Cleveland Sports Forum

Bills that passed the Illinois Senate on March 14, 2018

Assault Weapons (HB 1465):

Bans possession
assault weapons / high capacity magazines by
anyone younger than 21. Creates an affirmative
defense to a charge for the unlawful possession
of assault weapon, assault weapon attachment,
.50 caliber rifle, or .50 caliber cartridge (but not
magazines) by a person who is under 21 years
of age if certain circumstances are present.

• possession before the law goes into
effect;
• possession while with someone over 21
with a FOID card;
• the assault weapon, attachment, .50
caliber rifle or cartridge is in a vehicle
owned by someone over 21 with a FOID
card; or
• the assault weapon, etc. is in a
residence owned by someone over 21
with a FOID card.
This is a defense to a charge that must be
proven at trial. This is not an exception to the
offense.

Bump Stocks, Trigger Cranks (HB 1467):

Makes
the sale, manufacture, purchase, possession, or
carrying of a bump stock or trigger crank illegal
90 days after the law goes into effect. Makes it
90 days and a probationable class 4 felony. Also
allows local governments to enact their own
assault weapons bans.

Waiting Period (HB 1468):

Establishes a
72- hour waiting period for semi-automatic rifles,
semi-automatic shotguns, semi-automatic
pistols, and .50 caliber rifles. It also bans the
sale of these firearms to non-residents at gun
shows.

[ MASTER PLAN FOR THE GOP - MAKE THE KIDS HAPPY! ]

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Trump congratulates Putin, gets backtalk from Republicans

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to congratulate him on his re-election, drawing bruising criticism from members of his own party, including a leading senator who scorned the election as a “sham.” Trump also said he and Putin might meet “in the not too distant future” to discuss the arms race and other matters.

What they didn’t discuss on Tuesday was noteworthy as well: Trump did not raise Russia’s meddling in the U.S. elections or its suspected involvement in the recent poisoning of a former spy in England.

“An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and has pressed the Trump administration to respond aggressively to Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a frequent Trump critic, called the president’s call “odd.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump “can call whomever he chooses” but noted that calling Putin “wouldn’t have been high on my list.”......

https://www.apnews.com/b050254e616a46d6 ... epublicans





Report: Aides Told Trump Not to Congratulate Putin on Election Victory

President Donald Trump’s top advisers reportedly warned him against congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin for winning re-election, with aides writing in all capital letters: “DO NOT CONGRATULATE.” The two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday, the White House and the Kremlin said. Aides also requested that Trump mention the nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom, which the U.S. and its allies have blamed on Russia. Trump did not mention the attack and did congratulate Putin. His congratulatory message drew rebukes on Capitol Hill, with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) saying Trump “insulted” the Russian people for congratulating Putin on winning a “sham” election.





Zuckerberg asked to testify; data firm’s CEO suspended

LONDON (AP) — The head of Trump-affiliated data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been suspended, while government authorities are bearing down on both the firm and Facebook over allegations the firm stole data from 50 million Facebook users to manipulate elections.

Cambridge’s board of directors suspended CEO Alexander Nix pending an investigation after Nix boasted of various unsavory services to an undercover reporter for Britain’s Channel 4 News.

Channel 4 News broadcast clips Tuesday that also show Nix saying his data-mining firm played a major role in securing Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential elections.

Nix said the firm handled “all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting” and said Cambridge used emails with a “self-destruct timer” to make its role more difficult to trace.

“There’s no evidence, there’s no paper trail, there’s nothing,” he said.

https://www.apnews.com/3d7d35b8f9344d9b ... -suspended





Trump isn't the only Republican who gave Cambridge Analytica big bucks

Washington (CNN)Cambridge Analytica, the data company Donald Trump's campaign hired during the 2016 presidential election, has been under a magnifying glass this week after a whistleblower claimed that the firm misused the personal data of about 50 million Facebook users.

The firm is partly owned by GOP donor and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his family, and has ties to former and current Trump advisers. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is the firm's former vice president, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway consulted for the company.

But Trump isn't the only prominent GOP client to pay for services from the firm. Here are other Republicans who have hired Cambridge Analytica. There have been no allegations of unethical behavior by Cambridge Analytica on behalf of these Republican candidates or groups.

Sen. Thom Tillis and the North Carolina Republican Party

Tillis and the North Carolina GOP spent $345,000 for "microtargeting" from 2014 through 2015, geared at helping Tillis defeat Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan in 2014, the most expensive US Senate race in history at the time. Cambridge Analytica's website touts the success of their efforts in the race, saying they "were able to design and deploy messages tailored to these audiences according to their particular psychographic profiles."

Make America Number 1 Super PAC

The Mercer-backed Keep the Promise I/Make America Number 1 super PAC paid $1,476,484 to Cambridge Analytica from 2015 through 2016. The PAC funded a series of pro-Ted Cruz ads during the 2016 presidential campaign. The PAC was also led by Conway prior to her joining the Trump campaign.

John Bolton Super PAC

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is being considered to replace H.R. McMaster as White House national security adviser. According to FEC filings, Bolton's super PAC doled out $1,152,299 for Cambridge Analytica's work from 2014 through 2016. All of the services billed are for "research" and "survey research."

Ted Cruz and Ben Carson

During their 2016 presidential campaigns, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson solicited Cambridge Analytica for media services, survey research, web services and database management. The Cruz campaign directly spent $5.8 million for the firm's services. In addition, Keep the Promise II super PAC, which is associated with the "Keep the Promise" network of the Mercer-backed PACs, was funded by Cruz supporter and Texas billionaire Toby Neugebauer. The PAC paid $570,000 for Cambridge Analytica's services -- the largest expenditure for the PAC during the election cycle. Carson, meanwhile, spent $438,065 for the firm's work.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton

Cotton paid some $20,000 for Cambridge Analytica's consulting services from 2013 through 2014 as he was campaigning for the Senate.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics ... index.html





Cambridge Analytica’s Dirty Tricks Elected Trump, CEO Claims

Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, claimed they used proxies in the U.S. to influence the 2016 election.

LONDON—British political consultants that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said they secretly used proxy organizations and super PACs to spread ads in the U.S. that could not be traced back to the Trump campaign.

Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, was secretly recorded by undercover reporters from Channel 4 in Britain who were posing as prospective clients. “There’s no evidence, there’s no paper trail, there’s nothing,” said Nix, reassuring them that his company’s dirty tricks for his clients would never be detected.

Nix said Cambridge Analytica used encrypted emails that were timed to self-destruct and boasted that U.S. politicians on the congressional committees weren’t smart enough to catch him out. “They’re politicians, they’re not technical. They don’t understand,” he said.

Nix claimed they had overseen much of the Trump presidential campaign, we “ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.”

He said he had met Trump “many times.........”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cambridge ... t?ref=home





Exclusive: Mark Zuckerberg AWOL From Facebook’s Data Leak Damage Control Session

Facebook employees gathered to discuss the widening scandal over the 2016 election. But company chiefs Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were nowhere to be found.

It’s not just that he’s silent in public. Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declined to face his employees on Tuesday to explain the company’s role in a widening international scandal over the 2016 election.

Facebook employees on Tuesday got the opportunity for an internal briefing and question-and-answer session about Facebook’s role with the Trump-aligned data firm Cambridge Analytica. It was the first the company held to brief and reassure employees after, ahead of damaging news reports, Facebook abruptly suspended Cambridge Analytica. The Q&A session was first reported by The Verge.

But Zuckerberg himself wasn’t there, The Daily Beast has learned. Instead, the session was conducted by a Facebook attorney, Paul Grewal, according to a source familiar with the meeting. That was the same approach the company used on Capitol Hill this past fall, when it sent its top attorney, Colin Stretch, to brief Congress about the prevalence of Russian propaganda, to include paid ads and inauthentic accounts, on its platform.

Nor, The Daily Beast has learned, did chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg attend the internal town hall.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive ... n?ref=home





An "Ashamed" Fox News Commentator Just Quit The "Propaganda Machine"

"Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association," Col. Ralph Peters wrote in an email to colleagues. "Now I am ashamed."

A retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and Fox News contributor quit Tuesday and denounced the network and President Donald Trump in an email to colleagues.

"Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration," wrote Ralph Peters, a Fox News "strategic analyst."

"Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed," he wrote.

Peters, who was also a heated critic of Barack Obama's foreign policy, once described him as having been "date raped" by Vladimir Putin. He didn't respond to an email about his missive.

“Ralph Peters is entitled to his opinion despite the fact that he's choosing to use it as a weapon in order to gain attention. We are extremely proud of our top-rated primetime hosts and all of our opinion programing,” Fox News said in a statement.

Here's Peters' full email to colleagues........:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomnamako/ralp ... .rfgjOZQq1





1. OH, REALLY?

Ben Carson Blames His Wife for $31,000 Dining Set Decision

Ben Carson told a House committee hearing on Tuesday that the infamous decision to purchase a $31,000 mahogany dining-room set for his government office was made by his wife Candy and senior staffers. The retired neurosurgeon-turned-HUD secretary testified that his office exceeded the $5,000 federal spending limit to purchase the table out of a concern for safety. “If it were up to me I would decorate my office like a hospital waiting room,” Carson explained. “People were stuck by nails, and a chair had collapsed with someone sitting in it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ben-carso ... n?ref=home






http://thehill.com/sites/all/themes/the ... go-big.png
DeVos battles lawmakers in contentious hearing

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos struggled to answer tough questions in a congressional hearing Tuesday, resulting in numerous tense back-and-forths with Democrats and a few quiet rebukes from Republican committee members.

VIDEO

https://youtu.be/UO8TlpOlyoE

Democrats accused DeVos of lacking leadership as she repeatedly failed to provide specific answers on her positions on school gun violence, racial disparities, LGBT rights and student loan oversight.

DeVos frequently demurred, telling lawmakers at a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services that Congress, and not the administration, had the responsibility for making certain policy decisions.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/37938 ... us-hearing





Walmart and other retailers were forced to throw out food in Puerto Rico even as people stood in line outside stores. | Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Tons of food went to waste in Puerto Rico as stores’ pleas to FEMA went unanswered

Walmart and other supermarkets in Puerto Rico were forced to throw out tons of perishable meat and produce after Hurricane Maria when their pleas for emergency fuel were ignored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to congressional investigators.

The retail giant and others reached out to FEMA officials repeatedly after the storm, seeking fuel to keep food refrigerated. They enlisted the help of Gov. Ricard Rosselló and other island officials, as well as members of Congress, to deliver emails, texts and in-person messages to FEMA. In one instance, a Puerto Rico official received an urgent email from Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) on Sept. 22 while the official was sitting in a meeting with FEMA.

“FYI I’m sitting with the FEMA rep right now so we are taking care of this,” the Puerto Rico official wrote minutes after receiving the Gutierrez email.........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... uel-476299

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The Government’s Own Watchdog Says Massive Poultry Companies Are Exploiting Small Business Loans

The surprising way US taxpayers are propping up multinational meat companies.

Chicken is America’s favorite meat. Producing it is a $30 billion business, dominated by a few large players. So why should the US Small Business Administration be facilitating taxpayer-backed loans to these companies’ de facto subsidiaries? ..........

Between 2012 and 2016, the OIG report states, the SBA backed 1,535 loans, worth a total of $1.8 billion, to contract chicken farmers. (Another federal entity, the US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, offers similar loan support to poultry growers.) On the surface, contract chicken farmers might seem like genuine independent businesses. They provide full-grown birds to the large companies that slaughter, cut up, and package them into the drumsticks, breasts, and thighs we buy at the supermarket.

But here’s the thing, according to the OIG: In reality, those farmers don’t operate independently at all. They are essentially the production arm of the companies, operating at their whim. The farmers are offered a contract, typically covering a single flock, to grow birds from the chick phase to slaughter weight. The company provides farmers with the chicks and the feed. The farmers, in turn, are paid a fee to raise the birds (which they never own), in facilities whose size and design is dictated by the companies. ..........

The control enjoyed by the chicken companies over their contract farmers is impressive: They dictate “how to inspect flocks and broiler houses, prescribing where and how to walk through the houses, the frequency and timing of inspections, and how to record the results.” Other factors controlled by the companies include “broiler house lighting, heating, ventilation, and cooling, flock feeding, watering, and the culling of birds.” Then there’s those pricey barns: The companies give “detailed construction specifications for the grower’s broiler houses,” including grading, equipment, signage, and construction oversight.

The companies also routinely demand “significant capital upgrades” to existing barns and equipment. These mandatory expenditures lock farmers in a debt cycle, often forcing them to “seek additional funding” from the SBA loan program, the OIG report states.

The big processors can also simply decide not to renew farmers’ contracts—and that can mean the collapse of the farm. Because without a contract, those $300,000 chicken houses are essentially worthless. To drive its point home, the report details the fate of several poultry farms that had received SBA loans and then lost their production contract:
In essence, the report lays out two scandals. One is that the Small Business Administration is helping meat-packing firms with billions of dollars in annual revenues get taxpayer-backed small-business loans to build out their chicken production capacity. The second is that these farmer-contractors endure kind of debt-driven serfdom. As a 2014 USDA study showed, contract poultry farmers on average “are likely to earn about $11.50 an hour,” after accounting for operating and interest expenses.

In a recent statement, Mike Weaver, president of the Organization for Competitive Markets, an advocacy group that defends the interests of independent farmers in corporate-dominated agriculture markets, called the OIG’s analysis of the chicken market “no surprise.” He called for federal antitrust action to “ensure poultry growers can operate as small businesses” and to “stop subsidizing increased production for these multinational corporations by American taxpayers.”

Instead, Weaver noted, the Trump administration is moving in the opposite direction. Last October, the USDA rolled back rules, finalized late in the Obama administration and known as GIPSA, that would have boosted farmers’ ability to push back in court against the chicken companies’ unfair practices.

As for the Small Business Administration and its habit of backing loans to poultry farmers, the agency has until August 31 to address the OIG’s concern that such entities aren’t independent small business and thus shouldn’t be eligible for related loans. Sen. Cory Booker, (D-NJ), added to the pressure by attaching an amendment to a Senate bill demanding that the SBA report to Congress on how officials have addressed the OIG report’s findings. In its mission statement, the SBA says it aims to “preserve free competitive enterprise.” Its de facto support of Big Poultry would appear to contradict that goal.

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/0 ... en-farmer/





Congress to Facebook: Send us Zuckerberg

Lawmakers are demanding to hear directly from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on the growing controversy over the misuse of its data by Trump-linked Cambridge Analytica, as the social network confronts its most serious political crisis ever in Washington.

For now, the company is sending lower-level staffers to brief a half-dozen congressional committees about how data on more than 50 million users ended up in the hands of Cambridge during the 2016 campaign. But Facebook's Washington, D.C., troubles show no signs of abating amid news that the FTC has opened a data-privacy investigation into the company and as its stock price takes yet another hit.

Several lawmakers want top Facebook executives to testify — with some Republicans joining Democrats’ criticism of the onetime Capitol Hill darling. Some said it’s just a matter of time before Zuckerberg, the company’s hoodie-wearing CEO and founder, or Sandberg, the chief operating officer and “Lean In” author, have to explain themselves to Congress.

"I want to know why this happened, and what’s the extent of the damage, and how they’re going to fix it moving forward," Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Tuesday when asked about the briefings. Facebook executives, she added, "aren’t coming yet, but they better come."

"Eventually, Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify; he needs to be subpoenaed if he won’t do it voluntarily," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who had urged the FTC to investigate the affair. "They can begin with some staff people, but it’s only the beginning."

Having Zuckerberg testify would be “helpful,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), adding: “We need to understand how they use the data that they mine from users, their personal information. … This is a growing problem, whether it’s people like political consulting firms using it, or foreign governments using it.”..........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... erg-426132





Steyer brings his push to impeach Trump to town halls across the nation

ARLINGTON, Va. — Democratic billionaire mega-donor Tom Steyer is bringing his national campaign to impeach President Trump from the airwaves to in-person town halls across the country.

On Tuesday night, about 100 people attended Steyer’s town hall in Arlington, Va., just a few miles outside of the nation’s capital. The event is part of a series of 30 town halls that kicked off last week in Ohio, a perennial swing state Trump won in 2016.

At his town hall series, Steyer is making an appeal to Americans for what he describes as the “patriotic case for impeachment.” He’s championed that effort with his “Need to Impeach” campaign, urging members of Congress to support impeachment. He’s already spent more than $20 million running ads and his petition has garnered more than 5 million signatures.

Steyer has repeatedly condemned Trump for “his failure to respond” to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And he referred to Trump’s latest assault on special counsel Robert Mueller as yet another example of why he’s a “dangerous and lawless president” and why he believes there is ground for impeachment.

“I think over the last week, we’ve seen that the pace of those events has picked up really dramatically and I would expect that increasing pace and escalation would continue,” Steyer told the packed hotel room overlooking the Pentagon.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/37 ... the-nation





With police near, suspected Austin bomber blows himself up

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas (AP) — As a SWAT team closed in, the suspected bomber whose deadly explosives terrorized Austin for three weeks used one of his own devices to blow himself up. But police warned that he could have planted more bombs before his death, and they cautioned the city to stay on guard.

Mark Anthony Conditt, an unemployed college dropout who bought bomb-making materials at Home Depot, was tracked down using store surveillance video, cellphone signals and witness accounts of a customer shipping packages in a disguise that included a blonde wig and gloves. His motive remained a mystery.

Police finally found the 23-year-old early Wednesday at a hotel in a suburb north of Austin known as the scene for filming portions of “Friday Night Lights.” Officers prepared to move in for an arrest. When the suspect’s sport utility vehicle began to drive away, they followed.

Conditt ran into a ditch on the side of the road, and SWAT officers approached. That’s when he detonated a bomb inside the vehicle, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said.

https://www.apnews.com/2d1846cc4b8e4c40 ... himself-up





Democrats get high turnout again, this time in Illinois

(CNN)The primaries in Illinois on Tuesday night were, for the most part melodramatic -- some big names got scares but there were no major upsets.

There was, however, some good news for Democrats: In the second of two statewide primaries this year (Texas being the other), turnout was significantly higher for Democrats than in either 2010 or 2014.

There were just under 1.3 million votes cast in the Illinois Democratic primary Tuesday to just over 700,000 in the Republican primary. Put another way, 64% of the votes cast were on the Democratic line, compared with only 36% on the Republican line. Now, Illinois is a blue state, but even taking that into account, it was an impressive performance for Democrats.........

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics ... index.html





GOP Rep: The ‘Deep State’ is Responsible for Ordering Ben Carson’s Dining Set

New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney had a theory about why the HUD Secretary is in ethical trouble.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) appeared to blame the nefarious “Deep State” for ordering a costly dining set for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-t ... t?ref=home





Trump has no right to buy the silence of White House staffers

The idea of White House employees signing non-disclosure agreements flies in the face of the first amendment

f there is one defining aspect of Donald Trump’s presidency, it is this: he does not believe himself or members of his staff to be public servants, serving the American people. He believes himself to be a hybrid between a CEO and a king, and sees White House employees as his court and his servants.

His demand that staffers sign non-disclosure agreements is the latest example, and one of the most glaring ones. These non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) extend even beyond the end of his presidency, so White House employees could find themselves on the other end of a Trump lawsuit should they speak about the details of his tenure – and reportedly on the hook for thousands or even millions.

It’s hard to overstate what an egregious violation this is, of both the constitution and democratic norms. These agreements can be toxic in a normal workplace, as the #MeToo movement has shown. By barring women from talking about the conditions of their workplaces, NDAs routinely allow employers to sweep harassment and even assault under the rug, putting more women at risk..........

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-staffers





Kelly furious over Putin 'DO NOT CONGRATULATE' leak

Other GOP officials have expressed alarm that such a closely guarded detail found its way into media accounts.

White House chief of staff John Kelly is furious over the leak of briefing materials prepared for President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a White House official told POLITICO on Wednesday, as the West Wing faced another wave of damaging news coverage following the revelation.

Trump was instructed in briefing materials “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” before his call with the recently re-elected Putin, but congratulated him anyway, according to the Washington Post’s report on Tuesday night. He also ignored a recommendation to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom, which the Kremlin has been accused of orchestrating, according to the report.

It’s not clear, however, whether Trump read the briefing notes instructing him to not congratulate Putin.

Still, White House aides were reeling about the fact that the briefing materials were leaked, and were left wondering who would provide such sensitive information to reporters, the official said...........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... tin-477761





White House backs omnibus spending bill

President Trump on Wednesday threw his support behind a $1.3 trillion spending bill, defying House conservatives and handing a victory to GOP congressional leaders.

The White House announced Trump’s backing after he discussed the proposed deal with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The president and the leaders discussed their support for the bill, which includes more funds to rebuild the military, such as the largest pay raise for our troops in a decade, more than 100 miles of new construction for the border wall and other key domestic priorities, like combatting the opioid crisis and rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

A White House official later added that Trump “intends to sign the bill,” calling it a “step in the right direction.”

The legislation could be released later on Wednesday, and the House could vote on it as soon as Thursday..........

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... nding-bill





Breitbart’s readership plunges

Breitbart, the alt-right news site whose executive chairman Steve Bannon was pushed out in January after feuding with President Donald Trump, has lost about half its readership according to comScore, raising questions about its future.

The site dropped from 15 million unique visitors in October, per comScore, to 13.7 million in November, 9.9 million in December, 8.5 million in January and 7.8 million in February.

Its comScore figure for January was down 51 percent from the same month a year earlier, and the February number was down 49 percent from 2017. Last month was the site’s least trafficked since February 2015, four months before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president...........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... 1?lo=ap_f1





Top takeaways from the Illinois primary

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is in big trouble in November.

Illinois’ primary election Tuesday produced a stunning result — little-known conservative state Rep. Jeanne Ives nearly upset Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Even in defeat, Ives’ performance raised serious questions about Rauner’s ability to win reelection in November in a blue state with President Donald Trump as the backdrop.

Democrats, meanwhile, got the result the party establishment has long sought in the governor’s race: J.B. Pritzker cruised to victory in his primary, putting a free-spending billionaire at the top of the ticket in the general election.

Here are POLITICO’s five takeaways from the second primary election of 2018:

The Pritzker steamroller:
Lipinski’s ace in the hole:
Rauner’s in big trouble in November:
The Chicago machine is still humming:
Democratic energy is surging:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... ons-476748





Dozens Killed In New Year Attack In Kabul

Afghan officials say a suicide attack outside a Shi'ite mosque in Kabul killed at least 29 people and wounded dozens, as people in the capital celebrated the new year holiday Norouz. .

"Unfortunately, 29 Afghan citizens lost their lives and 52 others were wounded in this incident," Health Ministry Wahidullah Majrooh told RFE/RL.

Nusrat Rahimi, a deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told RFE/RL that most of the victims of the attack claimed by the extremist group Islamic State (IS) were civilians.

The bomber was spotted by police as he attempted to enter a large gathering for the Norouz celebration in Kabul's Kart-e Sakhi mosque, Mohammad Salem Almas, head of criminal investigations in the Kabul police, told RFE/RL.

The attacker detonated the explosives that he was carrying before entering the mosque, Almas said.

Kabul police chief Daud Amin said the attacker managed to slip past a checkpoint on his way to the mosque.

https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-kab ... 12773.html

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Bye Facebook, hello Instagram: Users make beeline for Facebook-owned social network

SAN FRANCISCO — Before turning in for the night, Katie Clark curls up with Instagram, not Facebook. More personal, less drama.

"I just think it's a nicer place to be," the 28-year-old blogger from Littleton, Colo., says of Instagram. On Facebook, "everything feels like an advertisement or an argument."

Goodbye Facebook, hello Instagram.

Instagram, which Facebook bought in 2012 for $1 billion, is having a moment — and just in time to be a lone bright spot for its parent company, which is in crisis over its handling of people's private information.

"Thank Goodness For Instagram," said a Wall Street research note on Facebook's mounting troubles earlier this week. "I will delete Facebook, but you can pry Instagram from my cold, dead hands," read a headline on tech news outlet Mashable........

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/new ... 433361002/





Trump orders huge tariffs on China, raises trade war worries

WASHINGTON (AP) — Primed for economic combat, President Donald Trump set in motion tariffs on as much as $60 billion in Chinese imports to the U.S. on Thursday and accused the Chinese of high-tech thievery, picking a fight that could push the global heavyweights into a trade war.

China threatened retaliation, and Wall Street cringed, recording one of the biggest drops of Trump’s presidency. But he declared the U.S. would emerge “much stronger, much richer.”

It was the boldest example to date of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the culmination of his longstanding view that weak U.S. trade policies and enforcement have hollowed out the nation’s workforce and ballooned the federal deficit. Two weeks ago, with fanfare, he announced major penalty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that he said threatened national security.

However, even as Trump was talking tough at the White House, his administration moved to soften the sting of the metal tariffs, telling Congress on Thursday that the European Union, Australia, South Korea and other nations would join Canada and Mexico in gaining an initial exemption. And that raised questions about whether his actions will match his rhetoric...........

https://www.apnews.com/73e5e5aa7be24088 ... ar-worries





Stocks dive on trade war fears after China sanctions

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks plunged Thursday after the Trump administration slapped sanctions on goods and investment from China. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 700 points as investors feared that trade tensions between the world’s largest economies would escalate.

The planned sanctions include tariffs on $48 billion worth of Chinese imports as well as restrictions on Chinese investments. Trump said he’s taking those steps in response to theft of American technology, and the Chinese government said it will defend itself. Investors are worried that trade tensions would hurt U.S. companies and harm the world economy.

On Thursday they fled stocks and bought bonds, which sent bond prices higher and yields lower. With interest rates falling, banks took some of the worst losses. Technology and industrial companies, basic materials makers and health care companies also fell sharply...........

https://www.apnews.com/fb67ea6006e746b2 ... -sanctions





Why US consumers could feel impact of Trump’s China tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — From toys to clothes to shoes to cellphones, Americans buy a half-trillion dollars’ worth of goods from China each year — the biggest haul of imports from any one country. And that means the prices of many such products could surge as a result of President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of imports from China.

White House officials say they will try to minimize any price increases for American shoppers. Instead, they suggested Thursday that the tariffs would mostly target products that businesses, rather than consumers, buy: Computers, information technology products, industrial machinery and aircraft parts.

“If they had done it on clothing, footwear and iPhones, that would have more of an immediate impact,” said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “That doesn’t seem like what they’re doing here.”

Analysts note, though, that many businesses would eventually pass on any higher import costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

“If they put the tariff on things that you can’t see, then consumers may say, ‘They’re not putting a tariff on my Ford Escort, or my Maytag refrigerator,’ but they are,” said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a trade association.

Last year, according to government figures, the United States imported $70 billion of cellphones and related parts from China. America also imported $11.5 billion of shoes and nearly $21 billion of furniture from China — more than from any other country in each case. The United States also imports about $27 billion in toys from China.

America also buys an enormous bounty of high-tech products from China — nearly $46 billion in computers, $32 billion in computer parts and accessories and $9.6 billion in semiconductors. Those figures include network server computers that businesses buy.

https://www.apnews.com/9dce9093d8ea4a45 ... na-tariffs





Legal shake-up in Trump team may suggest shift in strategy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s lead lawyer in the special counsel’s Russia investigation resigned Thursday, shaking up the legal team just as Trump intensifies attacks on an inquiry he calls nothing more than a witch hunt.

The departure of attorney John Dowd removes the primary negotiator and legal strategist who had been molding Trump’s defense. It also comes just days after the Trump legal team added a new lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who has accused FBI officials of being involved in a “brazen plot” to exonerate Hillary Clinton in the email investigation and to “frame” Trump for nonexistent crimes.

Dowd confirmed his decision in an email to The Associated Press, saying, “I love the President and wish him well.” Dowd said he made the decision voluntarily and he denied reports that his departure had to do with Trump ignoring his legal advice. Dowd said he formally resigned Thursday morning.

It already was a delicate time in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump’s attorneys, including Dowd, have been negotiating with Mueller over the scope and terms of an interview of the president. Trump has told reporters that he was eager to speak with Mueller, but Dowd has been far more apprehensive, and the lawyers have not publicly committed to making Trump available for questioning...........

https://www.apnews.com/b563c766aae74dba ... n-strategy





Baseball players in minors to lose minimum wage protection

Minor league baseball players who make as little as $5,500 a season would be stripped of the protection of federal minimum wage laws under a provision in government spending legislation expected to be approved by Congress this week.

The “Save America’s Pastime Act” is included on page 1,967 of the $1.3 trillion spending bill and appears to pre-empt a lawsuit filed four years ago in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by three players alleging Major League Baseball and its teams violate the Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime requirements for a work week they estimated at 50-to-60 hours.

The provision in the legislation would exempt “any employee employed to play baseball who is compensated pursuant to a contract that provides for a weekly salary for services performed during the league’s championship season (but not spring training or the offseason) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage ... for a workweek of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball related activities.”

The House approved the spending bill Thursday and the legislation appears likely to be approved by the Senate and signed by President Donald Trump...........

https://www.apnews.com/cb183f59e88948e8 ... protection





H.R. McMaster Will Be Replaced By John Bolton As National Security Adviser

“After thirty-four years of service to our nation, I am requesting retirement from the U.S. Army effective this summer after which I will leave public service," McMaster said in a statement sent out by the White House Thursday night. "Throughout my career it has been my greatest privilege to serve alongside extraordinary servicemembers and dedicated civilians." He thanked Trump for "the opportunity to serve him and our nation."

Trump has asked McMaster to stay on until mid-April, before Bolton takes the position.

The decision was first reported by the New York Times.

Trump named McMaster as his national security adviser in February 2017, a week after firing his predecessor, Michael Flynn, following reports that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador about sanctions.

Trump’s first choice to replace Flynn, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, turned down the offer.

McMaster, a three-star general and a veteran of both Iraq wars, chose to stay on active military duty while serving as the national security adviser. A respected military strategist, he joined several other high-ranking military officers advising Trump during the first year of his administration, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired four-star general who pushed for him to accept the job, and John Kelly, another retired Marine general who first served as secretary of homeland security and then as White House chief of staff.

