Betsy DeVos: Deep cuts to Special Olympics, student programs are warranted

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday defended deep cuts to programs meant to help students and others, including eliminating $18 million to support Special Olympics, while urging Congress to spend millions more on charter schools.

“We are not doing our children any favors when we borrow from their future in order to invest in systems and policies that are not yielding better results," DeVos said in prepared testimony before a House subcommittee considering the Department of Education's budget request for the next fiscal year.

It was the first time that DeVos, a wealthy former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman and school choice advocate, had been called before a Democratic-led panel in the U.S. House to explain President Donald Trump's spending priorities.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.freep.com/amp/3278388002

Tweet of the Day

Former Trump adviser faces $5 million in legal fees amid pardon buzz

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the Donald Trump adviser who admitted to lying to FBI agents about his Russia contacts and lobbying activities for Turkey, has shouldered some $5 million in legal bills, a knowledgeable source close to the retired Army officer told ABC News Monday.

The hefty legal bill has been amassed despite his December 2017 guilty plea -- the first in the Russia investigation -- and providing what special counsel Robert Mueller described as "substantial assistance" in numerous investigations.

The revelation, by a source close to the former Defense Intelligence Agency director about his exorbitant costs from hiring veteran Washington lawyers Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony, came only hours after Attorney General William Barr informed Congress that Mueller found no prosecutable evidence of anyone in Trump's 2016 presidential campaign -- including Flynn -- colluding with Russian agents.

Many prominent supporters in the "Make America Great Again" political movement, started by Trump, have stepped up calls for Flynn's "immediate" pardon by the president.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-trump-adviser-faces-dollar5-million-in-legal-fees-amid-pardon-buzz-source/ar-BBVdQHR?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=mailsignout

Glenn Greenwald calls on MSNBC to fire Rachel Maddow

My $40 to CO Dems at work. Lawmakers Approve BAN on Conversion Therapy

Colorado is poised to become the 16th state to ban the use of conversion therapy on minors.

On Monday, the state Senate passed House Bill 1129, which prohibits state-licensed mental health professionals from subjecting anyone under age 18 to the discredited practice, designed to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The House of Representatives first passed the bill February 19, and it now goes back to that chamber for approval of some language slightly amended by the Senate. Then it goes to Gov. Jared Polis, the first out gay man to be elected governor of any state.

Polis previously pledged that he would ban the practice if elected governor and is now expected to sign.

This was the fifth consecutive year that backers of the ban tried to pass it, but they were always blocked by the Senate’s Republican leadership. Democrats captured a Senate majority in the 2018 election, though, clearing the way for the legislation’s approval.




https://www.advocate.com/politics/2019/3/25/colorado-lawmakers-approve-ban-conversion-therapy

Bond market says not only is a recession coming, but the Fed will cut interest rates to stop it

The bond market doubled down on scary warnings Monday, signaling both a possible recession is looming and that the Fed could have to cut interest rates this year to stop it.

"People are starting to get fearful," said Andrew Brenner of National Alliance. "It won't last for long, but they're getting fearful about a recession. You had a Fed that changed course 180 degrees and then added to it last week. That caught the market off guard."

The disconnect between stocks and bonds was fairly dramatic Monday, after the bond market flashed a recession warning Friday. The Dow traded as much as 100 points on both sides of unchanged Monday, but the bond market reflected a flight to safety trade, with yields falling across the curve from the shortest duration securities to the longest. The Dow ended up 16 at 25,516, while the S&P 500 fell 2 points, to 2,798.

The move was also global, with the German 10-year bund yield falling to a negative 0.3 percent.

At the same time, there was plenty of action in fed funds futures, where traders were betting on at least one 25 basis point cut from the Federal Reserve this year and more than two by next year. That's a big change from late last year, when the market was still expecting interest rate hikes and the Fed was forecasting three.

On Friday, markets were spooked when the yield curve inverted, a reliable recession signal though usually not an immediate one. That means the rate on a lower duration instrument rose above a longer duration security's yield. In this case, it was the yield on the 3-month bill, at 2.44 percent Monday, moving above the 10-year yield, which sank as low as 2.38 percent, a more than 2-year low. Yields move opposite price.

In another sign of angst, traders were also watching the 10-year yield Monday as it slid below 2.40 percent, about where the fed funds rate is. The 2-year, at 2.24 percent, was well below that level.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bond-market-says-not-only-is-a-recession-coming-but-the-fed-will-cut-interest-rates-to-stop-it/ar-BBVdwRt?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

NM-SEN: Tom Udall will not seek re-election.

Sen. Tom Udall said Monday that he will not run for re-election in 2020.

The Democrat’s announcement upends New Mexico politics, signaling the end of his tenure as a leading voice in Congress on environmental and indigenous issues and igniting what will likely be a pile-on of a campaign to succeed him on Capitol Hill.

Udall did not provide any specific reason for forgoing a run for a third term. But speculation has swirled for months that the former state attorney general and congressman, now 70, would bow out.

“The worst thing anyone in public office can do is believe the office belongs to them, rather than to the people they represent,” Udall said in a statement.

Udall went on to lay out a series of priorities for the remainder of his term, including climate change, election reform and an overhaul of campaign finance laws.



https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/briefs/sen-udall-won-t-run-in/article_0a706383-cd4d-548f-850f-4bcbac67052d.html

ME-SEN: A Trump Republican says he'll challenge Susan Collins from the right in 2020

A conservative blogger has announced that he’ll run a Republican primary against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins as she approaches a 2020 re-election race promising to be one of the more competitive ones in a year with a difficult map for Democrats.

He is Derek Levasseur, a blogger and former police officer from Fairfield who said in a Facebook post that he will run after Collins joined 11 other Republican senators to oppose President Donald Trump’s border emergency declaration. He hasn’t filed with the Federal Election Commission yet, but he said he will when he raises $5,000.

Levassaur says he’ll back Trump’s “America First policies” and his run shows lingering resentment toward Collins among conservatives, even if he doesn’t begin as a serious threat to the senator. He’ll have to deal with being a relative unknown and a 2012 incident — no longer on his record — in which he was charged with assaulting four people, including a daughter.

Levasseur’s stint as a police officer ended after the incident at a wedding reception, which he blames partially on post-traumatic stress disorder. Levasseur worked for the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office from July 2009 to June 2011 before going to work as a part-time officer in Clinton in January 2012, according to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.


https://bangordailynews.com/2019/03/25/politics/daily-brief/a-trump-republican-says-hell-challenge-susan-collins-from-the-right-in-2020/?_ga=2.132319949.278582896.1553514332-78203163.1551203143

AZ-SEN: Rep. Ruben Gallego, averting primary bloodbath, won't run for the Senate

Rep. Ruben Gallego will not run for the U.S. Senate in 2020’s special election, he told The Arizona Republic on Monday, clearing the path for retired astronaut Mark Kelly to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally without a potentially bruising primary fight.

Gallego’s decision will disappoint progressive Democrats, who represent the left flank of the party and are especially hostile toward President Donald Trump.

Those voters wanted Gallego, 39, to wage a fight against Kelly, who is presenting himself as a centrist Democratic candidate who will make decisions based on data and science, not partisan politics or ideology.

By removing himself from running, Gallego, D-Ariz., also dashes GOP hopes of a competitive Democratic primary race that could have freed McSally, R-Ariz., to focus on her own campaign message while Gallego and Kelly battled it out for their party's nomination.

In Gallego, Republicans saw an opportunity to wound Kelly by forcing him to answer for the more liberal positions that reflect the party's general direction.


“I don’t want to engage in a bitter primary all the way until the general election, and then turn around and try to run, whether it’s me or Kelly, against McSally in a year when the Democrats need to win the Senate seat and take the state,” Gallego told The Republic. “It’s just not in the best interest of the state or the Democratic Party to be engaging in that. … If Republicans are excited to see a spirited and nasty primary, they’re going to have to look somewhere else because I’m not going to take part in that.”



https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2019/03/25/arizona-us-rep-ruben-gallego-wont-run-u-s-senate-seat/3271786002/

House of Commons takes control of Brexit

LONDON — MPs in Westminster tonight voted to wrestle control of the parliamentary timetable from the government to debate a series of alternative Brexit plans.

The House of Commons voted by 329 votes to 302 (a majority of 27) in favour of an amendment tabled by the backbench Tory MP Oliver Letwin along with members of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Scottish National Party and the Independent Group. Richard Harrington, a junior minister in the business department resigned to vote in favor of the amendment, the BBC reported.

The vote clears space on Wednesday for a debate on ways out of the crisis caused by parliament's refusal to support the Brexit deal agreed between London and Brussels in November.

The vote sets up a frenzied 48 hours of drama which could culminate in MPs supporting a softer form of Brexit or a second referendum in a series of "indicative votes" setting out their preferred way forward.

In a statement to the House of Commons Monday, Theresa May indicated that it will not be bound by the results of the votes — which have no legal force. The prime minister said she was "skeptical" about the plan, warning that similar attempts had produced "contradictory outcomes or no outcome at all.”




https://www.politico.eu/article/house-of-commons-takes-control-of-brexit-westminster-theresa-may/