Voters in Oregon and Kentucky are heading to the polls to decide the next election fraud theory that Bernie Sanders supporters will whine about incessantly. Melania Trump stated that her husband is “not Hitler,” meaning Donald Trump will soon retweet a meme comparing her hotness to Eva Braun’s. And D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had a heated confrontation with a councilman about Washington’s shelter system. Not since Rudy Giuliani secretly ground New York’s homeless population into three of the five principle knish ingredients have we seen such passion from a mayor on the issue. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, May 17th, 2016:
@samsteinhp: Trump, in personal financial disclosure form, claims his net worth is in excess of $10 billion dollars.
MURDOCH YOLOs: FULLY BACKING TRUMP - Gabriel Sherman: "In all the coverage of the Trump-Kelly détente, a more important development has been overlooked: Trump has made peace with Kelly’s boss’s boss, Rupert Murdoch. According to a half dozen sources familiar with Murdoch’s thinking, the media mogul has signaled he plans to fully back Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton. Murdoch’s embrace of Trump is a sharp reversal from the hostile view he held over much of the past year.In fact, according to one high-level Fox source, it was Murdoch himself who directed Kelly to hammer Trump during the debut GOP debate, in Cleveland, that sparked the feud in the first place. 'Rupert told her to do that,' the source said. The Murdoch-Trump alliance is the result of at least two private meetings between the billionaires this spring as well as phone calls from Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Murdoch’s view, according to those who’ve spoken with him, is that Trump is a winner whom the “elites” failed to take seriously." [NY Mag]
SANDERS CAMPAIGN TOUGHER TO KILL THAN YOUR APARTMENT'S SILVERFISH POPULATION - Neither has a ton of respect for private property. Ginger Gibson and Emily Stephenson: "Hillary Clinton is under pressure to do well in Democratic nominating contests in Kentucky and Oregon on Tuesday so she can turn her attention to the general election and the mounting attacks on her being waged by Republican candidate Donald Trump. The continued presence in the race of Bernie Sanders – who remains a long shot to upset Clinton and win the Democratic nomination – is prompting concerns among Clinton allies that he will damage her ability to take on Trump and hurt the Democrat in the fall." [Reuters]
When the going gets tough, the tough start doxing innocent bystanders: "[O]n Saturday at the Nevada Democratic Party convention ... a near-riot broke out. The state party chairwoman, Roberta Lange, has been deluged with threatening and sexist voicemails and text messages in the days since...Sanders supporters blamed Lange for undermining their efforts, and they lashed out accordingly. Some of the reaction was reported Monday by The New York Times...The texts and calls, which came after Lange’s phone number and address were posted on Twitter, threatened violence and contained sexist epithets. One person threatened to buy a home near Lange, while another encouraged her to 'prepare for hell.'" [HuffPost's Sam Stein]
PEOPLE GETTING INSURANCE THANKS TO LEGISLATION DESIGNED TO GIVE PEOPLE INSURANCE - Congrats to the Death Panels Act. Jeffrey Young: "More than 7 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage in 2015, the second full year of the Obamacare coverage expansion, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the fourth quarter of last year, just 9.1 percent of U.S. residents, or 28.6 million people, had no health coverage, the National Health Interview Survey found. That’s a decline of 2.4 percentage points and 7.4 million people from a year before. The additional 7.4 million insured builds on the 8.8 million previously uninsured people who got covered in 2014, the first year of the Affordable Care Act’s full benefits. Obamacare’s health coverage programs remain works in progress, with 19 states continuing to refuse the law’s Medicaid expansion for the poorest uninsured and financial difficulties facing some major insurance companies participating in the exchange marketplaces where low- and middle-income households buy subsidized private insurance. But when it comes to covering the uninsured, the law has been a clear success." [HuffPost]
@MEPFuller: Rep. Hank Johnson's scheduler is leaving Congress to pursue his rap dream, and honestly, this isn't bad. . . Looks like a lot of this music video was shot in Hank Johnson's office, so there's that. https://t.co/kwRsC5OwzH
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SENATE FINALLY ACTS ON ZIKA - Laura Barron-Lopez: "The Senate on Tuesday took its first vote on legislation that would direct $1.1 billion in emergency funding to help health officials combat the spreading Zika virus. Democrats and the White House wanted more — a total of $1.9 billion — and the House wants to authorize far less. It puts the two chambers at odds, potentially further dragging out the debate as health officials struggle to understand the virus beyond its cause of the birth defect microcephaly. While the emergency measure advanced on Tuesday doesn’t fulfill the entire amount requested by the White House, Democrats voted to push the bill toward final passage — which should come later this week. Other options were presented alongside it: either take funds from other programs, or fully fund the administration’s $1.9 billion request." [HuffPost]
