1. Jonathan Chait: Trump’s Budget Director Declares War on Math

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney is furious with the Congressional Budget Office. Inconveniently for Mulvaney, but quite intuitively, the CBO estimates that the Republican plan to eliminate a trillion dollars in subsidies for health-insurance coverage will result in a very large number of people no longer being able to obtain health insurance.

Mulvaney charges the CBO with hopeless liberal bias. “We’re hearing now that the person in charge of the Affordable Health Care Act methodology is an alum of the Hillarycare program in the 1990s who was brought in by Democrats to score the ACA,” he says. (In fact, the CBO’s 2010 forecast of the ACA proved highly accurate.) Mulvaney suggests that Congress stop paying so much attention to the biased liberal CBO.

Mulvaney proposes to ignore those numbers and instead rely on numbers made up by people who don’t even pretend they’re real. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/trumps-budget-director-declares-war-on-math.html

2. Amanda Kerri: The Simple Truth on Trump: He's Dumb as Rocks

Over the period of Donald Trump’s political career, from candidate to president, there have been assessments of his personality and history that have ranged from shrewd businessman to Machiavellian strategist to narcissist to huckster. People have called him clever and clueless, a showman and a showboat. Everyone has a take on Trump, and after this past week, I finally have to conclude that almost all of these are wrong. There’s only one correct take on Trump — he is probably the dumbest man alive. 

No, really, the man is as bright as a one-watt bulb. The wheels are turning, but the hamster is dead. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but there’s no train of thought coming. If there is one easily quantifiable thing to be said about Trump, it’s that with enough money and lawyers, the most slack-jawed goon can succeed. Well, only if he’s a straight cis white male.

Trump is probably the best argument against capitalism, reality television, and bankruptcy laws. He’s the beneficiary of thousands of years of human advancement, because someone as thick as him usually got eaten by wild animals early in their life. Only a person who has succeeded due to enough sycophants mopping up behind him and enough money to hire the kinds of lawyers that make the higher order of demons recoil in disgust could have made it this far. Everyone says that he’s this great showman and this great businessman, but if he’s honestly this bad at media manipulation and strategy, I really have to wonder how many times he thought he was the con man but was actually the mark? I guess the only person who can answer that is Vladimir Putin, and I don’t think he’ll stop laughing at us long enough to tell. http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2017/5/17/simple-truth-trump-hes-dumb-rocks

3. NY Times Editorial: Our Disgraceful Exit From the Paris Accord

Only future generations will be able to calculate the full consequences of President Trump’s incredibly shortsighted approach to climate change, since it is they who will suffer the rising seas and crippling droughts that scientists say are inevitable unless the world brings fossil fuel emissions to heel.

But this much is clear now: Mr. Trump’s policies — the latest of which was his decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change — have dismayed America’s allies, defied the wishes of much of the American business community he pretends to help, threatened America’s competitiveness as well as job growth in crucial industries and squandered what was left of America’s claim to leadership on an issue of global importance.

The only clear winners, and we’ve looked hard to find them, are hard-core climate deniers like Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency and the presidential adviser Stephen Bannon, and various fossil fuel interests that have found in Mr. Trump another president (George W. Bush being the last) credulous enough to swallow the bogus argument that an agreement to fight climate change will destroy or at least inhibit the economy.

Mr. Trump justified his decision by saying that the Paris agreement was a bad deal for the United States, buttressing his argument with a cornucopia of dystopian, dishonest and discredited data based on numbers from industry-friendly sources. Those numbers are nonsense, as is his argument that the agreement would force the country to make enormous economic sacrifices and cause a huge redistribution of jobs and economic resources to the rest of the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/trump-paris-climate-change-agreement.html

4. David Brooks: Donald Trump Poisons the World

Good leaders like Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt and Reagan understand the selfish elements that drive human behavior, but they have another foot in the realm of the moral motivations. They seek to inspire faithfulness by showing good character. They try to motivate action by pointing toward great ideals.

Realist leaders like Trump, McMaster and Cohn seek to dismiss this whole moral realm. By behaving with naked selfishness toward others, they poison the common realm and they force others to behave with naked selfishness toward them.

By treating the world simply as an arena for competitive advantage, Trump, McMaster and Cohn sever relationships, destroy reciprocity, erode trust and eviscerate the sense of sympathy, friendship and loyalty that all nations need when times get tough.

By looking at nothing but immediate material interest, Trump, McMaster and Cohn turn America into a nation that affronts everybody else’s moral emotions. They make our country seem disgusting in the eyes of the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html

5. Paul Krugman: Trump Gratuitously Rejects the Paris Climate Accord

Why are so many people on the right determined to block climate action, and even trying to sabotage the progress we’ve been making on new energy sources?

Don’t tell me that they’re honestly worried about the inherent uncertainty of climate projections. All long-term policy choices must be made in the face of an uncertain future (duh); there’s as much scientific consensus here as you’re ever likely to see on any issue. And in this case, uncertainty arguably strengthens the case for action, because the costs of getting it wrong are asymmetric: Do too much, and we’ve wasted some money; do too little, and we’ve doomed civilization.

Don’t tell me that it’s about coal miners. Anyone who really cared about those miners would be crusading to protect their health, disability and pension benefits, and trying to provide alternative employment opportunities — not pretending that environmental irresponsibility will somehow bring back jobs lost to strip mining and mountaintop removal.

Beyond this, much of today’s right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they’re against it. If liberals hate it, it’s good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with extra bonus points for undermining anything associated with President Barack Obama.

And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. Need I say more? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/trump-gratuitously-rejects-the-paris-climate-accord.html

6. Michael Grunwald: Why Trump Actually Pulled Out Of Paris

“Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement was not really about the climate. And despite his overheated rhetoric about the ‘tremendous’ and ‘draconian’ burdens the deal would impose on the U.S. economy, Trump’s decision wasn’t really about that, either. America’s commitments under the Paris deal, like those of the other 194 cooperating nations, were voluntary. So those burdens were imaginary.

No, Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from this carefully crafted multilateral compromise was a diplomatic and political slap: it was about extending a middle finger to the world, while reminding his base that he shares its resentments of fancy-pants elites and smarty-pants scientists and tree-hugging squishes who look down on real Americans who drill for oil and dig for coal. He was thrusting the United States into the role of global renegade, rejecting not only the scientific consensus about climate but the international consensus for action, joining only Syria and Nicaragua (which wanted an even greener deal) in refusing to help the community of nations address a planetary problem.”

Congress doesn’t seem willing to pay for Trump’s border wall—and Mexico certainly isn’t—so rejecting the Paris deal was an easier way to express his Fortress America themes without having to pass legislation. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/01/why-trump-actually-pulled-out-of-paris-215218

7. Joshua Zeitz: Why Do They Hate Her?

For more than two years, Republicans did more than demonize her – they criminalized her, first through the Benghazi hearings (a congressional boondoggle if ever there was one), and later, by representing her use of a personal email server – a politically unwise decision, but one that resulted in not a single felony or misdemeanor charge – as a national emergency. Chants of “Lock Her Up” – Trump’s moniker, “Crooked Hillary” – the mock trial staged by Chris Christie, who these days is hardly in a position to threaten anyone with criminal prosecution. Nothing of this sort has ever transpired in American history. It created a toxic environment and false narrative that may have led especially gullible voters to believe that Clinton, if elected, would face imminent impeachment, removal and imprisonment. In its pursuit of this scorched-earth project, the GOP was aided by mainstream journalists who covered the email story far out of proportion to its legal consequence; bad actors who exploited today’s fractured media environment; and the Russian government. And then, of course, there was James Comey.

Criminalization worked with brutal precision, a point that Nate Silver hammered home in his assessment of Comey’s infamous letter to Congress of October 28. Headline: “The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton the election.” It goes a long way in explaining how a candidate with a favorability/unfavorability rating of 66-29 in mid-2012 ended her public career upside down, 41-57. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/03/why-do-they-hate-her-215220

8. Amy Davidson: Angela Merkel And The Insult Of Trump’s Paris Climate-accord Withdrawal

On Wednesday, at around the time that news outlets were reporting that President Donald Trump had decided to pull America out of the Paris climate accord, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was at the Berlin airport, greeting Premier Li Keqiang, of China. As their national anthems played, Li and Merkel stood on a red carpet that had been cut to look like a giant arrow. It seemed to point definitively away from Trump. There was a connection between the two moments that was more than symbolic. China has made it clear that, with America’s abdication, it sees Paris as a vehicle for its efforts to assert itself as a leader of the international community. (Whether this means that it would also make sure that carbon emissions fell is another matter.) And Merkel, during the past few days, seemed to have had it with Trump, in some significant measure because of his flashy contempt for the climate deal and for his fellow world leaders.

