Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? Wonkagenda For Wed., Feb. 27, 2019

Michael Cohen set to snitch, House Democrats aren't screwing around, and Trump stuffs his face with a dictator (again). Your morning news brief!

Morning Wonketariat! STRAP IN.

This morning, Trump World's favorite pariah, Michael Cohen, is expected to tell the House Oversight Committee that Trump is a big, fat liar who is poor, and crimed while in office. Cohen will reportedly produce checks signed by Trump while in office for $35,000 that he says were monthly installments to pay off his $130,000 hush money payments to porn stars who gagged at the sight of Trump's toad penis. Cohen is expected to call Trump a "con man" and a "a cheat" who indirectly told him to lie about the Trump Tower Moscow project because he "never expected to win the election ... [and] stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project." Cohen is also expected to claimknew all about the Wikileaks plot to steal HER EMAILS ahead of the infamous Trump Tower meeting. IF TRUE, that would mean Trump lied to Robert Mueller in his little Q&A. Trump spent last night and this morning shitposting about Cohen, and Republicans are expected to stonewall the hearing and call Cohen a goddamn liar who lied to Congress. An extra sassy Anderson Cooper summed it up perfectly last night when he stated Cohen is a "known liar who lied for another known liar because the liar told him to lie and paid him to lie."

A Florida man formally known as Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz says he wasn'twitness tampering when he tweeted some threats to Michael Cohen yesterday, he waswitness testing, and "we do it every day ... to compete in the marketplace of ideas." He then sobered up enough to say mean words on the House floor about Cohen. This prompted House members to tweet at Gaetz that he probably violated 18 USC § 1512(b), a federal offense. Speaker Pelosi told Gaetz to stop drunk tweeting his shitposts lest he face an ethics investigation. Gaetz then tweeted the closet thing to an apology that you'll ever see from a drunk douchebag in the Bro Caucus -- and he deleted the tweet.

The House passed a resolution to oppose Trump's national emergency declaration, 245-to-182. The vote fell largely along party lines, showing the hypocrisy of Republicans who complain about "executive overreach," or whatever. The bill now heads to the Senate where it must pass on a simple majority. Politico reports that Mike Pence was bitched out by a number of Republican Senators behind closed doors while attempting to sell Trump's goddamn wall, and that there as many as 10 Republicans who are willing to support the resolution. HOT DAMN!

Among all the other craziness happening today, the House is set to pass the first major gun regulations in FOREVER! The bill will effectively choke off the "Charleston Loophole," which lets people buy guns through private dealers if a background check doesn't go through within three days. Republicans are whining that this will create a national firearms registry, as if it were a bad thing for Uncle Sam to know who has a fetish for firearms.

Yesterday House Democrats voted HR 1, a sweeping electoral reform package, out of committee. Republicans are complaining that they haven't had a chance to look at the bill while simultaneously saying the bill takes away a state's right to dick around with local elections. In setting the stage for a floor vote in the coming weeks, committee chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren said the bill "makes it easier, not harder, to vote," adding, "It ends the dominance of big money in our politics. It ensures public officials work in the public interest."

Democratic Senator Doug Jones thinks it would be just fine if Republicans nominated ALLEGED pedophile Roy Moore (again) in 2020. In speaking to reporters, Jones said, "He makes waves. I think he makes noises. Who knows what he's going to do?"

Just when you though the North Carolina Ninth couldn't get any more insane, in waddles Stony Rushing. Dressed as the Dukes of Hazzard's grifter "Boss Hogg," Rushing is running to replace Mark Harris on the Republican ticket, and bragging about being a distant relative of the man who was the inspiration for the Dukes of Hazzard. The white trash gun fetishist is a staunch advocate of the Confederate flag, and believes there was election fuckery on MANY SIDES.

Despite an almost record low turnout, Chicagoans dealt a serious blow to the rickety old political machine and voted to send two black progressive women, Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, into a runoff election for mayor. Voters also sent a number of city aldermen packing, while many others will face off again in April during the runoffs. Several ballot initiatives intended to make the city reinvest in poors passed as well, including a fight over the Obama Center, legal weed, and rent control. Of course, it wouldn't be an election in Chicago if there weren't allegations of voter fuckery, or an indicted official being reelected. [ Returns ]

Maryland Del. Mary Ann Lisanti has apologized for calling Prince George's County a ... um ...n-word"district." Lisanti, a Democrat, reportedly told WaPo that she couldn't remember using the racial slur, adding, "I'm sure I have ... I'm sure everyone has used it. I've used the f-word. I used the Lord's name in vain." Lisanti has beenstripped of her committee positions, and people in the wealthy and majority black DC suburb have asked her to come down from Annapolis and say it to their faces.

 Trump is in Vietnam this morning shoving hamberders and burnt ketchup steaks in his face with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump called the dictator "his friend," adding that the PR stunt will be "equal to or greater than the first." The two obese manbabies then posed for pictures and sat down at a table with officials from North Korea and Vietnam, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and (for some reason) Mick Mulvaney.

 DJTJ and Tucker Carlson cried in each other's ears last night to claim Democrats are trying to blow up Trump's North Korean nuclear deal because "they really hate Trump much more than they like America." DJTJ claimed Democrats purposely scheduled Cohen's twice-delayed testimony to run parallel with Trump's hastily assembled PR stunt.

CNN has told the DNC it will probably lock Sarah Isgur in a broom closet during the 2020 elections so she doesn't screw with the network's coverage of the election, or the Democratic debates, or the Trump-Russia investigation, etc. Despite internal condemnation over her "You're Hired"-ing, CNN's brass is still backing Isgur, even if it can't figure out what her job is. Maybe they can just cut a hole in a sheet, or something?

 Credit reporting agencies were dragged up to the Hill to get yelled at by House Democrats for constantly losing the personal information of almost every American. House Financial Services Committee chair Rep. Maxine Waters called for an overhaul of consumer credit reporting, and put CEOs on blast stating, "To credit reporting bureaus, consumers aren't consumers. They are commodities," adding, "This commodification of consumers and their personal data is the core reason why our nation's consumer credit reporting system is broken." Later in the hearing, Equifax's new CEO Mark Begor was attempting to rationalize how Equifax lost social security numbers, birthdays, and address of oodles of consumers under questioning by California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who asked him for his Social, birthday, and address. Begor stated he would be "uncomfortable doing that," and called it "sensitive information" that he'd like to protect. Rep. Porter then asked, "If you agree that exposing this kind of information — information like that that you have in your credit reports — creates harm, therefore you're unwilling to share it, why are your lawyers arguing in federal court that there was no injury and no harm created by your data breach?" [ Video ]

And here's your morning Nice Time! OH MY GOD, it's TINY TORTOISE HATCHLINGS! Shhhh! Don't scare them!

Tiny rare tortoises from Madagascar hatch at Chester Zoo    www.youtube.com 

Follow Dominic on Twitter and Instagram! 

We're 100% ad-free and reader-supported, so consider buying us coffee, or get a subscription!