Privatizing the V.A. Will Hurt Veterans  —  It has been my greatest professional honor to serve our country's more than 20 million veterans.  Almost three years ago, I left my private sector job running hospitals and came to Washington to repay my gratitude to the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country.

Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators probing whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia have been questioning witnesses about events at the 2016 Republican National Convention, according to two sources familiar …

Laura Ingraham Apologizes to Parkland Survivor as Advertisers Ditch Her Show … After right-wing star Laura Ingraham publicly mocked Parkland school-shooting survivor David Hogg for being rejected by multiple colleges, several companies have pulled their ads from her primetime Fox News show.

Source: Mueller pushed for Gates' help on collusion  —  Ex-Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pleads guilty  —  (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's team last year made clear it wanted former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates' help, not so much against his former business partner Paul Manafort …

EXCLUSIVE: More cabinet trouble for Trump?  EPA chief lived in condo tied to lobbyist ‘power couple’  —  For much of his first year in Washington, President Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt occupied prime real estate in a townhouse near the U.S. Capitol that is co-owned by the wife …

Russia Will Expel 150 Diplomats, as Tensions With West Reach Fever Pitch  —  LONDON — Intensifying Russia's clash with Europe and the United States, the Kremlin on Thursday announced that it would expel 150 Western diplomats and close the American consulate in St. Petersburg.

Pope Francis: ‘There Is No Hell’ … In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just “disappear.”  This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul.

Crazed girls flood Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz with fan mail  —  Sun Sentinel  —  Mass murderer Nikolas Cruz is getting stacks of fan mail and love letters sent to the Broward County jail, along with hundreds of dollars in contributions to his commissary account.

ICE Now Detaining Pregnant Women, Thanks to Trump Order … Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ending its practice of automatically releasing pregnant women from detention, according to internal communications reviewed by The Daily Beast.  —  This is because of President Donald Trump's executive order …

It Took 3 Different Court Orders for Scott Walker To Finally Hold Constitutionally Required Elections  —  After months of delay and Republican attempts to defy court orders, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker finally agreed to schedule special elections to fill vacant two state legislative seats.

Trouble in candy land  —  How Peeps, pensions and a lawsuit threaten to upend the American retirement system  —  On April 1, hundreds of millions of marshmallow chicks and bunnies called Peeps will peer out from Easter baskets at American children.  —  They are a pastel symbol of Easter joy …

The Fascist Right Is Bloodied and Soiled  —  Recently, on a cold, gray Monday afternoon in East Lansing, Michigan, about 500 militant anti-fascists gathered in a parking lot with the intention of stopping Richard Spencer, the high-profile white nationalist, from speaking at Michigan State University.

Exclusive: Russian ambassador pleads for help in securing Washington meetings  —  Congressional leaders won't meet with him.  Neither will the vice president or the White House chief of staff.  —  And the Russian ambassador says he is at his wit's end.  —  In a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch …

FBI looked into Trump plans to build hotel in Latvia with Putin supporter  —  Exclusive: US authorities made inquiries even before 2016 election campaign into Trump property dealings in former Soviet Union … They wanted to build the Las Vegas of the Baltics.

Fake Kirsten Gillibrand flap reveals double standard in our politics  —  Here's a sentence I never thought I would need to write: Kirsten Gillibrand is not involved in a sex scandal.  —  Now I've got your attention, right?  —  That I even need to devote a blog post to this topic is evidence …

Media vs. Facebook: This time it's personal  —  Facebook and Google execs privately complain about the barrage of critical coverage they face, charging that media companies have a financial incentive to attack them and that media execs are settling scores.  They're right.

More than 200 former diplomats are alarmed at the state of American diplomacy … More than 200 former U.S. ambassadors and veteran diplomats have signed a letter expressing alarm over the slide in U.S. leadership in the world and urging senators to grill Mike Pompeo about his plans to reverse …

Sacramento Home For Sale, But Not To Trump Supporters  —  SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento area home is up for sale, but it comes with a catch.  —  The homeowner has a political preference in mind for the next owner of her house, which has been in her family for decades.

Larry King Says the Second Amendment Was Created to Fight Off Slave Uprisings  —  Larry King has an interesting tidbit for why the Second Amendment should be repealed — and it's got to do with what he says is the real reason it was created ... to fight off slaves.

The House Exodus  —  How the historically high number of open seats affects the November calculus  —  KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE  — As of this writing, just 379 of 435 House districts will have incumbents running in them this November.  That's the second-lowest total of the post-World War II era.

Kathy Griffin Is Returning to TV, and Still Taking on Trump  —  Almost a year after Kathy Griffin appeared in a widely condemned photograph that depicted her holding the severed head of President Trump, this comedian and actress is making a TV comeback of sorts.

Father crashes daughter's proposal, holds up sign reading ‘Say no’  —  It was a moment Allison Barron and Levi Bliss would remember for the rest of their lives.  —  No, we're not talking about Levi's proposal — although that was certainly memorable, too.  We're talking about the moment Allison's dad …

A Partisan Combatant, a Remorseful Blogger: The Senate Staffer Behind the Attack on the Trump-Russia Investigation  —  Jason Foster, chief investigative counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, once blogged under the handle “Extremist,” expressing worry about a Muslim takeover and whether Joe McCarthy got a bum rap.