But after more than a year, McMaster didn't develop a personal rapport with the president. The relationship between the detail-oriented McMaster and the president, who prefers his information condensed as much as possible, was often strained. McMaster’s lengthy briefings reportedly chafed Trump, who viewed the gruff military strategist as condescending.

Their relationship became even more tense in February, when McMaster told an international audience that Russian meddling in the 2016 election was indisputable and Trump publicly tweeted his disapproval.........

[WOW! MIGHT AS WELL HIRE THE ENTIRE FOX TEAM! THIS GUY BOLTON IS BAAAAAAAD NEWS FOLKS! GOOD NEWS IF YOU LIKE WARS !]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/verabergengrue ... .sulvXj0z6





Dem senator on Bolton hire: Trump is 'lining up his war cabinet'

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Thursday slammed President Trump's picks for national security adviser and secretary of State, saying the president is creating a "war cabinet" with John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, respectively.

“With the appointments of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, @realDonaldTrump is successfully lining up his war cabinet,” Markey tweeted shortly after Trump announced Bolton would be his next national security adviser.

“Bolton played a key role in politicizing the intel that misled us into the Iraq War. We cannot let this extreme war hawk blunder us into another terrible conflict,” Markey added.

The president tweeted early Thursday evening that Bolton, the hawkish former Bush administration official, will take over for McMaster on April 9.

“I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend," Trump tweeted.

McMaster, an Army lieutenant general, will retire from the military, a White House official said.

Markey and other Democrats were particularly critical of Bolton's involvement in the discussions leading up to the Iraq War. Bolton served as under secretary of State in the years leading up to the war, and had a focus on preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Bolton, who was seen visiting the White House on Thursday, will be Trump's third national security adviser. His first, Michael Flynn, resigned last year, and has since pleaded guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3798 ... ar-cabinet





Trump's Tariff Hammer Won't Hit China's IP Nail

New levies and restrictions won't add much to existing tools for protecting intellectual property, and may only escalate trade tensions.

President Donald Trump is frustrated over trade imbalances and the theft of intellectual property by China. His proposed tariffs aren't likely to remedy the situation, and could make it worse.

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articl ... -s-ip-nail





Winners and losers from the $1.3T omnibus

Congress is on the verge of passing a $1.3 trillion omnibus that would fund the government through September and provide the biggest federal spending increase in years.

The bill is loaded with provisions given its likely standing as the last legislative train leaving the station before the midterms, and members have been scrambling to compete for a slice of the funding pie.

Here are the winners and losers of the spending bill fight.

WINNERS

Defense hawks:
Sen. Charles Schumer:
Speaker Paul Ryan:
GOP tax writers:

LOSERS

House Freedom Caucus and fiscal conservatives:
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine):
Dreamers:
Gun control:

MIXED

President Trump:

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/37982 ... 3t-omnibus






MARINE GENERAL "OUT"














BOLTON DREW 185 IN THE DRAFT LOTTERY CHOSE NATIONAL GUARD AS A WAY TO AVOID VIET NAM BUT LOVES WARS......... "IN".




DON BONE SPURS ..... "IN"





MIKE POMPEO 7TH CALVARY 4TH INFANTRY GULF WAR... "IN"






Trump’s Next National Security Adviser, John Bolton, Is As Dangerous As You Remembered

One of the most notorious advocates for the Iraq War is set to advise the president on U.S. foreign policy.

WASHINGTON — John Bolton, who President Donald Trump said on Thursday will replace H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser on April 9, is a polarizing pick, even by Trump administration standards.

Bolton is a notoriously hawkish former United Nations ambassador whose views don’t even align with the isolationist foreign policy platform on which Trump campaigned ― although it is difficult to tell what the president actually believes.

Bolton has had Trump’s ear, both as an informal adviser and as a commentator on Fox News, for a while. As a presidential candidate, Trump called Bolton “a tough cookie [who] knows what he’s talking about” (although the president apparently is not a fan of his mustache).

Here is a brief history of the new national security adviser’s career in foreign policy:

Bolton fiercely advocated for the Iraq War and promoted the false justification for it.

While serving as a top State Department official under President George W. Bush, Bolton was a chief promulgator of the administration’s justification for the Iraq War: that U.S. intelligence showed evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. Famously, this claim later turned out to be false.

But Bolton continued to insist that he was right in calling for war, even years later.

“I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam [Hussein] was correct,” he told the Washington Examiner in 2015. “I think decisions made after that decision were wrong, although I think the worst decision made after that was the 2011 decision to withdraw U.S. and coalition forces. The people who say, ‘Oh, things would have been much better if you didn’t overthrow Saddam,’ miss the point that today’s Middle East does not flow totally and unchangeably from the decision to overthrow Saddam alone.”

“You can’t assume if he had stayed in power, sweetness and light would prevail in the Middle East today,” he added.

He has called for bombing Iran and North Korea.

This does not bode well for diplomatic efforts, such as Trump’s apparent plan to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In fact, Bolton said on Fox News earlier this month that he predicts the meeting will fail ― which he suggested would likely lead to military action.

And last month, Bolton made a strong case for a strike on North Korea. In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal titled “The Legal Case For Striking North Korea First,” he argued there were no legal reasons against a pre-emptive strike by the U.S.:

The threat is imminent, and the case against pre-emption rests on the misinterpretation of a standard that derives from prenuclear, pre-ballistic-missile times. Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute. That would risk striking after the North has deliverable nuclear weapons, a much more dangerous situation.

Bolton also intensely opposes the Iranian nuclear deal.

He damaged the United States’ foreign policy reputation while serving as the ambassador to the U.N.

Bolton has a history of speaking about international organizations with derision. While at the U.N., Bolton criticized it as “a twilight zone.” His extreme views and brash manner alienated many U.S. allies.

He has aligned himself with anti-Muslim hate groups.

Between his work at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, commentating on Fox News, and writing op-ed columns for right-leaning publications, Bolton has promoted Islamophobic conspiracy theories and supported anti-Islam organizations that have appeared on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups.

He joked that former President Barack Obama was a Muslim.

While speaking at an event for one such hate group, Bolton joked about Obama being Muslim. Luckily for him, his new boss launched his political career by spearheading the birther movement.

[ CAN'T IMAGINE BOLTON AND TRUMP FACING OFF AGAINST KIM JONG UN ]





Trump Lawyer Resigns Because the President Won’t Listen to Him

The head of a team of White House lawyers advising President Donald Trump on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election has resigned, according multiple reports. According to two sources who spoke to the New York Times, John Dowd resigned on Thursday because the president “was increasingly ignoring his advice” on how to respond to the special counsel’s probe into Russia and possible collusion with members of Trump’s team. More from the New York Times:

Under Mr. Dowd’s leadership, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had advised him to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III…The president has instead in recent days begun publicly assailing Mr. Mueller, a shift in tone that appears to be born of the president’s concern that the investigation is bearing down on him more directly. He has also privately insisted he should sit for an interview with the special counsel’s office, even though Mr. Dowd believed it was a bad idea.

On Twitter last week, the president attacked the New York Times over reporting that he was unhappy with his legal team. “Wrong,” he wrote. “I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow..........”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... en-to-him/





The wit and wisdom of John Bolton, President George W Bush's nominee for the job of US ambassador to the UN:

"There is no such thing as the United Nations."
—On the United Nations itself

"If you lost 10 storeys, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
—On UN headquarters in New York

"If I were redoing the Security Council, I'd have one permanent member: the United States."
—On the UN Security Council

"A gleam in one beholder's eye but looks like flat-out aggression to somebody else."
—On humanitarian intervention

"It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so - because, over the long term, the goal of those who think international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."
—On the US and international law

"Some Europeans have never lost faith in appeasement as a way of life."
—On Europe

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... tions.html





Prince Harry, Meghan Markle send out wedding invitations

March 22 (UPI) -- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have sent their wedding invitations to guests.

The 33-year-old British royal and 36-year-old American actress mailed out gilded invitations from printing and bookbinding company Banard & Westwood.

"Invitations to the wedding of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle have been issued in the name of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales," Kensington Palace announced Thursday on Twitter.

(Invitations to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been posted to 600 lucky guests, with a select 200 close friends invited to an after party at Frogmore House.

Kensington Palace confirmed that formal invitations have been sent by the Prince of Wales, for the May 19 service at St George's Chapel, Windsor.

Some 600 people, including the Royal Family, Ms Markle's parents, and the couple's friends will attend the church service and lunchtime reception, given by the Queen.

Later in the evening, 200 guests will travel to Frogmore House, where the Prince and Ms Markle spent time together as their relationship blossomed.)

"Guests have been invited to the service at St George's Chapel and to the lunchtime reception at St George's Hall, which is being given by Her Majesty The Queen," the palace added. "Later that evening, around 200 guests are being invited to the reception at Frogmore House given by The Prince of Wales."

Barnard & Westwood used English card stock and American ink for Prince Harry and Markle's invitations. The cards feature black ink, with a gilded edge and the Three-Feathered Badge of the Prince of Wales.

"The invitations follow many years of Royal tradition and have been made by @BarnardWestwood. They feature the Three-Feathered Badge of the Prince of Wales printed in gold ink," Kensington Palace said.

"Using American ink on English card, the invitations are printed in gold and black, then burnished to bring out the shine, and gilded around the edge," the palace added.

Prince Harry and Markle will tie the knot May 19 at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Kensington Palace said Tuesday that the couple will serve a spring-inspired cake at their nuptials.

"Prince Harry and Ms. Markle have asked [chef] Claire [Ptak] to create a lemon elderflower cake that will incorporate the bright flavors of spring," the palace said.
<

Orange moron has gone off the deep end.

Bolton is the scariest guy on the planet.

Looks like nuclear war, folks.

Need a palace coup.

IS IT TRUE THAT TRUMP IS CONSIDERING MIKE HUCKABEE AS SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO SARAH ?????

IS IT TRUE THAT TRUMP IS CONSIDERING SEAN HANNITY AS SPECIAL ASSISTANCE TO JOHN BOLTON ???






Cramer on Trump's China tariffs: Beijing is so ready for the US 'it's embarrassing'

China's response to President Trump's tariffs was so swift that it was embarrassing for the U.S., according to CNBC's Jim Cramer.

Cramer says Trump will have to "up his game," because China was more prepared.

China's response to President Donald Trump's tariffs was so swift that it was actually quite embarrassing for the United States, according to CNBC's Jim Cramer.

Earlier Friday, China announced plans for reciprocal tariffs on 128 U.S. products, including pork, wine, fruit and steel. It came a day after Trump's announcement of tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping "had a list that was so ready of what they're blocking," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street" Friday. "They are so ready for what we do, it's embarrassing."

"Do you think that [China] has not figured this stuff out," asked Cramer. "They've got a game plan."

Trump said his tariffs on China, which primarily target certain products in the technology sector, would be "the first of many" trade actions. Beijing said it would take measures against the U.S. goods in two stages if it cannot reach an agreement with Washington.

Cramer said Trump will have to "up his game," because China was more prepared than the U.S., calling it a "beat down."

"You don't wing it with the Chinese. The Chinese are so ready for us," said Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money." Trump "better understand that these guys have been in a war against us for years."

"If you're going to be in a trade war with these guys, you have to be better than they are," he added.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/cramer- ... ssing.html





EXCLUSIVE: ‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer

Robert Mueller’s team has taken over the investigation of Guccifer 2.0, who communicated with (and was defended by) longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.


Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.

That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.

While it’s unclear what Mueller plans to do with Guccifer, his last round of indictments charged 13 Russians tied to the Internet Research Agency troll farm with a conspiracy “for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.” It was Mueller’s first move establishing Russian interference in the election within a criminal context, but it stopped short of directly implicating the Putin regime.

Mueller’s office declined to comment for this story. But the attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin threshold—and move the investigation closer to Trump himself.

“The attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency brings the investigation closer to the Kremlin’s doorstep—and to Trump himself.”

Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone admitted being in touch with Guccifer over Twitter’s direct messaging service. And in August 2016, Stone published an article on the pro-Trump-friendly Breitbart News calling on his political opponents to “Stop Blaming Russia” for the hack. “I have some news for Hillary and Democrats—I think I’ve got the real culprit,” he wrote. “It doesn’t seem to be the Russians that hacked the DNC, but instead a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0.”

Five months later, in January 2017, the CIA, NSA, and FBI assessed “with high confidence” that “Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data.” But the assessment did not directly call Guccifer a Russian intelligence officer. Nor did it provide any evidence for its assertions.

It turns out there is a powerful reason to connect Guccifer to the GRU...........

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive ... r?ref=home





Protesters gather in Washington, demanding gun control

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington is preparing for a massive rally in support of gun control, one that organizers hope will prove that the country has reached an emotional tipping point on gun violence, with teenagers seizing the initiative and leading the demand for change.

The nation’s capital is generally nonchalant about protests, but Saturday’s gathering has prompted more attention and speculation than usual.

Estimates on crowd size are notoriously unreliable but organizers are hoping to draw 500,000 protesters; that would match last year’s women’s march and make this one of the largest Washington protests since the Vietnam era. It would also bolster claims that the nation is ready to enact sweeping changes to its gun control laws. More than 800 other concurrent marches are planned in cities across America and dozens of locations overseas.

“I look at the younger kids and the future generations and I never want them to go through what we went through or see what we saw,” said 15-year old Kayla Renert, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed on Feb. 14.

Renert, who sheltered in a classroom during the attack and had a friend wounded in the leg, was on a bus bringing her to Washington from the airport after flying up from Florida Friday morning. She pointed out that the Parkland shooting wasn’t even the most recent school shooting in the United States. One student was wounded and another later died from her wounds after being shot Tuesday in southern Maryland; the 17-year old gunman was also killed.

“We keep saying, ‘Oh this is going to be the last time.’ But there’s already been another time,” Renert said...........

https://www.apnews.com/fc509411a2a049c4 ... un-control





Hawk in the Oval: Will John Bolton’s views rub off on Trump?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s pick of John Bolton for his next national security adviser stirred up the same burning question Friday in Washington as in anxious foreign capitals: Just how much will his hawkish, confrontational approach rub off on Trump?

As he confronts matters of war and peace with North Korea and Iran, Trump is bringing in an adviser likely to magnify many of his own instinctive qualities: hard-hitting, fiercely nationalistic and eager to confront U.S. adversaries. In his first year in office, Trump surrounded himself with foreign policy aides whose views spanned a wide spectrum. Bolton’s pick rounds out a team that in Trump’s second year will compromise almost entirely hawks whose public views on national security veer decidedly to the right.

Yet historically, even those who espoused the most extreme positions as private citizens have a way of moderating when faced with the awesome task of running the nation. And Trump has been known to overrule even the consensus of his aides in the past...........

https://www.apnews.com/7115f1e2d95f4c8b ... -on-Trump?





Stocks tumble on trade fears; S&P has worst week in 2 years

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks around the world plunged Friday as investors feared that a trade conflict between the U.S. and China, the biggest economies in the world, would escalate. A second day of big losses pushed U.S. stocks to their worst week in two years.

Investors fear that if China responds in kind to sanctions on $60 billion worth of Chinese imports the White House announced on Thursday, it will be a first step toward a full-blown trade war that could damage the global economy and slash profits at big U.S. exporters like Apple and Boeing.

