TrumpTantrum spreads on Twitter after impromptu press conference  —  Calls for President Trump to resign began circulating on Twitter on Thursday morning, mocking the president for throwing a “#TrumpTantrum” and walking out of a meeting with Democratic leadership this week.

Bank CEO Stephen M. Calk Charged With Corruptly Soliciting A Presidential Administration Position In Exchange For Approving $16 Million In Loans  —  Ms. Strauss said: “As alleged, Stephen M. Calk abused the power entrusted to him as the top official of a federally insured bank by approving millions …

Are More Moderate Democrats More Electable?  —  I have a dilemma for you, dear reader.  I have a righteous little bulletpoint-sized rant to make about ill-informed media coverage of polling in the recent Australian election.  But this column, Silver Bulletpoints, promises to give you three items …

Women Rise in Dem 2020 Field  —  Biden maintains lead, but it's not as large among early state voters  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Former Vice President Joe Biden maintains his front-runner status among Democratic voters nationwide, but some female candidates - namely Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren …

How Trump Broke the Freedom Caucus  —  Back in February 2018, I sat down with two leaders of the House Freedom Caucus to discuss, among other things, whether fiscal conservatism had gone extinct.  —  A few days earlier, with encouragement from his budget director, Mick Mulvaney …

My Rapist Apologized  —  I still needed an abortion.  —  My 12-year-old daughter recently asked me what I think about abortion.  She walked into the kitchen, poked around the refrigerator, then spun around and blurted it out: “I can't decide what I think about abortion.  I want to know what you think.”

Putin out-prepared Trump in long, freewheeling meeting, Rex Tillerson told House panel  —  Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin out-prepared President Trump during a key meeting in Germany …

U.S. Seeks to Avoid Planting Distortions With New Farm Aid  — Payments to be based on county-level farm production: USDA  — Program will include $14.5 billion in market facilitation  —  The Trump Administration unveiled its latest package to help farmers hurt by the trade war with China …

Syria: Sky News witnesses horrors of Idlib as crew shelled by regime  —  Sky's Alex Crawford says the crew was attacked with tank shells, as an activist they were travelling with was hit by shrapnel.  —  Created with Sketch.  —  Sky News has gained exclusive access to the bombardment of Idlib …

American voters don't care about the economy  —  If you're a Republican, it looks great—and vice versa  —  James carville, who worked for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, hung a sign in his Arkansas headquarters in 1992.  Designed to keep the candidate on-message, it read: “Change vs. more of the same.

TurboTax Uses A “Military Discount” to Trick Troops Into Paying to File Their Taxes  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom based in New York.  Sign up for ProPublica's Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

What Rod Rosenstein Knew When He Helped Trump Fire Comey  —  In May 2017, then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed to assist President Trump in an effort to fire James Comey as FBI director despite Rosenstein's knowing beforehand that the president had devised a false cover story …

The Truth Behind Trump Tower Moscow: How Trump Risked Everything For A (Relatively) Tiny Deal  —  It's getting late, and Felix Sater—a onetime Trump partner, two-time convicted felon and longtime federal informant—sits in the back of a New York City restaurant, ready for a drink.

Here Are the GOP's Secret Talking Points Defending Alabama's Abortion Law  —  WASHINGTON — In the days since Alabama's passage of the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, national Republicans have tried to distance themselves from its most controversial provisions that would outlaw abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

Kamala Harris ‘very troubled’ by raid on SF journalist in Adachi leak  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Kamala Harris spoke out Thursday against the San Francisco police raid on a journalist's home in the investigation into a leaked police report on the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, saying she was “very troubled by what happened.”

FBI has seen significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism in recent months  —  (CNN)The FBI has seen a significant rise in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases in recent months, a senior FBI counterterrorism official said Thursday.

Pro-Gun Parkland Teen Kyle Kashuv Apologizes for ‘Inflammatory’ Racial Comments  —  Kyle Kashuv, an ex-Turning Point USA star, says he's sorry for ‘idiotic comments’ he made in text messages circulating among right-wing activists and Parkland students this week.

Geoffrey Rush Awarded $1.9 Million in #MeToo Defamation Case  —  Oscar winner is awarded the largest ever defamation payout to a single person in Australia  —  Geoffrey Rush has been awarded $1.9 million after winning a defamation case against Australia's Nationwide News over a story published …

Trump and Deutsche Bank: It's Complicated  —  Whispers of money laundering have swirled around Donald Trump's businesses for years.  One of his casinos, for example, was fined $10 million for not trying hard enough to prevent such machinations.  Investors with shady financial histories sometimes popped up in his foreign ventures.

Report reveals new details about DOJ's seizing of AP phone records  —  With its latest leak indictment last week, the Department of Justice under Donald Trump is now on pace to break the previous record for prosecutions of journalists' sources, just two and a half years into its administration.

Dem Coalition Calls Out Trump For Harassing Americans Like Master Trolls  —  For a man who relishes representing the image of the tough guy, Donald Trump sure does spend a lot of time whining.  On Thursday, the Democratic Coalition reminded Trump that bullies don't get to whine about harassment.

I Wrote to John Walker Lindh.  He Wrote Back.  —  Four years ago, I wrote a letter to John Walker Lindh, then-inmate number 45426-083 in the Terre Haute penitentiary, to ask for advice about jihadism, Islamic law, and the Islamic State.  Lindh is the most famous jihadist America has ever produced.