Special counsel Mueller wants to ask Trump about obstruction of justice: Sources  —  Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office wants to ask President Donald Trump about obstruction of justice, sources close to the White House tell ABC News.  According to sources, the president learned within …

‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd at Trump's ‘MAGA’ tour  —  On Tuesday evening, the dark recesses of the Internet lit up with talk of politics.  —  “Tampa rally, live coverage,” wrote “Dan,” posting a link to President Trump's Tampa speech in a thread on 8chan …

Kirsten Gillibrand Pays The Price For Speaking Out Against Al Franken  —  A number of Democratic donors are furious at her for calling for Franken's resignation and may not support her in 2020.  —  No one in Congress is more associated with the Me Too movement than Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

Gap Narrows in CD12 Special  —  Motivated base and gains among independents boost Dem  —  West Long Branch, NJ - The race to fill the open seat in Ohio's 12th Congressional District has shifted from a Republican advantage last month to a toss-up now, according to the Monmouth University Poll.

Kobach promised cities help.  It cost them millions — and powered his political rise  —  Kris Kobach likes to tout his work for Valley Park, Mo. He has boasted on cable TV about crafting and defending the town's hardline anti-immigration ordinance.  He discussed his “victory” there at length on his old radio show.

President Trump Calls the Show!  —  RUSH: So I have this note on the call screener computer: “On the hotline...” We don't have a hotline.  “On the hotline, you're receiving a phone call in recognition of your anniversary broadcast.  You'll want to take this immediately.”  Okay.

Facing Losses, Condé Nast Plans to Put 3 Magazines Up for Sale  —  Anna Wintour is staying, but the once-plush company behind Vogue and The New Yorker lost $120 million last year.  —  Condé Nast, the company behind Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, became …

Three Members of Notorious International Cybercrime Group “Fin7” In Custody for Role in Attacking Over 100 U.S. companies  —  Victim Companies in 47 U.S. States; Used Front Company ‘Combi Security’ to Recruit Hackers to Criminal Enterprise  —  Three high-ranking members …

Sarah Huckabee Sanders uses a debunked story to blame the media for damaging the hunt for bin Laden  —  White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders just accused the media of hindering the American government's pursuit of Osama bin Laden just a few years before 9/11.  But she may want to check her evidence.

Trump's approval ratings so far are unusually stable - and deeply partisan  —  Over the course of an eventful first 18 months in office, President Donald Trump's approval ratings have remained remarkably stable.  There has also been a wider gap between Republicans' and Democrats' views …

Pastor praises Trump as ‘pro-black’ at prison reform event  —  President Donald Trump was lauded by inner-city pastors, including one who said he may go down as the “most pro-black president” in recent history, during a White House roundtable on Wednesday that was focused on efforts to reform the prison system.

Trump considers 25 percent tariff on $200B of Chinese goods  —  The Trump administration could hit $200 billion worth of already-targeted Chinese goods with a 25 percent tariff, a significantly higher level than the 10 percent proposed initially, U.S. trade officials said Wednesday.

CNN exclusive: TSA considering eliminating screening at smaller airports  —  Washington (CNN)The Transportation Security Administration is considering eliminating passenger screening at more than 150 small and medium-sized airports across the US, according to senior agency officials and internal documents obtained by CNN.

Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal  —  Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept can reveal.

Top House Republican: Man Killed His Wife ‘Because The Woman Was Unfair’  —  One of the House's most powerful Republicans had some interesting things to say on domestic violence during a recent event back in his district.  —  Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), the chairman of the influential House Rules Committee …

The Daily 202: Koch network warns of ‘McCarthyism 2.0’ in conservative efforts to harass professors  —  THE BIG IDEA:  —  COLORADO SPRINGS—Leaders of the donor network led by billionaire Charles Koch say they want college students to study Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.

The Trump team is running a disinformation campaign about Russian interference  —  Most of the headlines from Vice President Pence's cybersecurity speech Tuesday focused on how he clearly enunciated what President Trump won't: that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.  And he did.

Attorney group: Child died ‘soon after’ release from ICE family detention facility  —  The American Immigration Lawyers Association said Wednesday that a migrant toddler died shortly after being released from an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Dilley, Tex.

News Outlets Are Prewriting Stories About Officials Getting Fired to Keep Up with the Trump Era  —  The resignations, firings, and ousters of senior government officials have always been big news.  In 1991, two weeks after announcing that he'd stay on through the end of President George H. W. Bush's term …

GOP senator: Obamacare is ‘done’ if we gain Senate seats in midterms  —  If Republicans gain one or two seats in the 2018 elections, they plan on pursuing legislation to take away health care from millions of people.  —  Republicans are clear about their goals if they can win a couple …

Meet the 81 candidates Obama is endorsing in 2018  —  President Obama released a list of 81 candidates he's endorsing ahead of the 2018 midterm election.  —  Why it matters: Obama is the left's answer to President Trump's continued presence in the primaries.

White House Weighs Another Reduction in Refugees Admitted to U.S.  —  WASHINGTON — The White House is considering a second sharp reduction in the number of refugees who can be resettled in the United States, picking up where President Trump left off in 2017 in scaling back a program intended …

Poll: Biden leads Trump in early 2020 match-up  —  Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in a head-to-head match-up, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.  —  A plurality of registered voters, 44 percent, said they'd choose Biden …

Poll: Senate race between Cruz, O'Rourke a dead heat  —  The Texas Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz  —  (D-Texas) is neck and neck, according to a new poll released Wednesday.  —  The 2018 Texas Lyceum Poll showed Cruz leading O'Rourke by a hair — 41-39 percent among likely voters.

Democratic socialism, explained by a democratic socialist  —  It's not just New Deal liberalism.  —  “They are not traditional socialists.  There is no call for communal ownership of production,” said an MSNBC anchor while attempting to define “democratic socialism,” a term that has burst onto …

Trump's Tampa circus proves you can't reason with his base  —  For once, the most memorable thing about one of the president's rallies was not his baldfaced lies nor his attacks on reality.  Rather, Trump's Tampa rally will be remembered for the reporting of CNN's Jim Acosta.

Corey Stewart aide compared GOP establishment to a ‘house negro,’ disparaged civil rights leaders  —  Senate candidate takes personal shot at Cuomo  —  (CNN)A top consultant and spokesman for Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for US Senate in Virginia, has used the term “house negro” …

Iran readying massive military exercise in Persian Gulf, officials say  —  Washington (CNN)Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard forces are expected to begin a major exercise in the Persian Gulf as soon as within the next 48 hours that could be aimed at demonstrating their ability to shut …

Correction: Paul Ryan story  —  In a story July 31 about the upcoming season of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of Gates' wife.  Her name is Marial Iglesias Utset, not Sharon Adams.  —  A corrected version of the story is below:

Another Dive into the Ugly 2019 DHS Funding Bill  —  Several of my colleagues here at the Center for Immigration Studies have commented on some of the objectionable provisions in the 2019 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill that recently passed the House Appropriations Committee (see here, here, and here).