Thursday's Mini-Report, 5.4.17

Today's edition of quick hits:* The government will be funded through September: "Months later than many appropriators would have liked, the voting has wrapped up its work to fund the government through the end of September. Senators voted 79-18 to send the $1.07 trillion omnibus bill, which featured the remaining 11 of the 12 regular spending measures as well as a variety of emergency spending measures, on to President Donald Trump."* Celebrating pointless cruelty in the Rose Garden: "President Donald Trump celebrated on Thursday taking the first step toward repealing and replacing Obamacare."* Asia-Pacific: "With tensions high over North Korean's nuclear program and the threat of conflict refusing to subside, North Korean state media lashed out Wednesday and Thursday. President Trump was one target, but China -- a major ally and benefactor of North Korea — faced its own pointed critique."* Maybe we can find someone better to lead on combating intolerance: "President Trump, on his first trip abroad, will travel later this month to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Rome in an effort to unite three of the world's leading religious faiths in the common cause of fighting 'intolerance,' terrorism and Iran, White House officials said Thursday."* Politics sure can be weird sometimes: "Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) suggested on Wednesday that former President Barack Obama's planned $400,000 speech to a Wall Street firm is the driving force behind a coming measure to cap presidential pensions."* Alabama: "New Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law Wednesday that allows adoption agencies in the state to adhere to faith-based policies that disqualify gay couples from adopting. House Bill 24, passed by the state senate on a party line vote last month, does not apply to adoption agencies receiving state or federal funding."* Occasionally, George Will makes an observation worth noting: "[I]t is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict."* And on a related note, a gem from Jon Chait: "Trump has no context for processing ideas. He does not understand which kinds of ideas imply support for which kinds of policies, nor why political figures tend to believe what they do, nor why they agree or disagree with one another. He is capable of forming strongly held beliefs about people in politics, but he does so in entirely personal terms. Trump's flamboyant, weird ignorance reveals a distinct pattern. He is not so much nonideological as sub-ideological."Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.