Alaska About Equality And You'll Say Sure

Voters in Anchorage, Alaska have rejected a local "bathroom bill", showing that good ol' West-Of-The-Rockies "to each their own" does come in handy every now and again.

Anchorage voters have rejected an initiative that would have regulated access to restrooms and locker rooms by a person's sex at birth instead of gender identity, a local version of what's known nationally as a "bathroom bill" that sparked massive spending by an opposition campaign.

The latest election results released Friday show Proposition 1 was failing by a six-point margin, with 77,766 ballots counted. There are fewer than 1,000 ballots left to be counted, election officials said.

Opponents of Prop. 1 declared victory Friday night. Lillian Lennon, an organizer with the Fair Anchorage campaign and a transgender woman, read the results aloud to a small group assembled at the city's election headquarters on Ship Creek.

"It means that Anchorage stood together as one community against a discriminatory proposition," Lennon said in an interview later.

Fair Anchorage raised more than $800,000 toward advertising, consulting services, phone banking, events and other campaign activities, making it one of the most expensive campaigns in the city's history. The records indicate a large infusion of Outside cash from various donors.

The city has fought bitter battles over LGBT rights in the past, most recently in 2012.

Good on you, Anchorage.  It's nice to be reminded that Sarah Palin isn't every Alaskan more than Rand Paul is every Kentuckian.

Immigration Nation, Con't

I've long said that the endgame of the Trump regime's immigration policy is to effectively end immigration, legal or otherwise, and begin mass deportation procedures of undocumented immigrants as the infrastructure to detain and process millions of people as enemies of the state is created to do just that.

We took yet another step towards that reality this week with new edicts from Dear Leader.

The Trump administration announced two measures late Friday to further restrict illegal border crossings.

The president issued a presidential memorandum ending a policy commonly called "catch and release," which released illegal immigrants from detention as they awaited an immigration court hearing.

The memo directs various government agencies, the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice and Defense to report within 45 days on measures they are taking to end "catch and release."

For example, the Defense Department is instructed to identify all existing facilities, including military sites, that can be "used, modified, or repurposed to detain aliens for violations of immigration law" at or near U.S. borders.

Within 60 days, the Departments of State and Homeland Security will report on diplomatic efforts to force countries to accept the repatriation of their nationals.

Within 75 days, the attorney general and secretary of homeland security will submit a report identifying additional resources needed to "expeditiously end catch and release practices."

Considering illegal border crossings are actually at a near 50-year low, all that new infrastructure will have to be turned inward.

Earlier in the day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy toward people trying to enter the United States from Mexico illegally by targeting first-time offenders. Traditionally, people who were caught trying to cross the border for the first time were charged with misdemeanor crimes.

Now Sessions says, under a "zero tolerance" policy, illegal entry should be prosecuted to the "extent practicable." The order contained few specifics on how that policy will be implemented.

As The Associated Press reports:

"A conviction for illegal entry carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison for first-time crossers and two years for repeat offenses. In practice, many are deported after pleading guilty and spending a few days in jail. ...

"Smugglers and frequent offenders are usually charged with more serious crimes."

Sessions' order comes on the heels of his instruction to immigration judges, who are employees of the Justice Department, to meet a quota of 700 completed immigration cases each year. That order is being opposed by the president of the immigration judges' union.

None of this is accidental, guys.  The Trump regime is constructing the means to round up, detain, process and deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the US.  This infrastructure will be used, and used in brutal fashion sooner than you think.  Some of it is already being used, and when the last logistical, social, and legal barriers to full implementation are removed over the next weeks and months, the storm will come with startling alacrity.

How much we can do in order to stop it depends largely on November's elections.

Environment Of Paranoia

Embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt is under heavy pressure to resign (or to be fired by Trump) for the only actual punishable sin in this regime, making Donald Trump look bad.  Turns out even some Republicans are uncomfortable at how incompetent Pruitt is at grifting badly enough to get caught.

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes.

Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is more than three times the size of his predecessor’s part-time security contingent.

New details in Pruitt’s expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps that have imperiled his job.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company.

An EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt’s security spending says Perrotta oversaw a rapid expansion of the EPA chief’s security detail to accommodate guarding him day and night, even on family vacations and when Pruitt was home in Oklahoma. The EPA official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Perrotta also signed off on new procedures that let Pruitt fly first-class on commercial airliners, with the security chief typically sitting next to him with other security staff farther back in the plane. Pruitt’s premium status gave him and his security chief access to VIP airport lounges.

The EPA official said there are legitimate concerns about Pruitt’s safety, given public opposition to his rollbacks of anti-pollution measures.

But Pruitt’s ambitious domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.

The EPA official said total security costs approached $3 million when pay is added to travel expenses.

Millions in wasted taxpayer dollars is one thing, wasting even more in an effort to reassign personnel in an effort to cover up your waste and excess is to be expected if not encouraged in 2018, but wasting time and money because it makes you look like a wimp and that ends up embarrassing Trump, well, that's the real strike here against Pruitt in this day and age.

Last Call For The Friday Night News Dump™

Friday evening, where bad news for the GOP goes to die unnoticed (hopefully they think) but it never does, of course.  Today's contestant: Texas GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold, who was already retiring this year after a sexual harassment scandal where he settled an $84,000 claim using taxpayer money, has now abruptly resigned from the House this afternoon.

Since being elected to Congress in 2010, I've worked to make government more efficient and responsive, cut government spending, repeal Obamacare, protect life and reduce the debt. Locally, I've worked tirelessly to get federal funding for the widening and deepening project at the Port of Corpus Christi and help our other area ports and military facilities. I've also been extremely successful in working with our communities on recovering from Hurricane Harvey. Most importantly, I've been able to help countless people, especially veterans with their problems with the federal government. 

"While I planned on serving out the remainder of my term in Congress, I know in my heart it's time for me to move along and look for new ways to serve. 

Therefore, I sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott today resigning from the House of Representatives effective at 5:00 p.m. today, April 6, 2018.

Several Republicans were already vying for his seat, and even with the midterm losses that the GOP will undoubtedly suffer this year, Farenthold's TX-27 seat isn't going to be one of them.

Which makes me wonder very much why he's getting out now.  Politico hinted a couple of weeks ago that this was coming.

Tales of allegations of misbehavior in Farenthold's office first surfaced late last year. Lauren Greene, a former aide to Farenthold, sued the Texas Republican for creating a hostile work environment, gender discrimination and sexual harassment. She said Farenthold told her he had fantasies and "wet dreams" about her. After complaining about the behavior, Greene said she was fired. 

CNN reported last year that Michael Rekola, another former aide to the Texan, told the Ethics Committee that Farenthold was verbally abusive to him. He said that the congressman suggested Rekola have oral sex with his fiancee before their marriage because it would be the last time he would be able to do so. Farenthold denied making those comments. 

Farenthold said in December he would repay the $84,000 in taxpayer funds used to settle the lawsuit. It is not clear if he has.

So we'll see when the other shoe drops, but it's not a real mystery: the faster he resigns, the faster he gets on board with FOX News and the right-wing gravy train. Just ask former GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz.   There's going to be a flood of lame duck GOP Representatives on the market in a few months, so he's acting now.

Now that a budget bill has passed, expect a lot more Republicans to hang it up.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

More major leaks from the Mueller probe as somebody is very interested in keeping Mueller's actions in the news and publicly so to prevent a Saturday Night Massacre firing spree.  The best way to do that is to show Mueller closing on on Trump's shady business deals and money laundering schemes to keep Trump in panic mode, and so far it's working.

No new indictments yet, but plenty of additional details today on a previous indictment: Paul Manafort is in a metric crapton of trouble and almost certainly is going to flip if he hasn't already.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office moved to seize bank accounts at three different financial institutions last year just one day before former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was indicted, prosecutors disclosed in a court filing Thursday.

The previously unknown move against the bank accounts was revealed in a list of search and seizure warrants prosecutors submitted to a federal court in Washington after Manafort's defense team complained that the government was withholding too many details about how the warrants were obtained.

The new filing also indicated that Mueller's investigators have been pressing on with their work in recent weeks despite the pair of indictments pending against Manafort and a detailed indictment in February of the Russia-based Internet Research Agency and a dozen Russian nationals for alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

On March 9, the special counsel's office obtained a search warrant for information related to "five telephone numbers controlled by AT&T," the prosecution said. It did not reveal who the numbers belonged to, although it said some information about the search was given to Manafort's defense on Wednesday, so presumably there is some connection to the veteran political consultant who held a top role in the Trump campaign for several months in 2016.

Prosecutors said some information about the various searches was withheld from Manafort because it relates to the identity of informants or "to ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving Manafort." POLITICO reported in January that an errant court filing by the defense indicated that at least one employee of a Manafort consulting firm was surreptitiously cooperating with the FBI and journalists.

This is how good Mueller is at this game, it's not a leak if Manafort's defense team is requesting additional information from the prosecution in order to prepare said defense and Mueller just so happens to get that information in a public filing that just so happens to inform a whole bunch of journalists that new wiretaps have been requested, because the defense team's client just so happens to be possibly involved in charges that haven't been announced yet because they just so happen to involve a new aspect of the Mueller investigation, and that wiretap request supporting those new charges just so happened to be as recent as last month. 

It's all an amazing coincidence, you know.

Paul Manafort is going away for a very long time, kids.  He's in so much trouble at this point I'd have to say that the window on him flipping may already be closed.  But that would mean Mueller has a even bigger fish on the line and that Manafort's usefulness has come to an end.

You think Tangerine Tyrant Toddler is sweating yet?

If he's not, just a reminder that while Trump's long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen is currently under a lot of legal scrutiny for his conduct involving $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels, Cohen was also Trump's personal lawyer during the 2016 campaign and was apparently deeply involved in the money laundering aspect of Mueller's ongoing probe.  Meet the bigger fish...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators this week questioned an associate of the Trump Organization who was involved in overseas deals with President Donald Trump’s company in recent years.

Armed with subpoenas compelling electronic records and sworn testimony, Mueller’s team showed up unannounced at the home of the business associate, who was a party to multiple transactions connected to Trump’s effort to expand his brand abroad, according to persons familiar with the proceedings.

Investigators were particularly interested in interactions involving Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney and a former Trump Organization employee. Among other things, Cohen was involved in business deals secured or sought by the Trump Organization in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia.

The move to question business associates of the president adds a significant new element to the Mueller investigation, which began by probing whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded in an effort to get Trump elected but has branched far beyond that.

It’s unclear how many properties or deals the Mueller team might be looking at; the Trump Organization’s foreign business relationships span the globe from properties in Panama, Brazil and Uruguay to Azerbaijan and Georgia. Trump’s children — Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric — were parties to talks involving many of the dealings. Generally, the discussions revolved around licensing fees for use of the Trump name.

Prior indictments and guilty pleas secured by the Mueller team to date have focused on campaign personnel such as ex-campaign chief Paul J. Manafort, his aide Richard Gates and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The New York Times reported on March 15 that Mueller had subpoenaed unspecified records from the Trump Organization. Days before that, the Washington Post reported that Mueller’s team was looking into a Moscow hotel deal for which Cohen brought to Donald Trump a letter of intent from a Moscow developer during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen left the Trump Organization in January 2017, and has been front-page news of late because of his acknowledgement that he paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the November 2016 elections through a company established for the purpose of buying her silence with a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels has sought to toss out that agreement, appearing last month on a 60 Minutes broadcast to describe her alleged 2006 extramarital affair with then-businessman Trump. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Thursday, Trump denied knowledge of the payment to Daniels, deferring to Cohen.

“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney,” Trump said. “You’ll have to ask Michael.”

Cohen and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump's already throwing Cohen under his golf cart.  I bet Cohen wants to return the favor, especially if motivated by a long involuntary stint in decidedly substandard concrete federal housing.

I've been saying that Mueller's next round of indictments would focus on Jared Kushner, but looking at this I'd have to say that Michael Cohen may very well be the next target instead.  Having Trump's personal lawyer flip would be the golden arrow in Mueller's quiver on everything else he wants to nail Trump on, and could be an even more important get for Mueller than Kushner in the long run.

We'll see.  Stay tuned, kids.  It's gonna be a long weekend for Trump.

StupidiNews!

• The Trump regime is considering a new round of an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods as the trade war between the US and China is only getting worse.
• Donald Trump is once again lying about "millions of illegal votes" in California, accusing the state of covering up voting records in order to protect Democratic politicians.
• Oklahoma Republicans are considering raising hotel, internet sales and gambling income taxes to pay striking schoolteachers a proposed $10,000 raise over three years.
• Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been sentenced to 24 years in prison on corruption charges after her impeachment last year, she is expected to appeal. 
• Video game makers are joining the lawsuit by Democratic attorneys general to keep net neutrality rules, the Entertainment Software Association argues repealing those rules harms online gaming.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and Kentucky Republicans are about to raise taxes on 95% of Kentuckians in order to give millions to the wealthiest one percent in the state.  Surprise!

A new study of the tax bill rushed through the Kentucky General Assembly Monday shows the changes it makes to the tax code are likely to lower taxes for the wealthy while raising taxes for 95 percent of Kentuckians. 

The analysis, performed by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington D.C., a liberal-leaning think tank, studied the impact of the tax cuts and increases on Kentuckians. 

The bill applies Kentucky’s 6 percent sales tax to 17 services, increases the cigarette tax by 50 cents per pack, and cuts the individual and corporate income tax to a flat 5 percent tax. It also cuts some typical tax deductions, including those for medical expenses, medical insurance, paid taxes and investment income. 

“When sales taxes are increased, it’s going to hit lower-income people harder,” said Aidan Davis, a senior policy analyst with the institute. 

According to the study, the top 1 percent of Kentuckians will see an average tax cut of $7,086 from the plan. People who make between $175,000 and $427,000 a year are likely to see an average tax cut of $776. Anyone who makes below $175,000 is likely to see a tax increase of $93 to $213. 

The bulk of the increase for Kentuckians comes from the sales tax.

The hardest hit dollar-wise: Kentuckians making between $55,000 and  $92,000 will see their taxes go up by an average of $213 a year.  Percentage-wise, the bill is a nearly 1% tax increase on the poorest people in the state just to save millionaires a lousy seven grand.

Also if you still get your insurance and retirement plan through your employer, congratulations, you won't be able to deduct as much for it so you'll be paying more taxes on those benefits as well.

So go for it Matt Bevin, sign into law the biggest tax increase on Kentuckians in state history.

Watch what happens to you in 2019.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Republicans like Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker are in full panic mode now as they are warning that they expect massive carnage for Republicans in November. Steve Benen:

Ordinarily, a state Supreme Court race wouldn’t garner national attention, but yesterday’s contest in Wisconsin was anything but a local affair.

Liberal judge Rebecca Dallet’s runaway victory in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race cheered Democrats eager for more evidence their party is ready for a winning fall in midterm elections.

And Dallet’s hammering of conservative judge Michael Screnock on Tuesday prodded Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who had endorsed Screnock, to warn his fellow Republicans that more losses could be coming.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, her victory marked “the first time in 23 years that a liberal candidate who wasn’t an incumbent won a seat on the high court.” What’s more, it wasn’t close: as of the latest tally, Dallet appears to have won this race by nearly 12 points.

Scott Walker, who’s running for a third term this year, pointed to the results as proof that a “blue wave” may be coming to Wisconsin.

The latest Cook Political Report numbers for the House are grim for the GOP, seven pickups and anywhere from 40 to 66 more Republican districts in play, including 21 GOP tossup districts, and it's only April.

Dems could pick up as many as seven seats in Pennsylvania alone. Another nine could come from California, five in New York, and four in Texas.  Just those four states alone could give the Dems the numbers they need to take back the House.

Now imagine what could happen in the other 46.

StupidiNews!

• Donald Trump will keep US troops in Syria for now after advisors warned against an immediate withdrawal but reportedly he has given the Pentagon six months to "get the job done".
• Four NYPD officers fatally shot a black man in Brooklyn who was holding a metal pipe, police officials say the shooting is being investigated and body camera footage reviewed.
• The Trump regime reportedly plans new sanctions against Russian oligarchs under laws Congress passed directing the Treasury Department to take action against Moscow's elite.
• Citing a "border crisis" the Trump regime will direct the Defense Department to come up with a plan to send National Guard troops to the US/Mexico border within 30 days.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company will voluntarily implement EU privacy standards for everyone after admitting as many as 87 million profiles may have been compromised.

