“President Trump took to Twitter Saturday to attack the latest barrage of investigations and subpoena threats from his political opponents on Capitol Hill,” Politico reports. In his Saturday tweets, the president repeated claims that the Mueller investigation was run by “13 Angry Trump hating Dems” who found no wrongdoing by him after spending “$30 million.” He added that the 22-month long probe was a “total waste of time.”
Then he should have no problem releasing the report to show us all how exonerating it is.
President Trump said he had not read special counsel Robert Mueller’s report investigating contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia that his Democratic opponents say should be released in full, Reuters reports. Said Trump: “I have not read the Mueller Report yet, even though I have every right to do so. Only know the conclusions, and on the big one, No Collusion.”
He’ll never read it because it doesn’t pictures.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he will start extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank if re-elected prime minister in the election on April 9, Haaretz reports.
Said Netanyahu: “A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years, no prime minister has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny.”
Associated Press: “Pichone voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016 and said she may vote for a third party again if Sanders doesn’t clinch the nomination.”
“She’s emblematic of a persistent group of Sanders supporters who won’t let go of the slights — real and perceived — from the last campaign. The frustration is notable now that Sanders is a 2020 front-runner, raking in $18.2 million in the first quarter, downplaying concerns about DNC bias and highlighting his success in bringing the party around on liberal policies it once resisted.”
“Some establishment-aligned Democrats worry the party could lose in 2020 if lingering concerns about the last primary aren’t put to bed.”
When you read this story, it becomes clear that, for these Sanders supporters, any result that doesn’t give Bernie a coronation this time will be illegitimate and the result of cheating. They sound like Trump.
What is he hiding? I won’t vote for him in the general election unless he releases 10 years of tax returns.
New York Times: “Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found ‘suspicious elements’ in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.”
“Barely three months into her second turn in charge, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already mapped out a plan to overwhelm Republicans in the 2020 elections,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Pelosi: “I’m going to have our races won by this November.”
“Yes, the House speaker predicted that she will have locked down the majority a full year ahead of schedule, leaving the political battlefield to what she considers an intense presidential race all the way up to November 2020.”
Former Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) died on Saturday, The State reports. He was 97.
“Better known as ‘Fritz’ Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat served in the state’s House of Representatives before becoming Lieutenant Governor in 1954. He was elected governor of the state in 1958. He won a special election for one of South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seats in 1966 where he served until 2003.”
Charleston Post & Courier: “In a career that spanned more than half a century, Hollings steered South Carolina through the civil rights era, established a program to feed poor pregnant women, enacted legislation to protect the environment and brought home millions of dollars as he also fought to balance the federal budget. No recent history of the state could be written without him in it.”
“One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States… is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad’, where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens.”
— Former President Barack Obama, quoted by The Guardian.
“A bill to let gun owners legally carry handguns without obtaining a state-issued license is dead after an activist, upset that the measure had stalled, was met last week by state troopers outside the Lake Jackson home of House Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R),” the Austin American Statesmanreports.
Bonnen said that the activist’s “gutless intimidation tactics” exposed no-license carry as a bad idea, dooming the legislation.
He added: “I could no longer watch as legislators and their families are incessantly harassed by fanatical gun-rights activists who think laws preventing criminals from carrying a gun should be repealed.”
Playbook: “There is a behind-the-scenes staffing tug-of-war in Iowa between Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg that likely will happen in other states as well. As both near officially entering the race, they are late to the operative game.”
“Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker laid the earliest organizational groundwork and others who have joined the field have scooped up top flight hires. One Democratic consultant said that while Buttigieg is capturing a new wave of excitement, Biden could have the upper hand because of long-term loyalties and relationships.”
Politico: “Do Democrats have to begin the process of impeaching President Trump in order to access special counsel Robert Mueller’s secrets? That legal debate began raging inside the House Judiciary Committee on Friday after a new federal court ruling suggested that Congress’ access to some confidential evidence — like the kind obtained by Mueller — hinges on lawmakers launching a ‘judicial proceeding.’
“Republicans on the committee say the only ‘judicial proceeding’ Congress can lead is an impeachment inquiry — a claim they say is backed up by legal precedent and history. Democrats would have to launch one against Trump if they want Mueller’s grand jury evidence, Republicans say. That interpretation would be problematic for Democratic leaders in Congress, who have little interest in launching a politically explosive impeachment process at the moment.”
House Democrats have filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing President Donald Trump from spending more money than Congress has approved to erect barriers along the southwestern border. Democrats say Trump’s attempt to transfer billions of dollars from several programs to wall construction violates the Constitution, which gives Congress control over spending. The 45-page complaint was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls Trump’s act a “brazen assault” on the Constitution. Attorneys general from 20 states, plus environmental and progressive groups, have filed other lawsuits aimed at blocking the transfers.