The Russia Thing: After a year of investigation into Russian election meddling, President Trump posted a flurry of twitter messages yesterday, including one claiming his campaign was the subject of spying by the Obama administration. “Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI ‘SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.’ Andrew McCarthy says, ‘There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.’ If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”

The “word coming out” came from conservative writer McCarthy on Fox News after he wrote in The National Review, “The Justice Department’s inability, or at least unwillingness, to reveal exactly how, when, and why the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation has fueled suspicions that a spy who worked for both the FBI and the CIA was deployed against the Trump campaign, probably in Britain.”

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on CNN this morning that there may have been two informants planted in the campaign. It sounds a little out there, but the The NY Times reported two days ago that “one government informant met several times” with two men associated with the Trump campaign and “That has become a politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the F.B.I. was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials.”

In another tweet, Trump said, “Congratulations America, we are now into the second year of the greatest Witch Hunt in American History…and there is still No Collusion and No Obstruction. The only Collusion was that done by Democrats who were unable to win an Election despite the spending of far more money!”

Trump and his minions are on a campaign to destroy the credibility of the Special Counsel investigation and kill it. Providing his own propaganda, Trump tweeted, “Despite the disgusting, illegal and unwarranted Witch Hunt, we have had the most successful first 17 month Administration in U.S. history – by far!”

Protection Racket: President Trump yesterday promised that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un will be “protected” if he makes a deal with the US. “He’d be there, he’d be in his country, he’d be running his country.” It was a rare moment in which an American President promised to protect a dictator who kills his political enemies and starves his citizens.

No Secret: The Senate voted 54-45 yesterday to make Gina Haspel the first woman to direct the CIA. Some Democrats voted with the Republican majority.

Haspel met opposition because she ran a CIA secret prison where prisoners were tortured. She drafted the original memo authorizing waterboarding of terrorist suspects, a form of torture.

Foreign Exchange: The Kushner family real estate business is reported to be on the brink of being bailed out by a financial firm partly-owned by the Qatari government. The Kushners vastly overpaid for the 666 5^th Ave. tower and could lose it if they don’t get help. Trump son-in-law Jared and his father paid a record $1.8 billion for the building 11 years ago.  Today the building takes in only half its annual mortgage payment, and a third of the 41-story tower is vacant.

This wouldn’t matter, except Jared is one the President’s closest aides and hasn’t separated himself from the family business. He’s in charge of bringing peace to the Middle East. Being indebted to Qatar puts his neutrality in question.

Big Bang: As fissures continue to leak molten lava into a residential neighborhood on the Big Island of Hawaii, Mt. Kilauea erupted yesterday sending smoke and ash 30,000 feet into the air. The event had been expected as the lava level in the volcano’s crater dropped into the water table, creating a steam explosion. USGS geologist Michelle Coombs described the explosion as “energetic, but short-lived.”

Nation: A student and an adult were killed in Paramus, NJ yesterday when a bus taking middle-schoolers on a field trip hit a dump truck and careened over the rail in its side. The impact was so violent that the body of the school bus was partially ripped from the chassis. Some other passengers were severely injured. Police say the bus driver missed an exit and made an illegal U-turn.

The Roundup: Prince Charles will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle tomorrow in the absence of her father, who’s recovering from heart surgery, the royal family announced. Queen Victoria once walked one of her own daughters. — Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal has been released from the hospital after an attempt to kill him and his daughter with a nerve agent in early March. His daughter was released before him.

Sex and the City: The fertility rate in the US fell to a record low for the second year in a row, extending a downward trend that started with the 2008 recession.

The birth rate last year was 60.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, down 3 percent from 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Economists say that down the road a low birth rate makes it hard to replace the labor force and fewer people will be paying into Social security for a larger retired population. Pay up or mom and dad will move in with you.

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