By Jim Rutenberg @ NYTimes.com, April 23

[.....] His Twitter trail could be a gift to lawyers for the news industry during leak investigations into articles that made the president mad enough to pick up his Android and tap, Tap, TAP!

It could provide great grist for legal arguments that the investigations are less about prosecuting damaging leaks than they are about punishing journalists.

That, at least, is the view of Floyd Abrams, the titan of free speech jurisprudence. He’s best known for successfully defending clients like The New York Times against the Nixon administration’s attempts to stop it from printing the Pentagon Papers, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art against Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s move to cut city support because of an exhibition he called sacrilegious.

Now Mr. Abrams is seeking to re-educate the public about the thing that stands between it and, say, becoming Russia: the First Amendment. The occasion of my recent visit to his downtown Manhattan office was the publication of his new book, “The Soul of the First Amendment,” which he called “really a story of American exceptionalism.” [.....]

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Sayed Salahuddin @ The Washington Post, April 24

KABUL — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived for a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Monday as the Trump administration considers boosting U.S. military support for a conflict that commanders say has degenerated into a stalemate.

The visit, Mattis’s first as defense secretary, comes just days after a devastating Taliban attack on one of Afghanistan’s largest and most secure bases killed nearly 200 soldiers — leading to the resignation Monday of the country’s army chief and defense minister [.....]

It is unclear how the attack will affect Afghan recruiting efforts, already strained by casualties and retention rates among the ranks. But the subsequent resignation of the two top military officials is a rare development in Afghan politics.

Speaking to reporters alongside Mattis, Nicholson said the level of sophistication in Friday’s attack made it “quite possible” that the gunmen were linked to the Haqqani network, a Taliban splinter faction based in Pakistan [.....]

By Josh Meyer @ Politico.com, April 24

By dropping charges against major arms targets, the administration infuriated Justice Department officials — and undermined its own counterproliferation task forces.

Whether or not one agrees with Obama's deal, I think this is a good read to understand where some of those in the Obama D.O.J who may speak out against may be coming from.

Helluva quid-pro-quo if true.

Also strange that Trump didn't spend any money on his campaign in October until ponying up $10m the day after Chaffetz did this. Was that the same $10m, or Trump finally felt confident he might pull it off?

'After the rally touting Trump's 100 days, there will be a press conference touting the rally, followed by a tweet touting the press conference, followed by more rallies, press conferences, and tweets.....Just Trump's rallies, press conferences, tweets and so on about himself with 59 missiles and a big bomb thrown in for effect.'

No new news here, just a good, in-depth analysis of what went down ... reading the article is like watching a movie when you know how it ends but still can't quite wrap your head around it.

By Jay Croft @ CNN, April 21

Insulting. Out of touch. Inaccurate.

Mayors of some of the so-called sanctuary cities were not impressed Friday with the Trump administration's latest volley in the dispute over immigration policy. The Justice Department told the local government officials to share immigration information by June 30 on people who have been arrested -- or lose federal money [....]

By Michael Wines @ NYTimes.com, April 21

[....] a case heading to the Supreme Court [....] could transform political maps from City Hall to Congress — often to Democrats’ benefit.

A bipartisan group of voting rights advocates says the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature, the State Assembly, was gerrymandered by its Republican majority before the 2012 election — so artfully, in fact, that Democrats won a third fewer Assembly seats than Republicans despite prevailing in the popular vote. In November, in a 2-to-1 ruling, a panel of federal judges agreed.

Now the Wisconsin case is headed to a Supreme Court that has repeatedly said that extreme partisan gerrymanders are unconstitutional, but has never found a way to decide which ones cross the line. 

Some legal scholars believe this could be the year that changes that. If that happens, they say, an emphatic ruling against partisan gerrymanders would rank with another redistricting decision: Baker v. Carr, the historic 1962 case that led to the principle of one person, one vote.

“My feeling is that there is increasing concern within the court about the extent of partisan gerrymandering over the last 10 or 15 years,” said Richard H. Pildes, a constitutional law professor at the New York University School of Law. “I do think this is a pivotal moment — a big, big moment.”[....]

The deal to evacuate four towns, some besieged by Assad, some by the opposition, involved some extraordinary intrigue—and terrible risks.

By Emma Beals @ The Daily Beast, April 21

The United Nation's Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced Thursday that it had found “incontrovertible proof” that the Syrian government used “sarin or a sarin-like substance” in a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun earlier this month [....]

But the war continues, and there are other policies pushed by Assad’s government that need to be examined closely. The Syrian regime and its allies are continuing to carry out what they call their “reconciliation and evacuation” policy across Syria's besieged areas. [....] the “reconciliation” part of this program is, to say the least, problematic. It is championed by the Syrian regime, and Russian forces, as the best option for stability in the country, while the opposition and human rights organizations see it as forced displacement, which is itself a war crime [....]

By Ryan Browne and Elise Labott @ CNN, Updated 9:03 PM ET, April 20

Washington -- Chinese air force land-attack, cruise-missile-capable bombers were put "on high alert" on Wednesday as the US sees evidence that the Chinese military is preparing to respond to a potential situation in North Korea, a US defense official tells CNN.

The official said the US has also seen an extraordinary number of Chinese military aircraft being brought up to full readiness through intensified maintenance. These recent steps by the Chinese are assessed as part of an effort to "reduce the time to react to a North Korea contingency," the official said.

Such a contingency could include the risk of of an armed conflict breaking out as tensions on the peninsula have increased in the wake of multiple North Korean missile tests [....]

[....]  Trump told a news conference "some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours," and that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would "try very hard" to pressure Beijing's ally and neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs [.....]

 By Juan Carlos Hernandez and Joshua Goodman @ The Associated Press, April 20

VALENCIA, Venezuela---General Motors announced Thursday that it was shuttering its operations in Venezuela after authorities seized its factory in the country, a move that could draw the Trump administration into the escalating chaos engulfing the South American nation amid days of deadly protests.

The plant in the industrial city of Valencia was confiscated Wednesday as anti-government protesters clashed with security forces and pro-government groups in a country battered by economic troubles, including food shortages and triple-digit inflation. Three people were killed and hundreds arrested in the deadliest day of protests since the unrest began three weeks ago.

The seizure arose from an almost 20-year-old lawsuit brought by a former GM dealership in western Venezuela [....]