The market’s two biggest sectors slumped the most. Technology stocks have made enormous gains over the past year, but since they do so much business outside the U.S., investors see them as particularly vulnerable in a trade dispute. The sector dropped 7.9 percent this week.

Banks also fell sharply. Amid the trade-war rumblings, investors fled to the safety of bonds and drove down yields, a potential negative for bank profits. That marked a reversal from earlier in the week, when banks rose as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates.

It wound up being the worst week for U.S. indexes since January 2016. The S&P 500 index sank 6 percent. Among notable decliners was Facebook, which lost 13.9 percent, or $68 billion in value, as outrage mounted over its handling of user data. That’s about as much as the company was worth in in 2012, the year of its initial public offering...........

https://www.apnews.com/220d22b076c447b1 ... in-2-years





Trump signs $1.3 trillion budget after threatening veto

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump grudgingly signed a $1.3 trillion federal spending measure Friday and averted a midnight government shutdown — but only after undercutting his own negotiators and setting off a mini-panic with a last-minute veto threat. The episode further eroded the already damaged credibility of both the president and a White House staff that had assured the nation he was onboard.

Trump said he was “very disappointed” in the package, in part because it did not fully pay for his planned border wall with Mexico and did not extend protection from deportation to some 700,000 “Dreamer” immigrants due to lose coverage under a program the president himself has moved to eliminate.

But Trump praised the bill’s provisions to increase military spending and said he had “no choice but to fund our military.”

“My highest duty is to keep America safe,” he said.

The bill signing came a few hours after Trump created his latest round of last-minute drama by tweeting that he was “considering” a veto.

With Congress already on recess, and a government shutdown looming, he said that young immigrants now protected in the U.S. under Barack Obama’s Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program “have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded...........”

https://www.apnews.com/0b31d47019564c73 ... how'-drama





Once Again, a Massive Group of Whales Strands Itself

The deaths of around 150 pilot whales on an Australian beach is just the latest in a long line of mass casualties.

The short-finned pilot whale is a large species of dolphin with a dark-grey body and a bulbous head. It’s an intensely social animal that spends its life in the company of others. And that, sadly, is also how it sometimes dies.

On Thursday night, around 150 short-finned pilot whales stranded themselves at Hamelin Bay, a site on Australia’s western coast around 200 miles south of Perth. If they land on solid surfaces, their chest walls, no longer supported by the weight of the water, start to compress their internal organs. When a fisherman spotted them in the early hours of Friday morning, most were already dead. By 7 p.m. local time, trained staff and volunteers had hauled six survivors back into the sea, but their fate is still uncertain. Rescued whales often re-strand themselves, and nightfall will make their movements harder to track.


Western Australia is no stranger to mass whale strandings. Nine years ago, to the day, 80 long-finned pilot whales—a closely related species—stranded themselves in the very same spot. Three years ago, again almost to the day, around 20 long-finned pilot whales washed up at Bunbury, about 70 miles to the north. And those incidents pale in comparison to the largest mass stranding ever documented in the region. In the summer of 1996, 320 long-finned pilot whales beached themselves at Dunsborough, less than 50 miles to the north...........

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ia/556400/





A Short Guide to John Bolton's Government Career

The incoming national-security adviser has advocated for war with North Korea.

It is only fitting that, within the same week the United States marks 15 years since the 2003 Iraq invasion, John Bolton has been named the president’s national security adviser.

*Bolton advocated for another U.S. invasion of Iraq, following the first Gulf War, as far back as the 1990s, when he called on President Clinton to oust Saddam Hussein.

*Later, as under secretary of state for arms control, during President George W. Bush’s first term in office, he told the BBC the U.S. was “confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq.”

*The evidence used to go to war in 2003 might have long been deemed mistaken, and some of the war’s most ardent supporters might have expressed second thoughts since then given the immense cost of human life and the destabilization of the region.

*Bolton has maintained that deposing Saddam was worth the effort—even if the decisions made after the invasion weren’t always right.

*It is that sort of steadfastness in views—or, depending on your perspective, unapologetic hawkishness—that apparently impressed President Trump, a critic of the war in Iraq.

*Bolton was a regular on Fox News, where he called for aggressive postures toward North Korea and Iran.

*Bolton, like Trump, is also a critic of multilateral institutions, international agreements, and free trade, and an advocate for a foreign policy based on what he sees as exclusively American interests.

*Bolton has called for an “end” to North Korea and argued recently in The Wall Street Journal for a preventive first strike against the regime of Kim Jong Un, who Trump is expected to meet in May.

*Like Trump, he believes the nuclear deal China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union signed with Iran is a sham.

*His appointment increases the likelihood the president will withdraw from the agreement in May.

*Bolton, in his memoir, Surrender Is Not an Option, made clear what he thought about the State Department: “State careerists are schooled in accommodation and compromise with foreigners, rather than aggressive advocacy of U.S. interests, which might inconveniently disrupt the serenity of diplomatic exchanges, not to mention dinner parties and receptions.”

*Condoleezza Rice, who succeeded Powell as U.S. secretary of state, resisted the White House’s efforts to make Bolton her deputy. Instead, he was dispatched to the UN as U.S. ambassador. Bolton was a longtime critic of the United Nations.

*In 1994, he famously said: “The (UN) Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

*Comments like that, along with his other views, ensured that Bolton could never win over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

*Subordinates complained about his abrasive behavior. During Bolton’s nomination hearing for the UN job, Carl Ford, an intelligence official and assistant secretary of state, as well as a self-described conservative Republican, testified that Bolton bullied an intelligence analyst over evidence about Cuba’s suspected weapons programs, prompting an intervention from Powell.

*Bolton is a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy” who “abuses his authority with little people,” Ford said at the time.

George W. Bush later appeared to regret his choice of Bolton, reportedly saying he didn’t “consider Bolton credible.”

*Bolton wrote a column in the Journal, criticizing the Bush administration: “Nothing can erase the ineffable sadness of an American presidency, like this one, in total intellectual collapse.”

*Trump had long wanted to name Bolton to a top Cabinet position, but in addition to the fact he would likely have faced strong opposition in the Senate, Rice and other Republican éminences grises advised Trump against it.

*A little more than a year Trump went his own way, announcing Thursday that Bolton would replace H.R. McMaster to become the president’s third national security adviser.

*The position doesn’t require Senate confirmation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... on/556346/





Conservatives rip Trump for signing massive spending bill that ignores many of their priorities

Prominent conservatives tore into President Donald Trump Friday over his decision to sign a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill just hours after he threatened to veto it.

The attacks represented a swift about-face from a group that typically includes some of Trump's biggest cheerleaders.

When the president failed to follow through on his veto threat, conservatives took it doubly hard.

Some of the nation's loudest and most prominent conservative voices tore into President Donald Trump on Friday, lambasting the president over his decision to sign a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill just hours after he threatened to veto it. The attacks represented a swift about-face from a group that typically comprises some of Trump's biggest cheerleaders.

Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host, wrote on Twitter that it was a "missed opportunity" for the president. "If he loses the House, Dems will go straight to impeachment," she added.

Laura Ingraham
@IngrahamAngle
Missed opportunity by @realDonaldTrump by signing this spending bill. If he loses the House, Dems will go straight to impeachment. @realDonaldTrump

11:54 AM - Mar 23, 2018
8,454
5,367 people are talking about this

Author and commentator Ann Coulter also warned the president that signing the bill, and thereby betraying his conservative base, could lead to his impeachment.

"I will never sign another bill like this again," Coulter quoted Trump saying during remarks about the bill. "Yeah, because you'll be impeached," Coulter added below the quote.

Coulter, whose most recent book was titled, "In Trump We Trust," also labeled Trump as "President Schumer," a reference to liberal Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Ann Coulter
@AnnCoulter
“ I will never sign another bill like this again”

Yeah, because you’ll be impeached.

12:42 PM - Mar 23, 2018
14.8K
9,055 people are talking about this

The actor and outspoken conservative James Woods also took a swipe at the president, writing: "The Democrats gave you the rope, Mr. President, and you just hanged yourself with it." He added the hashtag #ByeByeGOP, an apparent reference to the Republican majority in Congress.

James Woods
@RealJamesWoods
The Democrats gave you the rope, Mr. President, and you just hanged yourself with it. #ByeByeGOP2018 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03 ... -daca.html …

1:15 PM - Mar 23, 2018

At the White House on Friday, Trump tried to justify his decision to sign the bill by saying it was in the interest of national security. The measure contains billions of dollars in additional spending for the Pentagon, which Republicans sought. Yet it also has funding for discretionary domestic programs, which Democrats demanded in order to help get the bill over the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. To staunch fiscal conservatives, this combination was the worst possible outcome...........

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/conserv ... -bill.html





Fear grips US agriculture industry as China proposes hefty duties for pork, wine and fruit

U.S. agricultural leaders are growing increasingly concerned with a possible trade war and its impacts on everything from pork to wine.

It follows China's announcement it is considering tariffs on $3 billion in U.S. goods after the Trump administration levied duties on imported steel and aluminum.

Beijing proposed levying up to 25 percent tariffs on some U.S. agricultural goods.

U.S. agriculture is bracing itself potentially costly tit-for-tat trade retaliation between the Washington and Beijing that could hit everything from American pork to wine.

"The producers of the commodities that are being targeted will probably feel the effects of it," said Larry Karp, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley. "And there's no reason to think that the Chinese will stop at this."

On Friday, China's Ministry of Commerce said $3 billion in U.S. goods could face new tariffs following the Trump administration's imposition of duties on imported steel and aluminum. Among the goods listed for retaliatory tariffs were several agricultural products, including pork, wine, nuts, fresh fruit and dried fruit.

Overall, U.S. agricultural exports to China represent about $20 billion annually for American farmers.

Food as weapon

"It just seems like any time there are trade disputes, food is top of the list just because it's an emotional issue," said Larry Sailer, an Iowa farmer who produces pork, soybeans and corn. "I wish these countries wouldn't use that as a weapon, but that's basically what they are doing."

Still, Sailer said he "totally supports the administration we have right now," adding that trade issues with other countries such as China have been ignored for too long.
Earlier this week, an editorial in China's Global Times, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, made a case for targeting "subsidized U.S. soybeans," charging the commodity is "dumped on China." That said, the Chinese ministry's announcement Friday didn't identify soybeans.

Trump base

Some experts suggest the Chinese have looked to target U.S. pork initially and may strike next at American soybeans since it could impact some farm-belt states where President Donald Trump has enjoyed strong political support. The U.S. ships about $14 billion worth of soybeans to the world's second largest economy, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"China no doubt considered the parts of the U.S. that Trump relies on most heavily for political support," said Karp. "It would be very surprising if they didn't make their list with the view to how this play with his base."

Even so, the Chinese ministry's target list provided Friday also includes agricultural commodities such as wine, fruit and nuts — all products tied to California, a state Trump lost in the 2016 election.

California impacts

The Chinese government proposed levying up to 25 percent tariffs on U.S. pork and some other agricultural exports but they haven't actually been implemented yet. Citrus would face a 15 percent tariff.

"Citrus is on the list and it does create some consternation," said Joel Nelsen, president of the California Citrus Mutual, a citrus producers trade group. "This thing could ratchet up and be just a negotiating step taken by both administrations. We're watching it closely."

Nelsen said China has been a growing market for the $3.3 billion California citrus industry and now ranks as the third-largest export market behind Canada and South Korea. He said the market is dominated by orange and lemon exports.

More than 80 percent of the wine produced in the U.S. comes from California and U.S. wine exports to China (including Hong Kong) were $197 million last year, according to the San Francisco-based Wine Institute.

"Chinese retaliation against U.S. wine would put our producers at a significant disadvantage in one of the most important markets in the world at a critical time," said Robert Koch, CEO of Wine Institute. "As a result of free trade agreements, a number of our foreign competitors will soon have tariff-free access to the Chinese market. This, combined with additional punitive tariffs on California wine, could result in lost market share for years to come."

California's $5 billion almond industry depends on exports despite strong domestic demand for the crop. Approximately two-thirds of the almonds produced in California go to the export market and China is one of the top buyers.

Pork in crosshairs

Similarly, the pork industry is seen as vulnerable since it relies heavily on exports to China. One in four hogs in the U.S. is exported overseas and the Chinese are the world's top consumers of pork.

"We sell a lot of pork to China, so higher tariffs on our exports going there will harm our producers and undermine the rural economy," Jim Heimerl, an Ohio pork producer and president of the National Pork Producers Council said in a statement. "No one wins in these tit-for-tat trade disputes, least of all the farmers and the consumers."

Last year, China was the second-largest volume market for American pork industry after Mexico. At about $1.1 billion, China and Hong Kong together are the third-largest market for pork based on value.

The U.S. pork industry has expanded in recent years due to increasing demand for the product, led by growing demand overseas.

One of the industry standouts in the pork industry is Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer and a wholly-owned subsidiary of China's WH Group. The company acquired Virginia-based Smithfield Foods back in 2013.

UBS analyst Christine Peng said in a report Friday that China's WH Group is exposed to the tariff risk because it could increase the company's "earnings volatility if China/U.S. hog price disparity increases." Furthermore, the analyst sees a risk of higher soybean prices since soy is used as a livestock feed for the company's pigs and chickens.

At the same time, there's also export exposure for other U.S. livestock producers, including Hormel and Tyson.

"Tyson and Hormel have enjoyed several years of strong commodity margins in pork based on tight domestic processing capacity and strong commodity prices," Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow said Friday in a note. "They need export markets to remain strong in order for commodity pork prices to remain high."

Added Moskow, "With cold storage inventories of beef, pork, and turkey now at record levels and U.S. livestock producers planning to increase production significantly in 2018, even a small change to the export markets might have an outsized impact on price."

Tyson spokesperson Caroline Ahn said in a statement, "A healthy export industry benefits independent farmers like those who raise chicken, cattle and hogs for our company, as well as the communities where they live. Having good trading relationships builds certainty and stability in international trade, which is important to sustain a healthy domestic export industry and jobs."

Hormel didn't respond to a request for comment.

Shares of Tyson and Hormel were lower Friday amid a steeper sell-off in the broader market.





Wisconsin GOP will tinker with election laws rather than follow court order

Wisconsin Republicans signaled Friday that they will hold a special election to change election law rather than facing special elections in two heavily Republican legislative districts.

On Thursday, Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds ordered Gov. Scott Walker (R) to call special elections in two legislative districts that have been vacant for months.

Walker's attorneys had argued state election law did not require him to fill the seats, because they were made vacant during an off year. The legislators who occupied both seats quit to take jobs in Walker's administration.

But the judge rejected those arguments, ruling in favor of voters from both districts and the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, a group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, who argued that Walker's refusal to call special elections denied voters their right to representation in Madison...........

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch ... llow-court





Parkland Survivors Struggle With Grief, Even As Their Message Spreads

“You can’t move on from something like this; nobody ever can,” survivor David Hogg told HuffPost.

She still breaks down now and then — they all do. “There was one day that everybody had a breakdown at 4 p.m. Everything almost stopped on that day,” Emma González told HuffPost in one of the many interviews she’s sat down for since 17 people were gunned down at her school last month.

As an activist, González, 18, is poised and passionate when she speaks about the need for gun control. But sometimes, she’ll crack: “I’ll be like, ‘Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.’”

She went on: “I have my moments that I give myself. I’ve always been pretty in-tune with my emotions, if I can call it that. I know how to handle myself, I know how to hold off on crying, when I need to go to a private place, or I can stop myself from crying if it’s really too loud.”

That’s why González embroiders — it keeps her hands busy and her mind clear. She has a jacket that she is wearing on Saturday, when teen survivors and activists descend on Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives.

“I’ve been embroidering a lot of extra patches [for it],” she said. “If I can focus on what my hands are doing, rather than answering texts for once, then I can get something done positively on myself.”

The march is the culmination of weeks of activism by Never Again, the organization that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivors started. The teenagers have built a national movement out of their grief, but that doesn’t mean they’ve fully processed what happened at their school in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14.

There are moments they’re transported back to the shooting — after hearing a song lyric that reminds them of a friend, or the chopping sound of a passing helicopter.

I don’t like to say that we can process this, because that implies that we’re ever gonna be finished ... You can’t move on from something like this; nobody ever can. This will forever be in my mind.”

David Hogg, Parkland shooting survivor

For González, it’s the screams. It’s why she’s opted out of going to Universal Studios theme parks with her fellow seniors for Grad Bash.

“I didn’t want to go,” she said. “I didn’t want to wait outside all day in the hot sun, which is exactly what I did on Feb. 14. I don’t want to hear people screaming the whole time. Even if they’re happy screams, it’s screaming. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be in a mass of people, especially when there’s gonna be groups of people who are running places.”

David Hogg, 17, is also haunted by the shooting.

“I think we all process grief differently,” he told HuffPost. “I know that I definitely have at least a small amount of PTSD. I think we all do from it. I will never hear the chop of a helicopter the same again, because I can still hear it from that day. The constant thud of their blades slicing through the air and us hearing it in our classrooms and not knowing whether or not we were gonna die the next instant.”..........

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pa ... c9e5f51ca0





Washington plans to curb gun violence, with NRA’s permission

WASHINGTON
Republican-controlled Washington is taking steps to curb gun violence. Steps approved by the National Rifle Association.

Two narrow gun safety measures included in a funding bill President Donald Trump signed Friday — each sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats — have the group’s explicit support.

One is designed to ensure states and government agencies upload relevant criminal records into the already-existing background check system.

The other offers money to train teachers, students and law enforcement to detect violent actors and stop school shootings before they happen...........

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politic ... Row1_card1





The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram

A visual of how it all fits together.

There is a complicated web of relationships that explains how the Trump campaign, via the help of a political consulting firm, was able to harvest raw data from 50 million Facebook profiles to direct its messaging.

The consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, is tangled up in several scandals, as my colleague Andrew Prokop explains in this excellent piece. But it’s hard to keep track of how all the pieces fit together.

So we decided to diagram the scandal to help make sense of it all.

1) Here’s the very simple version of the story

Facebook exposed data on 50 million Facebook users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign.
2) But how is the Trump campaign connected to Cambridge Analytica?

Cambridge Analytica was created when Steve Bannon approached conservative megadonors Rebekah and Robert Mercer to fund a political consulting firm. Bannon became vice president of Cambridge Analytica, and during the 2016 election, he reached out to the Trump campaign to introduce the two sides.

Bannon, of course, eventually became a senior adviser to Trump before he was fired in August 2017.
So what is the SCL Group, which does the work for Cambridge Analytica? It’s a public relations and messaging firm that has clients all around the world, and as Vox’s Andrew Prokop writes:

SCL tends to describe its capabilities in grandiose and somewhat unsettling language — the company has touted its expertise at ”psychological warfare” and “influence operations.” It’s long claimed that its sophisticated understanding of human psychology helps it target and persuade people of its clients’ preferred message.

This means, as the New York Times writes, Cambridge Analytica is basically a shell for the SCL Group.

3) How did Cambridge Analytica get its data?

Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix actually reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the emails that were hacked from the Democratic National Committee’s servers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But the more important part of this story is how Cambridge Analytica got its data from Facebook. And according to a former Cambridge Analytica employee, the firm got it through researcher Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian American who worked at the University of Cambridge.
4) How did Kogan use Facebook to harvest 50 million user profiles?

Kogan built a Facebook app that was a quiz.

It not only collected data from people who took the quiz, but as my colleague Aja Romano writes, it exposed a loophole in Facebook API that allowed it to collect data from the Facebook friends of the quiz takers as well.

As Romano points out, Facebook prohibited the selling of data collected with this method, but Cambridge Analytica sold the data anyway.
Why this is a Facebook scandal more than a Cambridge Analytica one

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a response to this scandal, “I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it.”

But former Facebook employees have said that there’s a tension between the security team and the legal/policy team in terms of how they prioritize user protection in their decision-making.

“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” Sandy Parakilas, who worked on the privacy side at Facebook, told the New York Times.

Now, there is a decent chance Cambridge Analytica’s work didn’t actually do much to elect Trump; the firm’s reputation in the political consulting community is less than stellar.

But this highlights a larger debate over how much users can trust Facebook with their data. Facebook allowed a third-party developer to engineer an application for the sole purpose of gathering data. And the developer was able to exploit a loophole to gather information on not only people who used the app but all their friends — without them knowing.

It would be one thing if this were a new, one-time error. But Facebook has known about this for more than two years, and only now are they actually acknowledging they made a mistake.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... mp-diagram





Trump blasts Congress for sending him omnibus bill that 'nobody read'

[ Y'A GOTTA READ WHAT YOU SIGN SIR ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE IS A TRILLION DOLLAR ON THE LINE

President Trump signed into law a $1.3 trillion spending bill just hours after he had threatened to veto it on Friday, blasting the legislation in impromptu remarks and warning Congress he would not sign anything like it ever again.

Trump had Washington on edge after sending a Friday morning tweet that he might veto the bill, which almost certainly would have triggered a government shutdown at midnight.

Tensions ran high in Washington when the White House announced it would cancel the daily press briefing and instead send the president to the podium to address the nation, which was seen as another signal that Trump could veto the bill.
After several minutes of remarks, in which Trump at one point stepped aside to allow Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to talk about tariffs, the president finally acknowledged that he had signed the bill.

Trump proceeded to vent his frustration at the bill and the process by which it reached his desk, saying that it had been released late in the week and that nobody could have possibly read all of the 2,200-plus pages.

“You tell me who can read that quickly,” Trump said, looking over at the stack of paperwork.




[ YOU GAVE THE DEMS 6 HOURS TO READ THE TAX REFORM BILL DUMMY WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND ]

<

"I just threw up on international television, and it feels great!" Sam Fuentes

[ UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL ! This Young Lady Was Shot In the Leg & Face; Woulds Still Visible ]










Martin Luther King Jr.'s 9 yr old granddaughter tells March for Our Lives crowd: 'I have a dream that enough is enough'

VIDEO

https://youtu.be/toNMgn3Tj2Q










VIDEO - 6MIN 20SEC OF SILENCE IS A LIFETIME - THE TIME IT TOOK FOR THE SHOOTER TO BE DISARMED

https://youtu.be/WOyWotruXR0

Emma Gonzalez follows speech with 6 minutes, 20 seconds of silence at March for Our Lives










Heartbroken by gun violence: Rallies across US demand change

WASHINGTON (AP) — They came from a place of heartbreak to claim their spot in history: hundreds of thousands of teenagers and supporters, rallying across the United States for tougher laws to fight gun violence.

The “March for Our Lives” events on Saturday drew massive crowds in cities across the country, the kind of numbers seen during the Vietnam War era.

In Washington, D.C., New York City, Denver, Los Angeles and other cities, demonstrators heard from student survivors of last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

“If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking,” Parkland survivor David Hogg said to roars from protesters packing Pennsylvania Avenue from a stage near the Capitol to a spot near the White House many blocks away. “We’re going to take this to every election, to every state and every city. We’re going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run, not as politicians but as Americans.

“Because this,” he said, pointing behind him to the Capitol dome, “this is not cutting it.”

The message at the different rallies was consistent, with demonstrators vowing to vote out lawmakers who refuse to take a stand now on gun control. Many rallies had tables where volunteers helped those 18 or older register to vote while speakers detailed the policies they wanted and the impact gun violence has had on their lives.


The fire alarm at Trenton High School is scary, said 17-year-old Gabrielle James at a march in suburban Detroit.

“We don’t know if it’s an actual drill or if someone’s actually inside the school, going to take your life,” James said at a march in Detroit.

She said government has “extremely failed” to protect students from gun violence and she wants restrictions on automatic weapons.

“I work extremely hard at my studies. Sometimes I just sit in my car before going to school, wondering if I’m going to be home to see my mother after school,” James said.

Some of the young voices were very young. Yolanda Renee King, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 9-year-old granddaughter, drew from the civil rights leader’s most famous words in declaring from the Washington, D.C., stage: “I have a dream that enough is enough. That this should be a gun-free world. Period.”

By all appearances — there were no official numbers — Washington’s March for Our Lives rally rivaled the women’s march last year that drew far more than the predicted 300,000.

The National Rifle Association went silent on Twitter as the protests unfolded, in contrast to its reaction to the nationwide school walkouts against gun violence March 14, when it tweeted a photo of an assault rifle and the message “I’ll control my own guns, thank you.”

President Donald Trump was in Florida for the weekend and did not weigh in on Twitter either.

White House spokesman Zach Parkinson said: “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.” He also pointed to Trump’s efforts to ban bump stocks and his support for school-safety measures and extended background checks for gun purchases.

Since the bloodshed in Florida, students have tapped into a current of gun control sentiment that has been building for years — yet still faces a powerful foe in the NRA, its millions of supporters and lawmakers who have resisted any encroachment on gun rights.

Organizers are hoping the electricity of the crowds, their sheer numbers and the under-18 roster of speakers will create a tipping point, starting with the midterm congressional elections this fall. To that end, chants of “Vote them out!” rang through the Washington crowd.

Emma Gonzalez, one of the first students from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to speak out after the tragedy there, implored those of voting age to cast ballots.

In her speech, she recited the names of the Parkland dead, then held the crowd in rapt, tearful silence for more than six minutes, the time it took the gunman to kill them.

“We will continue to fight for our dead friends,” Delaney Tarr, another Parkland survivor, declared from the stage. The crowd roared with approval as she laid down the students’ central demand: a ban on “weapons of war” for all but warriors.

Student protesters called for a ban on high-capacity magazines and assault-type weapons like the one used by the killer in Parkland, comprehensive background checks, and a higher minimum age to buy guns.

Gun violence was fresh for some who watched the speakers in Washington. Ayanne Johnson of Great Mills High School in Maryland held a sign declaring, “I March for Jaelynn,” honoring Jaelynn Willey, who died Thursday, two days after being shot by a classmate at the school. The gunman also died.

About 30 gun-rights supporters staged a counter-demonstration in front of FBI headquarters, standing quietly with signs such as “Armed Victims Live Longer” and “Stop Violating Civil Rights.” Other gun-control protests around the country were also met with small counter-demonstrations.

( Assault Weapons, Tanks, Helicopters, High Cap Mags, Grenades ....... not included in the second amendment dummies !]

The president’s call to arm certain teachers fell flat at the protest, and among critics as young as Zoe Tate, 11, from Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“I think guns are dumb. It’s scary enough with the security guards we have in school,” she said.“We don’t need teachers carrying guns now. I find it amazing that I have to explain that idea to adults.”

Parkland itself was home to a rally as more than 20,000 people filled a park near the Florida school, chanting slogans such as “Enough is enough” and carrying signs that read “Why do your guns matter more than our lives?” and “Our ballots will stop bullets.”

Around the country, protesters complained that they are scared of getting shot in school and tired of inaction by grown-ups after a series of mass shootings.

“People have been dying since 1999 in Columbine and nothing has changed. People are still dying,” said Ben Stewart, a 17-year-old senior at Shiloh Hills Christian School in Kennesaw, Georgia, who took part in a march in Atlanta.


Callie Cavanaugh, a 14-year-old at a march in Omaha, Nebraska, said: “This just needs to stop. It’s been going on my entire life.”





ONE OF MY FAVORITE SIGNS
Arms Are For Hugging






[AMAZING HOW QUICKLY THE "KIDS" PUT THIS PROGRAM TOGETHER IN 5 WEEKS ]

https://www.apnews.com/1a736a4d97a844bb ... and-change

Hoax Alert

People Are Sharing A Fake Picture Of A Parkland Survivor Tearing Up The Constitution

The real photo is from a Teen Vogue photo shoot, and shows Emma González ripping up a shooting target poster, not the Constitution.

Trump's Legal Threats Backfire

The president is used to getting his way by bluster and intimidation, but the strategy that once worked for him is now working against him.

Minutes after the Stormy Daniels interview on 60 Minutes, Team Trump fired off a heavy-breathing lawyer’s letter, bristling with phrases like “cease and desist” and “retract and apologize.”

This is exactly the approach by which Donald Trump inadvertently made millions for Michael Wolff. Having so spectacularly backfired the first time, why do it again? The short answer is: Team Trump knows nothing else.

Back when he was a private businessman, Trump learned how to use law as a weapon. The lesson he took from that is that if your pockets are deep enough—and your conscience dull enough—it doesn’t matter that you are wrong. The other party will go broke before you will lose.

USA Today tallied the heavy-handed Trump litigation strategy back in June 2016. Over three decades, Trump fought 3,500 lawsuits—and faced 200 mechanic’s liens—mostly arising from disputes over unpaid bills. His strategy was to contest everything, and never quit: “The Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”

As president, however—and especially as a historically unpopular president—Trump has abruptly discovered that his old techniques no longer work. Worse: The old techniques now work against him.

The new bottom line: If you are famous enough—and disliked enough—it doesn’t matter whether you are right. The other party will become world-famous and super-wealthy before you can win.

A heavy-breathing lawyer’s letter from Team Trump does not frighten a Stormy Daniels. She can release it to The New York Times and watch it dominate the next day’s news cycle. With news domination come economic opportunities for her—and unremitting political damage for the presidency.

In private life, Trump’s reputation as a vexatious litigant enabled him to intimidate people. Someone who received a threatening lawyer’s letter from Team Trump had to consider, “Do I want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of my life dealing with this? Or should I cut my losses and surrender now?”

That seems to have been Stormy Daniels’s thinking when she settled with Trump, pre-election.

Post-election, however, things look different. Trump actually won—and Daniels’s $130,000 payoff feels to her like chump change. She wants more, and she’s perfectly positioned to get it.

Trump’s cease-and-desist letters no longer frighten. They function as virtual currency, denominated in the millions of dollars. One of those letters enriched Wolff; now it’s Daniels’s turn—and who knows next who else? Now it is Trump who cannot afford to litigate, not because of the monetary cost but because of the reputational risks. As a skeezy reality-TV star in a third marriage governed by a tight pre-nuptial agreement, Trump could shrug off those reputational risks. As president, he cannot. They show up in polls.

Trump University set the precedent: after years of stalling, an election eve settlement. Michael Wolff sent the message: Even without a settlement, it’s still lucrative to defy the president’s lawyers. Stormy Daniels is now executing the plan. Her success may embolden still others.

