Exclusive: Senate investigators told Trump Jr.'s mysterious calls weren't with his father  —  (CNN)Senate investigators have obtained new information showing Donald Trump Jr.'s mysterious phone calls ahead of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were not with his father, three sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN.

Senate Rebukes Trump Over Troop Withdrawals From Syria and Afghanistan  —  WASHINGTON — The Senate, in a stinging bipartisan rebuke to President Trump's foreign policy, voted overwhelmingly to advance legislation drafted by the Senate majority leader to express strong opposition …

Bezos' Investigators Question the Brother of His Mistress, Lauren Sanchez, in National Enquirer Leak Probe  —  Michael Sanchez is an outspoken Trump supporter with ties to Roger Stone and Carter Page.  —  Jeff Bezos' top personal security consultant has questioned his mistress' brother …

Feds Seized ‘Several Years’ of Roger Stone's Communications  —  FBI agents seized several years worth of Roger Stone's communications following his arrest last week, prosecutors told a federal judge on Thursday.  In a motion to ask for more time to bring Stone's case to trial …

Why We Are Quitting RedState  —  For more than a decade, RedState was a solid voice in the world of online conservative commentary.  Unfortunately, the allure of Trumpism has left the once great site a shell of its former self.  —  In 2015, before the Republican tide shifted …

Trump Is Finalizing a Nuclear Option That Could Split the G.O.P.  —  The president believes he has the upper hand—but he might be walking into a trap.  —  In public, Donald Trump is still talking (and tweeting) about an immigration compromise with Democrats to avert another government shutdown.

‘Whistleblower’ in White House security clearance office gets suspended  —  Tricia Newbold was suspended less than a week after NBC reported Jared Kushner's top secret security clearance was approved over staff objections.  —  WASHINGTON — A White House security specialist …

Howard Schultz Doesn't Understand American History  —  The most effective third-party presidential candidates were polarizers, not centrists.  —  Howard Schultz, the former chief executive of Starbucks, cannot win the presidency as an independent candidate.  But is there someone who could?

Ralph Northam Doesn't Get Why You're Mad at Him  —  Those crazy conservatives, the Washington Post regrets to inform you, are pouncing again.  They're getting their pro-life knickers in a major twist—and all just because the governor of Virginia, a former pediatrician and ostensibly moderate Democrat …

Democrats Must Reach Out to Moderates in 2020 — By Waging a Vicious Class War  —  The Democratic Party's leading lights — from Elizabeth Warren on the party's left flank, to Joe Biden on its right — are all telling versions of the same story: The American people are working hard, but their economy is hardly working.

Trump Considering Herman Cain for Federal Reserve Board, Sources Say  — President interviewed former Godfather's CEO on Wednesday  — Cain's presidential run ended in sexual misconduct scandal  —  Herman Cain, the former pizza company executive who ran for the Republican presidential nomination …

Progressive Dems: ‘Not Another Dollar’ More in DHS Funding  —  Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar just threw a wrench in the border wall debate.  —  Four freshman progressive House members are throwing a wrench into government funding negotiations …

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Iran  —  Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.  This activity was directed from Iran, in some cases repurposing Iranian state media content …

Kyrsten Sinema Is Not Just a Funky Dresser.  She's a Fashion Revolutionary.  —  In July 2017, Democratic women in Congress organized a protest against the enforcement of an “appropriate attire” dress code that was being used to keep reporters in sleeveless outfits out of certain parts of the Capitol building.

Trump claims his intel chiefs were ‘misquoted’ when they publicly broke with him  —  President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that his top intelligence officials were “misquoted” and “taken out of context” when they publicly broke with some of his core foreign policy views during congressional testimony earlier this week.

State: All 366 on local list of potential noncitizen voters are citizens  —  By the time local elections officials downloaded a list of 366 registered voters the Texas Secretary of State's Office initially said may not be citizens, the office had called to tell them to disregard the list, Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe said.

Trump Returns This Weekend to Mar-a-Lago, His Gilded Comfort Zone  —  WASHINGTON — After two months spent scorching the earth in Washington and complaining about being cooped up in the White House, President Trump is planning to return this weekend to the one place where he knows he will receive …

Steve Schmidt no longer a paid MSNBC contributor after he begins advising ‘spoiler’ Howard Schultz on presidential run  —  Political analyst Steve Schmidt is no longer a MSNBC contributor because he is advising billionaire Howard Schultz on a possible independent bid for the U.S. presidency.

Until this week, Del. Kathy Tran was known for nursing her daughter on the House floor.  Now Republicans are calling her a baby killer.  —  Del. Kathy Tran arrived in Richmond last year as part of a wave of Democratic women whose electoral victories in Northern Virginia leveled the balance of power in the General Assembly.

‘Everything stays on the table’: 2020 Dems weigh killing the filibuster  —  White House contenders are debating whether to change Senate rules in order to enact their sweeping agenda.  —  Democrats have a lot of big ideas if they win back the White House and Congress in 2020.

Trump Allies Think Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Hiding or Dead.  It Started on QAnon.  —  She's kept a low profile while recovering from cancer surgery.  Right-wing sickos turned that against the liberal Supreme Court justice.  —  Top figures in the pro-Trump media are claiming Supreme Court …

GOP defections boost Democratic ranks in 3 legislatures  —  TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Democratic gains in state legislatures didn't end with last November's elections.  —  Over the past two months, as lawmakers were sworn in to office and this year's legislative sessions got underway …

The Latest YA Twitter Pile On Forces a Rising Star to Self-Cancel  —  The world of young-adult fiction is no stranger to controversy, whether it's a weeks-long war against a problematic book or a whisper network accusing a badly behaved male author.  But even against this backdrop …

The Six Forms of Media Bias  —  A media critic inveighs against the bias toward centrism, which inspires me to come up with my own list.  —  “Impartiality is still a value worth defending in mainstream news coverage,” writes Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post media critic.

If Howard Schultz Wants To Run For President, He Should Run Against Donald Trump  —  Howard Schultz's clumsy and damaging entry into the 2020 presidential race this week offers a lesson for billionaires who would like to replace Donald Trump: They should consider running against Donald Trump.

How the relationship between Trump and Bloomberg went into a tailspin  —  NEW YORK — On an autumn day in 2013, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg traveled to the Bronx to hail the transformation of a massive garbage dump into a world-class golf course.  Donald Trump stood nearby …

How Russia is corrupting the liberal world order  —  Authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China see two main uses for international organizations: protecting their regimes and undermining Western values.  That's why they try to control and then corrupt them as much as possible.

This Is What Anti-Christian Bigotry Looks Like  —  A progressive private academy says it's ‘unsafe’ to play games at a Christian school.  —  The first thing you have to understand about the battle for free speech, religious freedom, and freedom of association in this nation is that it is primarily cultural, not legal.

Amy Klobuchar may be best equipped to send the president packing  —  Surely the silliest aspirant for the Democrats' 2020 presidential nomination is already known: “ Beto ,” a. k.a.  Robert Francis, O'Rourke is a skateboarding man-child whose fascination with himself caused him to live-stream …

APNewsBreak: ICE force-feeding detainees on hunger strike  —  Federal immigration officials are force-feeding six immigrants through plastic nasal tubes during a hunger strike that's gone on for a month inside a Texas detention facility, The Associated Press has learned.