PAUL RYAN HATES HIMSELF - The House speaker has evidentially switched his morning mirror routine from "flexing glutes and winking" to "holding finger and thumb in shape of an 'L' and staring into own eyes for three minutes as a single tear slowly makes its way down his cheek." Scott Wong: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday said he agrees with a new poll showing that GOP voters trust Donald Trump rather than himself to lead the Republican Party. 'I hope it’s Donald Trump. He’s getting the nomination,' Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican in the country, told reporters at a news conference. An NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll released Tuesday morning showed that nearly six in 10 Republican voters "trust" Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, to lead the party. Only four in 10 voters say they have more faith in Ryan, the 2012 vice presidential nominee, as the party’s leader." [The Hill]
@abeaujon: Melania Trump says @juliaioffe “provoked” Trump supporters bit.ly/1rSlSj9
MCCONNELL GOES FULL REID ON TRUMP - Mike McAuliff: "Asked Tuesday whether Trump should unveil those returns, McConnell seemed somewhat perplexed by the idea that a presidential candidate would skip that step. 'Most candidates for president have, and that’s been the tradition,' McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill, though he stopped short of making any demands on his party’s presumptive presidential nominee. 'He’ll have to make that decision himself, but that’s certainly been the pattern for quite some time,' McConnell said." [HuffPost]
@DanPatrick: Texas will not give in to President Obama's attacks on our values
TRUMP CREATING JOINT FUNDRAISING COMMITTEES - Alex Isenstadt and Ken Vogel: "Trump’s presidential campaign is poised to form a joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee and at least 10 state parties, according to the sources. That committee would be able to accept maximum checks of at least $136,100 per person. Plans call for a second joint committee that would include the Trump campaign and the GOP’s two congressional campaign committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the sources. That committee would be able to accept maximum checks of at least $69,500 per person...the creation of the committees will represent a formal about-face from the billionaire candidate’s primary campaign boasts about self-financing his White House bid. His lack of investment in fundraising has left Trump scrambling to lay the groundwork to raise $1 billion for a general election campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton’s well-funded political machine." [Politico]
MELANIA TRUMP: STILL A MUCH, MUCH BETTER SURROGATE THAN BEN CARSON - Joy Wang: "Turns out that Trump isn't familiar with the comedian Louis C.K., who has compared her husband to Adolf Hitler. 'When I mention that the comedian Louis C.K. flat out compared Trump to Hitler, Melania stares blankly back at me,' [Melania Trump Du Jour magazine profile] author Mickey Rapkin wrote. Trump admitted she didn't know the celebrity, but disputed the comparison. 'We know the truth. He's not Hitler,' she insisted. 'He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn't but he does. Even with the Muslims, it's temporary.' She later admitted: 'Maybe he needs to say it in a softer way.'" [NBC News]
LOL D.C. POLITICS - Say what you will about the D.C. government, but nowhere else in America would the issue of homelessness get a mayor so riled up so as drop an F-bomb. @maustermuhle:.@MayorBowser just yelled at @ChmnMendelson in Wilson Bldg hallway: "You're a f**cking liar! You know it can't close in [2018]!" (On DC Gen)
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here are some baby rhinos.
THE WAY WE (IMMIGRATE) NOW - You mean paying for renovations in an unused Park Avenue apartment/tax shelter doesn't count? Ken Belson: "In what may be the first deal of its kind, Mr. da Silva, the majority owner of Orlando City of Major League Soccer, is asking investors from Brazil, China and elsewhere to pay $500,000 each for a stake in the stadium he is building near downtown Orlando. In return, the foreign investors receive annual dividends, two season tickets and something even more valuable: a green card that allows them, their spouses and sometimes even their children to live and work in the United States. The visa offer is legal, and it uses a 25-year-old federal program, known asEB-5, that is under renewed scrutiny in Congress. Created in 1990, the program was intended to help pay for infrastructure projects in rural areas and poor urban neighborhoods." [NYT]
COMFORT FOOD
- A doo-wop rendition of "My Heart With Go On."
- A game of rock-paper-scissors that has been playing out for 15 million years.
- Eighty-five percent of video on Facebook is played without sound.
TWITTERAMA
@caitlin_kelly: ugh if the lesson politicians learn from trump this year is "be unhinged on twitter" i'm moving to the bottom of the ocean
@SimonMaloy: amazing how much hoopla has been built up around a cable news Trump interview -- something that often happens several times a day
@joshingstern: #MyCampaignSloganWouldBe Some pot in every Chicken
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