race, there is no excuse. And don’t try to use neoliberalism as one. Won’t wash. Macron is a centrist and has no political experience. But he is not LePen.
David M. Drucker/WashExaminer:
Vulnerable House Republicans caught in Obamacare crossfire
Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., is a prime example. He's defending a district that voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 17 percentage points. He is sure to be a top Democratic target next year. More than 70,000 people who benefit from CSR subsidies live in Curbelo's district.
The subsidies are technically payments to insurance companies. The arrangement enables insurers to offer coverage at reduced rates to Americans who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but can't afford healthcare at market prices.
If Republicans and the Trump administration don't finance the subsidies in a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid a government shutdown, the GOP could face a voter backlash as insurers cancel plans and pull out of communities.
"Republicans wanting Obamacare to collapse might be a good talking point in 2017, but it will be disastrous at the ballot box for us in 2018," a former House GOP aide said. Republicans interviewed for this story requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.
The emails were not new. The conversation is over this NYT piece:
Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.
At the meeting, everyone agreed that Mr. Comey should not reveal details about the Clinton investigation. But Ms. Lynch told him to be even more circumspect: Do not even call it an investigation, she said, according to three people who attended the meeting. Call it a “matter.”
Ms. Lynch reasoned that the word “investigation” would raise other questions: What charges were being investigated? Who was the target? But most important, she believed that the department should stick by its policy of not confirming investigations.
It was a by-the-book decision. But Mr. Comey and other F.B.I. officials regarded it as disingenuous in an investigation that was so widely known. And Mr. Comey was concerned that a Democratic attorney general was asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to people who spoke with him afterward.
David Remnick/New Yorker:
A HUNDRED DAYS OF TRUMP
With his nativist and purely transactional view of politics, he threatens to be democracy’s most reckless caretaker.
On April 29th, Donald Trump will have occupied the Oval Office for a hundred days. For most people, the luxury of living in a relatively stable democracy is the luxury of not following politics with a nerve-racked constancy. Trump does not afford this. His Presidency has become the demoralizing daily obsession of anyone concerned with global security, the vitality of the natural world, the national health, constitutionalism, civil rights, criminal justice, a free press, science, public education, and the distinction between fact and its opposite. The hundred-day marker is never an entirely reliable indicator of a four-year term, but it’s worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama were among those who came to office at a moment of national crisis and had the discipline, the preparation, and the rigor to set an entirely new course. Impulsive, egocentric, and mendacious, Trump has, in the same span, set fire to the integrity of his office.
Dean Pagani/Medium:
Being a bully can work in the short term, but it is not a strategy that sustains. If you care what people think of you, if you care about how your obituary will read, or how you will be remembered by history, being a jerk is not a leadership model.
The New York Times began the past week with a whither Chris Christie profile in which Christie admitted things have not turned out as planned. America was never convinced of his greatness. America never even considered the possibility. By the end of the week another great bully of American public affairs had fallen. Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly was forced to resign after his victims broke their silence and revealed the fraud behind the public persona — a persona created and protected by Roger Ailes, who was felled by his own similar behavior last year.
These three cases should serve as a warning to our current bully in chief, the president of the United States, because Donald Trump has been friendly with all three men. Like Christie, there is a reason Trump’s approval ratings have plunged toward the 30’s. It doesn’t take long for voters to realize there is a difference between looking tough on the campaign trail and an over reliance on threats and brute force once you have the responsibility to lead. Governing is collaborative and collaboration can not begin with demands backed only by threat of force. Your ideas need merit greater than the perceived strength of the office you hold.
Daniel Dale/Toronto Star:
Trump’s hostility turns scientists into marching protesters
Scientists are protesting around the world on Saturday. But in standing up for objective truth, scientists risk looking like they’re not objective.
WaPo:
Why people are marching for science: ‘There is no Planet B’
Scientists prefer to be advocates (argue for something, within the system). But Trump is forcing them to be activists (willing to protest the system), which is out of their comfort zone.