From the right: Hillary’s Nuke Deal Double Standard

Hillary Clinton is complaining that President Trump has broken America’s word by decertifying the Iran nuclear deal. That, suggests Elliott Abrams at the Council on Foreign Relations blog, “is a subject on which she should really be silent.” Because Trump’s decision “follows US law.” But it was Clinton and President Barack Obama who in 2009 raised questions about Washington’s trust and credibility. That’s when they disavowed the formal exchange of letters, endorsed by lopsided majorities in Congress, between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on settlements and Israel’s permanent borders. To Clinton, “some agreements are sacrosanct while others may be cavalierly ignored and dismissed — and the distinction between the two types is that she likes some and doesn’t like others.”



Policy wonk: Trump Hasn’t Triggered O’Care Apocalypse

For all the moaning that President Trump has just “gutted” or “sabotaged” ObamaCare, the two policy announcement he just made “will be fairly modest — and largely positive — in their effect,” argues Forbes’s Avik Roy. You’d think Trump “would have a lot of options to push health care back in a more free-market direction. But he doesn’t.” The Obama administration was “highly selective” in enforcing the health-care law as written; Trump, om the other hand, “must conform to the letter of the law.” And while “those who wanted Obamacare to succeed largely shrugged off” Obama’s “illegalities,” the sense “that that there was one set of rules for political elites, and a different set of rules for average Americans did a lot to drive the Trump phenomenon.”



Liberal: Why Can’t Bernie Headline Women’s March?

Identity politics has struck again, complains Briahna Joy at The Week. Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to deliver the opening-night address at this month’s Detroit Women’s March, and “for many Democrats, this is apparently a cause for crisis.” In fact, “the most troubling brand of criticism was the notion that Sanders shouldn’t headline the event because,” as MSNBC host Joy Reid suggested, “he is ‘a white man’ who believes ‘uteruses are just much less important than jailing the bankers and free college for the Rust Belt.’ ” But the Vermont socialist “has chosen to prioritize that which America has prioritized. Should it be otherwise?” Says Gay: “In economic justice, Sanders has chosen correctly. He deserves to be heard.”

Political scribe: Keystone State Is ’18 Bellweather

If there is one place to watch in order to chart the nation’s political trends, Pennsylvania is it, says Salena Zito at the Washington Examiner. The political class has long “seen the Keystone State as a reliable blue state, an assessment largely based on its six-cycle streak of voting for the Democratic presidential nominee.” But its composition “has been subtly changing since 1996,” and down-ballot races have gone “from solid blue to solid red.” Next year, Pennsylvania will have four open House seats now held by retiring Republicans. For Democrats, the key is to make some of these seats “more winnable with moderate Democrats who reflect the moderate attitudes and values of the districts.” But that “is challenging for a party agonizing over its identity and fractures.”

Culture critic: Blame Parents for Dim Millennials

Turns out millennials really don’t measure up — literally, says Chelsea Samelson at Acculturated, citing a Wall Street Journal story that “Home Depot is creating instructional videos for millennials so they can learn to use basic tools,” like tape measures. And not just Home Depot: “Other major retailers have turned to teaching young people the basic skills required to use their products.” All this just strengthens the perception that “twenty-somethings are pathetically incompetent know-nothings, so lacking in life skills they need digital instruction on hammering a nail.” But Samelsen blames their parents — “the person whose job it was to teach and instruct them in the first place.” Indeed, “if parents didn’t give their children chores and make them participate in housekeeping . . . why should they point and laugh at millennials who need tutorials?”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann