Russia is known for many things—communism, vodka and bizarre dancing, for starters—but one thing Russia is not well-known for is its sense of humor. Perhaps that’s about to change.

In what could go down as one of the most interesting April Fools’ Day pranks of all time, the Russian Foreign Ministry posted on its Facebook page an audio file that supposedly showed the agency’s new switchboard message.

The message begins with, “You have reached the Russian Embassy. Your call is very important to us.”

“To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1,” the recording continues (in both English and Russian). Users are then instructed to “press 2” in order “to use the services of Russian hackers.” For “election interference” requests, “press 3.”

The Associated Press reports—because, apparently, AP felt the need to check—it was able to confirm the recording was meant as a “joke.”

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized those in the United States who continue to play the “Russian card” to score political points, alluding to the Democratic Party. He also called the accusations of election interference made against his government “endless and groundless,” according to a report by CBS News.

The New York Times appeared to reinforce a claim President Trump recently made about ObamaCare being on the brink of collapse.

In a tweet last week, the president said the Affordable Care Act will “explode” and cause all sides to “get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for the people.”

This weekend, the NY Times will publish a front-page story on former Donald Trump advisor Paul Manafort. Can you guess what shocking revelation the Times will be sharing with its readers? No doubt it will highlight Manafort’s long-time business activities in Russia, and close with a comment from another ubiquitous anonymous source, reminding the reader that the justice Department is investigating certain Trump advisors and their “alleged” contact with Russians during the 2016 Campaign. You can be sure that the Times article will not mention that this investigation, which is becoming more disturbing everyday, has yet to find the slightest bit of evidence indicating wrong-doing on the part of Trump or his staff. Between the Washington Post and the Times, its beginning to appear as if these two once-respected newspapers are taking turns, publishing stories about Trump advisors or cabinet members, which provide nothing but the same basic allegation, dressed up with the all-important comment from the secret source. Currently, journalists in DC seem to have an endless supply of inside government sources. At first, these leakers caused a firestorm by providing the Associated Press and others with the identity of three Trump advisors or confidants who had met with Russian government officials during the campaign. What should be most disturbing is the willingness of the AP, the Post and the Times, to print information which is obviously classified and illegally obtained.

If the FBI or another government entity finds it necessary to surveille and “listen in” to the conversations of foreign nationals, occasionally that effort will pick up the identity and incidental comments of U.S. citizens as well. Whoever has been given the authority to collect intelligence on the foreign national is required by law to mask the identity of any U.S. citizen who has “inadvertently” picked up in conversation. Before the FBI or whoever are allowed to start the surveillance operation which might involve a U.S. person, they are required to obtained FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) authority from a Judge. Trump’s nominee for Attorney General Jeff Sessions and advisor Michael Flynn were picked up during a FISA-approved collection effort. How can we know this?  Because an anonymous source, probably within the Justice Department, provided this information to a journalist. First and foremost, only a select number of people in Washington DC are supposed to have “unmasking” authority. One of these individuals unmasked both Sessions and Flynn, which gave the media the opportunity to create a firestorm of innuendo and unproven allegations regarding both Trump and Flynn. I have yet to hear one Democratic Congressperson express concern regarding the unmasking of U.S. citizens.

Some things in life are guaranteed. Ice is cold, kittens are irresistible, and the American people have no faith in the mainstream media. Have you noticed that since the GOP has taken over both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the media is anxious to publicize any and all polls that illustrate Congress’ low approval rating? At the same time, you will rarely see poll results on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, or CBS that highlight the complete lack of trust the American people have for the mainstream media. Regardless, journalists continue to have no clue. Even after the fiasco of anointing Hillary Clinton as the winner of the 2016 election while the Campaign was still in full-swing, the media remain convinced of their intellectual superiority over almost all Americans (they probably rank themselves somewhere just below tenured Ivy League Professors). This knowledge burdens them with the heavy responsibility of editorializing every piece of news. From where they stand, the job of a journalist is not only to report the news, but to do so in a selective and nuanced fashion, ensuring that the audience comes away with the “correct perspective.” For the press, the fact that no evidence exists connecting Trump advisors and staff to alleged Russian efforts to impact the 2016 Presidential Campaign, makes it imperative that the American people are reminded, ad nauseam, that the Justice Department has not completed its investigation into this matter.

. . . continue reading this story>>

By Eric Burkhart, Mukhabarat, Baby! Follow me on Twitter @mukhabaratbaby Email me at mukhabaratbaby@gmail.com

Robert Barnes: Trump Could ‘Go Full Andrew Jackson’ and Ignore Interference from Activist Judges

Attorney Robert Barnes joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss his latest Breitbart News column, “Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special Constitutional Rights to Bring Anyone from Terror Countries into America.”

Marlow asked Barnes to begin by explaining why Trump’s temporary ban on various terror countries was blocked.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/312699339″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

“The district court judge in Hawaii, who was a fellow law graduate of Harvard law school with former President Obama – and, in fact, Obama was in Hawaii yesterday before the decision was issued, so some people have speculated on the coincidence of that. But he issued a decision that blocks the ability of anybody to enforce the order anywhere,” Barnes said. “So he went beyond just the district of Hawaii. He said no state can enforce it. Nobody in any part of the country can enforce it. Nobody anywhere in the administration can enforce it. He issued what’s called a nationwide injunction, and it precludes any application of the order, pretty much, on any aspect of the order, pretty much, until there’s further review.”

“His basis for doing so was an extraordinary interpretation of the right to travel and the freedom of association, which before, has only been associated with U.S. citizens,” Barnes continued. “Every court decision in the 200 years prior to this has said that people who are not citizens of the United States, who are not present within the United States, have no First Amendment constitutional rights. The Constitution doesn’t extend internationally to anybody, anywhere, anyplace, at any time. Instead, this judge said it did, as long as you had a university here who wanted to assert, quote-unquote, the foreigner’s rights, or you had some physical person here. In this case, it was one of the leading Muslim imams in Hawaii; he wants to bring over various family and friends from the Middle East.”

“The Hawaii judge’s decision says he has a First Amendment constitutional right to do so because he’s Muslim. It was one of the most extraordinary interpretations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ever given, which is that because these are Muslim countries that were banned where the issue of terror arises from that that meant they had a special right to access the country and visit the country,” he said.

“As long as there is somebody here that wants them here, no president can ever preclude them from coming here. He basically gave First Amendment rights to everybody around the world and gave special preferences to people who are Muslim under his interpretation of the First Amendment,” Barnes summarized.

“So it’s an extraordinarily broad order. Its legal doctrine has no limits. If you keep extending this, it means people from around the world have a special right to access the United States, visit the United States, emigrate to the United States, get visas to the United States. There wouldn’t be any limit, and the president would never be able to control our own borders. It would be up solely to the whim of a federal judge who effectively delegated it, in this case, to a Muslim imam in Hawaii,” he contended.

Barnes noted that the judge did not “cite any prior decision” that has ever established this astonishing new quirk of the Constitution.

“Just last year, the Supreme Court implicitly said the opposite, when they said your right to association does not include a right to bring foreigners into the United States, in the Din decision,” he pointed out. “Now, there were several concurrences, so the binding precedent of that has been left open, but he does not even reference or mention or discuss the decision. He doesn’t even mention the statute, the main statute that gives the president the right to ban any alien from the country, for any reason the president deems appropriate, for any temporary time period, that the president yesterday cited in his national speech. Like the prior Ninth Circuit decision, the Hawaii judge never mentions the decision at all.”

“So there’s no real legal precedent. He’s taking three or four different concepts that have been applied in completely different areas of law, that only ever have historically applied to U.S. citizens, and he’s magically adding it to foreigners and acting like that’s always been the case when it’s never been the case,” he said.

