'Nothing Will Ever Satisfy Them.' Wonkagenda For Tues., April 2, 2019

Trump declares victory over Puerto Rico, the 2020 money primary, and the big, fat mess of Brexit. Your morning news brief!

Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today!

Senate Democrats scuttled a $13.45 billion emergency aid bill for natural disaster victims in favor of a House bill that offers hundreds of millions more in disaster aid for Puerto Rico. Both bills ultimately failed to pass after Trump bitched out Republicans for giving money to the hurricane ravaged Not Americans in Puerto Rico, so Trump spent last night and this morning shitposting that he was "the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico" because he told all the poor people who've been used and abused by corporate lenders that they should shut the fuck up and be grateful he gave them anything at all.

 In a series of poorly spelled shitposts, Trump decreed a Republican "HealthCare Plan" won't be voted on until "right after the Election ... when Republicans hold the Senate and win back the House." The incoherent ramblings come as Republican AGs in Ohio and Montana argue against scrapping Obamacare, stating, "Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall. But the District Court's ruling is wrong, and its errors threaten harm to millions of people in the Buckeye and Treasure states."

2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar released a dozen years of tax returns. The documents show she and her husband paid more than $62,000 in taxes last year. (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was the first of the 211 declared Democratic candidates to release tax returns.) Nobody is holding their breath for Trump's tax returns.

Pete Buttigieg's $7 million Q1 haul has shocked political wizards who didn't think an obscure gay mayor could carve out a slice of the 2020 pie. To put that in perspective, Sen. Kamala Harris raised $12 million thanks to a long list of supporters dropping around $50 bucks at a time. All that cash will come in handy as the "money primary" drags on for the rest of 2019.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's finance director is leaving her 2020 campaign over her decision to swear off cash from super rich donors.Warren's money man reportedly asked her not to close the door on donors with deep pockets, arguing that "campaigns often collapse" when they run out of cash in the money primary. In a related story, the New York Times reports many donors continue to sit on their hands, so several 2020 candidates arequietly holding big ticket fundraisers in order to break out from the pack.  

Axios gossips that the opportunistic Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Mike Bloomberg is reconsidering running now that there are doubts about Joe Biden's 2020 candidacy. Bloomberg's "Yes men" say that his unlimited mega-billions make him a serious threat to any candidate, but "He couldn't get the math to work."

 The Hartford Courant reports 43-year-old Amy Lappos is accusing Joe Biden of touching her in a weird, non-sexual way while she worked a fundraiser for Democratic Rep. Jim Himes. "He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me," Lappos says. Biden's supporters maintain these events are being taken out of context, likening him to an emotional grandpa who's plays old-school grip'n grin politics in the #MeToo era. 

 Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh is taking an "indefinite leave of absence" after the Baltimore Sun found a major health care company spent $100,000 for copies of her "Healthy Holly" kids books while it was gunning for a $48 million city contract, while the state university whose board she sits on bought another half-million dollars' worth. Pugh's departure marks the second time in a decade a Baltimore mayor has been caught up in a corruption scheme, and comes as the city is knee deep in dead bodies for the fourth year in a row.

A federal judge has shot down another request by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal court records that could reveal the name of Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia mystery company. Last week prosecutors asked the judge to keep the name of the Not American company a secret, saying their case was "continuing robustly."

WaPo reports the children of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have been given million dollar houses and five-figure payouts from Mr. Bone Saw as part of "blood money" negotiations. In exchange for living in the lap of luxury, the family has reportedly been told to shut the fuck up about their father's murder, and curb any mean tweets about the kingdom.

 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is in DC this week to shore up support against growing Russian fuckery. Stoltenberg is expected to meet with Trump later today when the mad king will likely explain how Putin has assured him he's not attempting to invade NATO countries.

Once again the UK House of Commons rejected a bunch of deals to avoid a "no deal" Brexit scenario. The good (and least confusing) news here is that a motion to hold a second referendum on Brexit came within 12 votes.

The Bureau of Prisons can't be happy the WSJ ran a story exposing how pharma bro Martin Shkreli was still running scams from behind bars. This morning Forbes reports the shitposting douche lord has been (ALLEGEDLY) thrown in solitary confinement while the BOP digs around bathrooms and buttholes in order to get to the bottom of Shkreli's latest scheme. LOCK HIM UP!

NICE TIME: South Bend, Indiana, mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg officiated a shotgun wedding at his office yesterday morning. The couple was on their way to the hospital for a scheduled C-section and decided to swing through Mayor Pete's office to get hitched before their baby was born.

And here's your morning Nice Time! IT'S TOPI! 

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