Trump Won't Meet Conservative Skeptics Halfway
On NRO's home page today, a question about that Supreme Court–nominee short list that Trump said he would offer about two months ago: Back on March 21, Donald Trump, sensing there was some conservative anxiety about whom he would nominate to the Supreme Court, promised to compile and release a list of five to ten "great conservative judges" with "great intellects." "I will guarantee that those are going to be the first judges that I put up for nomination if I win," Trump said. "And that should solve that problem." It's mid-May now, Senate Republicans are holding the line against hearings or a confirmation vote on President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, and there remains no sign that a list of potential Trump nominees is forthcoming. You may recall that Trump suggested one of his criteria would be how they would handle Hillary Clinton's e-mails, as if the Supreme Court were an investigative service, or regularly determined the guilt or innocence of criminal complaints against government officials. "I'd probably appoint people that would look very seriously at her e-mail disaster, because it's a criminal activity, and I would appoint people that would look very seriously at that to start off with," Trump said in a phone interview with ABC's Good Morning America. This isn't what the Supreme Court does; the Supreme Court reviews whether government laws or actions violate the Constitution. Come on, man. This is Schoolhouse Rock stuff. 
"It's our three-ring political circus . . ." There are a lot of gaps, missing details, and contradictions in the Trump agenda, and even what he's declared appears negotiable. One of his senior advisers, Barry Bennett, recently declared on CNN that "all proposals are suggestions" and "this 'words matter' stuff, I mean, this is ridiculous." It's difficult to shake the feeling that whoever talks to Trump last before he makes a decision probably has the most influence. This means the stakes are a lot higher on the question of who would staff a Trump administration or cabinet. During the Reagan administration's transition into power, his team repeated the mantra, "personnel is policy." If you have principled conservatives in place, all working from the same philosophy, they're much more likely to reach principled conservative policies. The reverse is also true; right now we have frustrated aspiring novelists setting national-security policy. (Think of the future headaches with Iran that could have been avoided if some publishing house had just given deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes a book contract earlier in his career.) Obviously Trump isn't details-oriented, particularly when it comes to government policy. A good president doesn't necessarily have to be detail-oriented -- Reagan is a classic example of this -- but somebody has to handle the details. In Obama's White House, memos asking for decisions usually offered Obama three options at the bottom of the page, and the president would check one. Think about how much power there is in narrowing down the list of options to just three. If we knew that the details of the Trump administration would he handled by younger versions of the GOP's wonkier set of lawmakers -- Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, Scott Walker, Jeff Sessions, Kelly Ayotte, Elise Stafanik -- then conservatives could rest assured that a Trump administration could consistently push policy in a rightward direction, even if the president's rhetoric continued its stream-of-consciousness unpredictability. Right now, there are only a few safe predictions about the staffing in a Trump White House. Paul Manafort will probably have some thoughts to share on U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine. Corey Lewandowski will want a firm grip on things. John Miller will be hard to find. Hillary Roars into General Election by Not Losing to Bernie Here and There Shocking news last night: Hillary Clinton won a Democratic primary! Another Hillary Clinton landslide: Hillary Clinton squeaked out a narrow win over Bernie Sanders Tuesday in the Democratic presidential primary in Kentucky, a state she had won overwhelmingly in 2008 against Barack Obama. With 99.7 percent of the precincts counted, Clinton led by about 1,800 votes. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes' office said at 10:30 p.m. that 769 votes in two precincts in Jefferson County had not yet been counted. Even if Sanders captured all those votes, he could not catch up with Clinton, Grimes' office said. It declared Clinton the "unofficial" winner in Kentucky. But it's cool, Sanders fans, it's not like Kentucky's Secretary of State has been traveling around the state telling people to vote for Hil-oh, wait a minute. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes will also cast her vote for Clinton. Grimes has been very visible with the Clintons as they have campaigned throughout the state through the last several weeks in advance of the primary. Sanders has until next Tuesday to ask for a recanvass in the state; maybe it will be worth it to him. As of 7:05 a.m. Eastern this morning, the Associated Press was still characterizing the race as "too close to call." Also, last night, Sanders won Oregon. 
The most perfect state for Bernie Sanders ever? At this hour, Sanders has a 40,000 vote margin . . . and is probably going to come out of this with four more delegates than Hillary Clinton. (Also interesting: About 100,000 Oregon Republicans voted for Ted Cruz and John Kasich, splitting about evenly, giving each departed candidate about 16 percent of the vote.) So far this month, Sanders won Oregon, West Virginia, and Indiana. Hillary Clinton won Kentucky and, er, Guam. Chemical-Weapon Warfare Rages in Syria; Everyone Shrugs You would think this would be a bigger deal, the sort of thing regularly discussed by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Republican nominee. It was midmorning on Sunday May 8 when the rockets began to fall on the abandoned town. At first there was the thud of the shells, followed by black and white smoke and an acrid smell. The police officers deployed in the deserted town later said they began to feel pains in their chests and their airways close up. They called for urgent medical help, and were evacuated to a hospital in the next town. In interviews two days after the shelling, two police officials who were on the scene during the attack and a physician who treated the victims said the rockets contained chemical weapons, possibly sulfur mustard (so-called mustard gas) or chlorine. A police report obtained by TIME says that rockets fired by Islamic State militants on May 8 landed in Bashir, just south of the city of Kirkuk, releasing toxic gasses. The report also lists the names of 46 people wounded in the attack. "Yeah, yeah, there goes Jim again, ranting about chemical weapons again." Depending on which list you use, since 2012 there have been 60 alleged chemical-weapons attacks in Syria; the Syrian-American Medical Society puts the number of confirmed attacks at 161 and another 133 alleged but unverified. The group calculates that nearly 1,500 people have been killed with chemical weapons. And now we know they're in the hands of ISIS: They made 600 people sick in Kirkuk in March. Think back to President Obama's address to the nation, September 10, 2013: If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas, and using them. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons, and to use them to attack civilians. Hey, the man may not have done anything about it, but he was prescient! ADDENDA: New poll out this morning: 58% of respondents are dissatisfied with the current group of Republican and Democratic candidates for President. 55% of respondents favor having an independent presidential ticket in 2016. A shocking 91% of voters under the age of 29 favor having an independent candidate on the ballot. 65% of respondents are at least somewhat, pretty or very willing to support a candidate for President who is not Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Generic Independent: He's never cast a vote that you didn't like.  | 
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