That Crusty Ol' Mitch. Wonkagenda For Mon., Dec. 23, 2019
Dr. Bonesaw, #MoscowMitch, and some spying apps. Your morning news brief!
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.
A super secret Saudi court has convicted five people in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Human rights and press freedom advocates are pissed because the trial was kept from the public, and senior Saudi officials connected to Dr. Bonesaw, Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Assiri, were TOTALLY exonerated.
Senate Majority Leader #MoscowMitch McConnell says there MIGHT be witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial. Sure.
Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones signaled that he's on the fence about impeachment, telling Martha Raddatz that he's not too worried about losing his Senate seat. The way Jones sees it, "If I did everything based on a pure political argument, all you'd need is a computer to mash a button. That's just not what this country is about. It's not what the founders intended to do."
Trump was in his Florida safe space and surrounded by rich geriatrics when he started ranting about windmills again.
Lindsey Graham went on teevee to call impeachment a "dead cat" and to "stop playing with it." I'm not even not even going to try and dissect that tortured metaphor. Maybe a Huckabee could help us out.
The Republicans' fresh new backstabbing New Jersey rep, Jeff Van Drew, went on Fox News to publicly lick buttholes and grovel.
Senate Majority Leader #MoscowMitch McConnell's court packing has is reshaping one of the most liberal courts in the country: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Axios gossips South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been courting rich donors with unusually blunt language. Butters has been sending out emails telling "bundlers" -- rich people who convince other rich people to cough up some cash -- to "get on the campaign's radar now before he is flooded with donations after winning Iowa and New Hampshire." A campaign spox says nobody authorized the "language" in the email. Political nerds and swamp monsters are shaking their heads at Butters' rookie move, noting you never say the quiet parts out loud. That's for the GOP.
John Bolton started flapping his mustache with Jonathan Swan, gossiping that the US isn't "exerting pressure" on North Korea. The neocon war machine says Trump is not worried about the "potential risk to American troops" or our allies in the region. The Hermit Kingdom has been threatening a Christmas surprise after testing a new rocket engine a few weeks back, and arms control wonks are a little freaked out.
The United Arab Emirates have their own shady app, ToTok, that the US is accusing of being a front for government spying tools. Last week the app saw a surge of popularity among US users.
The US Navy has banned TikTok, a popular social media app, from any work phone Uncle Sam gives the rank-and-file because it sees the Chinese app as a "cybersecurity threat." Nerds point out the tragic irony here is that tech companies are being increasingly pulled in two directions with the US and China, with the Chinese (kind of, sort of) demanding not-so-secret backdoors for government spying, and the US demanding privacy (from everyone but the NSA).
Saturday Night Live brought a very sober Jeanine Pirro out and told her impeachment evidence. She didn't take it well...
Weekend Update: Jeanine Pirro on Fox News Handling Trump's Impeachment - SNL www.youtube.com
And here's your morning Nice Time: IT'S LULU AND FRIENDS!
Cats vs Robot Vacuum www.youtube.com
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