Politics: All the Latest Headlines from Real Clear Politics

Here is the latest Political News from Real Clear Politics.

How Brazil, the Darling of the Developing World, Came Undone
Miroff & Phillips, WP
It was called the “Brazil model,” or simply “the Lula model,” back when this country’s economy was roaring and its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was a superstar of the developing world.By balancing support for big business with big social-welfare programs, the union boss turned statesman presided over an era of growth that lifted tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Lula’s presidency cut a new template for a Latin American left that had long insisted class struggle and revolution were the only road to fairness. The coronation came when…

Should We Be Turning Japanese?
Michael Auslin, Politico
Walking among the open air cafés in Tokyo during an unseasonably warm November last year—just after the Paris terror attacks—I realized that something was different. Japanese almost never think twice about going into public places. Their streets are not filled with combat troops on wary patrol. Parents don’t fear when their children congregate at a concert or in the park. Japanese are the first to highlight their country’s problems, but when I talk with a group of young men and women at a tiny, crowded bar, their greatest fear for the future is growing old alone, not…

Erdogan and Merkel’s Comic Comeuppance
Anna Sauerbrey, New York Times
THOUGH it’s a fact often overlooked by the rest of the world, Germany is a funny place — seriously. Long before Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee redefined topical American humor, comedians here perfected the art of sharp political satire.For the most part, German politicians get the joke. But now politics and humor are colliding in a new way — a collision that exposes the tragicomedy of modern Europe.

Trump Has a Coherent, Realist Foreign Policy
Rosa Brooks, Foreign Policy
Oh, Donald, bless your heart! You keep on saying those wild and crazy things, the media keeps on snickering, and you just keep on blustering. A grateful nation thanks you. If you weren’t around, we’d probably have to talk about Ted Cruz instead, and that would be no fun at all.But my editors here at Foreign Policy have asked me to get serious and write about what U.S. foreign policy would look like if the White House should ever sprout an enormous gold sign reading, “TRUMP.” This has not been a simple assignment, because there is a Trump for every possible policy…

Foreign Policy Under a President Hillary Clinton
Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer
How would President Hillary Clinton conduct foreign policy? After decades of public exposure, including four years as secretary of state, one would think the answer to that question would be obvious. But it isn’t entirely clear.Perhaps that’s because Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom she debated Thursday ahead of the New York primary, has tried to paint her as Hillary Hawk by constantly harping on her Senate vote for the Iraq war (while punting on most foreign policy questions). Clinton has apologized for backing the 2003 war.

Is Tough-Guy Trump Turning Gentler–and Will It Work?
Howard Kurtz, FOX News
Are we seeing the softening of Donald Trump?He hasn’t whacked anyone on Twitter for days.He is being more serious and less inflammatory in interviews.And in a hell-hath-frozen-over moment, he sat down for a clear-the-air meeting with Megyn Kelly and said nice things about her afterward.All this comes as Trump is expanding his team by bringing in veteran Republican operatives to run the show and help him in the trench warfare for delegates.

Late Primary States Get Their Time to Shine
Rebecca Berg, RealClearPolitics
Washington Republican leaders wanted to ensure their state would be relevant in the presidential primary process.As it was, their contest would be relegated to the dregs of the election season, an afterthought. So, last August, they proposed moving the vote from May 24 to March 8, one week after Super Tuesday. The Seattle Times endorsed the idea, reasoning that a primary at the end of May would be “a reasonable date for planting a second round of peas in the garden, but … far too late to be influential in picking candidates.”

Why the Party Can’t Take the Nomination From Donald Trump
Will Rahn, CBS News
Is it me, or does the argument that the Republican nomination can be taken from Donald Trump at a contested convention make almost no sense?It’s not that it would be unfeasible for Ted Cruz or some other candidate to win a majority of delegates after the first ballot is cast at the convention. If anything, it seems more and more likely that Cruz, given his shrewdness at delegate selection, would be able to pull this off as early as the second ballot.

Trump’s Disingenuous Whining About Stolen Votes
Jay Cost, The Weekly Standard
After Ted Cruz won every delegate up for grabs at the Colorado Republican convention, Donald Trump began complaining that the process at such conventions is unfair. His claim is that party insiders should not be making these choices, but rather that the power should be vested with the voters. As a consequence, Cruz is â??stealing delegates from Trump, and in so doing defying the will of the voters.Trump’s accusations are specious and disingenuous. The process that has been playing out is perfectly legitimate. Trump’s real problem is that he is being outhustled by the Cruz campaign.The…

Why Bernie Sanders Says Terrible Things About Israel
Roger Simon, PJ Media
It’s been over a week since Bernie Sanders — in an interview with the New York Daily News — made arguably the most defamatory factual error of campaign 2016 by drastically inflating Gazan casualties in the 2014 Hamas-Israel war with a figure of “over 10,000 innocent people” allegedly killed by Israel. That number dwarfed those reported by the UN and even (amazingly) Hamas itself.

Breaking Taboos in the Democratic Debate
John Cassidy, The New Yorker
For the first hour or so, last night’s Democratic debate, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was predictable. Bernie Sanders questioned Hillary Clinton’s judgment in voting for the Iraq War and spoke sarcastically about her refusal to release the transcripts of the paid speeches that she made for Goldman Sachs. Clinton suggested that Sanders was a dreamer rather than a doer and pilloried him for his record on gun control. The tone was loud, contentious, and, by the standards of what has been a pretty civil campaign, testy. At one point, the back-and-forth got so heated that Wolf Blitzer,…

Chicago’s Racist Cops & Racist Courts
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, New York Times
As a report by a panel commissioned by Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago found on Wednesday, racism in the city’s Police Department is rampant: Blacks are disproportionately subjected to traffic stops, Tasers and street stops that do not lead to arrest; they also account for an appalling 74 percent of the 404 people shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015.

Da Bulls? Still Da Best

Fix IRS Cyber Breaches

Verizon Strike Signals Larger Economic Battle
David Dayen, The New Republic

The GOP Establishment Simply Can’t Win in Cleveland
Damon Linker, The Week
Americans love a happy ending.It’s true of our movies, our religion, and our seemingly unshakable quasi-providential civic faith in historical progress. (Have you heard that the arc of history bends toward justice?) It’s also true of our politics. But for Republicans hoping for a happy ending to the 2016 presidential campaign — well, they are in for an awfully rude awakening.

Let Me Ask America a Question
Donald J. Trump, Wall Street Journal
On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.

The Post Endorses Donald Trump

Clinton Deserves Democratic Nod

American Security: An Economy Working for All
Alexis Simendinger, RealClearPolitics
// Please enable Javascript to watch this videoIn the second part of RealClearPolitics’ series on security issues in the 2016 campaign, we examine financial security. Part 1, a national…

Firms Finally Standing Up to the Left’s Attacks
Kimberley Strassel, Wall St Journal

I’m a Liberal Banker. Bernie, Please Stop Demonizing Me
Todd Baker, NY Daily News

Time to Overhaul Tax Code, Abolish IRS
Senator Jerry Moran, USA Today
Best replacement is the FairTax, a flat national consumption tax, writes Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS.

Sage Advice From a Foreign Policy Veteran
David Ignatius, Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Bob Gates has unusual standing in the debate about the Obama administration’s foreign policy: He was defense secretary both for a hawkish President George W. Bush and then a wary…

The Global Warming Assault on Free Speech
Wesley Pruden, Washington Times
“Climate change” is all about us. Nearly everybody believes in it. Who could not? Sometimes a sunny day changes to rain, sometimes snow changes to sleet. The wind blows on Tuesday but changes on Wednesday, from knocking down trees to barely putting a ripple on the surface of the lake. Mark Twain, noticing that some things lie beyond the meddling of man, observed that “everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”

Clintonism, Dead and Buried
Charles Krauthammer, New York Daily News
How far they’ve come. And I’m not talking about the GOP, whose front-runner representing 37 percent of the Republican electorate has repudiated post-Reagan orthodoxy on trade, entitlement reform, limited government, and Pax Americana (and possibly abortion, but who knows?). I’m talking about the Democrats.The center-left, triangulating, New Democrat (Bill) Clintonism of the 1990s is dead. It expired of unnatural causes, buried — definitively, if unceremoniously — by its very creator.#ad#The final chapter occurred last week when, responding to Black Lives Matter…

Why Criticism of the 1994 Crime Bill Is Incomplete
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic
It wasnâ??t perfect, but on the whole, the bill helped reduce violent crime in the U.S.

Why the GOP Establishment Simply Can’t Win in Cleveland
Damon Linker, The Week
There are only three outcomes, and all are bad: Trump, Cruz, or chaos

Paul Ryan Is Right: No White Knights Should Apply
Gingrich & Domenech, Federalist
Political consultants spouting childlike fantasies of an open convention that nominates Paul Ryan are a sign of how desperate the Republican elites are.

5 Big Questions After a High Stakes Debate
Frank Bruni, New York Times