A Strategy Emerges to Counter House Democrats: Dare Them to Impeach  —  WASHINGTON — As the White House and Congress escalate their constitutional showdown, President Trump and his team are essentially trying to call what they see as the Democrats' bluff.  The message: Put up or shut up.

Judge fast-tracks fight over congressional subpoena of Trump financial records  —  NYT reporter calls Trump business losses ‘unbelievable’  —  Washington (CNN)Congress and Donald Trump's fight over his financial records is now on the fast track.  —  Judge Amit Mehta plans next week to weigh …

Giuliani Plans Ukraine Trip to Push for Inquiries That Could Help Trump  —  WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, is encouraging Ukraine to wade further into sensitive political issues in the United States, seeking to push the incoming government in Kiev …

Burr holds firm despite GOP anger over Don Jr. subpoena  —  Richard Burr faces intense pressure from Republicans to drop his subpoena of President Donald Trump's eldest son and quickly wrap up the Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia probe.  —  But despite a day facing attacks …

Alabama bill would criminalize false rape accusations  —  A bill making it a crime to falsely accuse someone of a sexual crime was first read in the Alabama House of Representatives last week.  —  The bill, introduced by Rep. Dickie Drake, R-Leeds, would make falsely reporting a sex crime …

FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA  —  The FBI's sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is fraying faster than a $5 souvenir t-shirt bought at a tourist trap.  —  Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official …

Trump cheered Patriots to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where Kraft was busted  —  The FBI has opened a public corruption investigation into Republican donor and South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur Li “Cindy” Yang, focusing on whether she illegally funneled money from China …

Colorado students walk out as school shooting vigil turns political  —  A vigil held Wednesday evening to recognize the victims and heroes of the shooting earlier this week at a Colorado high school turned into a political protest after some students in attendance expressed frustration with the tone and focus of the speeches.

Trump and Kim battled subordinates ahead of spike in tensions  —  President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shattered more than a year of relative tranquility Thursday with the U.S. seizure of a North Korean vessel and the isolated regime's launch of two short-range ballistic missiles.

Three Production Companies Say They Won't Film in Georgia Over Abortion Law  —  David Simon's Blown Deadline Productions, Killer Films CEO Christine Vachon and Mark Duplass pledged to no longer shoot in the state as long as the law exists.  —  Georgia, no stranger to threats of boycotts due …

Americans' support for impeaching Trump rises: Reuters/Ipsos poll  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of Americans who said President Donald Trump should be impeached rose 5 percentage points to 45 percent since mid-April, while more than half said multiple congressional probes of Trump interfered …

Exclusive: Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen  —  On Tuesday, the New York Times scooped the world on the news that from 1985 to 1994, Donald Trump incurred the biggest business losses of any single taxpayer in American history.

Let's Talk About How to End Sexual Violence  —  That's the most important conversation right now.  —  Ms. Hill is a professor at Brandeis University.  —  Last month, Joe Biden called me to talk about his conduct during Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.

‘Things were often a bit not normal’: Rosenstein gets fond, jokey send-off from Justice Dept.  —  Rod J. Rosenstein, whose two-year tenure as the Justice Department's No. 2 official was spent in the eye of a public storm surrounding special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of President Trump …

One out of every 11,600 people in San Francisco is a billionaire  —  Statistics like this throw into sharp relief the challenge for Silicon Valley and its leaders in 2019.  —  If you want to run into a celebrity, you go to Hollywood.  If you want to run into a billionaire, you should move to San Francisco.

Trump's Most Nakedly Corrupt Tweet Yet  —  As the president props up lobbyists and cronies, Democrats must respond with aggressive oversight.  —  It used to be that I was concerned that the media was paying too much attention to Donald Trump's tweets; now I'm concerned that they're not paying enough.

AOC and Bernie Have a Brilliant New Idea for Banking  —  There are dumb ideas and then there's whatever this is.  —  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have teamed up to introduce the idea of “non-profit banking services” done via the post office, where sub-prime loans would be given …

Mayor Pete blindsides Kamala Harris in California  —  LOS ANGELES — California Democrats, especially those with ties to the influential LGBTQ and Hollywood communities, are finding themselves torn between a home-state senator they love, Kamala Harris, and an out-of-state suitor who has suddenly captured their attention, Pete Buttigieg.

Chelsea Manning Has Been Released From Jail  —  Chelsea Manning was released today from the Virginia jail where she spent 62 days for refusing to testify about her past association with WikiLeaks before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Did U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar Say ‘If Israel Is So Innocent, Then Why Do They Insist on Being Jews?’  —  Support the fact checking and investigative journalism you rely on at Snopes.com.  —  Give with PayPal  —  Origin  —  In early May 2019, social media users began sharing posts alleging …

Trump Bigger Factor than Obama for 2020 Dem Primary Voters  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Former Vice President Joe Biden is the clear front-runner for New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation Democratic primary, according to the first Monmouth University Poll of Granite State primary voters in the 2020 cycle.

Subject: Pool report 3: POTUS on Mueller/NK/China/Venezuela/Iran  —  There is NO service in Roosevelt Room but have been trying to send.  Here we go:  —  POTUS entered at 12:07 to talk about medical billing (more on that in a sec) then went on a tangent about Mueller, North Korea and China.

Yes, Christians Can Support Trump Without Risk to Their Witness  —  Can an adulterer be a great surgeon?  If your child needed care and the best surgeon had cheated on his wife, maybe more than once, would you let him operate?  What if you are a Christian and he is not?  Does that matter?