-- “Every president in recent history except [Trump] has understood (as Putin surely does) that America has a strategic as well as a moral interest in standing with democrats around the world, and that America grows stronger and more powerful the more successfully it represents universal values on the world stage,” Foreign Policy’s Daniel B. Baer wrote following last weekend’s massive protests across Russia. “The silence of Trump and his team (last weekend) was exactly what Putin wanted — his investment in Trump’s election paying dividends in the form of what (former Hillary Clinton adviser) Jake Sullivan … called Trump’s ‘unilateral moral disarmament.’”

-- Critics believe Trump’s lack of moral leadership has allowed Russia to more forcefully assert itself in the Middle East:

• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani plans to meet with Putin in Moscow later this month, and both countries are expected to sign a slew of documents on economic and political issues.
• In Libya, there are new accusations that Russia is sending operatives to bolster an armed faction.
• In Afghanistan, U.S. generals have also said Moscow may be supplying weapons to the Taliban.

-- Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen said Putin feels emboldened by Trump’s lack of moral leadership. “It took the [past] administration many years to understand the severity of the situation [and] it’s gone from bad to worse,” Gessen said in a phone interview last week.

-- The Post’s Moscow bureau chief David Filipov sees a “power vacuum” created by a silent Trump administration. Though we can't know for sure what Putin expected of Trump, “they’re loving the fact that there’s no leadership” from Washington so far. “They’ll definitely move … to fill in that vacuum,” Filipov said.

• Former Russian MP and Putin critic Denis Voronenkov was shot dead in a crowded Kiev square less than 72 hours after telling a Washington Post reporter he was in danger last month, making him the eighth high-profile Russian who has died since Trump’s November presidential victory. 

-- Almost every day brings a fresh illustration of the degree to which Trump is unconcerned with promoting democracy or holding America’s moral high ground. From last week alone:

• The president did not speak out after Putin’s forces cracked down on mass protests across Russia last week.
• The U.S. government backed off its policy of regime change in Syria, saying that the Syrian people will decide President Bashar al-Assad's future. (As if that’s something they could do.) “Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," said U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
• Trump's State Department told Congress it plans to approve a multibillion-dollar sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain without the human rights conditions imposed under Barack Obama.

-- Trump today will welcome Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his favorite Middle East stongman, to the White House. Trying to reboot the bilateral relationship, he will steer clear of discussing human rights issues in the country. Aides said they will instead focus on economic and national security concerns.

“The Obama administration did not allow Sissi to set foot in Washington after he staged a bloody coup against a democratically elected government in 2013,” deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl writes. “His regime is holding, according to Egyptian and U.S. monitors, between 40,000 and 60,000 political prisoners, including thousands of secular liberal democrats. His security forces were responsible for 1,400 extrajudicial killings in 2016 alone, and 912 disappearances between August 2015 and August 2016, according to Moataz El Fegiery of Front Line Defenders. Eighty-five civil society activists have been banned from leaving the country and dozens of journalists are being held without trial, according to Bahey el-din Hassan of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. None of it matters to Trump, who has called Sissi ‘a fantastic guy’ because of his supposed support for the war against the Islamic State — never mind that Egypt has been losing the battle against the jihadists in its own Sinai Peninsula.”

“Sissi’s brutal repression has made Egypt a mass-production facility for violent extremism,” add Robert Kagan from Brookings and Michele Dunne from the Carnegie Endowment in an op-ed for today's paper. 

Who is to blame for the opioid epidemic?

Prescription drugs killed 183,000. Those who made and sold them owe America an explanation.



WASHINGTON POST

DEA falters in major effort to hold drug company accountable in opioid epidemic

After six years and four investigations that spanned five states, the government has taken no legal action against Mallinckrodt, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of the highly addictive painkiller oxycodone. Instead, the company has reached a tentative settlement with prosecutors in a case that shows how difficult it is to hold a drugmaker responsible for the damage done by its product.

• By Lenny Bernstein and Scott Higham

Small hand of government: Trump's aim to shrink the state pleases conservatives

President is not a natural Reagan Republican and healthcare reform has failed – but many top activists applaud his approach to power and deregulation.

GUARDIAN

Disabled America Disabled or just desperate? Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up. Across large swaths of the country, disability has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Post analysis. The increases have been worse in working-class areas, worse still in communities where residents are older, and worst of all in places with shrinking populations and few immigrants. By Terrence McCoy  •  Read more »

Who is ‘Source D’? The man said to be behind the Trump-Russia dossier’s most salacious claim.




WASHINGTON POST



-- In the years he spent building his real estate brand, Trump, his company, and his partners repeatedly turned to wealthy Russians and oligarchs from former Soviet Republics – several of whom were reportedly connected to organized crime. USA Today's Oren Dorell reports: “The president and his companies have been linked to at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.” Among them:

• “A member of the firm that developed the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York is a twice-convicted felon who spent a year in prison for stabbing a man and later scouted for Trump investments in Russia.” An investor in the same project was accused by Belgian authorities in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme.
• 
  
• “Three owners of Trump condos in Florida and Manhattan were accused in federal indictments of belonging to a Russian-American organized crime group and working for a major international crime boss based in Russia.”
• 
  
• “A Ukrainian owner of two Trump condos in Florida was indicted in a money-laundering scheme involving a former prime minister of Ukraine.”
• 
  
• In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. told Russian state media, while in Moscow, that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” And New York City real estate broker Dolly Lenz said she sold about 65 “Trump World” condos to Russian investors, many of whom sought meetings with Trump. “They all wanted to meet Donald,” she said. “They became very friendly.”

MORE BAD HEADLINES FOR PAUL MANAFORT

:

-- A Cyprus bank investigated accounts associated with the former Trump campaign chairman after the transactions raised red flags of possible money-laundering. NBC News reports: “Manafort — whose ties to a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin are under scrutiny — was associated with at least 15 bank accounts and 10 companies on Cyprus, dating back to 2007 ... At least one of those companies was used to receive millions of dollars from a billionaire Putin ally, according to court documents. Banking sources said some transactions on Manafort-associated accounts raised sufficient concern to trigger an internal investigation at a Cypriot bank into potential money laundering activities. After questions were raised, Manafort closed the accounts." Offshore banking is not illegal, and the island has long been known as a hub for moving money in and out of Russia. A spokesman for Manafort defended his accounts, saying they were set up at behest of clients in Cyprus “for a legitimate business purpose.” "All were legitimate entities and established for lawful ends," the spokesman said.

-- Manafort also spent the past decade engaging in a series of puzzling real estate deals in New York. WNYC reports: “Between 2006 and 2013, Manafort bought three homes in New York City, paying the full amount each time, so there was no mortgage. Then, between April 2015 and January 2017 – a time span that included his service with the Trump campaign – Manafort borrowed about $12 million against those three New York City homes: one in Trump Tower, one in Soho, and one in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Manafort’s New York City transactions follow a pattern: Using shell companies, he purchased the homes in all-cash deals, then transferred the properties into his own name for no money and then took out hefty mortgages against them …. Real estate and law enforcement experts say some of these transactions fit a pattern used in money laundering; together, they raise questions about Manafort’s activities in the New York City property market while he also was consulting for business and political leaders in the former Soviet Union.”

RIGHT WING CONTROL OF THE MEDIA



MICHAEL TOMASKY, NY REVIEW OF BOOKS

One truth that the first few weeks of the Trump presidency have driven home to me more than any other is what an enormous influence this Republican-conservative solidarity has on the very way our political discourse is shaped.

Take as an example of a big matter the botched raid against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on January 29 in Yemen. In the first twenty-four hours, the White House managed to spin it as a success, as it took out fourteen suspected AQAPoperatives. But it also killed two dozen civilians, including nine children. And it resulted in the death of one American Navy SEAL team member. Withering post-operation reports appeared in The New York Times, Reuters, and elsewhere; on background, military officials criticized the raid and even Trump himself. The next week, Yemen withdrew permission for further US-led anti-terror strikes.

