The Senate budget bill is a surprise on many fronts. It ignored Donald Trump’s threat to oppose it. It’s for two years. It raises spending by about $300 billion. It’s bipartisan. And a day after threatening to oppose any bill that didn’t include Trump’s immigration plan, Trump is now fully in support of a bill that doesn’t — you’re ahead of me on this, I bet — include any part of Trump’s immigration plan. Via The New York Times.
The biggest question about the Senate budget bill, writes Elaina Plott in The Atlantic, is whether Paul Ryan can bring it home in the House. One vote he won’t get, though, belongs to Nancy Pelosi, who spent a little more than eight hours on the House floor speaking in support of the Dreamers. And she did it in four-inch heels. To get the votes in the Senate, Mitch McConnell promised an open debate on the Dreamers. Ryan isn’t promising anything at all. Via The Los Angeles Times.
If you want to know why many conservatives are opposing the Senate budget compromise, The National Review has it all for you. You can start, of course, with the money.
This will not surprise you, but it took no time at all for the latest all-caps, FBI-Obama-Clinton conspiracy theory from Trumpworld to be proven wrong. Trump himself tweeted that the latest FBI texts are BOMBSHELLS! Except, of course, they’re not, despite what you may hear on Fox. In fact, they’re yet another dud. Via Vox.
Rob Porter, a top White House aide, resigns after two former wives accused him of physical and emotional abuse. And only after Chief of Staff John Kelly, who had at first convinced Porter not to quit, had publicly defended him. Porter finally resigned after photos of one ex-wife’s blackened eye appeared. Via The Washington Post.
Ruth Marcus writes in The Washington Post that we should look at the blackened eye and then demand to know what happened and to know how John Kelly was defending Rob Porter even after receiving FBI reports.
The problem with Trump’s make-America-great-again military parade idea is that, with our country’s well-known military might, this parade is not the American way. Via The New Yorker.
Lawrence Summers writes that Jay Powell’s real challenge as the new head of the Federal Reserve is how to help successfully guide an economy from a position of strength. It’s harder than you might think. Via Financial Times.
In the city where celebrity is still the most important currency, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, maybe the least-known billionaire in town, has purchased the Los Angeles Times. Now the question is whether he can do what well-known billionaire Jeff Bezos has done for The Washington Post. Via The New York Times.
Wow…looks like a repeat of the tax cut and spend Bush years. Republicans once again get out the credit cards to pay for their spending…once again pushing the Deficit over the trillion dollar A YEAR mark. Thanks a lot…and so much for “fiscal conservatism”…cause Republicans own the Debt.
The swamp just keeps getting bigger….
Patriotism lives!!! Nebraska quarterback Zach Darlington is leaving the Huskers to join the Army. In explaining his decision Darlington said that as a child he had two dreams, one was to play college football and the other was to serve his country. And while at least one academic considers those who join the military “the lowest of the low” it’s refreshing to see that outside of academia that opinion is rejected.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/nebraska-qb-is-leaving-team-for-awesome-reason/ar-BBIwkNR?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UP97DHP
While one so-called journalist cavalierly dismissed the House Intelligence Committee memo as having “no there there” other far more respected and widely read news sources disagree. A Wall Street Journal editorial says the memo “reports disturbing facts about how the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reckoning-for-the-fbi-1517617641?shareToken=stb91574105cc048c897828759fb4c6d44&reflink=article_email_share
The Federalist also has found quite a bit of there there and outline 7 of the biggest bombshells from the same memo other less informed “journalists” have stubbornly ignored.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/02/the-7-biggest-bombshells-in-the-house-intel-memo-on-fisa-abuses/
New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin—-who obviously read the declassified House memo with his eyes open—-suggests it means “The Washington swamp — the deep state — is bigger, more vicious and more dangerous to American liberty than even a cynic could have imagined.”
https://nypost.com/2018/02/03/the-gop-memo-proves-the-deep-state-is-real/
Ever wonder how one journalist can completely dismiss a report other journalist find shocking? Well, so did columnist Robert W. Merry who concludes that “The country’s liberal establishment has joined ranks in dismissing the memo. This intense spin was on full display even before the memo was released, and then reached full flower afterward. The hysteria reflects a recent development in American politics whereby disturbing facts and suspicions, if they contradict the embraced narrative, are simply ignored or dismissed….” And if that ignore-what-you-can’t-explain technique sounds familiar to Colorado Independent readers, well, it should.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/colorado-mourns-3rd-officer-killed-since-new-years-eve/ar-BBIL5kU?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=UP97DHP
The Hill is reporting “Republicans are feeling better about their prospects in the midterm elections, buoyed by recent polls that show their numbers improving.” It’s unclear whether the results of those polls have reached the Colorado Independent.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/372101-gop-growing-optimistic-about-midterm-chances
Thanks for reporting for duty with this week’s propaganda Comrade Don!
Hint: It takes about two seconds to find these articles referenced directly from far right wingnut websites. Do you have any friends online that aren’t Russian bots?