Wall Street bites back
And if we are in the beginnings of a bear market to the degree that voters start seeing unhappy reports from their 401ks  the pressure on Washington to get its act together may grow to the point that we see some new functionality. It worked for Bill Clinton. Maybe it will work for  Trump  in the long run.
Dems huge House haul worries GOP - Politico: “Is it time for Republicans to start freaking out? More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents  according to the latest round of fundraising numbers. And of that group  more than a dozen had less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers. For the GOP  here’s the really disturbing part: The trendline is getting worse  not better. Despite the myriad advantages of incumbency and control of Congress  there are more House members with less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers than the quarter before. … A flood of Democratic money poured into House races across the country in 2017  provided in large part by small-dollar  online contributors animated by opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress.”
WSJ: “Congress is expected this week to pass yet another short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown  prompting a bipartisan pair of senators to introduce a narrow bill on immigration aimed at ending the impasse that has hindered a two-year budget deal. The government’s current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Immigration has become entangled in the spending negotiations since  President Donald Trump  last year ended an Obama-era program that protects young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children  known as Dreamers. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R.  Ariz.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D.  Del.) plan to unveil a proposal that offers a path to citizenship for Dreamers and orders a comprehensive study to determine what border-security measures are needed. But the bill stops well short of almost all of the president’s demands—including immediate funding for the wall along the southern border—and is likely to meet a chilly reception from conservative Republicans.”
Congress weighs one year extension for DREAMers - Politico: “Congress may just end up punting on its Dreamer dilemma. As lawmakers grasp for a solution for the young undocumented immigrants  one option is a temporary extension — perhaps one year — of their legal protections paired with a little bit of cash for border security. ‘That may be where we’re headed because  you know  Congress is pretty dysfunctional ’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)  one of the few to publicly acknowledge the possibility of a temporary fix. ‘That’d be a real loss. But that’s probably where we’re headed  OK?’ Some senators are already deriding a yearlong patch as ‘misguided ’ a ‘Plan Z’ and a proposal that would keep immigrants ‘in fear.’ But lawmakers have only until March 5 to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under  President Donald Trump’s  deadline.”
New push for Medicaid limits draws heavily on Clinton-era model - Atlantic: “Welfare reform is back.  President Trump  signaled  its  return to the forefront of national policy debates in  his  State of the Union address on Tuesday  when  he  announced a plan to  ‘ lift our citizens from welfare to work.’  He  shouldn’t have trouble finding support for it: With a collective of pro-reform officials leading key agencies  and with longtime entitlement crusader Paul Ryan as speaker of the House  the GOP in 2018 will have its best chance in a generation to make major changes to the country’s safety-net programs  including Medicaid and food stamps. As a template  Republicans will use the original welfare-reform bill: the 1996 law that created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families  or TANF  program  which changed the financing and benefit structure of cash assistance. For conservatives  the program has been a model of resounding success  with shrinking costs and a welfare caseload that decreases by the year.”
Politico: “Republican leaders are acknowledging that the FBI disclosed the political origins of a private dossier the bureau cited in an application to surveil former  Trump  campaign adviser Carter Page  undermining a controversial GOP memo released Friday and fueling Democratic demands to declassify more information about the bureau’s actions. At issue is whether the federal probe into the  Trump  campaign’s Russia ties is infected with political bias  as Republicans say — or whether the GOP is using deceitful tactics to quash the probe  as Democrats insist. Democrats pounced on public comments over the past day by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and intelligence committee member Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.)  arguing that the GOP memo’s failure to mention a key footnote in the FBI application shows how the party has cherry-picked classified facts to protect  President Donald Trump . To provide a fuller picture  intelligence committee Democrats insist  House Republicans must vote on Monday to release a classified 11-page rebuttal they wrote to the GOP memo.”