The heavy-breathing threats that Trump consigliere Michael Cohen formerly growled at stiffed subcontractors, cheated creditors, enraged ex-girlfriends, and abused auditionees for The Apprentice are words that now redound against the president: “Go ahead. Sue me.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... re/556505/





Trump is staffing - or casting - from Fox

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s favorite TV network is increasingly serving as a West Wing casting call, as the president reshapes his administration with camera-ready personalities.

Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton, is a former U.N. ambassador, a White House veteran — and perhaps most importantly a Fox News channel talking head. Bolton’s appointment, rushed out late Thursday, follows Trump’s recent attempt to recruit Fox guest Joseph diGenova for his legal team.

Bolton went on Fox to discuss his selection and said it had happened so quickly that “I think I’m still a Fox News contributor.”

Another recent TV-land addition to the Trump White House is veteran CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow as top economic adviser. Other Fox faces on Trump’s team: rising State Department star Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor; communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp and Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh. The latter two are both former Fox commentators...........

[ trump - Family - & Friends - WoW !!! ]

https://www.apnews.com/df7f515f065e41aa ... _-from-Fox





The Latest: Santorum says better for students to learn CPR

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the “March for Our Lives” rallies for tougher gun laws (all times local):

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has suggested that students pushing for changes in gun laws would be better off taking classes in CPR so they would be better prepared for active shooter situations.

The Republican appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and said: “How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.”

On Saturday, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, led a protest of hundreds of thousands in Washington and across the country to demand action on gun control after a shooting last month at the high school..........

https://www.apnews.com/2ab2e3a2c28b410c ... t-the-vote





Trump's mistake: Choosing golf club over America's children

(CNN)"Our children are dying! Trump is golfing!" Those seven words, which appeared on one of the thousands of signs at Saturday's "March for Our Lives" rally in Washington, D.C., succinctly summed up the sentiment of so many. As one high school student told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Saturday night, Trump should've been in the nation's capital -- not at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida estate.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/25/opinions ... ndex.html





Students begin march to Paul Ryan's hometown to demand gun control

High school students in Wisconsin on Sunday began their 50-mile march from the state’s capital to GOP Speaker Paul Ryan’s hometown to call for action on gun control.

The students planned the "March for Our Lives: 50 Miles More" to take place the day after hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in every U.S. state to demand action on school safety and gun control...........

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... paul-ryans





Pussy Riot targets Trump in Republican stronghold of Idaho

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is not the most obvious place to attract members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot.

But even in the Republican stronghold that strongly supports President Donald Trump, Pussy Riot members carved out time late Saturday to swing by the largest city in the state, Boise, during their first North American tour.

“There is power in doing what we want, and not what they want,” said Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who spent nearly two years in prison with another group member for a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2012. “Thank you for supporting us.”

The balaclava-clad women who rose to global prominence with daring outdoor performances in their home country brought a show to Idaho that was more political rally than traditional concert, featuring anti-fascist, anti-Trump messages. It comes as a special counsel investigates Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether there was any collusion with the Trump campaign...........

https://www.apnews.com/72af3e460b5d410a ... tive-Idaho





Five takeaways from Stormy Daniels’s big interview

The controversy over President Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels reached new heights on Sunday evening when CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired an interview with the adult-film star.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, detailed the sexual liaison she says she had with Trump in 2006.

The White House has said that Daniels and other women who have made allegations about Trump’s behavior — allegations that range from consensual extramarital sex to sexual assault — are lying.

What were the main takeaways from the Daniels interview?

1. It’s deeply embarrassing — and tawdry — for Trump:
2. Daniels says she was threatened to keep quiet:
3. Daniels says the alleged encounter was consensual:
4. Questions will persist for Michael Cohen:
5. Silence from Trump — and an absent Melania Trump — for now:

http://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/38 ... -interview





Russian attacks on energy grid spark alarm

Revelations about Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. energy grid are sparking new fears in Washington about the growing threat to the energy sector.

The developments have some officials worried that Moscow or another nation state could execute a disruptive cyberattack targeting the U.S. power grid.

"The next Dec. 7 won't be airplanes and torpedoes coming at Pearl Harbor, it's going to be triggered with an attack on our energy grid with rolling blackouts and chaos," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said this week.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI revealed last week that Russian hackers have staged cyberattacks against the energy sector and other critical infrastructure since 2016. ..........

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity ... park-alarm






This Teen’s Blistering Spoken Word Performance Calls Out America’s Hypocrisy Around Mass Shootings

“How much longer do we have to deal with this shit?”

Seventeen-year-old Saida Dahir’s blistering spoken word performance about her fear of school shootings and the political hypocrisy that follows electrified the crowd at Salt Lake City’s March for Our Lives on Saturday afternoon. A refugee from Somalia and current junior in high school, Dahir tells Mother Jones that she wants to to address intersectionality in the gun safety movement that has spread throughout the country in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, massacre that left 14 students and three adults dead. She tackled everything from the racial bias that shows up in discussions of mass shooters—”If all Muslims are terrorists, what is this white boy?”—to the morally bankrupt political class: “We all know who is Congress’ real benefactor.”

“I’m a black Muslim woman, and I fear for my life when I am at school, and I fear for my life when a cop pulls us over,” she says. As school shootings continue to happen, and as she and her friends worry about what to do if a gunman enters their school, she is left with a question that serves as the opening of her poem: “How much longer do we have to deal with this shit?”

Mother Jones caught up with her after the rally, and she agreed to recite the poem for us again. Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/E7l2o69WIyg




https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... shootings/





Trump tells supporters in campaign email 'I need allies'

March 25 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump told supporters in a campaign email "I need allies" in wake of the Republicans' loss in a special Pennsylvania congressional race.

"2018 is our chance to elect TRUMP ALLIES to the House and Senate who will give you the agenda you voted for," he wrote in a message sent Sunday. "No more obstruction! We want what we voted for!" But it cannot happen unless we put up GREAT candidates who stand by our values and prove to America that they have the fire to fight to Make America Great Again!" he continues...........

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/03 ... m_medium=1





Barack Obama Explains Why the March for Our Lives Gives Him Hope

“That is a testimony to what happens when young people are given opportunities.”

Former President Barack Obama on Saturday praised the student leaders, survivors of the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who organized the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence in Washington, DC. “They decided we’re not going to be silent victims of the gun violence that is so pervasive in the United States,” Obama said at an event in Japan.

“This was all because of the courage and effort of a handful of 15- and 16-year-olds who took the responsibility that so often adults have failed to take in tying to find a solution to this problem,” Obama said, referring to the DC protest that was attended by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. “And I think that is a testimony to what happens when young people are given opportunities. And I think all institutions have to think about how do we tap into that creativity and that energy and that drive. Because it’s there. It’s just so often we say wait your turn, and in the meantime that energy dissipates.”..........

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -him-hope/





Trump suggests American military may pay for US-Mexico border wall since it’s now 'rich'

Donald Trump has long pushed for a wall to be built along the US-Mexico border, but he seems to be no longer insistent that Mexico pay for it. The US military should construct it because it’s now “rich,” he suggested on Twitter.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!

5:33 AM - Mar 25, 2018
87.1K
46.4K people are talking about this

It comes after Trump signed a $1.3 trillion spending plan on Friday, despite saying the White House was "very disappointed" in it – partly because it didn't pay for his border wall in full. He said he had "no choice" but to sign it because the military needed to be funded...........

http://tribeforums.com/posting.php?mode ... =6#preview






NRA to Parkland Teens: You’re Only Relevant Because Your Classmates Died

A host for the National Rifle Association’s news outlet, NRATV, taunted the teenage survivors of last month’s school shooting in Florida, saying they’d be irrelevant if their classmates had not been killed. The message came from host Colion Noir, who directly addressed the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in a video ahead of Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. “To all the kids from Parkland getting ready to use your First Amendment to attack everyone else’s Second Amendment at your march on Saturday, I wish a hero like Blaine Gaskill had been at Marjory Douglas High School last month because your classmates would still be alive and no one would know your names, because the media would have completely and utterly ignored your story, the way they ignored his,” Noir said. He was referring to a 34-year-old school resource officer in Maryland widely credited with stopping a school shooter earlier this week. Noir, even while using traumatized teenagers to push the NRA’s pro-gun agenda, accused the Parkland students fighting for gun control of playing for the cameras in what he described as a “gun-control reality show.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-to-pa ... mates-died





How Parkland Teens Hope to Swing Votes—Starting With Their Parents

Check out the latest gun control effort from these powerful student activists.

Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students have been demanding change. Now, two juniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are working to rally parents to support candidates who advocate for gun control.

“In our movement, we wish for parents to make a promise to their children that they will vote for legislatures and politicians who will choose our children’s safety over guns!” reads the mission statement at the top of the Parents’ Promise to Kids website. Adam Buchwald and Zach Hibshman, the students behind the PPTK initiative, have asked adults to sign a contract that pledges to vote for candidates who “will act on common sense gun laws.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... r-parents/





The Rest Of The World Showed Up To March For Our Lives

Protesters across the globe want U.S. lawmakers to know they’re watching, too.

As the March For Our Lives protests took over cities across America, allies also made noise overseas to show in solidarity with the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

Demonstrators from France, Germany, Spain and all the way from Tokyo took to the streets to protest gun violence in the United States. Hundreds of international protesters urged U.S. lawmakers to change the country’s gun laws, while reminding them that the rest of the world is watching.

In France, a country still reeling from a deadly shooting on Friday, a crowd of people, both French and American, gathered near the Eiffel Tower in Paris to protest.

“It’s important for Americans even overseas to make sure that Washington knows that we’re not pleased with the gun control reform and we want more,” Caitlin Waters, co-organizer of the Paris march, told CBS News.

See how the rest of the world joined America in a massive protest against gun violence below.




London




Berlin




Copenhagen




Munich




Brussels

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wo ... c9e5f7eeca





Spurs coach Gregg Popovich rips Trump after 'March for Our Lives'

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ripped President Trump on Sunday for his absence at the nationwide "March for Our Lives" demonstrations over the weekend.

"If you just sit for a moment and imagine those bullets going through those bodies, and what those bodies might have looked like afterwards, how can the president of the country talk about all the things he's going to do, and then go have lunch with the [National Rifle Association] and change it?" Popovich said in a statement obtained by CBS Sports.

"It's just cowardice. A real leader would have been in Washington D.C. this weekend, not at his penthouse at Mar-a-Lago. He would have had the decency to meet with a group, to see what's going on, and how important it is, and how important our children should be to us. So for all those politicians involved, it's just a dereliction of duty," he continued.
Thousands of people took to the streets across the U.S. on Saturday to protest gun violence and to call for more gun control, while the president spent time at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla...........

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... -our-lives





Are Budget, Tax Cuts Enough for Voters to Stick With GOP?

WASHINGTON —
With the passage of an enormous budget bill, the GOP-controlled Congress all but wrapped up its legislating for the year. But will it be enough to persuade voters to give Republicans another term at the helm?..........

https://www.voanews.com/a/are-budget-ta ... 15074.html





Republicans Declare War on the Courts After Rulings That Threaten Their Majorities

In crucial swing states, Republicans are trying to nullify court orders they don’t like.

On Thursday, a judge ruled that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker must hold special elections this spring to fill two vacant state legislative seats that some Republicans fear could flip to the Democrats. But instead of scheduling new elections, Wisconsin Republicans came up with a different plan: They would convene a special legislative session to change the law governing special elections so they wouldn’t have to hold them before November.

Walker had a “plain and positive duty” to hold the elections, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Josann Reynolds, who was appointed by Walker in 2014, ruled on Thursday. She instructed Walker to issue an order within a week scheduling the elections.

But the next day, Walker threw his support behind the plan to change the election law. “It would be senseless to waste taxpayer money on special elections just weeks before voters go to the polls when the Legislature has concluded its business,” Walker said in a statement. “This is why I support, and will sign, the Senate and Assembly plan to clarify special election law.”

Democrats immediately denounced the move, saying Republicans were going to extraordinary lengths to avoid holding an election for two legislative seats previously held by Republicans that have been vacant since December. “Even for Republicans in Wisconsin, this would be a stunning action to keep citizens from exercising their right to vote,” said former Attorney General Eric Holder, who leads a Democratic group that sued Walker on behalf of Wisconsin voters in the two districts. “They appear to be afraid of the voters of Wisconsin.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ajorities/





Democrats Would Need to Trounce Republicans to Overcome Gerrymandering and Take the House

A new report finds that the party would need to win the national vote by 11 points.

Democratic optimism about the 2018 midterm elections is at its zenith. Democrat Conor Lamb’s victory in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, a GOP-friendly area that President Donald Trump won by 20 points, caused Democratic expectations to soar. CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote in a breathless article full of exclamation points that 119 Republicans whose districts are less red than PA-18 could lose their jobs in November.

But all this optimism may overlook a key factor: the impact of gerrymandering. A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice calculates just how much of a landslide Democrats will need in order to win in districts that were drawn specifically to withstand Democratic waves and elect Republicans. The result, report co-author Michael Li says, should be a “reality check” for Democrats.

Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to take back the House of Representatives. In a typical election, according to an analysis of midterm data from 1946 to 2014 by political scientist Alan Abramowitz, a six-point edge in the popular vote in November would net them 27 seats. Polls show that kind of performance is within reach; voters have expressed a preference for electing Democrats to Congress this fall by an average of seven points, according to Real Clear Politics. But factor in Republicans’ built-in advantage in districts across the country and those gains are cut in half. According to the Brennan Center report, a six-point win with today’s political maps would earn Democrats just 13 seats. In order to take back the House, Democrats would need to win the popular vote by 11 points—an enormous margin in American politics today...........




https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... the-house/





Linda Brown, of Brown v. Board of Education, has passed away

Linda Brown, the young girl who was at the center of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education landmark Supreme Court case that led the beginning of racial integration in the U.S. education system, passed away on Sunday at the age of 76. Brown’s sister, Cheryl Brown Henderson, confirmed the death to the Topeka-Capital Journal.

The backdrop: When her enrollment in an all-white Sumner Elementary School in the Kansas capital city was blocked, her family later initiated the landmark civil rights lawsuit 'Brown V. Board of Education.'

https://www.axios.com/linda-brown-cente ... 660c8.html





Sources: Zinke tells employees diversity isn't important

Washington (CNN)Several employees at the Interior Department have told CNN that Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly says that he won't focus on diversity, an apparent talking point that has upset many people within the agency.

Three high-ranking Interior officials from three different divisions said that Zinke has made several comments with a similar theme, saying "diversity isn't important," or "I don't care about diversity," or "I don't really think that's important anymore."

Each time, Zinke followed with something along the lines of, "what's important is having the right person for the right job," or "I care about excellence, and I'm going to get the best people, and you'll find we have the most diverse group anyone's ever had," the sources said.

Interior last year unexpectedly reassigned 33 senior executive staffers, of which 15 were minorities, according to the lawyer of one of the staffers who was moved. Some of those who were reassigned have filed complaints with the US Merit Systems Board.

The accusations against Zinke come as he is under investigation by multiple agencies, including Interior's inspector general and Office of Special Counsel, regarding employee reassignment and taxpayer spending on possible politically related travel.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/politics ... index.html





Menendez: Zinke is on a path to a 'lily-white' department

(CNN)Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey warned Monday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is moving toward a "lily-white" agency with his reported lack of emphasis on racial diversity within his department.

"We can find some of the best people in the nation from diverse communities, whether that diversity is ethnically, racially or otherwise," Menendez told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront."

Several employees at the Interior Department have told CNN that Zinke repeatedly has said he won't focus on diversity, an apparent talking point that has upset many people within the agency.

Three high-ranking Interior officials from three different divisions said that Zinke has made several comments with a similar theme, saying "diversity isn't important," or "I don't care about diversity," or "I don't really think that's important anymore."
Menendez said he's concerned the problem exists in many agencies within President Donald Trump's Cabinet as well as the Interior Department.

"The problem is that Zinke is clearly on a path in which we're going to have increasingly a lily-white Department of the Interior," he said.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift vehemently denied that Zinke said anything along those lines of criticizing the need for diversity, saying, "the anonymous claims made against the secretary are untrue."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/politics ... index.html





White House counsel examines loans to Kushner's family business

White House attorneys are assessing whether White House senior adviser Jared Kushner ran afoul of federal ethics regulations by meeting with executives from two companies that loaned millions of dollars [ $500,000,000.00 to be exact ] to his family’s business.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) had previously raised concerns to the Office of Government Ethics following reports that Kushner met with executives from Apollo Global Management and Citigroup shortly before each company loaned the Kushner Cos. millions of dollars.

Apollo loaned $184 million to the Kushner Cos., while Citigroup loaned $325 million to the business, which is run by Kushner’s family.
David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, said in a letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal that he spoke with the White House Counsel’s Office about Krishnamoorthi’s concerns.

“I have discussed this matter with the White House Counsel’s Office in order to ensure that they have begun the process of ascertaining the facts necessary to determine whether any law or regulation has been violated and whether any additional procedures are necessary to avoid violations in the future,” Apol wrote.

“During that discussion, the White House informed me that they had already begun this process. I have asked the White House to inform me of the results of that process,” Apol added.

An Apollo spokesman previously said the executive who met with Kushner was not involved in the decision to loan Kushner Cos. money.

A Citigroup spokeswoman said the firm's relationship with Kushner Cos. was not connected to Kushner's White House role.

A spokeswoman for Kushner Cos. told the Journal that they hadn't received an inquiry from the White House Counsel's Office

Kushner last month had his security clearance downgraded from "top secret" to "secret." He faced growing scrutiny after The Washington Post reported he requested more intelligence than most other White House officials, and following reports he updated his clearance forms multiple times since joining the administration.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... y-business





[ HOW LOW CAN YOU GO ? ]

Trump telling aides he wants to bring back Rob Porter: report

President Trump is reportedly hoping to bring back Rob Porter, the aide who left the White House after reports of domestic abuse allegations from his two ex-wives.

The New York Times reported that Trump has kept in touch with Porter since his departure last month, and has increased the frequency of phone calls with the former staff secretary in recent weeks.

A White House official told the Times that Trump has told aides he misses the staff structure that Porter organized in the administration.

After his resignation, the president repeatedly emphasized that Porter had denied the allegations. He told reporters that he hoped Porter "has a great career ahead of him."..........

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ter-report





Poll: Trump's approval rating highest in nearly a year

[ WOW ! ANYBODY WATCHING THE NEWS ?!?!?! ]

President Trump’s approval rating jumped to its highest point in roughly 11 months but remains underwater, a survey released Monday found.

The CNN poll, conducted from March 22-25, showed Trump with a 42 percent approval rating, up 7 points from the network’s same poll last month. Meanwhile, 54 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Trump got positive marks on his handling of the economy, where 48 percent of people approve of his performance, compared to 45 percent who disapprove.

Just over 50 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of both gun policy and foreign affairs, the poll found.
This month’s CNN survey features Trump’s highest marks since April 2017, when the network found 44 percent of voters said they approved of Trump’s performance.

Monday's poll comes amid a string of personnel changes in Trump's Cabinet. Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, resigned earlier this month, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was forced out a short time later.

Trump has since announced national security adviser H.R. McMaster is leaving early next month, and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is reportedly set to be the next to go.

Trump has personally been the subject of recent claims he had multiple extramarital affairs around 2006.

Adult-film star Stormy Daniels detailed her alleged affair with Trump during an interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes," while former Playboy model Karen McDougal shared her story late last week on CNN.

The White House has denied the women's claims.

Monday's CNN poll found 63 percent of Americans said they believe the women, while 21 percent said they believe Trump's denials of those affairs.

The poll of 1,014 adults had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... rly-a-year





Lawmaker Says Rumor Swirling That Ryan Will Resign; Speaker’s Aide Says Otherwise

A Nevada lawmaker says Capitol Hill is buzzing with a rumor that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will soon resign and be replaced by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

But Ryan’s team quickly responded to the speculation, saying there were no plans for the Wisconsin lawmaker to step down anytime soon.

“The rumor mill is that Paul Ryan is getting ready to resign in the next 30 to 60 days and that Steve Scalise will be the new Speaker,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) told the website Nevada Newsmakers on Monday. “Now that is interesting because nobody has talked to members [of the House] on how they are going to vote [on new leadership]. Now, maybe they have talked to all of the members but me. I don’t know, so that is the rumor mill from last week.”

Aides for both Ryan and Scalise denied the rumors on Monday evening, and The Washington Post notes that Amodei isn’t among Ryan’s inner circle of advisers.

“The speaker is not resigning,” AshLee Strong, Ryan’s spokeswoman, said in a statement obtained by The Hill.

Laura Fine, Scalise’s spokeswoman, said he “fully supports” Ryan to remain speaker and that the “whole leadership team is focused on working with President Trump to deliver more conservative wins for the country.”

But rumors about Ryan’s departure have swirled for months, and some speculated that he would leave office after Congress pushed through its tax bill in December. Were Ryan to run again, he might face a tough re-election bid in November amid an anticipated Democratic wave in the midterms.

Ryan told Fox News last month that he hadn’t yet decided if he’d run for re-election, but would figure it out in the coming months.

“Look, my wife and I had that conversation in the spring of every election year,” Ryan said about the prospect of another congressional bid. “We haven’t had that yet. We’ll figure it out then.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pa ... cad04d1b2d





*YUGE* RATINGS FOR STORMY INTERVIEW!

Stormy Daniels Scores ‘60 Minutes’ Its Highest Ratings In Nearly A Decade

The look at Donald Trump’s alleged affair drew more viewers than his big post-election interview.

“60 Minutes” viewers are more interested in alleged sex scandals involving President Donald Trump than they once were in his thoughts about winning the election ― or so the Nielsen ratings released Monday suggest.

Former adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ Sunday night interview about her alleged affair with Trump more than 10 years ago scored the CBS news magazine its highest ratings in nearly a decade, even beating out its late 2016 interview with Trump.

According to Nielsen data shared by CBS, 22.6 million viewers tuned in to the interview with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. That marks the show’s highest rating since 2008, when a post-election interview with Barack and Michelle Obama drew 25.1 million viewers.

By comparison, the post-election interview with Trump and his family was viewed by 20 million people. But that interview, the first major sit-down that he gave after his victory, may have lost some viewers due to its nearly half-hour delay in several large markets, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., Variety noted at the time.

In her highly anticipated sit-down with Anderson Cooper, Daniels shared details of the consensual affair she said she and Trump had in 2006 and 2007. She is currently suing him over the validity of a nondisclosure agreement she signed shortly before the 2016 election that was designed to prevent her from discussing their relationship.

Daniels went over much of the same ground that she’d previously shared with In Touch. Although she spoke to the tabloid magazine in 2011, In Touch did not publish that interview until this January.

She revealed for the first time on Sunday that when details of the affair began leaking out in 2011, an unidentified man approached and threatened her.

“I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter,” Daniels said. “And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’ And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”

The president has not commented on the “60 Minutes” interview, but he did send out a tweet Monday morning vaguely denouncing “so much Fake News” and saying it’s “never been more voluminous or more inaccurate.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/st ... c9e5f9ae88





Punxsutawney Phil Wanted By Police For Bad Weather Forecasting

The groundhog stands accused of deception.

The world’s most famous groundhog could also be a jailbird.

On Feb. 2, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.

However, when spring came to Pennsylvania last week, it was accompanied by a storm that brought several inches of snow to parts of the Northeast on Wednesday and Thursday.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Cpl. Scott Martin of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Martin decided he was tired of a rodent pretending to be a meteorologist, so he created a wanted poster for Phil.

The crime that the Phil is accused of: deception.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pu ... cad04d10bf





Stormy Daniels' attorney: Trump hasn't tweeted about her because it's all true

The attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels suggested Monday that President Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted about Daniels because, despite denials made on his behalf, the president knows her allegations of an affair are true.

“Isn’t it interesting, Gayle, that we have a president that will tweet about the most mundane matters, but he won’t tweet about my client, the affair, the agreement or the $130,000 payment,” Michael Avenatti told “CBS This Morning” anchor Gayle King on Monday. “You know why he won’t tweet about it? Because it’s true. It’s 100 percent true.”

In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night, Daniels rehashed the details of her relationship with Trump, which began in 2006 with a sexual encounter at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. The two continued to speak and meet, Daniels said, with the president promising but ultimately failing to secure a spot for the adult film actress on his NBC reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”

Daniels also said that after she spoke about her affair with Trump to In Touch magazine, she was threatened in a Las Vegas parking lot by a man who approached her and her infant daughter and told her “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,” and "that's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.”

Though Trump has not personally addressed the allegations, the White House has denied that he had an affair with Daniels. The president’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has said that the president did not have an affair with Daniels and was not aware of a nondisclosure agreement signed days before the 2016 election that paid Daniels $130,000 — money paid by Cohen. Avenatti has called the suggestion that Cohen acted without Trump’s knowledge “laughable.”

Daniels is suing the president and Cohen, seeking to void the nondisclosure agreement because it was never signed by the president. Cohen has said he intends to recoup damages from Daniels over her public discussion of the alleged affair, a figure he said could climb as high as $20 million. An attorney for Cohen told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that Cohen “will not rest until he recovers every single penny of damages, and it could be $20 million."

David Schwartz, Cohen's attorney, said "lying is all over" the "60 Minutes" interview, raising questions as to why Daniels had previously denied the affair — Daniels said she felt intimidated by Trump's legal team — and why she went to an exercise class immediately after being threatened in the Las Vegas parking lot instead of going to the police. Schwartz called Trump a "third-party beneficiary" of the nondisclosure agreement and accused Avenatti of attempting to try Daniels' case in the court of public opinion.

"She's in it for the money," Schwartz said.

In Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview, Avenatti called Cohen's $20 million threat “thuggish.” Monday, he said he and Daniels were “only getting started," suggesting that he may be in possession of digital evidence that would prove the affair.

“Mr. Cohen wants the American people to believe that this is all false and he just paid the $130,000 even though there was no basis to the allegation,” Avenatti said. “Well, if that's true, Gayle, every viewer right now should call Michael Cohen's office here in New York City, claim they had an affair with the president and, according to Mr. Cohen, he's going to send you $130,000 immediately. … It's laughable. It's a joke.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... ets-484749





Trump’s legal team is in shambles. The timing is terrible.

Mueller’s Russia investigators want to talk to the president right as his legal team is falling apart.

President Trump’s legal team is in shambles at one of the worst possible moments in the Russia investigation.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is heating up, and Trump is facing a big decision about whether to sit down for an interview with Mueller. But because of the staffing chaos that seems to have plagued the rest of his administration, the president now finds himself with virtually no qualified attorneys left to defend him in the Russia probe.

Trump’s top personal lawyer, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday. Reports say he’d grown frustrated with Trump’s unwillingness to heed his legal advice, including his view that an interview with Mueller would be too risky.

And less than a week after announcing that Trump was adding two new lawyers to his legal team, personal Trump attorney Jay Sekulow had to walk back the announcement, saying the two wouldn’t be working on the special counsel investigation after all because of “conflicts” with their other clients.

White House lawyers Ty Cobb and Don McGahn work for Trump on issues tied to the Russia investigation, but both are on the taxpayer payroll, meaning they are responsible for protecting the office of the presidency, not Trump personally. McGahn and Cobb are both reportedly considering leaving as well.

And new lawyers who could join the team are looking at the chaos and deciding it’s not worth getting involved.

“This is turmoil, it’s chaos, it’s confusion, it’s not good for anything,” Ted Olson, a George W. Bush administration solicitor general, told NBC on Monday. Olson turned down an offer from Trump to join the legal team last week.

All of which means that Trump is now left with only Sekulow — a lawyer and radio host best known for defending conservative and evangelical Christian causes — to defend his interests full time at a critical junction in the Russia investigation.

Trump continues to insist that he’s innocent and that there was “NO COLLUSION!” with Russia — and that very well may be true, at least for him personally. But even an innocent president would need major legal help when facing a year-long special counsel investigation with at least 17 experienced prosecutors digging into his past business dealings and campaign contacts.

The last week’s hirings and firings show the chaos inside Trump’s legal team

The mayhem engulfing Trump’s legal team was on full display in recent days with the odd saga surrounding the hiring of two new lawyers, Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing.

DiGenova, a former US attorney, is not a big name in criminal defense circles, according to legal professionals I spoke to. But he has been a frequent guest on Fox News, pushing the idea that the entire Russia investigation is a conspiracy created by officials at the Justice Department and FBI to “frame” Trump.

Trump reportedly liked the way diGenova had defended him on TV, and on March 19, Sekulow announced that diGenova and his partner (and wife) Victoria Toensing would join Trump’s legal team, saying diGenova would be “a great asset in our representation of the President.”

But diGenova and Toensing apparently didn’t impress Trump when they sat down with him on Thursday. The New York Times reports that Trump thought he didn’t have “personal chemistry” with the couple. Three days later, Sekulow announced that Toensing and diGenova wouldn’t be working for the president’s legal team on the Russia probe.

Officially, Toensing and diGenova were rejected over conflicts of interest, as Toensing is representing several former Trump administration officials in their talks with the Mueller probe.

That includes Mark Corallo, a former spokesperson for Trump’s legal team; Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign co-chair whom Mueller’s team questioned about the campaign’s interest in improving relations with Russia; and Erik Prince, who is being investigated by Mueller for reportedly trying to set up a back channel between Trump and Russia.

But Toensing had reportedly been getting waivers from those clients to allow her to defend Trump when Trump backed away. So it seems like a lack of personal rapport between Trump and the duo is the main reason they were rejected.

It’s a sign that Trump cares more about personality than legal strategy. And without a strategy, his team hasn’t been able to build a coherent response to the Mueller probe.

Trump is trying, and failing, to recruit top lawyers

Trump apparently isn’t content with just Sekulow leading his personal team, and he’s reportedly spent weeks trying to draft top legal talent.

Trump has been sensitive about the criticism that he’s having a hard time getting good lawyers, tweeting on Sunday that “many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case.”

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case...don’t believe the Fake News narrative that it is hard to find a lawyer who wants to take this on. Fame & fortune will NEVER be turned down by a lawyer, though some are conflicted. Problem is that a new......

6:40 AM - Mar 25, 2018
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But the facts directly contradict his claims.