Last Call For Can You Hear Me Now?

Somebody's secretly eavesdropping on cell phones in the nation's capital, and nobody seems to know who it is.

The Department of Homeland Security has detected in the Washington area what appears to be the unauthorized use of a controversial technology that allows for the surreptitious surveillance of people’s cellphones — though it has not been able to pinpoint who or what is causing it, the department revealed in a letter released Tuesday. 

The technology, a cell-tower simulator commonly known as a StingRay, has been deployed for years by federal and local law enforcement to pinpoint suspects’ locations, though its unauthorized use in the Washington area raises fears that foreign adversaries might also be taking advantage of it to spy on U.S. citizens. 

The simulators work by tricking cellphones nearby to register with them, rather than normal cell towers. Once the device finds the phone it is seeking, it can pinpoint the phone’s location. Some versions of the technology can also be used to eavesdrop on calls. 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) had asked the DHS whether it had detected foreign governments using the devices in the national capital region and elsewhere. The department’s revelation came in response to his request, though it had not “validated or attributed such activity to specific entities or devices,” officials said. It also did not provide any details on what was detected, other than to say it was “activity” consistent with the cell-tower simulator devices. 

The development was first reported by the Associated Press.

The odds of DHS not knowing who this is is approximately zero, I can't imagine a foreign government wouldn't want these all over the DC area. Hell, the problem is there's dozens of countries who are probably running StingRay tech out of their embassies just like we are in our diplomatic outposts around the world, so this may very well be a case of too many suspects and more than one actual culprit.

I mean hell this could be DC police doing this or some government security contractor.  It's like Clue, everyone in the room has a motive for offing Mr. Boddy.  I'd be shocked if DHS wasn't detecting such activity.

The real reason is why this would be admitted by DHS.  This isn't just a can of worms to be opened, this is an entire worm farm with a baker's dozen special on giant annelids the size of tie ropes.  DHS could have said "That's classified as hell" and moved on but they actually admitted it.

We'll see where this goes, again, nobody should have been surprised at this.  StingRay tech has been around for a decade or so.

Begun, These Trade Wars Have, Con't

I talked earlier this week about Trump's Trade War™ with China and what it meant to Ohio, and Greg Sargent at the Washington Post backs up the general notion that Trump country voters are the ones who will pay first.

According to multiple reports, people in agricultural communities are on edge over President Trump’s trade war with China. Now that China has retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by announcing its own tariffs on more than 100 American products, fears of a serious escalation are becoming more real by the moment, with stocks sliding and companies registering their objections over Trump’s actions to the White House.

New data supplied to me by the Brookings Institution show that agricultural communities are right to worry about what’s happening. But that’s not all: The data also show that other targeted industries should be worried as well. And it reveals that those who are vulnerable to negative impacts from these trade tensions are mostly concentrated in counties carried by Trump, though a lot of them are in counties carried by Hillary Clinton as well. 

The Brookings data constitute a granular geographic look at what Trump’s trade war with China might mean. It breaks down the numbers of jobs in the seven industries producing the products targeted by China’s retaliatory actions, which include fresh and dried fruit and nut farming, stainless steel pipes, pork products, modified ethanol, scrap aluminum and wineries.

It's gonna hurt rural voters the most, period.  Not all are in Trump states, but a lot did vote for him.

The Brookings analysis — which is based on proprietary EMSI and Bureau of Labor Statistics data — shows that the largest sum of vulnerable jobs is in fruit and nut farming, with the majority concentrated in Trump counties. Most of the jobs in hog and pig farming and pipe production are also concentrated in Trump country. It’s only in wineries where Clinton counties have the most jobs.

Trump has flatly dismissed any worries over an escalation, claiming that trade wars are “easy to win” even as he rails nonsensically about trade deficits as a form of national humiliation. Trump views his tariffs as weapons in a zero-sum struggle for dominance, with little regard to the real world impact such a battle could have.

The big losers: rural Oregon and Washington State, Iowa, Michigan's lake counties, and California wine country.

But remember, that was the $3 billion in tariffs the Chinese announced on Monday.  Today, the Chinese went all in with $50 billion in tariffs to call Trump's bluff once again.

China said it would levy an additional 25 percent tariff on imports of 106 U.S. products including soybeans, automobiles, chemicals and aircraft, in response to proposed American duties on its high-tech goods.

Matching the scale of proposed U.S. tariffs announced the previous day, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said the charges will apply to around $50 billion of U.S. imports. Officials signaled that the implementation of the proposed measures will depend on when the U.S. applies its own after a period of public consultation.

The step ratchets up tension in a brewing trade war between the world’s two largest trading nations, with the Trump administration’s latest offensive based on alleged infringements of intellectual property in China. In targeting high-tech sectors that Beijing is openly trying to promote, the U.S. has provoked furious rhetoric from Beijing and stronger threats of retaliation than many had anticipated.

"China’s response was tougher than what the market was expecting -- investors didn’t foresee the country levying additional tariffs on sensitive and important products such as soybeans and airplanes," said Gao Qi, Singapore-based strategist at Scotiabank. "Investors believe a trade war will hurt both countries and their economies eventually."

More tariffs on both sides are coming.  Remember: Trump wants to eliminate nearly all of our $110 billion yearly trade deficit with China.   That's a lot of exports that will be harmed, and if you think inflation and the retail apocalypse is an issue now, wait until we're paying 25% higher prices on $50 billion plus in Chinese goods.

Bunker up, folks.  The economic disaster is coming.  If these tariffs go into effect on both sides, a lot of US jobs will go away in 2018, and it'll only be the beginning.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Don't look now, but Beto O'Rourke just might actually be able to beat Ted Cruz in November in Texas, and now we know O'Rourke already has got the money to do it.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, raised over $6.7 million for his U.S. Senate bid in the first quarter of 2018, according to his campaign, a staggering number that poses a new category of threat to Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. 

The haul is easily O'Rourke's biggest fundraising quarter yet, more than double his next-closest total for a three-month period. It also is more than any Democratic Senate candidate nationwide took in last quarter, O'Rourke's campaign said. 

Cruz has not released his first-quarter fundraising numbers yet, but O'Rourke's $6.7 million total is on a different level than his previous hauls, which ranged from $1.7 million to $2.4 million. Those alone were good enough to outraise Cruz for three of the last four reporting periods. 

Furthermore, the $6.7 million total came from more than 141,000 contributions — another record-busting number for O'Rourke.

Ted Cruz has got to be terrified at this point.  He knows that he's in for the fight of his life, and he could actually lose.

"Campaigning in a grassroots fashion while raising more than $6.7 million from 141,000 contributions, we are the story of a campaign powered by people who are standing up to special interests, proving that we are more than a match and making it clear that Texans are willing to do exactly what our state and country need of us at this critical time," O'Rourke said in a statement.

O'Rourke's campaign released the fundraising statistics Tuesday morning ahead of the April 15 deadline to report it to the Federal Election Commission. Cruz has not offered any numbers for the full quarter, though he disclosed raising $803,000 through the first 45 days of the year — a fraction of O'Rourke's $2.3 million for the same timeframe. 

On Tuesday morning, O'Rourke's team did not volunteer its cash-on-hand figure, but the $6.7 million raised is likely to go a long way toward closing his deficit with Cruz in money to spend. As of mid-February, O'Rourke had $4.9 million in the bank to Cruz's $6 million. 

O'Rourke unveiled the $6.7 million figure on the second day of a three-day, 12-city trip by Cruz to mark the official start of his re-election campaign. O'Rourke is also hitting the road — he plans to hold town halls in 15 cities over the next six days.

At this point, Cruz's seat is in play.  It's something the Democrats absolutely need to win if they have any chance of taking the Senate in a year where they need two pickups while having to defend ten Trump state Senate seats, and again, tens of millions of dollars are going to be spent by the GOP to knock out Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, and Joe Donnelly.

But guess what?  Ted Cruz is far from the only big name Republican in trouble whose Democratic challenger is raising big bucks to take them on.

The top Democrat challenging Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) raised $2.1 million during the first quarter of 2018, his campaign announced on Monday. 

