Trumped Again: A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday blocked President Trump’s move to deny federal funds to so-called “sanctuary cities.” US District Judge William H. Orrick ruled that Trump is out of bounds trying to use federal aid as a weapon to enforce his immigration orders that have been blocked twice.

Trump’s order threatens to withhold federal money from cities and jurisdictions where police departments refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Judge Orrick said Trump’s own words about banning Muslims and fighting illegal immigration turned against him. “If there was doubt about the scope of the order, the president and attorney general have erased it with their public comments,” Judge Orrick wrote in his opinion.

Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, said the ruling was “another example of how the Ninth Circuit went bananas.” He added: “It will be overturned.”

The Flynn Man: Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn appears to have broken the law accepting payments from Russia and not disclosing them when he was named to the job he lost, according to members of the House. It’s illegal for a former US military officer to accept payments from a foreign government.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said, “And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate, and there are repercussions for a violation of law.”

Voodoo Economics: President Trump is expected to announce his proposal to cut the business tax from 35 percent to 15 in the belief that it will spur business and move international corporations to bring home billions of dollars sheltered overseas. His cut would apply to everything from the biggest corporations, including the president’s own real estate empire, to the smallest mom-and-pop stores.

There’s nothing in the president’s proposal that would offset the loss of income to the federal government. “The tax plan will pay for itself with economic growth,” Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters this week. The plan is based on what’s called “The Laffer Curve,” the economic theory of economist Arthur Laffer hatched in 1974. Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush cut taxes based on the Laffer theory, and deficits grew. Reagan ended up raising taxes.

Walled Off: President Trump has backed away from his demand for a down payment on his border wall to be included in the spending bill that must pass by the end of the week. Democrats were prepared to let the government shut down if money for the wall was included in the bill.

Trump told a group pf conservative journalists that, at least for now, he’s willing to accept increased funding on border security instead of a payment for the wall. Despite what’s another political failure for the president, he wrote on Twitter yesterday, “Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.”

Truer Words: In an interview with the Associated Press, President Trump said the following about his meeting with Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings: “Well he said, you’ll be the greatest president in the history of, but you know what, I’ll take that also, but that you could be. But he said, will be the greatest president but I would also accept the other. In other words, if you do your job, but I accept that. Then I watched him interviewed and it was like he never even was here. It’s incredible. I watched him interviewed a week later and it’s like he was never in my office. And you can even say that.”

Elementary: A Connecticut man has been charged with murdering his wife after her Fitbit exercise monitor told a different story than he told the police. Richard Debate, 40, said he came home and was attacked by an intruder, who tied him up and shot 39-year-old Connie Debate with a .357 magnum owned by Debate himself. Police found that Connie Debate’s Fitbit showed that she was still alive and moving an hour after her husband claimed she was dead.

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