That contempt was well on display on Thursday afternoon, when Trump confirmed America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. In his remarks, delivered in the Rose Garden, Trump attacked not only the terms of the deal but also the goodwill of those who argued for it. He spoke like a man unravelling a conspiracy or a con job. The climate accord had been pushed by America’s economic rivals, whose real reason for wanting us to stay in was “so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound,” and by “global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense.” Paris was just a “scheme to redistribute wealth outside of the United States.” Only Trump really cared about the environment, and he would get a much better deal for it. http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/angela-merkel-and-the-insult-of-trumps-paris-climate-accord-withdrawal

9. John Podesta: Trump just drew the battle lines for 2018 and 2020

A majority of Americans have come to expect the worst of President Trump, and he seems incapable of defying that expectation. His decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement takes him well beyond his cynical populist appeals and deep into the territory of know-nothingism. Unfortunately, he is dragging America and its prestige there with him.

Negotiating the Paris accord was complicated and required determined American diplomacy and the leadership of President Barack Obama, but the reason that 195 nations signed the agreement and made ambitious national commitments is rather simple: The science clearly shows that the world is warming at a rapid pace. If we collectively fail to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, our children and grandchildren will face higher sea levels, more violent storms, disrupted food supplies, catastrophic loss of infrastructure, climate-induced human migration and global insecurity. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-just-drew-the-battle-lines-for-2018-and-2020/2017/06/01/e90fcd5c-4707-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html

10. Gail Collins: Trauma, Taxes and Trump

In the middle of his speech trashing the climate accord, President Trump suddenly blurted out that his “tax bill is moving along in Congress.” This was something of a surprise since, A) there is no tax bill and, B) nothing is moving along in Congress.

In theory, everyone could get together and come up with a plan to lower corporate tax rates while eliminating special-interest loopholes, make the system simpler for the average citizen and raise the rates on those who have the most ability to pay.

O.K., forget the last one.

Also, the chances that there will be a big bipartisan deal are somewhat smaller than a premature baby gnat. The last time Congress actually managed that was in 1986. (Really, 1986. It was a great year. Lady Gaga was born. “The Phantom of the Opera” debuted in London. The Dow was hovering around 4,000. Democrats and Republicans went out for drinks together after work.)

The Trump administration, however, does have its own plan, which balances tax cuts with the closing of tax loopholes. We know this because Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin testified about it before the Senate Finance Committee last week. So far it’s only one page long, and Mnuchin answered a great many questions by saying, “That’s a very good question.” JUNE 2, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/trauma-taxes-and-trump.html

11. Jonathan Chait: No, President Trump, the Paris Agreement Does Not Let China and India Steal Our Coal Jobs

Trump was never going to support the Paris climate agreement because a collective-action problem is one of the concepts he is unable to grasp. Paris is built around ameliorating a problem affecting the entire world. Trump only understands zero-sum logic. His speech announcing his decision to exit the agreement fell back on the nationalistic rhetoric of denouncing foreign plunder.

The deal is “a massive redistribution of wealth from the U.S. to other countries,” he insisted. China “can do whatever they want for 13 years,” he insisted. The agreement “doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it ships them out of the country,” to developing countries, which will get an “economic edge” over America.

Trump’s description of the agreement is so wildly at odds with reality that one must begin by reestablishing some basic foundation of reality. The first attempt to create a transnational climate agreement, the Kyoto Accord, applied exclusively to industrialized countries, on the grounds that they accounted for most of the carbon dioxide emissions. Eventually, this approach proved unrealistic, in part because the rapid industrialization of developing countries — especially China, with India following along — meant that developing countries must be brought in. The industrialized world has to rapidly decarbonize, and emerging economies have to create greener paths to industrialization. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/no-trump-china-and-india-arent-stealing-our-coal-jobs.html

12. Ryan Cooper: How the world can contain Trump's climate lunacy

Imagine if on Dec. 8, 1941, President Roosevelt had insisted in a speech before Congress that the Japanese navy had not attacked Pearl Harbor, and in fact anyone reporting such was part of a TORPEDO BOMBER HOAX. That would have harmed the national interest roughly on a scale with what President Trump did Thursday, with his announcement that he would be withdrawing America from the Paris climate accord.

His justifications for doing so were, unsurprisingly, incoherent claptrap. He said the agreement was both "draconian" and "non-binding," complained at length about a moderate fund to help developing countries transition to green energy, yet swore — ludicrously — that he "cares deeply about the environment" and would be open to a different agreement. It was obviously just a bunch of reverse-engineered fluff to justify a decision driven by ideology. http://theweek.com/articles/702733/how-world-contain-trumps-climate-lunacy

13. Andrew Sullivan: Can the West Survive Trump?

The gnawingly persistent question in the Trump years so far is a relatively simple one: Is this reparable? By which I mean: Can Trump’s admixture of malevolence, corruption, and incompetence be survived without permanent damage? Is this a minor heart attack from which this democracy and the world can soon recover … or is it a major one whose consequences are, in some respects, permanent?