Randy Bryce’s campaign said it has raised $4.75 million since last June and has nearly $2.3 million in cash on hand. 

The campaign also said it added 45,000 new donors since the beginning of the year.

Bryce’s bid to unseat Ryan in Wisconsin's 1st District began last June with a fundraising campaign that netted more than $100,000 in its first 24 hours. 

The ironworker raised $1 million in the third quarter of 2017 and had raised approximately $2.7 million by the end of 2017, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Randy Bryce has a much tougher battle than O'Rourke does, if you can believe that a Democrat in Texas has a better shot of winning than a Wisconsin one.  But Paul Ryan is the most prolific fundraiser in DC.  He raised an obscene $44 million last year and gave most of it to the RNC.  He's fighting Bryce with his pocket change and leftovers, and that's still tens of million of dollars.

Randy's going to need your help too. 

It's great if they win, but it can't come at the expense of the seats we already have in hand.  If we can hold the line here, we can finish off the GOP in 2020 and 2022.  Let's make sure we can keep the seats we do have in the House and Senate.

StupidiNews!

• Police in San Bruno, California say a 39-year-old woman named Nasim Aghdam attacked staffers at YouTube's headquarters yesterday afternoon and injured three before taking her own life.
• Donald Trump says Saudi Arabia needs to pay for troops in Syria as he plans to withdraw the US military from the country and post National Guard troops long-term on the US-Mexico border.
• China is matching Donald Trump's proposed $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese tech products with proposed 25% duties on US cars, aircraft, soybeans and chemicals as a full-scale trade war brews.
• Embattled electric automaker Tesla's first quarter sales numbers finally find the Model 3 as America's best-selling electric car, but that still leaves the company well behind planned 2018 sales numbers.
• Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan has settled an ACLU lawsuit over blocking constituent critics and removing comments on his official Facebook account.

Last Call For It's Mueller Time, Con't

The question rattling around Washington is who Mueller's next big indictment will be, and while I still believe the next major link in the chain is Jared Kushner, you can make the case that Roger Stone is now directly in Mueller's crosshairs too.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into claims made by Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone that he met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. 

WikiLeaks released thousands of documents during the 2016 campaign that U.S. intelligence agencies believe came from Russian operatives and were aimed to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

In an email to fellow former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg dated Aug. 4, 2016, Stone claims that he “dined with Julian Assange last night,” according to the Journal.
Nunberg told The Washington Post earlier this month that investigators working for Mueller asked him to describe his conversation with Stone about meeting with Assange.
Stone has said that the email was a joke and that he never spoke with Assange.

Mueller’s team investigating Russia's election meddling has asked about the email during testimony before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Stone said he was flying out to Los Angeles the night before he sent the email. The Journal confirmed that a flight from Miami to Los Angeles matches a screenshot of the flight information Stone provided, but could not confirm he was on it. 

Stone has been inconsistent about any contact he has had with Assange and WikiLeaks. He previously stated that he communicated with Assange but told the Journal on Friday that was not the case.

The Roger Stone/Julian Assange connection is bad news for Trump, and at this point Stone has lied so many times about it that he's not sure which story he has to keep straight anymore in order to avoid Mueller.  You can bet Stone's already been contacted, and Sam Nunberg has already given Stone up.

There's no real doubt that WikiLeaks is being used as a Russian front for intelligence laundering at this point, and since we now know that the Guccifer 2.0 hack was a product of Russian intelligence as well, the release of John Podesta's emails in order to attack the Clinton campaign was no accident.

But that was just the warm-up.  We now know why Trump has been attacking Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos on Twitter, Bezos owns the Washington Post, and the paper just dropped this bombshell this evening.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III informed President Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors view someone as a subject when that person has engaged in conduct that is under investigation but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.

The special counsel also told Trump’s lawyers that he is preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

Mueller reiterated the need to interview Trump — both to understand whether he had any corrupt intent to thwart the Russia investigation and to complete this portion of his probe, the people said.

Mueller’s description of the president’s status has sparked friction within Trump’s inner circle as his advisers have debated his legal standing. The president and some of his allies seized on the special counsel’s words as an assurance that Trump’s risk of criminal jeopardy is low. Other advisers, however, noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets — and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting Trump into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.

