| | | | | Promising to “do something about this horrible situation,” President Trump on Wednesday met with survivors of last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, to listen to their accounts of the tragedy. Among those who joined the president were Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. “We want to hear your hearts today,” Pence told the gathered students, parents, and teachers. “I encourage you to be candid and be vulnerable, and share with us not only your personal experience, but what it is you would have us do.” Trump promised the White House would consider many measures to address school shootings, including being “very strong on background checks,” putting “a very strong emphasis on the mental health,” and arming select teachers and school administrators. At several points, he polled the survivors, family members, and educators in the room for their opinions on various policy proposals. Read more... |
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| | Mark It Down—“In addition to what we're going to do about background checks, we're going to go very strong into age, age of purchase, and we're also going to go very strong into the mental health aspect.” —President Donald Trump, February 21, 2018 | |
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| | The White House will be well represented at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins Thursday just outside of Washington. Vice President Pence will be the first major speaker Thursday morning, followed by a conversation on the main stage with White House counsel Don McGahn and an interview with the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Andrew Bremberg. | |
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| | Olympics Watch—Ivanka Trump, the White House official and daughter of President Trump, will be leading the U.S delegation to the closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. According to senior administration officials, Ivanka will leave for Seoul on Thursday on a commercial flight, arriving in the South Korean capital on Friday. There, she will meet and dine with President Moon Jae-in. Joining Ivanka on the trip will be Idaho senator Jim Risch, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee; Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary; General Benson Brooks, the commander of the United States Forces Korea; Mark Knapper, the top U.S. diplomat at the American Embassy in South Korea; and Sgt. Shauna Rohbock, a national guardswoman who is a former Olympic bobsledder. The delegation will attend a so-far undetermined number of athletic competitions in Pyeongchang, as well as the closing ceremonies on Sunday. A senior administration official said there are no plans for anyone from the U.S. delegation to meet with a member of the North Korean government. The Washington Post reported this week that Vice President Mike Pence, who led the American delegation to the opening ceremonies, had agreed to a “secret meeting” with Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and an official in the government, and Kim Yong-nam, another top official. “[T]he North Koreans pulled out of the scheduled meeting, according to Pence’s office,” reported the Post. The administration also knocked down reports in South Korean media that Ivanka would meet with defectors from North Korea, with a senior official calling them “incorrect.” | |
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| | From the Department of Terrible Ideas comes the latest Major League Baseball rule-change float: to allow managers to change the batting order in the ninth inning. Allahpundit at Hot Air has the appropriate take-down: The idea to start extra innings with a runner in scoring position was so terrible that it could only mean MLB executives either don’t understand their sport or actively hate it. This new idea is in line with that. And oddly, it contradicts the other terrible proposal: If you’re so worried about games dragging on too long that you’d put a man on second to start extra innings, why the hell would you want to increase the odds that extra innings will be played by letting the team that’s trailing send up its sluggers in the ninth? | |
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