March 29, 2019

Jay Inslee becomes third presidential candidate to release tax returns

MARCH 29, 2019 / 12:21 PM / AP

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to release his tax returns, while bashing President Donald Trump for refusing such a disclosure.

"It's time for him to come clean with the American people," Inslee said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," adding that he was issuing his challenge on the Republican president's "favorite show," a nod to Mr. Trump's habit of watching the network's morning show and often tweeting in response.

Mr. Trump first refused such disclosure as a candidate ahead of his 2016 election, saying he was under audit. Mr. Trump's business dealings and his now-shuttered foundation have been the subject of various investigations and Democratic attacks.

Still, Inslee, who announced his campaign at the beginning of this month, is just the third announced Democratic White House contender to release his personal returns, joining Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jay-inslee-becomes-third-presidential-candidate-to-release-tax-returns/

March 29, 2019

Is There a Second Mueller Report?

March 29, 2019 at 10:18 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Just Security: “If the report delivered by Mueller to Barr didn’t include the counterintelligence piece of Mueller’s investigation (or included only pieces of intelligence directly relevant to the potential criminal conspiracy), where is that body of counterintelligence analysis? How else might it get shared with Congress or the public?”

“One possibility emerged within 24 hours of Barr’s letter going to Congress. ‘Senior officials’ told news outlets that the FBI anticipates briefing congressional leaders on Mueller’s counterintelligence findings. Oral briefings, rather than written findings, provided in closed session may have been deemed by Mueller more appropriate given genuine classification concerns—especially if aspects of the investigation remain ongoing and transferred to a different part of the Justice Department with Mueller’s office winding down.”

###

https://politicalwire.com/2019/03/29/is-there-a-second-mueller-report/

March 29, 2019

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: Obama 'Looked Straight At Me and Said I'm Proud Of You'

by Julio Rosas | Mar 29th, 2019, 10:41 am

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) posted on her Twitter account Wednesday the picture she took with former President Barack Obama.

Obama recently met with freshman Democratic representatives and Tlaib said that the “best part was when he looked straight at me and said, ‘I’m proud of you”:

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1111413716057128960

The picture has been met with mixed reactions:

https://twitter.com/marklevinshow/status/1111604281738756096
https://twitter.com/AdrBell/status/1111424256305356801

more
https://www.mediaite.com/online/rep-rashida-tlaib-obama-looked-straight-at-me-and-said-im-proud-of-you/

March 29, 2019

Trump Threatens to Close Border Next Week 'If Mexico Doesn't Immediately Stop All Illegal...

Source: Mediaite



Trump Threatens to Close Border Next Week ‘If Mexico Doesn’t Immediately Stop All Illegal Immigration’

by Colby Hall | Mar 29th, 2019, 11:54 am 676

President Donald Trump revealed in a late Friday morning tweet storm that unless Mexico immediately and completely end all illegal immigration into the United States, he plans to close down the border, or large sections of the border, next week.

While Fox News’ morning show Fox & Friends warned of a “Mother of All Caravans” gathering in the coming days, illegal immigration appears to have risen back to the top of the list of issues the White House is eager to talk about.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1111650176345800705
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1111653530316746752
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1111655194658508800

It’s not clear what the exact meaning of this presidential fiat means, as Mexico cannot literally be held accountable to ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States — southern border or not — though Trump is certainly talking about undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Trump took a significant political hit just a few months ago when he effectively shut down the government over the lack of funding he requested for building a border wall. Since then he has declared a national emergency to release his much-desired funds, though practically speaking, that effort has not been effective as it tied up in legislative and legal delays.

###

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-threatens-to-close-border-entirely-if-mexico-doesnt-end-illegal-immigration-by-next-week/

March 29, 2019

GOP congressman tries to get Russia experts to accuse Adam Schiff of helping Putin

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1111281265754300416

March 29, 2019

G.O.P. Cruelty Is a Pre-existing Condition - By Paul Krugman

Republicans just won’t stop trying to take away health care.

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

March 28, 2019

It’s already clear how the 2020 election campaign will be waged. Republicans will claim, falsely, that Democrats want to take away your hamburgers. Democrats will assert, truthfully, that Republicans want to take away your health care.

I guess we’ll see which argument wins.

On Monday, the Trump administration adopted a new position on a lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act, telling a federal appeals court that it now supported the complete elimination of the law, which has made health insurance available to many Americans who wouldn’t have it otherwise.

We have a very good idea what would happen if this lawsuit were to succeed. Around 20 million Americans would lose health coverage.

While Donald Trump reportedly thinks that attacking the A.C.A. will please his base, the greatest devastation would actually come in states that strongly supported Trump in 2016, believing his promises that he would defend health care. In West Virginia, for example, 160,000 people — 11 percent of nonelderly adults — would see their health insurance snatched away.

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/trump-obamacare.html

March 29, 2019

Trump's North American trade deal at risk of stalling in Congress

By Erica Werner, David J. Lynch and Emily Rauhala March 29 at 7:46 AM

President Trump’s effort to rework a major trade deal with Canada and Mexico is showing signs of faltering on Capitol Hill, straining under a variety of angry complaints from lawmakers of both parties who won’t commit to backing the plan.

Trump reached agreement with Canada and Mexico last year to update the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. But Congress must approve the deal, and the White House has been unable to mollify the growing complaints.

The administration’s goal is to get the pact approved ahead of Congress’s annual August recess. It’s not clear if that timeline is realistic. But delaying action past Labor Day could greatly increase political risk because of the accelerating presidential campaign.

In the latest obstacle, key Republican senators including Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) have begun insisting stridently that Trump lift steel and aluminum tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico as a precondition to any congressional vote.

Grassley said in an interview Thursday that he’d made the case directly to Trump at a recent meeting, but that the president refused to budge. Nonetheless, Grassley predicted Trump would have no choice but to give in if he wants the new NAFTA deal — one of the signature promises of his presidential campaign — to advance.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/north-american-trade-deal-faces-early-headwinds-on-capitol-hill/2019/03/29/ef5b0d0c-5178-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html

March 29, 2019

Trump Reportedly Loves News Coverage That Shows Him Undermining Cabinet Members

by Aidan McLaughlin | Mar 29th, 2019, 8:40 am

President Donald Trump revels in news coverage that shows him “acting unilaterally” and undermining his cabinet members, according to a new report from Axios.

Trump’s latest dunk on one of his own administration came Thursday, when he reversed a request to cut funding from the Special Olympics. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had spent two days getting pilloried after the administration requested billions in funding cuts to her department, including cutting $18 million in funding from the Special Olympics.

The authority to make those cuts lies with Congress, but that didn’t stop Trump from abruptly backtracking on administration’s request in comments to reporters, and declaring he had “just authorized a funding of the Special Olympics.”

“I have overridden my people,” he said. “We’re funding the Special Olympics.”

According to Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump relishes those sorts of moments, and he “loves to put aides in their place.”

“Administration officials past and present have told us that Trump savors news coverage that shows him acting unilaterally,” Swan reports. “Even — one source said especially — when it involved overriding members of his own administration.”

The list of officials Trump has publicly rebuked or humiliated is indeed lengthy: he constantly undermined former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and according to Swan, “used to enjoy telling people to ignore Tillerson and that he — the president — was the only one who mattered.”

more
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-reportedly-loves-news-coverage-that-shows-him-undermining-cabinet-members/

March 29, 2019

Trump Mocks Asylum Seekers Who Claim They Fear For Their Lives: 'A Big Fat Con Job'

Source: Mediaite



by Ken Meyer | Mar 29th, 2019, 8:23 am

As President Donald Trump spoke about immigration on Thursday at his campaign rally in Michigan, he launched into a tangent at one point where he mocked immigration lawyers and asylum seekers begging the United States to protect them.

As Trump bashed Democrats proposing amnesty for those fleeing desperate conditions in their homelands, he accused immigration lawyers of coaching migrants to tell U.S. officials “I am very afraid for my life. I am afraid for my life.”

“I look at the guy, he looks like he just got out of the ring, he’s the heavyweight champion of the world,” Trump said. “It’s a big fat con job, folks. A big fat con job.”

###

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-mocks-asylum-seekers-who-claim-they-fear-for-their-lives-a-big-fat-con-job/

---

Video at link, above.

March 29, 2019

9 Senate Democrats on whether they'd be willing to get rid of private health insurance

Medicare For All means eliminating almost all private insurance. That makes Senate Democrats nervous.

By Tara Golshan Mar 29, 2019, 8:10am EDT

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary has begun with a debate over abolishing (most) private health insurance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) Medicare-for-all proposal holds that private health insurance has to be eliminated for almost all medical care. In a CNN town hall, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) emphatically agreed with the idea, saying it’s time we “eliminate all of that,” though she’s expressed openness to more incremental proposals as well.

But other top Democrats have been more cautious. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who’s weighing a presidential campaign, has called Sanders’s plan “a bad opening offer.” Interviewed on Meet the Press, Bennet warned, “Remember when President Obama said, ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.’ And then a few people in America actually lost their insurance because of the way that the plan worked. Now what the Democrats are saying is, ‘If you like your insurance, we’re going to take it away from you.’”

Even Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who co-sponsored Sanders’s bill, sees some role for private insurance companies. “Even countries that have vast access to publicly offered health care still have private health care, so no.” he said.

more
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18283875/senate-democrats-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders