1600: President Trump yesterday pulled his Twitter finger on the House Freedom Caucus, blaming them for killing the Republican healthcare bill. Trump wrote,  “Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!”

The Freedom Caucus is a group of about 40 extreme right wing, small-government, lower-tax representatives who are uncompromising. You can’ get their vote unless you give them everything they want.

The White House is actually pleading for help from Democrats. Chief of Staff Reince  Priebus said, “I think it’s time for our folks to come together, and I also think it’s time to potentially get a few moderate Democrats on board as well.”

Club Trump: The Washington Post’s Philip Blum notes that President Trump has gone golfing and visited a Trump property on roughly one out of every three days in his 66-day presidency. He writes, “For the equivalent of three full weeks of his just-over-nine weeks as commander in chief, he has spent all or part of a day at a Trump property — earning that property mentions in the media and the ability to tell potential clients that they might be able to interact with the president.”

Putin’s Russia: Anti-corruption protesters gathered in 99 Russian cities yesterday and hundreds of them were arrested,  including the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny in Moscow.

Eighty-two of the gatherings were declared illegal. Marching against corruption is basically marching against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled the country since 1999.

This complicates President Trump’s drive for friendlier relations with Russia.  Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, said: “Putin’s thugocracy is on full display. The United States government cannot be silent about Russia’s crackdown on peaceful protesters. Free speech is what we’re all about and Americans expect our leaders to call out thugs who trample the basic human rights of speech, press, assembly and protest.”

China’s Hong Kong: For the first time, a woman has been chosen to be the chief executive of Hong Kong. Carrie Lam was chosen by an election committee stacked with Beijing loyalists and is expected to do what she’s told by the bosses.

Madness: Only two of the #1 regional seeds in the NCAA basketball tournament, Gonzaga and N. Carolina, have survived to the Final Four. It’s the first time, S. Carolina has made it to the Final Four, and the 20^th for N. Carolina. On April 1, S. Carolina goes against Gonzaga, and N. Carolina meets Oregon. The final is April 3.

The Obit Page: Jean Rouverol, an actress and screenwriter blacklisted in Hollywood during the 1950s McCarthy era, has died at age 100.

Rouverol and her screenwriter husband Hugo Butler had joined the American Communist Party in the 1940s and moved to avoid appearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

From Mexico, Rouverol and her husband sold screenplays to Hollywood using pseudonyms and fronts to sell their scripts. She and her husband returned to the states in the 1960s, and she was able to write television and movies scripts once again under her own name. She wrote a book published in 2000, “Refugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years.”

Reality TV: The British television show “Eden” challenged 23 men and women to build a society from scratch on a remote Scottish estate. The usual bickering and infighting ensued. Ten contestants bailed out and some cheated by visiting shops and liquor stores off the estate. The last contestants just came out of the wilderness after fighting off hunger and cold, only to find that the show went off the air last August after only four episodes, and that Donald Trump is President of the United States.

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