Report:  Trump  advisor Page hawked Kremlin contacts in 2013 - Time: “Former  Trump  campaign adviser Carter Page bragged that he was an adviser to the Kremlin in a letter obtained by TIME that raises new questions about the extent of Page’s contacts with the Russian government over the years. The letter  dated Aug. 25  2013  was sent by Page to an academic press during a dispute over edits to an unpublished manuscript he had submitted for publication  according to an editor who worked with Page. ‘Over the past half year  I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month  where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda ’ the letter reads. Page is at the center of a controversial memo from Republican Congressman Devin Nunes  released this week. … At the heart of the debate is the question of who  exactly  is Carter Page.  Trump ’s defenders argue that  he  was simply a low-level consultant to the campaign…”
Lots of daylight between  Trump  and  his  party on memo - Reuters: “Several Republican lawmakers disagreed on Sunday with  President Donald Trump’s  assertion that a memo released last week by the House Intelligence Committee vindicated  him  in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Tweeting from  his  resort in Palm Beach  Florida  on Saturday   Trump  called Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of election interference a ‘witch hunt’ and a ‘disgrace’ and said the memo ‘totally vindicates’ him. But several Republican lawmakers played down the memo’s significance for Mueller’s probe  including Representative Trey Gowdy  a member of the intelligence committee and one of the authors of the four-page memo. Speaking on the CBS program ‘Face the Nation ’ Gowdy said he believed the Republican memo showed sloppiness by investigators in the handling of an application to the top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. But he said the Russia probe should continue regardless.”
Senate GOP pushes FBI to move against dossier author Steele - WashEx: “A newly released document from the Senate Judiciary Committee says Christopher Steele  the former British spy who compiled the  Trump  dossier  wrote an additional memo on the subject of  Donald Trump  and Russia that was not among those published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. The newly released document is an unclassified and heavily redacted version of the criminal referral targeting Steele filed on Jan. 4 by Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It appears to confirm some level of coordination between the extended Clinton circle and the Obama administration in the effort to seek damaging information about  then-candidate Trump . According to the referral  Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. … Steele wrote a report based on the information  but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.”
“…a little bit of sweet revenge” – Donald Trump Jr.  one of the subjects of the criminal probe into Russian interference in the 2016  describing the memo from Rep. Devin Nunes  R-Calif.  from Fox News colleague Jesse Watters.
And if we are in the beginnings of a bear market to the degree that voters start seeing unhappy reports from their 401ks  the pressure on Washington to get its act together may grow to the point that we see some new functionality. It worked for Bill Clinton. Maybe it will work for  Trump  in the long run.
Dems huge House haul worries GOP - Politico: “Is it time for Republicans to start freaking out? More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents  according to the latest round of fundraising numbers. And of that group  more than a dozen had less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers. For the GOP  here’s the really disturbing part: The trendline is getting worse  not better. Despite the myriad advantages of incumbency and control of Congress  there are more House members with less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers than the quarter before. … A flood of Democratic money poured into House races across the country in 2017  provided in large part by small-dollar  online contributors animated by opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress.”
WSJ: “Congress is expected this week to pass yet another short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown  prompting a bipartisan pair of senators to introduce a narrow bill on immigration aimed at ending the impasse that has hindered a two-year budget deal. The government’s current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Immigration has become entangled in the spending negotiations since  President Donald Trump  last year ended an Obama-era program that protects young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children  known as Dreamers. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R.  Ariz.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D.  Del.) plan to unveil a proposal that offers a path to citizenship for Dreamers and orders a comprehensive study to determine what border-security measures are needed. But the bill stops well short of almost all of the president’s demands—including immediate funding for the wall along the southern border—and is likely to meet a chilly reception from conservative Republicans.”
Congress weighs one year extension for DREAMers - Politico: “Congress may just end up punting on its Dreamer dilemma. As lawmakers grasp for a solution for the young undocumented immigrants  one option is a temporary extension — perhaps one year — of their legal protections paired with a little bit of cash for border security. ‘That may be where we’re headed because  you know  Congress is pretty dysfunctional ’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)  one of the few to publicly acknowledge the possibility of a temporary fix. ‘That’d be a real loss. But that’s probably where we’re headed  OK?’ Some senators are already deriding a yearlong patch as ‘misguided ’ a ‘Plan Z’ and a proposal that would keep immigrants ‘in fear.’ But lawmakers have only until March 5 to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under  President Donald Trump’s  deadline.”
