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(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (New Cases jumped over 26K for the second day, highest in six weeks - Hospitalizations slightly rising, Deaths also now seem to have turned back upward - Over 1/3 billion vaccine doses administered in the USA, more than one for every resident - Vaccination slow but steady on this report) Total Vaccine Doses Delivered: 386,985,420 (21,435,300 J&J) Administered: 333,565,404 (12,791,315 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 183,836,917 Fully Vaccinated: 158,954,417

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that he will bring up a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote, marking a significant win for supporters including President Trump. "At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill," McConnell said from the Senate floor. Backers and advocates have been publicly and privately lobbying McConnell for months to bring the bill to the floor, arguing that they have at least 70 votes in support of the legislation....

No doubt, that is pretty funny. But here is the thing: I don’t believe that there is a single person in the world dumb enough to seriously believe that anyone could, or would want to, attach a chain saw to the underside of a rifle and use it as a bayonet. Certainly no one who researched modifications to AR-15s–a subject on which a great deal has been written–would come up with a chainsaw bayonet. I think that some millennial employed (until now) by USA Today thought it would be funny to pimp his employer by including that laughable “aftermarket option”...

Reporters on Monday fell for a fake "White House" document that supposedly showed President Donald Trump making unusual demands of his Israeli hosts during his trip abroad. The Twitter account Rogue White House Senior Advisor on Friday shared what it claimed was Trump's demands ahead of a trip to Israel, including roughly a metric ton of sugary and non-kosher junk food. .. Some elements of the purported demands were obvious jokes. The demand that microwaves remain unplugged was a mocking reference to White House advisor Kellyanne Conway's bizarre comment that the appliance could be used for spying, and the request...

Marco Rubio Says He Won’t Run for Re-Election — or Governor in 2018 Rebecca Ballhaus Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is done with politics – at least for now. The former presidential candidate and once-rising star in the Republican Party, who quit the race after losing his home state’s primary on Tuesday night, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday that he is not looking to remain a member of Congress. “I’m not running for re-election to the Senate,” he said. “I’m going to finish out my term here.” Florida bars candidates from running for two offices at once, and Mr....

Mitt Romney, in his latest attempt to help stop Donald J. Trump, joined Gov. John Kasich of Ohio on the campaign trail on Monday as Mr. Kasich tries to pull out a victory in his home state. At an air museum between Akron and Canton, where Mr. Kasich’s campaign bus pulled in next to a World War II-era bomber, Mr. Romney highlighted Mr. Kasich’s experience in Congress and as Ohio’s governor. “Unlike the other people running, he has a real track record,” Mr. Romney said in introducing Mr. Kasich at the town hall style event. “He has the kind of...

In a room full of Republican donors last week, Gov. John Kasich said something you don’t normally hear at a GOP fundraiser. “This isn’t popular to always say, but I believe there is a problem with climates, climate change in the atmosphere,” Kasich told a Ross County Republican function on Thursday. “I believe it. I don’t know how much there is, but I also know the good Lord wants us to be good stewards of his creation. And so, at the end of the day, if we can find these breakthroughs to help us have a cleaner environment, I’m all...

As “moderate” Ohio Governor John Kasich continues to remain in the Republican race, his PAC “New Day for America” just received a major donation that’s raising eyebrows among conservatives.

Gov. John Kasich defended Monday his support of an immigration overhaul that includes the legalization of nonviolent illegal immigrants, telling supporters on the eve of the Ohio primary that it is unrealistic to think that the federal government is going to boot illegal immigrants out of the country. The issue of illegal immigration has been a dividing line in the GOP presidential campaign, including here in Ohio, where businessman Donald Trump has vowed to finish the fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and make the Mexican government pay for it, and promised to make people living in the country illegally to...

Neil Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush and brother of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is joining Cruz's national finance team, the campaign said Tuesday.

Well, well, well.

As a member of the controversial "Gang of Eight" working up comprehensive immigration reform three years ago, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio blocked bipartisan efforts to reform the worker visa program to make sure American workers get first dibs on jobs, according to a top Senate Democrat. At a hearing on H-1B worker visas Thursday, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois said that "a junior senator from Florida" fought to kill visa changes in the legislation that would have limited the ability of firms to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. "In 2013, I was part of the Gang of Eight....

This is one of the most difficult posts I have ever had to write. I had naively hoped that this election cycle, I would be treated to a substantive contest between a spate of highly accomplished two-term conservative governors, and Senators of great rhetorical skill acting as the ideological conscience of the bunch. As the primary wore on through the summer of 2015, it became clear that the GOP electorate was not interested in governors of accomplishment, but I still had hope for a final contest between two of my favorite Senators: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. I hoped to...

Donald Trump now owns the Republican party. The only question left is whether what’s left of the GOP establishment can winnow the field fast enough to take it back. South Carolina reveals a three-way Republican race -- with six candidates in it. Pressure will be enormous for all but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to exit before it’s too late for the party to block Trump. What Trump has established himself, though, cannot and should not be ignored. He has mocked, taunted and threatened the party establishment on his way to his undisputed front-runner status.

Tossed over the transom by an anonymous (and very reputable) source: Do you know who the woman on the left is? Her name is Jill Kelley. She's from Tampa. Do you remember the Petraeus story and Paula Broadwell emailing the "other woman"? In 2012, Kelley, a Florida socialite with connections to diplomatic and military circles, issued a complaint to the FBI in May 2012 over a series of anonymous stalking e-mails she had received. The threatening emails were traced to Paula Broadwell, the biographer that had an affair with General David Petraeus. Kelley became a focus of media coverage when...

He’s the GOP’s strongest candidate, right? But what if he can’t win a single early primary? The Rubio problem no one is talking about—yet. Everybody I know, I mean everybody, thinks Marco Rubio is the strongest Republican candidate. Yes, there’s a debate about how strong. Some say he’d beat Hillary Clinton, some say that what with some of the extreme positions he’s taken so far in this race, he’d be hard-pressed to do much better than Mitt Romney’s 206 electoral votes plus maybe his own Florida. So there’s a debate about that. But there ain’t much debate that he’s the,...

When Jeb Bush goes down, he’s taking the rest of the GOP field with him (except Donald Trump).That, at least, is what will happen if Mike Murphy, the head of Bush’s super PAC Right to Rise, gets his way. Right to Rise has $75 million in the bank, and Murphy’s not going to let it go to waste, according to Politico: According to another source close to Right to Rise, Murphy has been floating another tactical shift to potential supporters, suggesting that he might spend the bulk of the $75 million to carpet bomb Rubio, Cruz, Carson, Christie—everyone but Trump....

Jeb Bush has tried everything. His campaign allies have blanketed the airwaves with almost $30 million in ads. Aiming to shake the "low-energy" tag and prove his toughness, Bush hit Donald Trump as a carnival barker unfit for the serious job of being President. He attacked Sen. Marco Rubio, suggesting his former protege was a dilettante in a hurry. He cut staff, hired a debate coach, and pledged that "Jeb Can Fix It." Bush is now polling at 3% -- and dropping. The 3% figure puts Bush in sixth place in the national GOP race, according to the CNN/ORC poll...

Republican strategist Karl Rove arranged a meeting between fundraisers for GOP candidate Ben Carson and casino tycoon Steve Wynn, Bloomberg reports. Wynn is a sometimes-business competitor of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, whose campaign is viewing the meeting as an attempt by the GOP establishment to help Carson topple his chief rival in the primary race. "Karl Rove is at the center of the GOP establishment — fearful of what real leadership in Washington D.C. will accomplish," Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told Bloomberg in a statement. "Mr. Trump continues to expose the all-talk, no action politicians propped up their dark...

Nothing in life is free. And now that Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) was able to narrowly beat his Tea Party rival, due to thousands of black Democrats who crossed party lines to vote in the GOP primary runoff, his new constituency is looking to cash in on their influence. In their minds, Cochran, who is in line to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee if Republicans take back the Senate, is now a part of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)--and should vote like a CBC member. According to Politico, "Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are talking about what they...