Today in Politics, Bulletin 94. 3/18/25

… MN State Sen. Justin Eichorn was arrested for soliciting a 16-year-old girl for sex, who turned out to be an undercover police officer. Eichorn is a Republican who is married with 4 children. He made national headlines earlier this week for being a sponsor of a bill that would declare ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ a mental illness.

… Now he’s making headlines in other ways.

… Amazing how this just keeps happening over and over and over.

… Trump had his big phone call with Putin today to try to allegedly persuade him to sign a ceasefire agreement as a precursor to a negotiated permanent peace agreement. Putin essentially said that if Ukraine and the US agree to all of his demands then he might consider signing a cease fire. Both sides also issued statements about the call that were different in some key details.

… From the White House readout of the call: “The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea. These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East. The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the US and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved."

… TASS reported that Putin told Trump that a complete end of US military aid to Kyiv is the key condition for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

… TASS also reported that Trump agreed with Putin’s proposal to set up hockey games between Russia and the US.

… The two areas where Ukraine is hurting Russia the most are: (1) Drone strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure and oil production; (2) Strikes on the Russian navy and shipping in the Black Sea. And Putin demands that both of those things end before he will agree to a ceasefire.

… Garry Kasparov: “Russia's weakest point is Ukraine attacking its gas and oil facilities, so of course Putin wants Trump's help stopping it. Nothing on Russia murdering Ukrainian civilians. Add TASS mentioning US-Russia ‘working groups’ and fucking US-Russia hockey games to this most perfect call. The Black Sea is another area Ukraine was kicking Russia's ass, so one more item on Putin's wish list. And restoring US relations with a war criminal dictator who offers the US nothing.”

… “Every GOP Congressman needs to be asked if they support this switching of sides. Again, this partial ceasefire looks Made in Moscow to protect the one thing that could force Russia to stop its invasion and murder campaign in Ukraine - it's cash-producing energy infrastructure. Ukraine now has its own long-range missiles, so Putin needed Trump's help asap.”

… Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko: The Kremlin is essentially sticking to its optimal strategy—dragging things out indefinitely, saying ‘no’ without actually saying ‘no,’ drowning everything in meaningless demagogy, manipulating Trump by massaging his ego, tossing him silly trinkets like imaginary ‘thousands of Ukrainian soldiers lives spared only thanks to Trump’ and hockey games (!), all while continuing its full-scale war against Ukraine. And as long as Trump keeps indulging in his virtual ‘victories’ and tiptoeing around Putin, they have no reason to stop.”

… Trump’s former NSA John Bolton: “Trump is rushing to make a deal with Russia and Ukraine because in his mind this deal will earn him the Nobel Peace Prize, which he has long wanted.”

… So we get hockey games and “enormous economic deals” with Russia in exchange for selling out Ukraine.

… Art of the Deal.

… Two days after Director Lee Zeldin announced he was gutting the EPA, Trump announced we are going to fire up “clean coal” plants: “After years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants, I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.”

… I didn’t know there was such a thing as clean coal. I learn something new from Trump every day.

… HUD Secretary Scott Turner and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum jointly announced a plan to open up protected federal land around the country so housing could be constructed: “This will unlock federal lands for the benefit of all Americans.”

… Burgum also talked about opening up federal lands to mining: "Ukraine, Greenland, our allies around the world, and here at home on our incredible amount of federal land, our gigantic balance sheet that we have here - all of these are areas where we've gotta be more strategic in going after critical minerals."

… After postponing his book tour, Sen. Chuck Schumer launched a media tour on several shows to defend himself from backlash after his CR vote. On CBS: “I’m the best leader for the Senate. I am the best at winning Senate seats. We’re moving forward - Hakeem and I have a plan.”

… Schumer: "One of the Republican senators who knows said to us, 'you'll be in the shutdown for 6-9 months until we totally destroy the federal government.' So the shutdown was a much worse alternative."

… More from the Schumer Explanation Tour: “The Republicans would like to have some freedom from Trump, but they won’t until we bring him down in popularity. That happened with Bush in 2005. It happened with Trump in 2017. When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues will resume working with us. And I talk to them. One of the places is in the gym. When you’re on that bike in your shorts, panting away next to a Republican, a lot of the inhibitions come off.”

… Schumer said that he was also confident that if Trump started to defy court orders, Republicans in the Senate would join him to oppose Trump if that happened.

… None of this made me feel better about the current leadership situation.

… And I could have done without the panting in shorts next to Republicans with the inhibitions off visual.

… Illinois Gov and likely presidential candidate JB Pritzker: “Look, he’s the elected leader. I disagree with what he did and vehemently so. But I also know that he has done good work as a Senate leader in other ways.”

… Trump called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached after he ruled against him on migrant flights: “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President - He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”

… Radical Left Lunatic Judge James Boasberg was confirmed by the Senate 96-0.

… Chief Justice John Roberts took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement responding to Trump: "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

… Rep. Lauren Boebert agreed with Trump though that they need to start impeaching judges: “With every executive order they are trying to shut any progress he is making down. It’s kind of like whack-a-mole right now. In the House, we need to do our due diligence and impeach these Soros-funded judges.”

… The sworn affidavit filed with Judge Boasberg by DOJ stated that ICE "carefully vetted" each of the migrants who were deported without due process. CBS reported that an ICE official said "many" of them deported as alleged gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act do not have any criminal records at all.

… David Bier, Director of Immigration Issues at the CATO Institute: “Unreal. ICE implies that MOST of the Venezuelans sentenced to hard labor in a brutal Central American prison without charge or trial or so much as a cursory hearing had never been convicted or even charged with ANY CRIME whatsoever, not even a trivial one.”

… Gavin Newsom’s podcast guest Steve Bannon: “If there’s some innocent gardeners in there - hey, tough break.”

Reminder that tomorrow there is no Bulletin because that is the day I do my podcast Uncovered, where we do a deep dive into the Top 10 stories of the week and I try to provide a lot of detail and background on them that was not covered by legacy media, but should have been.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can read it here.

… The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 8.9 million Americans are now