Vox Sentences: Donald Trump 2016 is an actual thing that’s happening

Trump!

Trump announced in Trump Tower because of course he did. (Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)

• Donald Trump 2016: it's a thing.

  [NYT / Alexander Burns]

• Trump's platform is defined by what he's against, to wit immigration, Common Core, abortion, the Trans Pacific Partnership, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and wind turbines.

  [Vox / Tez Clark]

• He also endorsed seizing Iraqi oil fields for the US as "spoils" of war.

  [ABC News / George Stephanopoulos]

• He's not really a big fan of the scientific consensus on global warming or vaccines.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• "Trump is the first candidate in modern presidential primary history to begin the campaign with a majority of his own party disliking him."

  [FiveThirtyEight / Harry Enten]

• He also languishes in polling. In New Hampshire, where he's faring best, he's in fifth behind Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio.

  [RealClearPolitics]

• Trump announced that he has a net worth of $8.7 billion: "I’m not doing that to brag. I’m doing that to show that’s the kind of thinking our country needs."

  [The Guardian / Dominic Rushe]

• That's more than double Forbes' estimate of $4.1 billion.

  [Forbes]

• Trump, in an earlier interview: "I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. … Ross Perot isn’t successful like me. Romney — I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than Romney."

  [Des Moines Register / Josh Hafner]

• Jeffrey Lord makes the case for Trump: "Donald Trump is seen by many Americans as the very embodiment of the American Dream. Someone with vision and drive who settles down and focuses, working hard day in and day out to make his own dreams come true."

  [American Spectator / Jeffrey Lord]

• Remember when Trump proposed a massive once-off wealth tax to eliminate the national debt when he was kind-of-sort-of running from president in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate? Good times.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• This is the greatest headline of our times: "Neil Young: Donald Trump 'not authorized' to rock in the free world"

  [LA Times / Randy Lewis]

• I'm utterly incapable of reading news coverage of Trump and not thinking of this John Mulaney bit: "I'm going to put up tall buildings with my name on 'em. I'll have fine, golden hair, and a TV show where I fire people with my children."

  [Comedy Central]

The week in killing terrorists

Late Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) chief Nasser al-Wuhayshi. (AFP/GettyImages)

• Al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP) has confirmed that a US missile strike killed its leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, last week. He was also the deputy leader of all of al-Qaeda.

  [NYT / Kareem Fahim]

• The White House called the killing "a major blow to AQAP, Al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate, and to Al Qaeda more broadly."

  [Reuters / Noah Browning and Mohammed Ghobari]

• Al-Qaeda has been making gains in Yemen lately, seizing its fifth-largest city, Al Mukalla, in April.

  [NYT / Saeed al-Batati and Kareem Fahim]

• The position of al-Qaeda deputy leader has ridiculously high turnover, largely due to strikes like this.

  [Slate / Joshua Keating]

• The US government has also claimed that it killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an ex-al-Qaeda militant, in Libya, but the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia denied that he was killed, and his death has been misreported many times in the past.

  [BBC]

Misc.

• Polar bears are eating dolphins now. They've also been known to engage in cannibalism. Fear polar bears.

  [Washington Post / Rachel Feltman]

• This is a fantastic rundown of the social science on trans people, gender dysphoria, and transitioning.

  [Pacific Standard / Kate Wheeling]

• The JavaScript on Jeb Bush's campaign website used to include Wikipedia's summary of the plots of all five Die Hard films for some reason.

  [Slate / Jacob Brogan]

• Mapping The Simpsons's Springfield is tough, but these come close.

  [Atlas Obscura / Jeremy Berke]

• Arlington just increased the fine for using curse words in public to $250 in case you needed another reason to move into DC proper.

  [Washingtonian / Benjamin Freed]

• This article exists.

  [National Journal / Ron Fournier]

Verbatim

• "The much larger and more problematic force in the housing market isn't gentrification; it's segregation."

  [Washington Post / Emily Badger]

• "A lot of this stuff that looks like conspiracy is just dumb redneck crap."

  [Doug Lee to NY Mag / Marin Cogan]

• "The mirror neuron has always been one of liberalism’s strongest weapon."

  [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

• "Even if you can touch your belly button, that doesn’t change the fact that no one likes a gloater."

  [The Atlantic / James Hamblin]

• "Don’t get Noonan wrong. She is very pro-science. She just wants authorities to stick to those scientific questions where the science is completely firm. Questions like, Can we be certain that a team of divine anti-communist dolphins delivered Elian Gonzalez to freedom?"

  [NY Mag / Jonathan Chait]

Song of the day

• Young Wonder, "To You"

  [YouTube]