Earlier in March, Trump met in the Oval Office with Emmet Flood, who helped represent President Bill Clinton during his impeachment process — but Flood didn’t join the team, and it’s unclear if a formal offer was made. Robert Giuffra Jr., a litigator who once clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, rejected an offer, as did Olson.

And legal professionals I spoke to said it’s not exactly a mystery why lawyers might not want to join Trump’s legal circus.

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, told me that any lawyer taking the job would want to be sure their client would listen to the advice provided — and given Trump’s history of quickly cycling through lawyers, it’s not a desirable opportunity.

“I would be thinking of leaving before I even started,” she said. “The narrative is chaos.”

With the near-constant change of personnel, the tactics taken by the Trump legal team have varied wildly.

“Trump’s legal team is conflicted and divided, and the recent departures and arrivals have failed to unify its approach or thinking,” Jens David Ohlin, a professor at Cornell Law School, told me.

Take, for instance, the big question on Trump’s plate right now: whether to sit down for a one-on-one interview with Mueller. That’s something every lawyer I spoke to called “unlikely” given Trump’s history of lying during depositions. Because Trump tends to exaggerate or misstate facts, he might lie to investigators, the offense that caused Clinton’s impeachment, even if the underlying details exonerate Trump of any wrongdoing.

Dowd had been working with the Mueller probe to avoid having Trump interviewed. But the president said earlier this month “he would like to” do an interview, and with Dowd gone, it’s possible Trump could overrule whichever lawyers he assembles and sit down with Mueller.

Whether or not Trump sits down with Mueller, the pressure on Trump’s legal team appears to be escalating — Mueller’s staff got a court order for Trump’s business records earlier in March, and four people tied to the Trump campaign are now cooperating with investigators.

The big task Trump’s lawyers will face, whoever they end up being, is trying to convince the president to listen to their advice and stay out of further trouble with Mueller.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... legal-team





White House Staffers Are Desperate To Leave Trump – But No One Will Hire Them

According to reports, countless low and mid-level staffers at the Trump White House are desperately trying to find new jobs so that they can move on from working for Trump, but so far no one will hire them. Apparently employers aren’t looking for people who have helped build one of the worst presidencies in modern history, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains...........

According to the staffers that have been attempting to leave the Trump Administration for several weeks now, they can’t find jobs anywhere because nobody, including the think tanks and lobbying firms there in Washington, D.C., want to hire Trump staffers. So, regardless of what you hear about the President talking about his poll numbers getting better or Republicans in Congress actually starting to work with Trump and toning down their criticisms of him, when it comes to the people that really pull the strings, the lobbyist and the think tanks in D.C., they want absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump, and it’s not just because he’s such a horrible president.

Part of it has to do with the fact that he, himself, and by extension, these staffers from working with him, still have no idea how U.S. policy works. So, they don’t want to bring in these staffers to come work at their lobbying firms or think tanks or law firms or whatever, because they still don’t technically have any real political experience.

You’re working for a guy that doesn’t know what he’s doing. This is a completely abnormal White House that is not going by the book on anything. Things that these organizations, think tanks, lobbying firms, whatever, they like that. They like to hire people who know how everything works. When you have a president that comes in and breaks everything and the staff just has to say, “Okay, well, I guess this is how it is,” yeah, it’s going to make it pretty hard to find a new job if you want to stay within the political arena...........

https://tytnetwork.com/2018/03/05/white ... hire-them/

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Decision to add citizenship question to census draws protest

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s decision to ask people about their citizenship in the 2020 census set off worries among Democrats on Tuesday that immigrants will dodge the survey altogether, diluting political representation for states that tend to vote Democratic and robbing many communities of federal dollars.

Not since 1950 has the census collected citizenship data from the whole population, rather than just a population sample, says the Congressional Research Service. The decision to restore the question after decades prompted an immediate lawsuit from California — already tangling with Washington over immigration — and moves by other states with large immigrant populations to engage in a legal fight.

The population count, a massive effort taken every 10 years, is far more than an academic exercise. It’s required by the Constitution and used to determine the number of seats each state has in the House as well as how federal money is distributed to local communities. Communities and businesses depend on it in deciding where to build schools, hospitals, grocery stores and more.

The political stakes of undercounting segments of the population are high.

https://www.apnews.com/df9a6812fe144a42 ... ws-protest





Trump floats using military budget to pay for border wall

WASHINGTON (AP) — Still angry about the budget deal he signed last week, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of using the military’s budget to pay for his long-promised border wall with Mexico, despite the fact that such spending would likely require approval from Congress.

Trump raised the funding plan with House Speaker Paul Ryan at a meeting at the White House last Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

And he’s publicly tweeted that building “a great Border Wall” is “all about National Defense,” and called to “Build WALL through M!“, meaning the military.

https://www.apnews.com/a3e95ce6175444db ... order-wall





Minnesota GOP Lawmaker Appears to Link March for Our Lives Organizers to Hitler Youth

Minnesota State Rep. Mary Franson appeared to compare the March for Our Lives demonstrators to the Hitler Youth over the weekend in a series of posts on her since-deleted Facebook page, according to The Star Tribune. On Tuesday, the Republican lawmaker denied linking the high schoolers to the Nazi youth group. She insisted her comments on high schoolers pushing for gun reform “were separate” from her post that included an Adolf Hitler quote and the “Indoctrinating Youth” webpage from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Franson published the Hitler quote 15 minutes after she shared a post calling Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg “Supreme Leader Hogg.” In another post, she claimed the March for Our Lives attendees wanted guns “gone.” Her entire Facebook page has since been removed after she “deleted the post to clear up any confusion,” she told the Tribune.

http://tribeforums.com/posting.php?mode=reply&f=3&t=6





Christopher Steele's Other Report: A Murder In Washington

The author of the famous Trump dossier provided a secret report to the FBI asserting that RT founder Mikhail Lesin was bludgeoned to death by thugs hired by an oligarch close to Putin. Three other sources independently told the FBI the same basic story, contradicting the government’s finding that Lesin’s death was accidental.

The FBI possesses a secret report asserting that Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was beaten to death by hired thugs in Washington, DC — directly contradicting the US government’s official finding that Mikhail Lesin died by accident.

The report, according to four sources who have read all or parts of it, was written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that Russia had been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Donald Trump. The bureau received his report while it was helping the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department investigate the Russian media baron’s death, the sources said.

The new revelations come as concerns about Russia’s meddling in the West have intensified to a pitch not seen since the Cold War. Both the UK and the US have blamed the Kremlin for poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England this month, using a rare nerve agent that endangered bystanders. (Russia has denied it was behind the poisoning.) In the wake of that attack, the British government has opened a review of all 14 suspicious deaths linked to Russia that a BuzzFeed News investigation exposed last year.

The BuzzFeed News series also revealed new details about Lesin — including that he died on the eve of a scheduled meeting with US Justice Department officials. They had planned to interview Lesin about the inner workings of RT, the Kremlin-funded network that he founded.

Now BuzzFeed News has established:

Steele’s report says that Lesin was bludgeoned to death by enforcers working for an oligarch close to Putin, the four sources said.

The thugs had been instructed to beat Lesin, not kill him, but they went too far, the sources said Steele wrote.

Three of the sources said that the report described the killers as Russian state security agents moonlighting for the oligarch.

The Steele report is not the FBI's only source for this account of Lesin's death: Three other people, acting independently from Steele, said they also told the FBI that Lesin had been bludgeoned to death by enforcers working for the same oligarch named by Steele...........

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/c ... .nsB5RNOE3





How Trump favored Texas over Puerto Rico

A POLITICO investigation shows a persistent double standard in the president’s handling of relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As Hurricane Maria unleashed its fury on Puerto Rico in mid-September, knocking out the island’s electrical system and damaging hundreds of thousands of homes, disaster recovery experts expected that only one man could handle the enormity of the task ahead: Mike Byrne.

But Byrne, a widely acknowledged star of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, remained in Houston, which had been ravaged by Hurricane Harvey less than a month earlier.

Today, disaster recovery experts still express shock that FEMA kept Byrne in an already-stabilizing Texas and didn’t send him to Puerto Rico for three more weeks. But now, the decision strikes many as emblematic of a double standard within the Trump administration. A POLITICO review of public documents, newly obtained FEMA records and interviews with more than 50 people involved with disaster response indicates that the Trump administration — and the president himself — responded far more aggressively to Texas than to Puerto Rico.

“We have the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. We go anywhere, anytime we want in the world,” bemoaned retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who led the military’s relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. “And [in Puerto Rico] we didn’t use those assets the way they should have been used.”

No two hurricanes are alike, and Harvey and Maria were vastly different storms that struck areas with vastly different financial, geographic and political situations. But a comparison of government statistics relating to the two recovery efforts strongly supports the views of disaster-recovery experts that FEMA and the Trump administration exerted a faster, and initially greater, effort in Texas, even though the damage in Puerto Rico exceeded that in Houston...........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... nse-480557





North Korea's Kim Jong Un met Xi Jinping on surprise visit to China

Beijing (CNN)North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with the Chinese President on a surprise trip to Beijing this week, state media in both countries confirmed Wednesday, his first visit abroad since he took power in 2011.

Images broadcast on Chinese state television CCTV showed Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, meeting with Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials during the trip. The trip took place from March 25 to 28, with Kim and his wife traveling by train and spending two nights in Beijing.

Kim made the trip to Beijing because he felt he had responsibility to personally inform President Xi of the rapid diplomatic developments on the Korean Peninsula in recent weeks, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

The young North Korean leader is set to attend a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in next month, and US President Donald Trump has also accepted an invitation to meet Kim face-to-face.

Analysts said the visit was likely aimed at shoring up Pyongyang's relationship with China, its traditional ally and major trading partner, which had soured in recent years.

State media quoted Kim as saying that he is committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a key Chinese goal.
As well as Xi, Kim held talks with his deputies, including Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, and Wang Qishan, the Chinese vice president who is considered one of Xi's closest confidantes.

White House credits 'maximum pressure'

The White House said in a statement that the Chinese government briefed them on the meeting Tuesday.
"We see this development as further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is creating the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue with North Korea," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/27/asia/nor ... index.html





Supreme Court prepares for right turn

Washington (CNN)As the White House and Congress descend deeper into turmoil, the US Supreme Court is showing signs of becoming as politically fractured as the rest of Washington.

It may likewise be shifting more to the right.

Indications from the few decisions issued so far and from oral arguments in yet-to-be decided cases suggest the five conservatives on the nine-member bench may be ready to wield their majority power. Led by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by President Donald Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch, the five have already prevailed in recent ideologically charged cases regarding prisoners' civil rights and immigrants in custody.

Historic delays in issuing decisions and at-times sharp jabs between justices on the bench also point to disharmony at a time when the Supreme Court could play a larger role in American life. The Trump administration faces numerous lawsuits over its policies, including new challenges based on the administration's announcement that the Census will include a question about individual's citizenship.

A looming question since January 2017 has been whether the justices would become a check on Trump, who has flouted legal norms, criticized federal judges, and revealed disdain for the rule of law.

In the Supreme Court dispute over immigrants denied bail, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step late last month of reading a lengthy and impassioned dissenting statement from the bench, warning of a new breach of constitutional due process. Such dramatic oral dissents typically occur later in the session, when tensions rise as the court faces a late June deadline and highly anticipated cases with national implications...........

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/27/politics ... index.html





Tax cuts, Round 2: GOP looks to punish Democrats in 2018

‘It’s the tax pony, and that’s the only horse they have to ride,’ says one top Democrat.

Republicans are dreaming of passing another round of tax cuts this year — or at least making vulnerable Democrats squirm by voting against them.

GOP leaders are weighing a series of votes to make last year’s temporary tax cuts for individuals permanent, according to Republicans in both chambers. The strategy would portray the party as the guardian of Americans’ paychecks, Republicans say, and buoy the GOP during a brutal election year.

Republicans argue they win regardless of whether it culminates with a Rose Garden ceremony: Either Democrats support the legislation, giving the GOP a major legislative accomplishment in its scramble to save its majorities. Or, more likely, Democrats block the bill — allowing Republicans to paint them as opponents of the middle class.

“Can you imagine Democrats voting that down? I mean, how do you explain that one?” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I just think they’d be in an impossible position. They’d have to support it.”..........

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... rms-482158

<

Nothing Unusual Happening in Climate Change, Over 40 New Scientific Papers Confirm

by James Delingpole 26 Mar 2018

The scare about global warming is overdone, according to more than 40 scientific papers published in just the first three months of 2018.

What their charts clearly show is that “nothing climatically unusual is happening.”

In the chart below from a study by Polovodova et al, we see that 20th century warming is perfectly normal in a long-term historical context. It was no warmer – indeed, is slightly cooler – than either the Roman Warm Period or the Medieval Warming Period.
What we also learn from the papers is that these warming periods were global – not, as alarmists like to claim to support their scaremongering thesis, local:

A number of strident global warming scientists prefer to dismiss the significance of Europe’s temperature record, claiming that it is local in nature and does not tell us what is really happening globally. However, other papers fully contradict this. For example, a paper by Wündsch et al., 2018 shows us that the warming today in South Africa also is nothing unusual.

It’s global, stupid

Temperature reconstructions show the same is true in Southeast Australia, according to McGowan et al., 2018, Northern Alaska (Hanna et al., 2018), the Tibetan Plateau (Li et al., 2018), South Korea (Song et al., 2018), Antarctica (Mikis, 2018), to cite just a few among dozens of others.

In further bad news for climate alarmists, it seems that two of their favorite bellwethers of global warming doom – Greenland and the South Pole, are cooling not warming.

Here’s Greenland, from a study by Mikkelsen et al.

This puts Greenland’s recent warm spell in its historical context: over 150 years it wasn’t unusual. Temperatures now are cooler than they were in the 1930s.
A separate study confirms that Greenland is on a cooling trend:

Furthermore, much to the surprise of global warming scientists, Greenland temperatures have again been falling since 2000. Westergaard-Nielsen et al., 2018examined the most recent and detailed trends based on MODIS (2001–2015) and concluded that if there is any general trend for Greenland it is “mostly cooling”.

As is the South Pole:

At the other end of the planet at the South Pole, new findings by Cerrone and Fusco, 2018 confirm the large increase in the southern hemisphere sea ice and suggest it “arises from the impact of climate modes and their long-term trends”.

They write that the results indicate a progressive cooling has affected the year-to-year climate of the sub-Antarctic since the 1990s and that the SIC [sea ice concentration] shows upward annual, spring, and summer trends.

Global warming? What global warming??

....

This is another Breitbart article, but if you click on the link to the article you will find links to all the studies they cite and quote in article from other sources.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... s-confirm/

I have been saying since Al Gore first opened his mouth that these temp changes were cyclical and would come back around. I never bought this nonsense from the beginning.

Another expert.


So who's pitching for the Tribe tomorrow night?

From my old pal, Don Surber.

.

Trump's first year, 2.3% growth. Obama's first year, economy shrank 2.8%

Despite a record $700 billion bank bailout, a $50 billion bailout of GM and Chrysler, and a $787 billion stimulus, the American economy shrank 2.8% in Obama's first year in the Oval Office.

Trump cut regulations and president over a 2.3% expansion of the economy in his first year.

That was up from the pathetic 1.5% growth in Obama's final year.

.

http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/03/t ... l?spref=tw