Who's Afraid of Howard Schultz?  —  Democrats seem to be afraid he might give them a policy debate.

'It's some galaxy brain stuff they wanted us to believe:' How Russia's effort to sabotage Mueller's investigation backfired  —  The fake trove of the special counsel's files were immediately dismissed as largely fabricated by the reporter and researcher who received them.

Bernie Sanders to propose dramatic expansion in estate tax on richest Americans, including 77 percent rate on billionaires  —  Sanders's “For the 99.8% Act” would target the wealthiest 0.2 percent of estates.  —  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will unveil a plan Thursday to dramatically expand …

NRA Heavyweight Wanted Access to Putin: Leaked Email  —  “[I]mpressing the NRA's Russian hosts is the quickest way to secure a private interview with President Putin,” an organizer of the NRA's infamous 2015 trip to Moscow wrote.  —  Betsy Woodruff  —  A former NRA president hoped …

Virginia lawmaker says she wouldn't have co-sponsored controversial abortion bill if she had read it closely  —  A Virginia lawmaker sent an email to her constituents Wednesday night apologizing for attaching her name to a controversial abortion bill without reading it closely enough.

Trump singled out Dan Coats in morning rant about intelligence community  —  (CNN)President Donald Trump seethed Wednesday morning as he watched the highlights of his intelligence chiefs testifying on Capitol Hill and singled out Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats by name during his morning rant …

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 …

Family of Fallen Navy Linguist Fights Regulation That Forced Her Deployment  —  WASHINGTON — Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon Mary Kent wasn't supposed to be in Syria.  —  Last year, the 35-year-old mother of two was slated to attend a clinical psychology doctoral program near Walter Reed …

POLITICO Playbook: Mulvaney eyeing Commerce ... again  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  WHITE HOUSE BUZZ ... MICK MULVANEY, the acting chief of staff, is interested in succeeding WILBUR ROSS as Commerce secretary, according to several people with knowledge of his plans.

Michael Bloomberg's Secret Plans to Take Down Trump  —  Michael Bloomberg has bigger plans for 2020 than running for president.  The billionaire and former New York City mayor has been openly dreaming of the White House for 25 years, and spent huge amounts of time and money four times …

Rand Paul awarded more than $580K after neighbor's attack  —  U.S. Sen. Rand Paul was awarded more than $580,000 in damages and medical expenses on Wednesday in his lawsuit against the neighbor who tackled him and broke several of his ribs in a dispute over lawn maintenance.

The 15 Things You Need to Know About Chris Christie's Book  —  Chris Christie's tell-all, Let Me Finish, has now hit shelves, and it's absolutely the second most interesting book about Donald Trump released this week.  —  Is it worth you slogging through the entire 400 pages?  Hard pass.

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.

The Trump-Russia Investigation and the Mafia State  —  It's been a strange two and a half years.  From the first allegations, in July, 2016, of Russian meddling in the U.S. election campaign, to the arrest of President Donald Trump's former adviser Roger Stone last week …

Trump stiffs Feinstein and Harris on judges. . .mostly  —  Yesterday, I wrote about the three conservatives President Trump nominated for the Ninth Circuit last year, but did not renominate this year.  The unwillingness to renominate the three came about after a request by California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.

Mike Johnston to run for Senate, becoming Cory Gardner's highest-profile challenger yet  —  The Western Slope 44-year-old came in third place in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary.  —  Mike Johnston, a Western Slope-born former state senator, wants to be the Democrat who unseats Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in 2020.

White House preps emergency wall plan while Congress negotiates  —  Congress has until Feb. 15 to discuss a border security deal, but the White House is already finalizing its plan B — declaring a national emergency.  —  The White House is finalizing details of a potential national emergency declaration …

2020 Democrats weigh how to recapture voters in Midwest  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The clearest path for Democrats to return to the White House runs straight through the upper Midwest, fueling debate over who is best positioned to recapture the region's working-class voters who broke for President Donald Trump in 2016.

House Republicans block passage of anti-shutdown resolution despite removal of language blaming Trump  —  Meanwhile, House Democrats pass bill to increase federal employees' pay for 2019  —  House Democrats postpone retreat because timing conflicts with Feb. 15 funding deadline A day of House drama …

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 …

Maduro Turns to Special Police Force to Crush Dissent  —  CARACAS, Venezuela — The agents barged into the home of Yonaiker Ordóñez, 18, on Sunday morning as he slept.  Dressed in helmets and carrying rifles, the men grabbed the teenager and forced him to another room without explaining why they came, his family said.

ICE Ran Fake College to Target Undocumented Immigrants  —  Fake university.  Real consequences.  —  Scott Bixby  —  For years, the Department of Homeland Security has operated a fake university in the Detroit suburbs as part of an undercover operation that lured undocumented immigrants seeking to obtain fraudulent student visas.

What an Old Watergate Document Can Teach the House Judiciary Committee  —  The chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary faced a vexing problem: Pressure for impeachment was building, but while lots of evidence against the president was public, key pieces of it were not.

Tim Scott still opposes Thomas Farr, and has sharp words for conservative critics  —  U.S. Sen. Tim Scott has a message for the conservatives excoriating him for opposing Thomas Farr to be a district court judge: They ought not challenge the conclusion of the Senate's only black Republican …

‘Get this done’: McConnell moves to avoid new shutdown  —  Mitch McConnell is willing to go big, go small or anything in between to avoid another government shutdown.  He's even willing to appeal to a higher power.  —  At a meeting with GOP chairmen on Wednesday, the Senate majority leader …

WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Caught Lying About Her Comments On Israel Occupying Palestine  —  In an interview this week, socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lied about remarks she made in July 2018 during an interview on PBS's “Firing Line With Margaret Hoover,” falsely claiming …

Foxconn Reconsidering Plans for a Wisconsin Factory Heralded by Trump  —  It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs.

New York City Has Record Low Crime, but in Some Neighborhoods Most Murders Go Unsolved  —  Twenty nondomestic homicides occurred in one Brooklyn precinct from 2013 through 2017.  Four have been solved.