After a month of mostly silence and shirking responsibility, Trump defended the raid in his joint-session speech. He introduced from the gallery Carryn Weigand Owens, the widow of William “Ryan” Owens, the Navy SEAL killed in the attack. What appeared to be her heavenward prayers to her husband made for effective television—most TVcommentators gushed, even as a number of military people observed on Twitter that they found the moment grotesquely manipulative. In any case, many questions about the raid remain unanswered—and with Republicans running Congress, they will remain so. Whereas we can be certain that if President Hillary Clinton had ordered exactly the same raid with exactly the same results, House Republicans would have started issuing subpoenas in mid-February.

It’s that way on smaller matters, too. You may recall that the Trump White House took some criticism for failing to mention Jews in its official Holocaust Remembrance Day statement. But now imagine that the Obama White House had done that. It would have been a major three-day story, and the odor of it would have lingered around Obama forever—two years later, news reports would have included sentences like “Prime Minister Netanyahu, still smarting from that Holocaust Day slight…”

Democrats and the “liberal” media simply do not have the power to shape the terms of discourse in the same way that the congeries of talk-radio hosts, websites, blogs, and social media outlets of the right do. They don’t even attempt to. Hardly a day goes by without the Trump White House doing something that makes me wonder about an “imagine if Obama had…” scenario.

-- Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul says the Kremlin is the real beneficiary from the House Intelligence Committee investigation: 

"Trump already seems to many Russian observers as a weak president, incapable of delivering on his pro-Russian campaign pledges. But the spectacle of the ... hearing on Russia must have given the Kremlin renewed inspiration about achieving another foreign policy goal: weakening the United States. In the Trump era, our society is deeply divided, even on the Russian threat. That serves Russia’s purposes well. Even more amazing is how the United States’ current ruling party, the Republican Party, (mostly)  does not want to acknowledge the Russian attack on our sovereignty last year, let alone take steps to prevent future assaults in 2018 or 2020. Putin violated our sovereignty, influenced our elections, smugly dared us to respond and now gets to watch us do nothing because of partisan divides. Imagine hearings after Pearl Harbor or 9/11 that barely mentioned the attackers? Without question, Putin was the big winner from last Monday’s hearing.”

 Medicaid Comes of Age.

Medicaid now covers more Americans than Medicare, and it played a major role in stopping the Republican drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

When it was created more than a half century ago, Medicaid almost escaped notice. Front-page stories hailed the bigger, more controversial part of the law that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that July day in 1965 — health insurance for elderly people, or Medicare, which the American Medical Association had bitterly denounced as socialized medicine. … But over the past five decades, Medicaid has surpassed Medicare in the number of Americans it covers. It has grown gradually into a behemoth that provides for the medical needs of one in five Americans — 74 million people — starting for many in the womb, and for others, ending only when they go to their graves.”

Some remarkable figures: “In 2015, the nation spent more than $532 billion on Medicaid, of which about 63 percent was federal money and the rest from the states. … Medicaid now provides medical care to four out of 10 American children. It covers the costs of nearly half of all births in the United States. It pays for the care for two-thirds of people in nursing homes. And it provides for 10 million children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. For states, it accounts for 60 percent of federal funding — meaning that cuts hurt not only poor and middle-class families caring for their children with autism or dying parents, but also bond ratings.”

NY TIMES




DAILY 202, WASHINGTON POST

New momentum for Medicaid expansion, as more Republicans conclude Obamacare won’t get repealed.

Paul Ryan promised his donors yesterday that he will keep pushing to overhaul the health care system this year, despite his failure last week. But in the 19 states that never expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the calculus has quickly changed.

How Trump’s presidency is succeeding.

He really is deconstructing the administrative state.

DAILY 202, WASHINGTON POST

Democrats burned by polling blind spot

The party didn't just lose among rural white voters, it may have missed them altogether.

POLITICO





NAT COHN, NY TIMES

Turnout Wasn’t the Driver of Clinton’s Defeat

Obamacare Isn't Out of the Woods Yet.

Even after the failure of the Republicans’ health-care bill, there are still significant ways Trump and his allies can roll back the Affordable Care Act’s provisions.

