The firing of James Comey is still big in the news. Here's some things reported today.

The New York Times reports just days ago Comey sought more money to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election. The request was made to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. A DOJ spokesperson denies it.

The new acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, according to this March 28, 2017 letter from Republican Senator Charles Grassley to Comey says McCabe is the subject of an OIG investigation. [More...]

I'm a little late to the news but Donald Trump fired James Comey.

How did it happen? Apparently

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein made the case for it, Attorney General Jeff Sessions agreed, and President Trump ultimately pulled the trigger.

Here are the termination letters.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress reached an agreement for a $1 trillion funding authorization that will keep the Government running until September. The agreement covers funds for the remainder of the 2017 budget year, until October 1, 2017, when the 2018 budget kicks in. What's in it and what's not:

• No money for Trump's border wall
• $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump's trips to his homes in Florida and New York
• $1.5 billion for border security measures including additional detention beds.
• $15 billion "down payment" on defense
• No language on withholding grant money from "sanctuary cities"
• No defunding of Planned Parenthood
• No cuts for "medical research and infrastructure grants."
• $295 million to help Puerto Rico continue making payments to Medicaid,
• $100  million to combat opioid addiction.

The entire 1,665 page document is available here. [More...]

The agencies in Donald Trump's Administration continue to resemble a kid who leaves for school looking like he was dressed by different mothers.

The latest example: ICE jails a Venezuelan intending to detain him pending a final order of removal (deportation) even though he was tortured in a Venezuelan prison for opposition to the government and has a pending petition for asylum, while the State Department asks Venezuela to return an American jailed there and awaiting trial on weapons charges, citing humanitarian concerns.

Why is it okay for the U.S. to deport someone to Venezuela where they have been tortured in the past and likely will be in the future, but it is not okay for Venezuela to jail an American it believes has committed a serious crime? Apparently, in a Trump administration, humanitarian grounds only apply to Americans. The backstory: [More....]

The Washington Post reports Trump is not nominating people to important positions:

The Senate has confirmed 26 of Trump’s picks for his Cabinet and other top posts. But for 530 other vacant senior-level jobs requiring Senate confirmation, [Trump] has advanced just 37 nominees, according to data tracked by The Washington Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition.

Despite Trump's camp's attempt to spin this into how rigorous their requirements are, I don't take this as a sign Trump is not offering people jobs. I take it as an indicator that his overtures are being rejected because no one wants to work for his Administration.

Biggest lie of the weekend by the Trump Administration: Chief of staff, Reince Priebus on Meet the Press (according to the New York Times):

“We expect a massive increase in military spending. We expect money for border security in this bill....And it ought to be. Because the president won overwhelmingly. And everyone understands the border wall was part of it.” (my emphasis)

More than 10 million people voted for Trump's opponents than voted for him. I'd say that's an overall rejection, not an endorsement, for his positions on issues. [More...]

On the opening days of Passover, and the anniversary of the U.S. liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp (4/11/1945) Sean Spicer dug himself a hole on the Holocaust. He's still apologizing.

His two biggest gaffes: saying Hitler didn't gas his own people and referring to Hitler's death camps as "Holocaust Centers" (as if they are stores located in shopping malls.) The correct term is killing centers. There were also, of course, concentration camps.) [More...]

NPR says Donald Trump is no longer backing Steve Bannon in interviews, which it takes as a signal that Bannon is soon to be out of a job.

The reason, like with other departed Trump aides, is a clash with family members, particularly Prince Jared.

And so we learn Trump has another unappealing trait: The inability to be loyal to anyone who is not related to him. (Which seems to be more fealty than loyalty.) Among his roadside-kill: Chris Christie, Corey Lewandowski, even Rudy Giuliani (That's not to say he showed anything but bad judgment in picking them -- only that once he did, he dropped them the minute they ran into bad weather.) Here's what he said about Bannon:

"I like Steve, but you have to remember, he was not involved in my campaign until very late," Trump said. "I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn't know Steve. I'm my own strategist, and it wasn't like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary."

[More...]

Update: Sessions may have been misquoted.

Simply unacceptable comments by Jefferson Sessions. Pretty soon I will refuse to preface his name with the words "Attorney General." He doesn't deserve the respect that has traditionally accompanied the title.

He also returned to a common theme from the Trump campaign by saying drug cartels and criminal gangs are turning American cities into “war zones” by raping and killing innocent people.

“It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth,” he said.

I wonder how many AUSA's will have the courage to quit and refuse to be part of implementing Sessions' and Trump's filthy agenda.

ISIS has released an official 37 minute audio statement in Arabic by spokesman Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer. It is ISIS's first reference to Donald Trump since he acquired a desk in the Oval Office.
He said the United States is "being run by an idiot".

"America you have drowned and there is no savior, and you have become prey for the soldiers of the caliphate in every part of the earth, you are bankrupt and the signs of your demise are evident to every eye." "... There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is," he said in a recording released on Tuesday on messaging network Telegram.

Al-Muhajir called for more attacks on the U.S., Russia and Europe. The name of the statement translates to "Patience, the promise of Go-d is truth". (Others have it as "So be patient. Indeed, the promise of Allah is truth")

The statement was released through the al-Furqan Foundation, which publishes many of ISIS's most important audio & video releases.

Donald Trump was wrong when he promised America that Mexico would pay for his border wall. Then he said the U.S. would pay for it. He submitted a budget to Congress. Republicans say they probably will leave it out of the final 2017 budget. They said it's better taken up as a supplemental stand-alone bill due to the opposition to it.

Senator Roy Blunt said cash for the wall would be left out of a spending bill that must pass by 28 April to avert a partial government shutdown.

His remarks came on Tuesday after Mr Trump requested a supplemental funding bill to include money for the wall along with military programmes.

[More...]

The Change.org petition to make Melania Trump pay her own security costs at Trump Tower until she moves to the White House has 198,000 votes.

“The U.S. taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the First Lady in Trump Tower, located in New York City,” the petition reads. “As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded.”

Yesterday, there were only 108,000 votes.

The NYPD estimated it costs between $127,000 and $146,000 per day to protect Mrs. Trump and Barron while President Trump is out of town, according to the New York Times. The cost to guard Mr. Trump and his family between the election and Inauguration Day reached $24 million, the NYPD said.

The petition now goes to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. (I'm not sure what they are expected to do with it.)

Donald, meanwhile, says his duties are so important he should be immune from having to answer a state lawsuit against him. Gloria Allred disagrees.

1,392 days and counting.