The truth is: We don’t yet know (although Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord is beyond depressing). Can we at some point reconstruct a common set of facts after such a shameless torrent of lies and fantasies from the very top? Can some minimal level of decency and dignity be returned to the White House and to our public discourse? Is there any viable synthesis to be struck between the two Americas divided by a widening gyre of mutual incomprehension? The long run suggests all of this is possible, if currently hard to envision. Time heals. America survived the 1860s and the 1960s. But there’s one thing about today’s political darkness that will be close to impossible to undo, that’s the very concept of a united, democratic West. June 2, 2017 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/can-the-west-survive-trump.html

14. Masha Gessen: Trump’s Incompetence Won’t Save Our Democracy

As someone who has spent years studying Mr. Putin — and as one of a handful of journalists who have had an unscripted conversation with him — I can vouch for the fact that he is a poorly educated, under-informed, incurious man whose ambition is vastly out of proportion to his understanding of the world. To the extent that he has any interest in the business of governing, it is his role — on the world stage or on Russian television — that concerns him. Whether he is attending a summit, piloting a plane or hang-gliding with Siberian cranes, it is the spectacle of power that interests him.

In the past few months, Americans too have grown familiar with the sight of a president who seems to think that politics consists of demonstrating that he is in charge. This similarity is not an accident (nor is it a result of Russian influence). The rejection of the complexity of modern politics — as well as modern business and modern life in general — lies at the core of populism’s appeal. The first American president with no record of political or military service, Donald Trump ran on a platform of denigrating expertise. His message was that anyone with experience in politics was a corrupt insider and, indeed, that a lack of experience was the best qualification.

This is one way an autocracy can come into being. In other words, it is Mr. Trump’s insistence on simplicity that makes him want to rule like an autocrat. Militant incompetence and autocracy are not in opposition: They are two sides of a coin. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/sunday/trumps-incompetence-wont-save-our-democracy.html

15. Maureen Dowd: Trump Stomps Planet Earth

We’ve been conditioned by Hollywood to see the president of the United States step up to the lectern to confidently tell us how he will combat the existential threat to the planet — be it aliens, asteroids, tidal waves, volcanoes, killer sharks, killer robots or a 500-billion-ton comet the size of New York City.

So it was quite stunning to see the president of the United States step up to the lectern to declare himself the existential threat to the planet.

And with a calming band playing us to our doom, just like on the Titanic.

You know you’re in trouble when beclouded Beijing, where birds go to die, replaces you as a leader on climate change.

America is living through a fractured fairy tale, in the grip of a lonely and uninformed mad king, an arrogant and naïve princeling, a comely but complicit blond princess and a dyspeptic, dystopian troll under the bridge. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/opinion/sunday/trump-stomps-planet-earth.html

16. Peter Rosenstein: Misogyny and Sexism still reign – when some question Hillary’s right to speak out

The time has come for us to celebrate Hillary and not attack her for continuing to speak out. After all she is a brilliant woman with a wealth of experience the nation and the world can benefit from. Judging from her commencement speech to the Wellesley class of 2017 her sense of humor is still intact as is her passion to support others and encourage them to strive for excellence and service. She has formed ‘Onward Together’ a PAC showing how ready she is to support the causes she cares about and help younger generations wanting to participate in the political process to succeed.

Hillary didn’t hurt the nation when she lost; the voters who cast their ballot for the moron now in the White House did that. There are 66 million of us who voted for her for many different reasons. I did so because I wanted to see a highly qualified woman in the White House. It was time for a brilliant, experienced, compassionate woman to follow the first African American President into the history books. My vote was cast for the woman with the ability to actually become the ‘leader of the free world’. The woman who stood for fairness, decency, economic equality and civil and human rights for all.

So what Trump and his campaign did to her; he did to us. Any collusion with the Russians against Hillary was collusion against us. He may have destroyed Hillary’s dream of becoming President but for the moment he destroyed our dreams for a better nation and a better world. But like Hillary we don’t give up, we get up; we fight back, we resist, and we make it clear to the rest of the world the people of the United States are better than the person temporarily sitting in the White House. 6/04/2017 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/misogyny-and-sexism-still-reign-when-some-question_us_5934a7ade4b0649fff211aa3

17. Charles M. Blow: Trump’s Incredible Shrinking America

My whole life I have taken for granted America’s leadership in the world. America’s might and majesty were cornerstones of international relations, cooperation and diplomacy. We were a beacon and balance to the world. America has been imperfect — sometimes disastrously so — but it always seemed to me bent toward the belief that America and the world could be made more perfect.

Well, that time has come to a close. America is exiting the world stage. Donald Trump is drawing the curtains.

