Pennsylvania 18: With some absentee ballots yet to be counted late yesterday, Democrat Conor Lamb appears to have won the congressional seat in Pennsylvania’s 18^th district that should have been a lock for the Republican, Rick Saccone.

Republican leaders are talking about demanding a recount of the voting.

Lamb’s performance is interpreted as a sign of fading popularity for President Trump, who’s been a disappointment and even an embarrassment to many of his supporters in suburban areas.

  Columnist EJ Dionne writes in The Washington Post, “The main path for a Democratic takeover of the House runs through Republican-held districts where Hillary Clinton defeated or lost only narrowly to Trump in 2016. But Lamb demonstrated that more moderate Democrats could harvest anti-Trump votes without waging an anti-Trump campaign.”

Lamb ran a little more like a Republican than a Democrat. He’s pro-gun and anti-Pelosi, the House minority leader.

Dionne says, “The staunchest anti-Trump voters are clearly prepared to vote for Democratic candidates no matter their ideology. Trump’s grip on less affluent voters has clearly weakened. This is also a sign that many of his 2016 supporters were casting ballots more against Clinton than for him. But November’s vote will not be a referendum on Clinton. It will very much be a judgment on Trump.”

The Economist: President Trump is naming CNBC  business analyst and former anchorman Larry Kudlow to be his chief economic adviser. This is like putting in the play-by-play announcer for the quarterback.

Kudlow worked for the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration and became chief economist for the investment firm, Bear, Stearns. But he has spent the majority of his life talking about economics, not doing anything about it. In 2007 he argued there would be no recession, just before one of the biggest economic downturns in history.

He’s a believer in supply-side and trickle-down economics — cut taxes on the rich and their spending will trickle down to the poor. Kudlow has endorsed free trade and a strong US currency, bucking President Trump who said, “I want to have different opinions. We agree on most. He now has come around to believing in tariffs as a negotiating point.”

Trump has hinted that there’s more housecleaning to be done in his administration. Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey tweeted, “White House officials have begun betting pools of sorts among each other on who’s getting ousted next.”

Firing Line: Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions is considering a recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just days away from his retirement, possibly denying him his pension after 21 years with the bureau.

McCabe is accused of granting permission to FBI agents to talk to reporters about the investigation of the Clinton Foundation, then being less than candid about it to the FBI inspector general. He has been a target of President Trump, who’s accused McCabe of being cozy with the Bill and Hillary Clinton, and going soft on the investigation of Hillary’s use of private email. McCabe took a leave of absence in January and is hoping to retire Sunday.

Firing McCabe might be justified, but could be dicey. It might be seen as an effort by Sessions to please his enraged boss, President Trump.

Out of Stock: Toys R US, the megastore chain that rose to dominate toy sales, is about to close or sell all 800 of its stores, The Washington Post reports. Everybody knew their television jingle. “I don’t want to grow up. I’m a Toys R Us Kid.” About 33,000 people will be losing their jobs. “Toys” has been falling behind big box stores and the internet, then they had a bad Christmas season.

Walkout: Hundreds of students marched on the White House yesterday as students all over the country walked out of school in memory of the 17 students and faculty killed at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. a month ago.

Also yesterday the accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 18, appeared in court and offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Prosecutors turned him down. They want the death penalty.

Some Nerve: Britain is ejecting 23 Russian diplomats described as spies after the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in a rural English town. The attack involved a super-deadly poison called Novichok, created by the Russians. Russia has dismissed the accusation. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the British government of “acting out political drama.”

Bad Blood: The tech company Theranos was once a darling of investors fascinated with the company’s purported invention of a method that would revolutionize blood testing. Instead, the Securities and Exchange Commission declared yesterday that Theranos was a “massive fraud” that bilked investors of $700 million.

The company’s 34-year-old founder, Elizabeth Holmes, is ordered to pay a $500,000 penalty, release her control of the company, and be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years. Her pitch was that anyone should be able to walk into a drugstore and get a comprehensive blood test to check their health. She was once on the cusp of making huge deals … one with the drug chain Walgreens … until it was discovered she didn’t have the goods.

Holmes was once estimated to have a personal net worth of $4.5 billion, now believed to be zero.

Rumorville: The NY Post is pushing the story that Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Vanessa are on the verge of divorce. They have five kids. It seems that Vanessa woke up one day and realized she’s married to Donald Trump Jr.

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