Liberal comedian and commentator Bill Maher said Friday that the Clintons need to “go away” for the 2020 presidential election.
“It seems like every few months, Hillary Clinton bubbles up again and people are like, ‘Oh, she’s thinking about running’ or she says something crazy,” the “Real Time” host said during his HBO show Friday night.
“The Clintons — they’ve gotta go away. I’m saying this now a year out,” he added. “They can’t be at the convention. … I’m serious.”
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

Most people who died from vaping-related injuries used products containing THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, federal health officials said Friday, offering another data point tying the outbreak of lung illnesses to products made with that compound.
Based on data available from 860 of the 1,604 patients who have fallen ill with the disease, about 85% reported using THC-containing products, compared to about 10% who reported exclusively vaping nicotine-containing products, officials said. Many sick patients said they bought THC vape products on the black market, and those have come under increased scrutiny.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead a US delegation next week on a five-country tour of the Middle East and India, including visiting Israel and attending a Saudi investment conference he boycotted last year over the gruesome murder of a journalist, officials said Friday.
Mnuchin will be accompanied by top Treasury officials and Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, in a trip that also will include stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
While in Israel, Kushner is expected to hold his first official meeting with Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}

2020 Democrat Tulsi Gabbard goes one-on-one with Hannity to unleash on what she calls Hillary Clinton’s ‘war-mongering’ legacy.
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The U.S. government’s budget deficit ballooned to nearly $1 trillion in 2019, the Treasury Department announced Friday, as the United States’ fiscal imbalance widened for a fourth consecutive year despite a sustained run of economic growth. The deficit grew $205 billion, or 26%, in the past year.
The country’s worsening fiscal picture runs in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate the federal debt within eight years. The deficit is up nearly 50% in the Trump era. Since taking office, Trump has endorsed big spending increases and steered most Republicans to abandon the deficit obsession they held during the Obama administration.

The Pentagon awarded its controversial $10 billion cloud computing business to Microsoft Friday evening, spurning a bid from Amazon, which had been expected to win the contract. President Donald Trump had expressed opposition to giving the lucrative award to a company led by Jeff Bezos, a regular target of his ire.
The announcement comes after an intense lobbying effort and a lawsuit filed by some of America’s biggest tech companies, who accused the military of favoring Amazon in a process that has dragged on for more than a year. During that time, Trump and other administration officials made it clear that they did not want the contract to go to Amazon. Federal acquisition laws forbid politicians, including the president, from influencing contract awards.

The Trump administration launched a military operation in Syria targeting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive leader of the Islamic State, as reported last night on Matzav.com when the story first broke following a tweet from President Donald Trump.
Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss activities that have not yet been made public, said Special Operations forces conducted a raid in northwest Syria’s Idlib province aimed at the militant leader. The officials said it was not clear whether Baghdadi, who managed to evade a prolonged U.S. and allied campaign to locate him, was killed in the operation.

Internal Egyptian government documents show officials in Cairo scrambling to do damage control after U.S. spy agencies uncovered an alleged scheme to smuggle North Korean military cargo into the country in defiance of international sanctions.
The newly obtained records include what appears to be an explicit acknowledgment of the Egyptian military’s role in purchasing 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades that were discovered hidden on a North Korean cargo ship in 2016. The vessel was headed to an Egyptian port in the Suez Canal at the time of the bust, which a United Nations report described as “the largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions” against the communist state.

Democratic strategist Doug Schoen and GOP strategist David Avella weigh in on Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
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