“It is a product of what I call liberal law school education that was happening when I was in law school, which is they’re increasingly teaching lawyers to replace objective analysis with their subjective preference, but to pretend their subjective bias was really objective reality, even when it wasn’t,” Barnes said. “They basically taught you to lie to yourself about what the law really was and what it really stood for.”

“Obama reflects that, and this judge deeply reflects that,” Barnes asserted. “He’s someone whose opinion would be taken apart. If it was a first-year law school exam, he would get an ‘F’ because of how badly he misapplied the law. Unfortunately, in the liberal law school mentality, it’s what they’ve taught people to do. This judge, who’s a relatively recent judge, he’s been on the bench a few years, extended it in that way.”

“To give you an idea of how bad it is, yesterday, five Ninth Circuit judges dissented from reviewing the decision about the prior Ninth Circuit decision,” he pointed out. “The prior Ninth Circuit decision effectively became moot when President Trump replace his old executive order with the new one, and these five judges said that prior decision was so bad that they needed to vacate the decision and should vacate the prior decision, even though that’s very rare under those circumstances. They referred to the obligation to correct the ‘manifest many, obvious, fundamental errors’ that went against all the precedent the guy overlooked or neglected in the prior panel decision.”

“It was one of the harshest condemnations ever issued, and one of its authors was former chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinsky, who is regarded as one of the best and brightest judges from anywhere in the country, even though he’s usually more on the liberal side of the spectrum,” he noted. “What they all pointed out is it doesn’t matter what your politics are, the law is clear. There was no basis for the prior Ninth Circuit decision. Well, this Hawaii decision goes further than any court had ever gone before. Hopefully, it will get reviewed and reversed, but in the interim, the country’s safety is put into jeopardy because one federal judge decided to anoint himself the one Supreme Court of the country.”

Marlow asked if President Trump had any recourse, other than waiting for a higher court to overturn the Hawaii decision. Barnes suggested he could “always do a true Andrew Jackson, since he was there yesterday,” referring to Trump’s visit to Andrew Jackson’s grave.

“When the Supreme Court issued a decision, Andrew Jackson’s famous comments were, ‘Well, they’ve issued their decision; now, they can enforce it,’” Barnes recalled. “He was the last president to really challenge a Supreme Court usurping authority they did not have.”

“In this particular context, because it’s a district court decision – Professor Dershowitz even argued this, earlier in the cycle, when the Ninth Circuit even issued its decision – was that because there was a conflict between the courts, because you have a court in Boston that actually approved of the original Trump order, a great detailed order, 21-page order, cited by the five Ninth Circuit judges yesterday – the president would be in his legal rights to say: ‘There’s a conflict between the courts. Until the Supreme Court addresses this, I’m going to do what’s appropriate to keep the country safe,’” he suggested.

“The flip side is if he did that, the media would go on a field day and say the president thinks he’s above the law and is refusing to honor a court order,” he acknowledged. “He’s more likely to wait for this issue to get adjudicated. It ties his hands, unfortunately, and endangers the country in the interim, but politically speaking, he’s sort of put between a rock and a hard place. His only real alternative is to either go full Andrew Jackson or let it play out in the courts, and in the interim, the order is not enforced.”

“You definitely can do impeachment proceedings,” Barnes said when Marlow asked if there was any course of action that could be taken against the Hawaii judge for abusing his authority.

“I do think that all the political pressure put on the courts and all the public criticism by legal scholars and everybody else publicly about these decisions, and how reckless they are, and how dangerous they are to the well-being and safety of the country, and how anti-democratic they are, and how they mirror and reflect the aspects of Obama’s shadow government undermining the government through its Deep State connections and its undemocratically elected officials has real value,” he said.

“That’s even reflected in the decision of the five judges yesterday who were so harsh in the criticism of their former colleagues,” he pointed out. “They mention that the attention drawn to the court is a particular concern to them in jeopardizing the credibility of the court – because, at the end of the day, America’s courts only have power as long as people respect and believe and have confidence in the independence and integrity of those courts.”

“As that gets sacrificed, courts lose power, and we may return back to a time and place where someone like President Trump needs to go back to Andrew Jackson and invoke his tradition and legacy in order to challenge judicial usurpation of the safety and security of the country. At the current time, there’s not a lot we can do without being willing to go full Andrew Jackson against the court system,” he judged.

“Impeachment is always an option in the House. Some congressmen could pursue it because of these judges usurping their authority and invading the security and safety of the country, and violating the tripartite branches of power, where the judiciary is always supposed to have respected the president in this area. But right now, there’s not a lot we can do under the current political and legal environment,” Barnes concluded.

He agreed with President Trump’s contention that this level of judicial overreach was unprecedented.

“When you have law professors like Jonathan Turley or Alan Dershowitz or Jeffrey Toobin saying that the prior Ninth Circuit decision – which did not go as far as this case did, as the Hawaii judge did – saying it basically is bad law, then you know how bad the law actually is,” Barnes said. “It’s law that has no precedent, that has no historical application. For example, the Supreme Court and our Congress banned anarchists from coming into the country. It banned people that were Communists from coming into the country. We have always been able to use just mere ideology as a test.”

“We’ve also favored several religious groups, disfavored other religious groups,” he added, agreeing with Marlow’s example of how the Obama administration treated Christian refugees.

“This Hawaii judge is close friends with Obama, may have met with Obama before the decision was issued, is here condemning President Trump from just trying to keep the country safe as to who can come in. Well, if you apply his doctrine legally, how was Obama drone-bombing Americans and all kinds of people overseas? So you don’t have a right not to be drone-bombed, but you have a right to live next to somebody in the state of Hawaii or anywhere else in the country?” he asked sarcastically.

“There’s no logic. If you start to apply logically all of the consequences of this judge’s ideas, it goes to places that would destroy the whole concept of borders, destroy the whole concept of nationhood sovereignty, destroy the presidential prerogative to destroy our borders. There’s just no limit to where this judge’s decision could go,” Barnes warned.

He said there is no question executive power has been used in a discriminatory fashion against Christians “for almost the entire Obama tenure, particularly the Syrian Christians and others who were being actually harassed and persecuted.”

Barnes said the judicial action against Trump’s revised executive order dispelled the notion his first order was merely worded poorly or rolled out in a clumsy manner. “No, the problem is you have Deep State saboteurs, and you have unelected officials who think they’re above the law try to create the law, try to change the law, try to rewrite the law.”

“The problem wasn’t how he rolled out the prior order. The problem is, the opposition are people who don’t respect democratic elections and don’t respect the limits of their office,” he charged. “This problem is now right center with the way this judge issued his decision and particularly applying it nationally. He prevented every other federal judge, every other federal circuit, from weighing in on the decision because he unilaterally opposed it across the whole country – which both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have said you’re not supposed to do, in cases just like this,” Barnes said.

“Judges think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want. The media will celebrate them. Nobody will do anything negative or adverse to them. And the only person pushing back on it is President Trump,” he said.

Breitbart News

Listen to the full audio of the interview above.

President Trump’s choice to sit on the Supreme Court will get his turn in the political spotlight Monday after laying low for weeks. But what has traditionally been a high-profile confirmation fight is approaching with barely a whimper from the opposition party.

While Democratic leaders have revived their public criticism of Neil Gorsuch in recent days, liberal advocacy groups have all but abandoned efforts to defeat his nomination through public opinion — with scant paid issue advertising or public rallies.

Many progressives lament Democratic senators have been distracted by other ideological fights.

A group led by NARAL Pro-Choice America recently sent a blistering letter to Senate Democrats slamming lawmakers for not putting up more of a fight against Gorsuch ahead of Monday’s confirmation hearing.

“Democrats have failed to demonstrate a strong, unified resistance to this nominee despite the fact that he is an ultra-conservative jurist who will undermine our basic freedoms and threaten the independence of the federal judiciary,” said the letter. “We need you to do better.”

The justices themselves hope the arrival of Gorsuch will end what court sources say has been a tense 13-month period since Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden passing. The current 4-4 ideological divide has kept the court off its internal workplace rhythms — operating in something of a judicial vacuum, reluctant to tackle hot-button issues that would lead to precedent-setting impact.

Tough talk

Despite the criticism from some on the left, the Senate minority promises tough questions for the nominee.

“If he shows in his answers that he is out of the mainstream as his opinions indicate he very well may be,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., “I will use every tool available, including the filibuster, to oppose him.”

And some progressive groups support the low-key strategy being led by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

“I think Senate Democrats are paying attention in the way that the American people want all senators to pay attention which is to have a robust hearing and really ask Judge Gorsuch these really difficult questions,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Whether he will be a truly independent judge, whether he will apply the law fairly to all.”

But while left-leaning groups may be less than engaged, conservative legal advocates have put their money behind their message.

A $10 million ad campaign spearheaded by the Judicial Crisis Network has targeted vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election in two years.

“Jon Tester is creating gridlock, threatening to obstruct Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch,” says one ad, focusing on the Montana senator seeking a third term. “Tell Jon Tester: stop the obstruction and confirm Gorsuch.”

Other JCN ads tout Gorsuch’s credentials, and friends of the nominee said he is prepared to face the tough questioning of senators.

His conservative supporters also point to bipartisan support among the legal communities in academia and the government.

“There are going to be people who are ideologically opposed to this nomination come hell or high water, and I think … once [the] American public sees Judge Gorsuch, they realize what a terrific nomination this is,” said Thomas Dupree, a former Bush deputy assistant attorney general. “It’s been difficult  for the opponents of Judge Gorsuch to really stir up resentment and opposition to this nomination precisely because he is so eminently qualified.”

Hearings strategy

Party sources say Democratic senators will focus much of their attention on seeking Gorsuch’s views on abortion, since he has not ruled directly on the right to the procedure.

“I will not support any candidate who intends to turn back the clock on civil rights, including women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who has not said whether she would ultimately vote for Gorsuch.

Other areas of Democratic interest:

• Separation of powers, and whether Gorsuch would be an independent voice to strike down excesses in Trump’s executive authority, including the president’s revised order banning travel for immigrants from certain countries.
• Voting rights and campaign finance reform, specifically whether the nominee thinks current unlimited corporate donations to PACs are permissible.
• Workers’ rights, and challenges over pay equity, pension benefits, job discrimination claims, and family and medical leave.

Some progressives have actually urged Democrats not to ask any questions at the hearings, as a dramatic rebuff for Republicans refusing to give former President Barack Obama’s high court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing or vote.

And they demand a filibuster to prevent Gorsuch from ever getting a floor vote.

Bitter feelings linger. “This is a stolen seat being filled by an illegitimate and extreme nominee,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., “and I will do everything in my power to stand up against this assault on the court.”

By Bill Mears

With all the talk of President Trump and his 2005 tax return, let’s put what he paid in perspective, shall we?

Trump in 2005 paid a higher tax rate than President Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2015 and 2014 respectively, as well as a higher percentage than Comcast’s average tax rate. Comcast being the parent company of nothingburger journalist Rachel Maddow’s employer, MSNBC:

Maybe we should be thanking Maddow for bringing this to our attention?

Over to you, Bernie. Pay up!

And too bad this didn’t get leaked during the campaign:

Exit question: When will they admit there’s nothing here?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46 U.S. attorneys to resign, the Justice Department announced Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a “uniform transition.”

The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior transitions, already had left the department. Now, “the Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations,” a spokeswoman said.

“Until the new U.S. Attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. Attorney’s Offices will continue the great work of the Department in investigating, prosecuting, and deterring the most violent offenders,” the statement added.

It is customary, though not automatic, for the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president is in office. Incoming administrations over the past several decades typically have replaced most U.S. attorneys during the first year or two.

The Obama administration allowed political appointees of President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement had been nominated and confirmed. One U.S. attorney appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the current nominee for deputy attorney general.

Sessions’ actions, though, are being closely scrutinized by Democrats after a rocky start to the AG’s time at the DOJ.

Weeks after his tight confirmation vote on Feb. 8, it emerged that Sessions had met twice with the Russian ambassador last year — despite testifying during his confirmation hearing he had no communications with the Russians.

Sessions later clarified his testimony, while recusing himself from any investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 campaign.

The move Friday also comes amid Republican concerns that officials who served under the Obama administration may be working against the Trump administration. Those suspicions, though, largely have focused on intelligence agencies and elsewhere.

U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their priorities are expected to be in line with those of the attorney general. The federal prosecutors are nominated by the president, generally upon the recommendation of a home-state senator.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republicans on Monday evening released the text of their long-awaited ObamaCare replacement bill, proposing to eliminate the various taxes and penalties tied to the original legislation while still preserving certain patient protections.

Aiming to deliver on their signature campaign promise after several election cycles trying to reclaim control of Washington, majority Republicans unveiled what they call the American Health Care Act. The sweeping legislation would repeal ObamaCare’s taxes along with the so-called individual and employer mandates – which imposed fines for not buying and offering insurance, respectively.

It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, replacing them with tax credits for consumers.

CLICK TO READ THE TEXT OF THE OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL.

The bill would continue Obama’s expansion of Medicaid to additional low-earning Americans until 2020. After that, states adding Medicaid recipients would no longer receive the additional federal funds the statute has provided.

More significantly, Republicans would overhaul the federal-state Medicaid program, changing its open-ended federal financing to a limit based on enrollment and costs in each state.

“We begin by repealing the awful taxes, the mandate penalties and the subsidies in ObamaCare,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” in an exclusive interview.

Asked about some conservatives’ concerns that GOP leaders are merely pushing ‘ObamaCare Lite,’ Brady countered, “It is ObamaCare gone.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told Fox News they also “are not pulling the rug out from under people.” Rather, he said Republicans want to restore power to the states and control costs in Medicaid and elsewhere.

“It’ll amount to the biggest entitlement reform, probably in at least the last 20 years,” he said.

The release of the bill touches off what is likely to be a contentious debate, not just with Democrats but within the Republican Party.

The White House signaled its approval of the plan, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying, “Today marks an important step toward restoring healthcare choices and affordability back to the American people.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “hands billionaires a massive new tax break while shifting huge costs and burdens onto working families across America.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal “would cut and cap Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and force Americans, particularly older Americans, to pay more out of pocket for their medical care all so insurance companies can pad their bottom line.”

The first test for GOP leaders, who have been under heavy pressure ever since President Trump took office to release a bill, will be whether the text satisfies the influential conservative wing  – which has the numbers to torpedo the legislation. But it is a balancing act, as moderate Republican lawmakers, as well as governors of both parties, also have warned against going too far in rolling back consumer protections and benefits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill would “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance.” He added, “This unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare.”

However, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the bill “looks like ObamaCare Lite to me … It’s going to have to be better.”

Rank-and-file Republicans were watching to see if the legislation brings down the cost of healthcare.

“If it doesn’t, we haven’t changed anything,” one House Republican told Fox News.

While subsidies would be repealed in the new bill, they would be replaced by monthly tax credits. The credits, worth between $2,000 and $14,000 a year, could be used by low-and-middle-income families who don’t get work- or government-sponsored insurance to buy state-certified plans.

The credits would be based on age and family size, unlike the income-based version under ObamaCare. Conservatives have objected that that feature creates a new entitlement program the government cannot afford.

“I can’t believe many conservative groups are going to like this,” one GOP lawmaker told Fox.

Republicans said they’d not yet received official cost estimates on the overall bill from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That office’s projections on the bill’s price tag and the number of people the measure would cover could be key in winning over recalcitrant Republicans, or making them even harder to win over.

It’s unclear how many people might lose coverage under the new plan.

The legislation, meanwhile, would preserve protections for those with pre-existing conditions by prohibiting insurers from denying coverage or charging them more. It also would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans up to age 26.

Further, the plan would call for a “transition” away from the current Medicaid expansion, which was used under the original law to cover millions more people. Republicans also say they’d give states $100 billion to design their own programs, while upping the amount of money families can contribute to so-called Health Savings Accounts.

A series of tax increases on higher-earning people, the insurance industry and others used to finance the Obama overhaul’s coverage expansion would be repealed as of 2018.

In a last-minute change to satisfy conservative lawmakers, business and unions, Republicans dropped a plan pushed by Ryan to impose a first-ever tax on the most generous employer-provided health plans.

Fox News is told the plan is to go to both the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees on Wednesday for “mark-up” sessions where they will craft a final version of the bill. The legislation would tentatively go before the House Budget Committee next week.

The hope is that the bill would hit the House floor the week after that — and the Senate before the Easter recess.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn’t rule out changes in the measure by his chamber, where significant numbers of moderate Republicans have expressed concerns that the measure could leave too many voters without coverage.

“The House has the right to come up with what it wants to and present it to the Senate by passing it. And we have a right to look it over and see if we like it or don’t,” Hatch told reporters.

Underscoring those worries, four GOP senators released a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shortly before the bill was unveiled.

They complained that an earlier, similar draft of the measure “does not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.” Signing the letter were Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it said is the full hacking capacity of the CIA in a stunning 8,000-plus page disclosure the anti-secrecy website contends is “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.”

The 8,761 documents and files — released as “Vault 7 Part 1” and titled “Year Zero” — were obtained from an “isolated, high-security network” at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va., a press release from the website said. The trove had been “circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors,” one of whom “recently” gave the archive to WikiLeaks.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.

The collection of purported intelligence tools includes information on CIA-developed malware — bearing names such as “Assassin” and “Medusa” — intended to target iPhones, Android phones, smart TVs and Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems, among others. An entire unit in the CIA is devoted to inventing programs to hack data from Apple products, according to WikiLeaks.

WIKILEAKS OFFERS REWARD FOR INFO ON OBAMA MISDEEDS

Some of the remote hacking programs can allegedly turn numerous electronic devices into recording and transmitting stations to spy on their targets, with the information then sent back to secret CIA servers. One document appears to show the CIA was trying to “infect” vehicle control systems in cars and trucks for unspecified means.

WikiLeaks hinted that the capabilites revealed in Tuesday’s disclosure could have even darker utility than simply spying.

“It would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations,” the release stated.

FLASHBACK: WIKILEAKS REVEALS CLINTON ‘HITS’ FILE ON SANDERS

The site said the CIA additionally failed to disclose security vulnerabilities and bugs to major U.S. software manufacturers, violating an Obama administration commitment made in January 2014. Instead, the agency used the software vulnerabilities — which could also be exploited by rival agencies, nations and groups — for its own ends, WikiLeaks said.

“As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in ‘Year Zero’ is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts,” the WikiLeaks release stated.

WikiLeaks also revealed the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a hacking base, and the website provided the methods by which agents obfuscate customs officers to gain entry to Germany, pretending to provide technical consultation.

WikiLeaks said its source released the files because they believed questions surrounding the CIA’s reach “urgently need to be debated in public,” echoing the motives of many previous leakers.

Some of the files include redacted information, such as tens “of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.”

By Cody Derespina

After racial slurs and swastikas, and declarations hailing the Ku Klux Klan were found scrawled in a bathroom stall in a Minnesota high school, a pair of famous liberals spoke up about it.

Controversial Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King noted the vandalism on Twitter after the messages were found Monday at Lakeville South High School:

[Editor’s Note: the KKK was the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party, and NAZI stands for National Socialist] Then comic Sarah Silverman piggybacked on King’s tweet, suggesting the racist, white-supremacist graffiti is what Republican President Donald Trump and his supporters mean by making “America great again”:

You might recall that last month Silverman wondered if utility markings were swastikas.

Not a good month for her and graffiti. Because Lakeville Public Schools officials released a statement Tuesday saying the high school’s administration received parental permission to reveal that the student behind the graffiti is “non-Caucasian” with “significant special education needs.”

“While this does not excuse the student’s actions, the District believes it will help the community and others put this incident into perspective,” the statement said.

By Dave Urbanski 

K Street lobbyists are the symbol of Washington influence-peddling as they push government for favors, subsidies, exemptions, and other special treatment for their clients. Their customers include, in addition to domestic clients, foreign governments, oligarchs, fugitive speculators, and a rogue’s gallery of questionable figures. Washington lobbyists trade on their access to power. Many are former administration officials or members of Congress. If Trump fulfills his promise to “drain the swamp,” these influence peddlers would have nothing to sell. They are under attack.

The media has focused not on K Street but on the Russian ties of President Donald Trump’s associates. They list the reprehensible Kremlin-associated figures for whom members of his inner circle worked, the most notorious being Viktor Yanukovich, the deposed president of Ukraine, and fugitive oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. But both of these “repulsive” figures were also advised by Democratic top dogs, who likely earned large multiples of what the “small fry” Trump associates took home.

In pushing its Manchurian-candidate-Trump narrative, the media fail to mention the much deeper ties of Democratic lobbyists to Russia. Don’t worry, the media seems to say: Even though they are representing Russia, the lobbyists are good upstanding citizens, not like the Trump people. They can be trusted with such delicate matters.

The media targeted former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for consulting for deposed Ukrainian president’s (Yanukovich’s) Party of the Regions. He also worked for billionaire oligarch, Firtash, who stands accused of skimming billions in the Ukraine gas trade in league with Russian oligarchs. The media also singled out Trump’s former national security advisor, General Michael Flynn, for attending a dinner with Putin and appearing on Russia’s foreign propaganda network RT. Trump’s own Russian ties were the subject of intense media coverage of an unverified opposition-research report purportedly prepared by an ex-British spy, who remains in hiding. It seems no enterprising reporter has tried to find him.

The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.

That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”  Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.

Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.

That’s still not all: Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) read Kremlin propaganda into the Congressional Record, referring to Ukrainian militia as “repulsive Neo Nazis” in denying Ukrainian forces ManPad weapons. Conyers floor speech was surely a notable success of some Kremlin lobbyist.

Lobbying for Russia is a bi-partisan activity. Gazprombank GPB, a subsidiary of Russia’s third largest bank, Gazprombank, is represented by former Sen. John Breaux, (D., La.), and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R., Miss.), as main lobbyists on “banking laws and regulations, including applicable sanctions.” The Breaux-Lott client is currently in the Treasury Department list of Russian firms prohibited from debt financing with U.S. banks.

In his February 16 press conference, President Trump declared in response to the intensifying media drumbeat on his Russian connections: “I haven’t done anything for Russia.” K-Street lobbyists, on the other hand, have done a lot to help Russia. They greased the skids for a strategic deal (that required the Secretary of State’s approval) that multiplied the Kremlin’s command of world uranium supplies. They likely prevented the shipment of strategic weapons needed by Ukraine to repulse well-armed pro-Russian forces. A fugitive billionaire who robbed the Ukrainian people of billions is represented by one of the establishment’s most connected lawyers.

Gazprombank GPB hired Breux and Lott to gain repeal of sanctions. That’s perfectly fine in Washington; they are playing according established “swamp rules” in their tailored suits and fine D.C. restaurants. General Flynn lost his job when the subject of sanctions was mentioned by the Russian ambassador in their telephone conversation, but that’s the way the media and Washington play.

No wonder that Trump’s’ “drain the swamp” and anti-media messages resonate so well with mainstream America.

Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor