Top Items:


A Bill So Bad It's Awesome — It has long been obvious to anyone following health policy that Republicans would never devise a workable replacement for Obamacare. But the bill unveiled this week is worse than even the cynics expected; its awfulness is almost surreal.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Daily Kos and Washington Post
RELATED:


Trump Supporters Have the Most to Lose in the G.O.P. Repeal Bill — The people who stand to lose the most in tax credits under the House Republican health plan tended to support Donald J. Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to a new Upshot analysis.

The Republican Health Care Crackup — The Republican health care bill could represent the moment when the old order of American politics completely cracks up, the end of a certain era in American politics. — That era began around 1974, when Ted Kennedy introduced a bill …
Discussion:
Vox and Lawyers, Guns & Money

The GOP health-care plan would quietly kill the Medicaid expansion. Here's how.
Discussion:
CNN and John Hawkins' Right Wing News


Top Democrat sent letter to Mike Pence in November warning of Michael Flynn's Turkey lobbying — President Donald Trump was not aware that his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was being paid to lobby for Turkish interests in the months before the US election, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Thursday.
Discussion:
RedState, New York Times, Daily Kos, Associated Press, Betsy's Page, The Daily Beast and IJR
RELATED:


Paul Ryan PowerPoint Presentation: “This Is The Closest We Will Ever Get” To Obamacare Repeal

Speaker Ryan, this is not what conservative reform looks like
Discussion:
Power Line

Op-Ed Contributor: John Kasich: End the Partisan Warfare on Health Care
Discussion:
Political Insider blog and Politico

Treasury calls on Congress to raise debt limit, begins steps to delay default
Discussion:
Progress Pond


House Republicans would let employers demand workers' genetic test results — little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information.
Discussion:
Political Wire


Mexican foreign secretary goes straight to the White House, skips usual channels — Mexico's top diplomat came to Washington Thursday for meetings with the U.S. government, sidestepping the normal channels and heading straight for the White House. — Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray met …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, The Guardian, New York Magazine, Axios, Taylor Marsh and Political Wire
RELATED:

Why Is Mr. Tillerson in a Perpetual State of Duck and Cover?
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Just Security, New York Magazine and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »


Trump Points to Drudge's ‘Great Again’ Praise of New Jobs Report — President has primed his supporters for a huge jobs report — Donald Trump used the first federal jobs report reflecting a full month of his presidency to send a message: He's already making America great again.
Discussion:
The Rush Limbaugh Show, Media Matters for America, New York Times, CNBC, Shot in the Dark and Business Insider
RELATED:

Quick White House Twitter Reaction on Jobs Report May Break a Rule
Discussion:
USA Today, NPR, New York Magazine, CNBC, Politicus USA, Washington Free Beacon and The Daily Caller


Pelosi: Trump is ‘making fools’ out of GOP — Don't expect Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to accept any bowling invitations from the White House. — The House minority leader said Friday that President Trump is making a mockery of Republicans by bringing conservative skeptics …
Discussion:
The Week, Daily Wire, Raw Story and Business Insider
RELATED:


In major shift, White House privately backing earlier rollback of Medicaid expansion
Discussion:
Washington Post, Politico, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, The Nation, RedState and Daily Kos

Inside the Senate GOP resistance to Trumpcare
Discussion:
Politico, TheBlaze, Washington Free Beacon and Breitbart


There Really Was A Liberal Media Bubble — This is the ninth article in a series that reviews news coverage of the 2016 general election, explores how Donald Trump won and why his chances were underrated by most of the American media. — Last summer, the United Kingdom voted to leave …
Discussion:
Mediaite, Washington Times, The Week and Business Insider, more at Mediagazer »

Amash cries after missing first vote in Congress — Rep. Justin Amash has long boasted about not missing a single vote since he arrived in Congress in 2011 — 4,289 in a row, give or take a vote, if you're counting. — But on Friday, as he was railing against the GOP's Obamacare replacement bill off …
Discussion:
Political Wire


The super-secret division in charge of the Russia investigation — Washington (CNN)Somewhere in the halls of the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, a closely held number of FBI agents face the daunting task of determining how the Russian government sought to manipulate the US presidential election.
Discussion:
The Week


Trump supporters call for ‘liberal genocide’ and deportation of Jews at Arizona Rally — DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY! — Maricopa County burnished its reputation as the Trumpiest in America last weekend as hundreds of locals, including heavily armed militiamen …
Discussion:
CANNONFIRE and Hullabaloo

Conservatives want to blow up Senate rules to kill Obamacare — House Republican leaders narrowly tailored their Obamacare repeal bill to avoid violating Senate rules, but conservatives are pushing back with advice of their own: tear up the rulebook. — A growing number of conservative lawmakers …

Steady U.S. Job Growth Sets Stage for Fed to Raise Interest Rates — Employers added 235,000 workers to their payrolls in February, the government reported on Friday, a hefty gain that clears the path for the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate when it meets next week.
Discussion:
USA Today, Outside the Beltway, Forbes, NPR, Political Wire and twitchy.com
RELATED:

Don't Let Trump — Or Any President — Take Credit For Strong Jobs Numbers
Discussion:
Washington Post, Breitbart, Wall Street Journal, Politico and Mother Jones


Is Northern Ireland heading for a second election? James Brokenshire seems to think so — With power-sharing in the balance, NI minister James Brokenshire is talking up the possibility of a new poll. — Could Northern Ireland be set for its third assembly election in less than 12 months?
Discussion:
The Federalist


Contender to Run Civil Rights Post Can't Be Pigeonholed — Harmeet Dhillon, a trial lawyer from San Francisco, has ties to both the ACLU and Heritage Foundation — A media-savvy Indian-American leader of the California Republican Party who sang a Sikh prayer at last year's national convention …
Discussion:
RedState

The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache — On Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released an enormous cache of documents that it claimed detailed “C.I.A. hacking tools.” Immediately afterward, it posted two startling tweets asserting that “C.I.A. hacker malware” posed a threat to journalists …
Discussion:
BGR, Lawyers, Guns & Money and claytoonz, more at Mediagazer »


U.S. Spies Live in Fear of Trump's Next Tweet — As Friday evening draws to a close around Washington, D.C., the city's tight-knit and secretive national security clan goes to sleep with a new unease. It's not Syria or Iran or even North Korea they're most worried about.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Raw Story and The Guardian


Pope signals he's open to married Catholic men becoming priests — Rome (CNN)Pope Francis has said he is open to married men becoming priests to combat the Roman Catholic Church's shortage of clergy. — In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, Pope Francis said the lack of Catholic priests was an …

Jorge Ramos says the ‘Trump effect’ is scaring away illegal aliens — Univision anchor Jorge Ramos believes he has found the explanation for the recent drop in illegal border crossings reported by immigration officials: fear or what he calls the “Trump effect.”
Discussion:
Breitbart, Hot Air and BizPac Review


Sam Brownback Might Not Be Governing Kansas Much Longer — Donald Trump won Kansas last November by just over 20 points, and in the coming days he's expected to give the Jayhawk State's voters their reward: a new governor. — The president reportedly will name Governor Sam Brownback …


Meet Silicon Valley's Secretive Alt-Right Followers — Readers of The Right Stuff long knew that founder “Mike Enoch” had two main interests: technology and white supremacy. Posts on the neo-Nazi site have included discussion of “a new blogging platform built on node.js,” …
Discussion:
Raw Story


State Dept. seeks to keep Russian diplomat's cause of death private — The State Department asked the New York Medical Examiner not to publicly release information about the cause of death of Russia's ambassador to the United Nations. — Vitaly Churkin died unexpectedly in New York last month, one day before his 65th birthday.
Discussion:
Raw Story