John Dowd, Trump’s top attorney dealing with the Mueller probe, resigned last month amid disputes about strategy and frustration that the president ignored his advice to refuse the special counsel’s request for an interview, according to a Trump friend.

Trump’s chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, and Dowd declined to comment for this report. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions to White House attorney Ty Cobb.

“Thank you, but I don’t discuss communications with the president or with the Office of Special Counsel,” Cobb said Tuesday.

If you want to know the reason for "Trump's war on Amazon" it's because of this story, 99.997% chance.  Trump actually wants this interview, his ego won't allow him not to talk to Mueller, and his lawyers know full well if he does he's going to be screwed.

The problem is of course is if he doesn't, he's still screwed.

Stay tuned.  I told you things were moving quickly and they are.

Bibi's Big Deal Breaks Down

In a sign of just how precarious the political situation of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is right now as he faces a massive bribery and corruption scandal and calls for resignation as well as growing international pressure after Israel's deadly response to Gaza protests in the last few days, it's no surprise then that a deal with the UN to resettle African migrants in order to prevent the deportation of tens of thousands has collapsed hours after being announced when Netanyahu's own party made it very clear that such a deal would lead to his ouster.

In a head-spinning turnaround, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced on Monday that he had reached an extraordinary deal with the United Nations refugee agency to resettle thousands of African asylum seekers in Western countries. Within hours Mr. Netanyahu suspended the deal after coming under heavy criticism from his coalition partners.

The flip-flop appeared to reflect Mr. Netanyahu’s fear of losing support from those partners or from his right-wing constituency, who call the asylum seekers infiltrators and want them gone. His opponents on the left described the prime minister’s behavior as an embarrassing and cowardly surrender under pressure.

Mr. Netanyahu, who is battling for his political future under the cloud of multiple corruption scandals and faces possible charges of bribery, had apparently failed to consult with most of his own conservative Likud Party colleagues or coalition allies before announcing the migrant deal.

If the deal with the United Nations refugee agency bought Israel some international good will, diverting attention from Friday’s flare-up along the border with Gaza when Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians and wounded many more, the effect was short-lived.

The agreement with the United Nations was meant to replace a contentious Israeli plan that had offered the migrants a stark choice: forced deportation to Africa or prison. That plan fell through after Rwanda, the African country meant to receive the deportees, announced that it would accept only those who left Israel voluntarily.

In the afternoon, in a televised news conference, Mr. Netanyahu triumphantly announced the new deal, under which the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees committed to persuading countries in the West to take at least 16,250 migrants over five years, while Israel would grant official status as temporary residents to most who remained.

Estimates of the population of African asylum seekers in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, range from 35,000 to 39,000.

But the agreement to let many stay in Israel drew harsh criticism from some of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition allies, who were taken by surprise. Naftali Bennett, the education minister and leader of the far-right Jewish Home party, said the deal would “turn Israel into an infiltrator’s paradise.”

Mr. Netanyahu backtracked.

In a late-night Facebook post he said he was “attentive” to critics and wanted to explain the sequence of events. Rwanda, he said, had withdrawn from its agreement with Israel under pressure from the New Israel Fund — a nonprofit organization that promotes liberal democracy in Israel and is loathed by the right wing here — and “elements in the European Union.”

He said he was suspending the deal with the United Nations refugee agency pending a meeting on Tuesday morning with the veteran residents of south Tel Aviv, where many of the African migrants are concentrated, and that he would then review the understandings reached with the agency.

I'm no trained expert on Israeli politics, but given the situation it's painfully obvious that Netanyahu was given an ultimatum by the right wing of his coalition that he drop the deal or his government was over.  Given the embarrassing speed of his retreat after signing the deal, Netanyahu may have used up the last of his political capital here and could now be in an untenable position.

We'll see where this goes, as now the equally important question as to Bibi's fate is the fate of the tens of thousands of African refugees in the country, but my guess is the clock may finally be up on Netanyahu's term and soon.  No matter what he does at this point, he's in a corner and any action he takes will only lead to calls for his head.

Don't rule out anything at this point, including major military action in Gaza and/or the West Bank.