House vote

Following yesterday's almost unanimous House vote to pass new sanctions against Russia, on Wednesday Moscow threatened to retaliate, saying that - as expected - the action has made it all but impossible to achieve the Trump  administration’s goal of improved relations, and vowed to retaliate to the latest sanctions which Russia views as senseless and destructive according to its deputy foreign minister said.

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The White House indicated that President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House took up last night, that requires him to get Congress' permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Russia...

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

This week’s expected House vote to add more sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea is a prime example of how little thought goes into US foreign policy. Sanctions have become kind of an automatic action the US government takes when it simply doesn’t know what else to do.

On Friday morning, in the aftermath of Trump's surprising victory forcing the GOP Healthcare bill repealing Obamacare through the House, we noted that Goldman's DC analyst Alec Phillips responded that, somewhat paradoxically, the impact on Trump's broader economic agenda would actually be more adverse than most economist and pundits expected, stating that "the main effect of House passage is to delay the consideration of tax legislation, which looks even more likely than before to be delayed until 2018."

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra apparently doesn't think that $858 million is nearly enough taxpayer money to fight the Trump administration.  That is precisely the amount that California's state budget proposal, laid out by Governor Jerry Brown in January, allocated to Becerra's Justice Department but in testimony before the Senate Budget committee yesterday Becerra said he needs even more to attract and keep qualified lawyers to defend the state.  Per The Hill: