NOW WITH VIDEO! Chelsea Clinton Climate Change Connected to …. Child Marriage.

I know I covered this one yesterday, but the video is sublime if you’re into that kind of awfulness.

DAN MITCHELL: The Most Persuasive Argument for Slashing the Corporate Tax Rate.

He has nine arguments, but here’s his favorite:

Should the rate be lowered to trigger a new round of tax competition, even though that will make politicians unhappy? Actually, the fact that politicians will be unhappy is a feature rather than a bug.

I’ve always had the impression that if they knew how to be happy, they wouldn’t be politicians.

APPARENTLY I’VE BEEN WASTING MY TIME WITH ALL THIS WEIGHT-LIFTING STUFF.

BUT OF COURSE: Patricia Holly Harvey, principal author of the CBO report, was on the Hillarycare taskforce.

IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT:

Obama isn’t hiding behind his wall. He’s merely pining for the fjords.

HEALTH: Cannabidiol slashes seizures in kids with rare epilepsy, study finds.

NYT: How the G.O.P. Sabotaged Obamacare.

Sold on a lie, authored and passed by Democrats, and designed to fail — ObamaCare’s failures are due to G.O.P. sabotage.

KURT SCHLICHTER ON MANCHESTER: Fewer Tears, Fewer Lies, And More Righteous Anger. “Grieving doesn’t work. Hugging doesn’t work. Cowardice masquerading as enlightened passivity in the face of our enemies doesn’t work. Just ask the little girls blown apart in Manchester.”

GOOD LORD: Murder of Black Student by ‘Alt-Reich’ Suspect Highlights ‘Dangerous Tide,’ Says Congressman.

Richard Collins III, a Bowie State University student who was supposed to graduate this week, was visiting friends at the University of Maryland and waiting for an Uber with some of his pals at a bus stop at about 3 a.m. Saturday. A man approached the group and started shouting at Collins, University of Maryland Police Chief David Mitchell said.

“He said to the victim, ‘Step left, step left if you know what’s good for you,'” Mitchell said, citing witnesses at the scene. “The victim looked at him puzzled with the other friends of his and said ‘No,’. It was then that (the suspect) stabbed the victim in his chest.”

Sean Christopher Urbanski, 22, a University of Maryland student, was arrested near the scene of the crime and charged with first- and second-degree murder and first-degree assault.

Mitchell said Urbanski belonged to an “Alt-Reich Nation” Facebook group that posted “extreme bias against women, Latinos, members of the Jewish faith and especially African-Americans, which brings up questions as to the motive of this case.”

I don’t support the legal notion of hate crimes, but at this time there doesn’t seem to be much question of motive here.

DAN MARKEL UPDATE: One Year After Arrest Of Alleged Hit Man, Prosecutors Are No Closer To Charging Adelsons In Murder Of Dan Markel, Despite ‘Mountain Of Strong But Circumstantial Evidence.’

A BOLD STATEMENT FROM JIM TREACHER: It’s Wrong To Physically Attack People For What They Say, Even If They Disagree With You.

That’s true. And Gianforte shouldn’t have body-slammed the reporter as has been reported. (And though there were some conflicting accounts, that seems to be what happened, and he’s already been charged with misdemeanor assault.) Contrary to a lot of what we’ve been hearing, it’s not okay to punch (or body-slam) your political opponents just because of what they say.

On the other hand, the sanctimonious claims that this is where “Trumpism” has led us ring rather hollow in the face of Democrats’ cheering of punching political foes, not to mention the ho-hum treatment given to more serious violence in places like Berkeley and Middlebury, where the immediate arrest and charges seen in the Gianforte case didn’t take place. (And, in Berkeley, the mayor was actually a member of the “protesters'” Facebook page, and told police to hang back during the riot).

I’d like to live in a society where people don’t punch people for what they say. But we don’t live in such a society, apparently. For noting this, I’ve been charged on Twitter with “whataboutism,” which apparently is a synonym for “pointing out hypocrisy.”

And this is a good take on the sanctimony:

But to be clear, my problem is not with people saying that body-slamming a reporter is wrong. It is. Rather it’s with the predictably hypocritical nature of the outrage. One might almost say that the political class is happy to wink at political violence, until it affects one of their own.

One of the things I really don’t like about following news and politics on a daily (hourly?) basis for so long is how cynical I’ve become about this sort of thing. I’d rather not feel this way, but it’s pretty hard to escape, given the realities.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this mess is bad for both parties in a way. Dems have been desperate for a special-election win that will show a wave is building against Trump, but if they win here, they’ll have trouble portraying it as such given that they beat a guy who bodyslammed a reporter the day before the election. On the other hand, if the GOP wins, they’re stuck with this guy in Congress. Or they have to get him to resign, or refuse to seat him, which has problems of its own.

MORE: Although there’s been some talk of not seating him if elected I doubt that will happen. It’s pretty clearly barred by Powell v. McCormack, which says that the only thing the House can consider on seating a Representative is whether he/she meets the constitutional requirements to serve, and I doubt there are the votes in the House to do it anyway.

THE EVIDENCE OF THE LAST NINE YEARS SUGGESTS OTHERWISE: Rule of Law Actually Applies to Democrats, Too: Those critiquing Trump for flouting norms should take a look at Obamacare’s unauthorized spending.

So Obamacare required insurers to make special accommodations for people whose incomes were below 250 percent of the poverty line. The companies have to provide these individuals with silver plans (the second-lowest benefit tier) with lower deductibles and co-payments. This is, of course, quite expensive for insurers to do. So the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also granted subsidies to go to the insurers to cover the cost. Well, to be precise, lawmakers who dreamed up Obamacare promised the payments to insurers, but did not appropriate any money to actually pay them.

Yes. Congress can mandate subsidies without also mandating a funding source. Medicaid is another example. This is crazy, but there it is.

For once the Constitution is admirably clear on how the executive branch should handle this quandary: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” The law appropriated no money for these cost-sharing reduction payments. But the Obama administration went ahead and paid them anyway.

The House of Representatives then sued the Obama administration to halt those payments. That’s how Trump and the cost-sharing reduction ended up in headlines together: The Trump administration was on deadline to decide what to do about the case, which is currently wending its way through the courts. (SPOILER ALERT: They punted.)

This whole mess illuminates sadly well our current tug-of-war over the rule of law — what it means, and how much it matters.

Our ruling class has chosen not to be bound by the law, because it’s inconvenient. This will not end well.

MANCHESTER LEAKER: Police not sharing information with US.

UK officials were outraged when photos appearing to show debris from the attack appeared in the New York Times.

It came after the name of bomber Salman Abedi was leaked to US media just hours after the attack, which left 22 dead.

Theresa May said she would tell Donald Trump at a Nato meeting that shared intelligence “must remain secure”.

The US’s acting ambassador to the UK “unequivocally condemned” the leaks in a BBC radio interview.
“These leaks were reprehensible, deeply distressing,” Lewis Lukens said.

“We have had communications at the highest level of our government … we are determined to identify these leaks and to stop them.”

Who is leaking — and why?

ID’D: Meet The Erdogan Goon Who Brutally Kicked A Female Protester At Turkish Embassy.

Yildirim, the owner of a construction company in New Jersey, was one of the most visible figures spotted in videos recorded of last week’s attack.

Completely bald and wearing a white shirt, Yildirim joined dozens of other Turkish men in a full-frontal assault on a group of peaceful Kurdish protesters gathered outside the embassy.

The attackers were a mixture of supporters of Erdogan and bodyguards working for the authoritarian ruler. Erdogan was at the embassy following a White House visit with President Trump.

He watched the blitz from his black Mercedes Benz parked near the Turkish embassy. One video even shows Erdogan passing instructions to his immediate bodyguard just moments before the fight broke out on the street in front of the embassy.

In one video recorded by the Turkish affiliate of Voice of America, Yildirim and other men were seen kicking Usoyan as she lay curled up on the sidewalk.

Video at the link, where it’s also noted that “Given that Yildirim is not an official diplomatic agent for Turkey, and therefore not protected by international diplomatic agreements, it is unclear why he was not apprehended last Tuesday or why he has not been arrested since.”

Indeed.

COLLEGE GETS DUMBER: U Chicago Students Demand Race-Specific Housing and Requiring ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ to Graduate.

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HOW MANY LONE WOLVES IS THAT? Woman Arrested in Manchester in Connection with Suicide Bombing.

DOES THE GOP WANT TO HAND CONGRESS TO THE DEMOCRATS IN 2018? The Effort to Undo Obama Regulations Is Ending with a Whimper: Republicans appear willing to let the Congressional Review Act die a quiet death for the rest of the current Congress.

FROM SHARYL ATTKISSON: Obama’s Surveillance of American Citizens: A Timeline.

THIS IS NO TIME TO GO WOBBLY: New CBO score triggers backlash.

SPACE: Private firm launches rocket from New Zealand.

BRENNAN IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY: Byron York: On collusion, John Brennan’s incomplete story.

Former CIA Director John Brennan’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday rekindled the hopes of Democrats and others searching for proof that Donald Trump or his associates colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. But Brennan gave the committee old information — he frankly admitted it was old — that did not take into account what has been learned in recent months from other sources.

In short, this is what Brennan said: In the summer of 2016, I saw contacts between Russians and people in the Trump circle. I worried that the Russians were trying to use the Trump people for their own purposes. I gave the information to the FBI. But I have no idea what the FBI did with the information.

Brennan publicly provided the rationale for beginning the FBI counter-intelligence investigation that former FBI Director James Comey has said began in July 2016.

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign,” Brennan testified. “I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. And I was worried by a number of the contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons and so therefore, by the time I left office on Jan. 20, I had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons, involved in the campaign or not, to work on their behalf, again, either in a witting or unwitting fashion. And so therefore I felt as though the FBI investigation was certainly well-founded and needed to look into those issues.”

But Brennan could not tell the Intelligence Committee the results of the FBI investigation, or if the FBI had found, or not found, anything in the course of the investigation, which is now in its 10th month.

“Since you passed that information to the FBI director [in summer 2016], have you reviewed the FBI’s development of that evidence or any other evidence?” asked Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“I am unaware of what the bureau has done with that information, and I have no knowledge of anything, even, that the [CIA] has done since Jan. 20th,” Brennan answered.

But others do have knowledge of what the FBI has done with Brennan’s information. The FBI has briefed members of the so-called “Gang of Eight” — that is, the top Republican and Democrat on both House and Senate intelligence committees plus the two leaders of each house of Congress — on developments in the case. The bureau has also briefed the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well.

Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic senator from California who last year was vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, was part of the Gang of Eight until January of this year, and since then has been ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. So she, unlike Brennan, has been kept up on what the FBI did with the information Brennan gave the bureau in the summer of 2016.

In an appearance on CNN May 3, Feinstein noted that she had been briefed by the FBI and had also recently visited CIA headquarters to review documents. “Do you believe, do you have evidence that there was in fact collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign,” anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Feinstein.

“Not at this time,” Feinstein answered. . . . Other members of Congress with access to updated information have said similar things. And Feinstein’s statement was last Thursday, which is considerably more recent that Brennan’s testimony that he gave the FBI information in the summer of 2016 and did not know what had happened with that information since.

Brennan’s track record is poor and his motives suspect.

ED MORRISSEY: California’s looming single-payer disaster.

An analysis from the Colorado Health Institute showed that their state’s ColoradoCare proposal would start off with a deficit of over $200 million in its very first year of full operation, even with a three-year headstart on new taxes to launch the system. By the end of the tenth year, the cumulative red ink would have exceeded $7 billion — which would be more than twice the state’s annual GDP.

The solutions for this fiscal meltdown in a single-payer system, CHI noted, were all unpleasant. One option would be to cut benefits of the universal coverage, and hiking co-pays to provide disincentives for using health care. That would in some cases “reduce the level of insurance below what [Coloradans] have today,” the study noted. The state could raise taxes for the health-care system as deficits increased, which would amount to ironic premium hikes from a system designed to be a response to premium hikes from insurers. Another option: Reduce the payments provided to doctors, clinics, and hospitals for their services, which would almost certainly drive providers to either reduce their access or leave the state for greener pastures.

If California goes ahead with this, the exodus of health care providers will be met with screams from Sacramento of “I need wider powers!”

GEORGETOWN PROFESSOR CHRISTINE FAIR, “a virtual parody of liberal intolerance.”

“Why are the loudest proponents of ‘tolerance’ and ‘peace’ so frequently ugly, hateful people?” Because the talk of tolerance and peace is a lie, to mask a naked grab for power. Usually by people who aren’t quite right in the head.