Monday's Mini-Report, 4.3.17

Today's edition of quick hits:* Senate Democrats now have enough votes for a filibuster: "The Senate Judiciary Committee Monday voted along party lines to advance Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch out of committee, pushing his nomination to the Senate floor where a filibuster now awaits."* Russia: "An explosion tore through a subway train in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Monday, killing 11 people and injuring dozens more, officials said."* Interesting: "The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials."* Venezuela: "President Nicolas Maduro may have finally gone too far, and now even some allies are turning against him. Maduro and Venezuela's top court on Saturday walked back an earlier attempt to strip Venezuela's legislature of its powers, after the moved sparked massive outrage both at home and abroad."* Egypt: "Ever since he seized power in a military takeover nearly four years ago, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been barred from the White House. But President Trump made clear on Monday that the period of ostracism was over as he hosted Mr. Sisi and pledged unstinting support for the autocratic ruler."* Many struggling families in the state will suffer: "The Kansas House failed by a narrow margin Monday to override Gov. Sam Brownback's veto of a bill that would expand Medicaid to thousands of low-income Kansans. Lawmakers voted 81-44 to override the governor's veto, three shy of the total needed to pass the bill without his support."* Previously unreported changes: "A small phrase buried deep in a set of recently released letters between the Trump Organization and the government shows just how little separation there actually is. Trump can draw money from his more than 400 businesses, at any time, without disclosing it."* Undocumented immigrants pay a lot of taxes: "In total, they paid $23.6 billion in federal taxes, according to the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an arm of the Internal Revenue Service. Separately, undocumented workers pay nearly $12 billion in state and local taxes per year, according to a March report by the nonprofit Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy in Washington, D.C."* Trump held an event in the Oval Office on Friday to sign some executive orders. He neglected to actually sign them.* ABA: "The Trump administration has sent the American Bar Association into exile, ending the group's semiofficial role in evaluating candidates for the federal bench."* The alienation of U.S. allies continues: "U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reassured his nervous European counterparts over Washington's commitment to NATO on Friday and pressed them again to spend more on defense, triggering a rebuke from Germany."Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.