New push for Medicaid limits draws heavily on Clinton-era model - Atlantic: “Welfare reform is back.  President Trump  signaled  its  return to the forefront of national policy debates in  his  State of the Union address on Tuesday  when  he  announced a plan to  ‘ lift our citizens from welfare to work.’  He  shouldn’t have trouble finding support for it: With a collective of pro-reform officials leading key agencies  and with longtime entitlement crusader Paul Ryan as speaker of the House  the GOP in 2018 will have its best chance in a generation to make major changes to the country’s safety-net programs  including Medicaid and food stamps. As a template  Republicans will use the original welfare-reform bill: the 1996 law that created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families  or TANF  program  which changed the financing and benefit structure of cash assistance. For conservatives  the program has been a model of resounding success  with shrinking costs and a welfare caseload that decreases by the year.”
Politico: “Republican leaders are acknowledging that the FBI disclosed the political origins of a private dossier the bureau cited in an application to surveil former  Trump  campaign adviser Carter Page  undermining a controversial GOP memo released Friday and fueling Democratic demands to declassify more information about the bureau’s actions. At issue is whether the federal probe into the  Trump  campaign’s Russia ties is infected with political bias  as Republicans say — or whether the GOP is using deceitful tactics to quash the probe  as Democrats insist. Democrats pounced on public comments over the past day by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and intelligence committee member Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.)  arguing that the GOP memo’s failure to mention a key footnote in the FBI application shows how the party has cherry-picked classified facts to protect  [TGT] . To provide a fuller picture  intelligence committee Democrats insist  House Republicans must vote on Monday to release a classified 11-page rebuttal they wrote to the GOP memo.”
Report:  [TGT]  advisor Page hawked Kremlin contacts in 2013 - Time: “Former  [TGT]campaign adviser Carter Page bragged that he was an adviser to the Kremlin in a letter obtained by TIME that raises new questions about the extent of Page’s contacts with the Russian government over the years. The letter  dated Aug. 25  2013  was sent by Page to an academic press during a dispute over edits to an unpublished manuscript he had submitted for publication  according to an editor who worked with Page. ‘Over the past half year  I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month  where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda ’ the letter reads. Page is at the center of a controversial memo from Republican Congressman Devin Nunes  released this week. … At the heart of the debate is the question of who  exactly  is Carter Page.  Trump ’s defenders argue that  he  was simply a low-level consultant to the campaign…”
Lots of daylight between  Trump  and  his  party on memo - Reuters: “Several Republican lawmakers disagreed on Sunday with [TGT]assertion that a memo released last week by the House Intelligence Committee vindicated  [TGT]  in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Tweeting from  his  resort in Palm Beach  Florida  on Saturday   Trump  called Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of election interference a ‘witch hunt’ and a ‘disgrace’ and said the memo ‘totally vindicates’ [TGT]. But several Republican lawmakers played down the memo’s significance for Mueller’s probe  including Representative Trey Gowdy  a member of the intelligence committee and one of the authors of the four-page memo. Speaking on the CBS program ‘Face the Nation ’ Gowdy said he believed the Republican memo showed sloppiness by investigators in the handling of an application to the top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. But he said the Russia probe should continue regardless.”
Senate GOP pushes FBI to move against dossier author Steele - WashEx: “A newly released document from the Senate Judiciary Committee says Christopher Steele  the former British spy who compiled the  Trump  dossier  wrote an additional memo on the subject of  Donald Trump  and Russia that was not among those published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. The newly released document is an unclassified and heavily redacted version of the criminal referral targeting Steele filed on Jan. 4 by Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It appears to confirm some level of coordination between the extended Clinton circle and the Obama administration in the effort to seek damaging information about  then-candidate Trump . According to the referral  Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. … Steele wrote a report based on the information  but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.”
“…a little bit of sweet revenge” – Donald Trump Jr.  one of the subjects of the criminal probe into Russian interference in the 2016  describing the memo from Rep. Devin Nunes  R-Calif.  from Fox News colleague Jesse Watters.