If You Think It's Bad for Mainstream Democrats Now, Just Wait  —  It is always darkest, John McCain used to say, before it gets totally black.  So it is for the American center-left right now.  Bernie Sanders is currently favored to win the nomination, a prospect that would make Donald Trump …

White House Weighs Ouster of Aide Who Testified Against Trump  — Army's Vindman could be removed as part of a broader sweep  — Some officials may be reassigned from NSC in impeachment wake  —  The White House is weighing a plan to dismiss Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council …

Fox News Internal Document Bashes Pro-Trump Fox Regulars for Spreading ‘Disinformation’  —  In a dossier obtained by The Daily Beast, Fox's research unit advises colleagues to be wary of “disinformation” from several Trump-boosting on-air regulars, including Giuliani.

Joe Walsh ends Republican primary challenge against Trump  —  GOPer: If a Democratic President had done this, she would have already been impeached & removed  —  (CNN)Former US Rep. Joe Walsh is ending his uphill challenge against Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination …

Secret Service has paid rates as high as $650 a night for rooms at Trump's properties  —  President Trump's company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting him at his luxury properties — billing U.S. taxpayers at rates as high as $650 per night …

Navy Secretary Pushed Out by Trump Says He'll Endorse Bloomberg  —  Richard Spencer, ousted as Navy secretary after he publicly disagreed with President Trump's intervention in a war crimes case involving a Navy SEAL, is a lifelong Republican.  —  WASHINGTON — The Navy secretary ousted …

Trump's politicization of the National Prayer Breakfast is unholy and immoral  —  At the 68th, and perhaps last, National Prayer Breakfast, the main remarks were made by the former president of the American Enterprise Institute (and Post columnist) Arthur C. Brooks, who spoke on the themes of his wonderful 2019 book “Love Your Enemies.”

China Tightens Wuhan Lockdown in ‘Wartime’ Battle With Coronavirus  —  With infections doubling every four days and more than 600 deaths, China intensified its response in Wuhan, with house-to-house temperature checks and mass confinements at quarantine centers.

Federal Agencies Use Cellphone Location Data for Immigration Enforcement  —  Commercial database that maps movements of millions of cellphones is deployed by immigration and border authorities  —  WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps …

January adds a much stronger-than-expected 225,000 jobs, with a boost from warm weather  —  By Jeff Cox@JEFF.COX.7528@JEFFCOXCNBCCOM  — Nonfarm payrolls surged 225,000 for the month, well above Wall Street estimates for a 158,000 gain.  — The unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.6% …

How Trump Wins Again  —  Are Democrats going to give this election away?  —  As several people have noticed, this was the most politically successful week of the Trump presidency.  —  First, President Trump's job approval numbers are rising.  When the impeachment inquiry got rolling in October his Gallup approval rating was 39.

NBC News review of Iowa caucus vote finds potential errors, inconsistencies  —  The results as reported by the Iowa Democratic Party raise questions about the accuracy of the outcome of the first-in-the-nation vote.  —  The Iowa Democratic caucus results are rife with potential errors …

Trump's State of the Union speech was a white supremacist vision of America  —  President Trump defiled the majesty of the East Room of the White House with a vulgar display of vindictiveness that shocked even those of us who didn't expect anything less.  For more than an hour …

Women of color bolt Warren's Nevada campaign in frustration  —  A half-dozen women of color have departed Elizabeth Warren's Nevada campaign in the run-up to the state's caucuses with complaints of a toxic work environment in which minorities felt tokenized and senior leadership was at loggerheads.

Bloomberg Plagiarized Parts of At Least Eight of His Plans  —  Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign plagiarized portions of its plans for maternal health, LGBTQ equality, the economy, tax policy, infrastructure, and mental health from research publications, media outlets, and a number of nonprofit, educational, and policy groups.

Mulvaney's job in doubt now that impeachment dust has settled  —  Mulvaney confesses to quid pro quo: Get over it  —  Washington (CNN)With a five-month impeachment saga behind them, White House aides are bracing for the prospect of another staff shake-up in the West Wing as President Donald Trump looks …

Mitt Romney's ‘profile in courage’  —  For years Mitt Romney had a reputation as a flip-flopper, an opportunist, a politician who would tailor his beliefs to fit whichever group he was trying to please.  —  Running for office in deep-blue Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002, he pronounced himself strongly pro-choice.

EXCLUSIVE: Indiana U defends ‘Sex Fest’ featuring BDSM demos, ‘kink’ and ‘sex toys’  — The second night offered BDSM demonstrations, including a man whipping a tied up woman in public.  —  New video and photos out of Indiana University show an individual being publicly whipped as part of a university-sponsored “sex fest.”

Trump's health care rhetoric shows at least short term appeal  —  Tapper rolls the tape on glaring Trump falsehood in SOTU  —  Washington (CNN)Before the State of the Union speech she would later rip up on camera, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a news conference to rip President Donald Trump's “all-out assault on health care.”

Kushner: Abbas, Olmert jealous they couldn't bring about peace themselves  —  Jared Kushner spoke out against Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, saying that they are jealous of the peace plan for having the potential to accomplish what they could not.

Trump's foreign policy is all politics, no policy  —  If his State of the Union address is any indication, President Trump's foreign policy in 2020 will be more than ever about politics and less than ever about actual policy.  Most of his major foreign policy efforts have run their course.

On Facebook, anti-vaxxers urged a mom not to give her son tamiflu.  He later died.  —  Online groups that routinely traffic in anti-vaccination propaganda have become a resource for people seeking out a wide variety of medical information.  —  Facebook groups that routinely traffic …