THE ATLANTIC


WASHINGTON POST



PAUL KRUGMAN, NY POST



GREG SARGENT, WASHINGTON POST

Trump and Republicans may now try to sabotage Obamacare. The strategy is unlikely to work.

Inside the GOP’s Health Care Debacle

Eighteen days that shook the Republican Party—and humbled a president.

POLITICO, TIM ALBERTA


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trump’s ‘Art’ Didn’t Work on Failed AHCA Deal

NEW YORK, CHAS DANNER

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Dropping Health Vote, Trump Swallowed Need for a Showdown

NY TIMES, JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and MAGGIE HABERMAN

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE HEALTH-CARE DEBACLE WAS A FAILURE OF CONSERVATISM

JOHN CASSIDY, NEW YORKER

Trump supporter thought president would only deport ‘bad hombres.’ Instead, her husband is being deported.






WASHINGTON POST

OBAMACARE SURVIVES.

‘Repeal and replace’ meets defeat.

GOP abandons health-care overhaul as Trump ultimatum fails to save it.

The decision to pull the bill from the House floor minutes before a scheduled vote was a dramatic acknowledgment that Republicans are unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The decision came a day after President Trump delivered an ultimatum to lawmakers — and the defeat represented multiple failures for the new president and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Nothing has united Republicans more over the past seven years than their vow to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But Trump provided little by way of specifics on how to do that.

MICHAEL TOMASKY, NY REVIEW OF BOOKS

 Everyone, I think, was surprised by the vigor with which the public rose to the defense of the Affordable Care Act—hadn’t the press told us that the act was reviled?—at those mid-February town hall meetings that senators and congressmen held. Or failed to hold—a number of representatives and senators announced meetings and then, fearing that what they’d seen happen to their colleagues would fall on their heads, simply didn’t show up. I have a Facebook friend from my home state of West Virginia who kept posting about trying to see her Republican senator, Shelley Moore Capito, and her GOPrepresentative, David McKinley. Capito refused an invitation to attend a town hall meeting in Buckhannon, West Virginia, where citizens posed their questions to an empty chair. McKinley didn’t show up during his posted office hours, my friend wrote, and at length citizens were allowed to come in—two at a time—to meet with a staffer.

At the events that were held, what was notable was that the angry people were by and large white, and firmly middle-American, and a lot of them probably Republican. Chris Peterson is the sixty-two-year-old Iowa pig farmer who gained much press coverage by saying to GOP Senator Charles Grassley:

And with all due respect, sir, you’re the man that talked about the death panels. We’re going to create one great big death panel in this country [because of the fact] that people can’t afford to get insurance.

 And Arkansan Kati McFarland described to her Republican senator, Tom Cotton, her family’s Republican, military, and NRA roots before telling him:

Without the coverage for preexisting conditions, I will die. That is not hyperbole. I will die. Without the protections against lifetime coverage caps, I will die. Without the Obamacare exchange health care plan that I have elected to continue after my Cobra that is going to kick in after I turn twenty-six this coming Sunday, I will die.

How to ensure everyone a guaranteed basic income.

Phillipe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght lay out their politically explosive idea.







WASHINGTON POST

We lost a war: Russia’s interference in our election was much more than simple mischief-making.

TIM SNYDER, DAILY NEWS

Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and the author, most recently, of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century."

---------------------------------------

After the election, the Russian parliament gave Trump a standing ovation and a leading talk show host congratulated Russians on their victory in the American elections. And of course, Trump actually called upon Russia to intervene in the election and, for good measure, recited Russian fake news at a rally. He shared his main adviser with Russian oligarchs and solicited foreign policy advice from people with stakes in a Russian gas company.

His first national security adviser took money from a Russian propaganda organ, and his secretary of state was granted the "Order of Friendship" from Vladimir Putin. And, as we have been hearing, other members of the Trump campaign were in touch with Russian diplomats before and after the elections.