On Trump’s first full weekday in office, he, and thus America, abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As The New York Times reported it:

“President Trump upended America’s traditional, bipartisan trade policy on Monday as he formally abandoned the ambitious, 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership brokered by his predecessor and declared an end to the era of multinational trade agreements that defined global economics for decades.”

Trump has had, and continues to have, an unhealthy and inexplicable admiration for the world’s strongmen, dictators and authoritarian regimes — Russia and Vladimir Putin stand out among the rest — while simultaneously chiding and chastising America’s traditional allies and those countries’ leaders. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/opinion/trump-paris-climate-accord-nato.html

18. Eugene Robinson: Trump Needs to Get a Grip

The statements President Trump issued on Twitter in recent days lead to a chilling conclusion: The man is out of control.

I know that is a radical thing to say about the elected leader of the United States, the most powerful individual in the world. And I know his unorthodox use of social media is thought by some, including the president himself, to be brilliant. But I don't see political genius in the invective coming from Trump these days. I see an angry man lashing out at enemies real and imagined -- a man dangerously overwhelmed.

On Monday, he started at 6:25 a.m. to comprehensively undermine his own legal team in its quest to win Supreme Court approval for a travel ban targeting Muslims. I can call it that, without legalistic hemming and hawing, because the president did so. Emphatically.

"People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN," Trump wrote.

Maybe he thinks that tweets, somehow, don't count. But of course they do. These are written statements typed by the president himself, and as such should carry more weight than a processed release from the White House press office, not less. Trump's lawyers -- arguing in support of the blocked measure, which would bar visitors from six majority-Muslim countries -- contend it is not a "travel ban" as such. Attorneys on the other side will surely use Trump's own words against him. 6/05/17 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/06/05/trump_needs_to_get_a_grip_134109.html

19. Heather Hurlburt: The World Without America

It’s time to stop asking  whether  the Trump administration believes in U.S. global leadership as we’ve known it since World War II. The answer is clear now.  It doesn’t.

It’s also time to stop hoping that the officials around Trump can prop up international institutions as fast as he assaults them. Cabinet secretaries and career diplomats may be soothing Americans, but they aren’t fooling foreigners.

No, President Trump and his enablers are ushering us into a new, post-American stage of global relations, at the speed of Twitter.  Increasingly,  Washington is viewed by other nations a problem to be managed rather than a leader to be sought.  World  leaders are  building new relationships — and jockeying for the space we’ve left behind — as fast as they  can,  while the U.S. trashes its relations and fights over the last election at home.  On security, politics, and economics, no one is waiting for the grown-ups, the midterms, or Vice-President Pence. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/the-world-without-america.html

20. Bess Levin: Oh Jesus: Did Trump Really Skim Charity Money From Kids With Cancer? Color Us Shocked

Among the many campaign scandals that would have sunk a lesser candidate, but somehow had little or no effect on Donald “Grab ’em by the p---y” Trump, were a series of damning allegations about the Donald J. Trump Foundation. An investigation by The Washington Post revealed that Trump hadn’t actually given his namesake charity any of his own money since 2008, and that since then, “all of the donations have been other people’s money—an arrangement that experts say is almost unheard of for a family foundation.” In many instances, the Post reported, Trump would then pass the money “on to other charities, which [were] often under the impression that it [was] Trump’s own money.” (Trump previously told the Post “I don’t have to give you records but I’ve given millions away,” though the paper was unable to verify the donations and Trump has not released his tax returns which would, among other things, detail his charitable giving.)

Other alleged business practices at the foundation were, somehow, even shadier. The Post found that Trump “spent more than a quarter-million dollars from [the Donald J. Trump foundation] to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses.” The charity also quite generously donated $25,000 in 2013 to then Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s political fund-raising committee, at a time when Bondi was, totally coincidentally, deciding whether or not to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University (she ultimately decided not to; Trump and his institute of higher learning ultimately settled a class action brought by former students for $25 million). (Aides to both Trump and Bondi told the Post the gift and Trump University case had nothing to do with each other.) Then there was the somewhat bizarre story of Trump bidding on a six-foot-tall painting of himself at a fund-raiser auction and paying the $20,000 tab with the foundation’s money. In November, after the election, the Donald J. Trump Foundation admitted to self-dealing, a.k.a., per Politico, “using charitable funds to benefit the leaders of the organization or their family members.”

The disreputable, potentially illegal behavior apparently doesn’t end with Trump’s own namesake charity, however. According to a report by Forbes, Trump also allegedly used his son Eric’s charity to enrich his business at the expense of, wait for it, kids with cancer. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-eric-trump-charity