Daily Clips: May 9th, 2016

Donald Trump or Pauly Ryan? Who’s #1? Maureen Dowd imagines how Trump and Ryan’s meeting on Capitol Hill, where she creates witty dialogue and unveils sound political observations. Here’s my favorite passage:

‘I never use the same adjective twice,’ Trump replies coolly. ‘As you know, I do have killer instincts. That’s how I knocked out 16 losers. So let’s try a few names for kicks. Pious Paul? Pompous Paul? Phony Paul? Back-Stabbing, Blindsiding Paul who hung me out to dry to protect his own presidential ambitions for 2020?’

Ryan blanches, protesting: ‘No, no, I just want us to come together with a positive vision.’

The South’s Confederate-monument problem isn’t going away: It turns out that the South started building a ton of monuments to defenders of the “lost cause” in the years following the Civil War. The sheer amount around today means that many towns and cities will be confronted with some controversial decisions.

Dark-skinned economist profiled for making notes in “strange code” while on airplane: We are a xenophobic and racially charged nation now, even without He Who Must Not Be Named at the helm.

Seattle schools have biggest white-black achievement gap in state: Depressing, but not at all surprising.