Now, the Kremlin is far from unified, and it is hard to believe that the top Russian leadership actually thought it could swing the election. Why should the U.S. prove an easier mark than, say, Ukraine, where Russia tried but failed to hack the presidential election in 2014?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But the consequences in the real world, once they begin, are not subject to the same tight control as the cyberwar itself. It is one thing to sit in a room thousands of miles away and dream of disrupting the enemy; it is quite another, even for Russian leaders, to actually watch the world-historical bumbling of a Trump. It is perhaps more comfortable to portray the United States as an enemy than to watch it topple.

It is impossible to prove that the disarray in and around the Kremlin is a result of a distressing cyber victory, but there are certainly some coincidences that are more than suggestive. In early December, Russia arrested four of its own leading cybersecurity experts.

On Dec. 26, a former KGB chief was found dead in his car in mysterious circumstances. The suspicion seems to have been that he had something to do with the dossier on Russia and Trump compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Again, it is impossible to be sure, but this certainly looked like blowback from Russia's own meddling.

Meanwhile, Russian diplomats have been dying at an alarming pace since the election. On the morning of election day, a Russian diplomat in New York was found unconscious in the Russian consulate and died on the scene. On Dec. 19 two Russian diplomats were shot dead, one of them the ambassador to Turkey. The Russian consul in Greece was found dead in his apartment on Jan. 9.

Russia's ambassador to India died on Jan. 27 after a "brief illness." Russia's ambassador to the United Nations died suddenly at work in New York on Feb. 20. On March 9, for good measure, Putin fired 10 generals from the security services.

Losing a cyber war is presumably worse than winning one. It would take all the pages of this newspaper to explain how Trump's victory has weakened the United States. Given that our President fails to engage in depth with briefings provided by American intelligence services, who is actually briefing him?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.:

Former Russian lawmaker who defected and became a Putin critic is gunned down in Ukraine Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the murder of Denis Voronenkov, who fled to Kiev in October 2016, "an act of state terrorism by Russia.”

Democrats are going to filibuster Gorsuch. It’s the right thing to do.


Democrats will force Republicans to "go nuclear."

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s announced that Democrats will require that 60 senators vote to close debate on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination bid. In nearly five decades, in only one other instance was a Supreme Court nominee forced to clear the 60-vote procedural hurdle to break a filibuster.

Gorsuch will struggle to clear a 60-vote procedural hurdle, but Republicans have threatened to change Senate rules to ensure his confirmation.


WASHINGTON POST, PAUL WALDMAN

-- CNN reported late last night that the FBI has information that indicates associates of Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Clinton's campaign: “This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. … The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings.” Three nuggets from the CNN report:

• “One law enforcement official said the information in hand suggests ‘people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready.’”
• 
  
• The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation.
• 
  
• The public attention has made it harder to prove: “One of the obstacles the sources say the FBI now faces in finding conclusive intelligence is that communications between Trump's associates and Russians have ceased in recent months given the public focus on Russia's alleged ties to the Trump campaign. Some Russian officials have also changed their methods of communications, making monitoring more difficult.”

-- Some prominent Republicans are starting to say publicly that only an independent investigation will remove “the big gray cloud” that now hangs over the White House, as Nunes himself put it on Monday. John McCain described Nunes’s actions as “bizarre" last night and said it is is turning what should be a serious probe into a “political sideshow.” The Arizona senator called for either a select committee or an independent commission to investigate the matter: “No longer does the Congress have credibility to handle this alone, and I don’t say that lightly,” McCain told Greta Van Susteren on MSNBC.

President Trump and his allies have maintained that they will be proven right in the end: President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump's phones during the 2016 campaign. By Amber Phillips For Trump, that day came Wednesday. Kind of. A top Republican lawmaker, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.), revealed he has evidence that “it's possible” that conversations related to Trump — or even by Trump — were picked up incidentally by the intelligence community. When asked whether he felt vindicated by this news, Trump told reporters: "I somewhat do. I very much appreciate the fact they found what they found." This is a significant development, but it doesn't vindicate the president. In fact, Nunes is making the OPPOSITE case.  Nunes, a Trump ally, told reporters Wednesday. If there was any spying, it didn't appear to have anything to do with the president. So what DID happen? I have to give you an unsatisfying answer, but I'm going to: We don't fully know. Here's what we can piece together: 1) Nunes says he has evidence that conversations between the president and his inner circle were probably wrapped up in unrelated surveillance. That means Trump and/or his team may have talked to people under surveillance sometime during or shortly after the election. 2) Nunes asserts that none of the conversations he has seen have anything to do with Russia. The FBI and Congress are investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. election and whether Trump's team had any involvement in it. 3) Nunes did not say how he found this out, only that someone stepped forward — legally — with the evidence. And he shared it because he thought the president should know. ----------------------------------------------- Here’s why the latest Trump-Russia revelations are so important. PAUL WALDMAN, WASHINGTON POST ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Manafort’s long, murky history of political interventions. PHILLIP BUMP, WASHINGTON POST --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Manafort is gone, but his business associate remains a key part of Trump’s operation President Trump’s former campaign chairman and his protege, Rick Gates, worked with oligarchs tied to Vladi­mir Putin over the past decade. By Tom Hamburger

The one little number that — so far — is all the protection Donald Trump needs;  84 percent, Trump’s job approval rating among Republicans in the most recent weekly average from Gallup.



WASHINGTON POST

Trump delivers ultimatum: Pass health bill Friday or he’ll move on

• After failing to negotiate more support, President Trump told House Republicans that he would agree to no more changes: Pass the bill or lose the chance of repealing the Affordable Care Act.
• A vote was postponed Thursday, leaving Mr. Trump facing the possibility of a loss on his first major legislative push.

After a marathon series of negotiations involving President Trump and his top aides Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan will call a vote on the proposal at Trump’s behest, lawmakers said after a meeting Thursday night. The measure lacks sufficient votes to pass it at this point, making the move a high-risk gamble for the president and speaker, who have both invested significant political capital in passing legislation that would rewrite the Affordable Care Act. By Mike DeBonis and Juliet Eilperin

The inability to appease conservatives while keeping centrists on board is what drove Speaker John A. Boehner into an early retirement. The GOP must be feeling a sense of deja vu.

• By Chris Cillizza

A president who prefers unilateral executive action and takes intense pride in his ability to cut deals finds himself in a humbling negotiation unlike any other in his career, pinned between moderates who believe the health care measure is too harsh, and a larger group of fiscal conservatives adept at using their leverage to scuttle big deals cut by other Republican leaders.

Is Trumpcare already here?

POLITICO

New poll: only 3% of Trump voters regret their vote.
Trump's base is intact. And enthusiastic.

 Read more »



The  Mood of the Nation Poll from Penn State’s McCourtney Institute of Democracy,  Conducted by YouGov, the poll tracks the mood of the public through traditional survey questions and numerous open-ended questions that allow citizens to express themselves in their own words.

The poll  asked, “Suppose you could go back in time and vote again in the November election. What would you do?”

Respondents were presented with the same choices — Trump, Clinton, Stein, Johnson, someone else, or not vote at all. Of the 339 poll participants who originally voted for Trump, only 12 (3½ percent) said they would do something different.

Of the 327 Trump voters who would vote for him again, only 42 (or 13 percent) asked him to start behaving more presidential. Typical was a 51-year-old woman from Virginia who said she would tell the president, “Continue with your agenda but stop tweeting.”

The largest number of Trump voters sampled — representing millions of voters — asked the president to “stay strong,” “keep it up,”“hang in there” or “stay the course.” Many simply expressed their feelings as fans, as with the respondent who wrote, “Go Donald Go!” 

The disturbing secret history of the NYPD officer who killed Eric Garner

Official disciplinary records have been hidden from public scrutiny until now.

THINK PROGRESS

It’s time we finally offer over-the-counter birth control pills.

Washington Post

Today’s intelligence hearing is a farce. It shows why we need an independent Russia probe.

Does anyone seriously think the Republican Congress will investigate this scandal objectively?

Paul Waldman, Washington Post

Happiness is on the wane in the US, UN global report finds

US slips to 14th out of 155 countries ranked with Norway out in front – and Trump’s policies expected to continue slide

Guardian