Giuliani's ON IT. Wonkagenda For Mon., April 22, 2019

Giuliani still obsessed with HER EMAILS, Trump World implodes, and student journos school Betsy DeVos. Your morning news brief!

Apr 22, 2019

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

Yes, we'll be doing Part Million (four?) finishing up our Mueller Report Liveblog! Check back next!

Rudy Giuliani ran around the Sunday shows sweating profusely as he lied his ass off about Trump-Russia stuff. On Meet the Press, Giuliani was (still) screaming about HER EMAILS in an effort to cast doubt on Mueller finding murky connections between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, and suggested it wasn't necessarily a bad thing to use stolen "dirt" against political opponents. Mr. 9/11 then accused Mueller of torturing Paul Manafort,and doubled down on CNN, stating, "There's nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians," but added, "I would have advised, just out of an excess of caution, don't do it." Later,Giuliani went on Fox News where he got philosophical with Chris Wallace and whined, "When did Mueller become God?" Giuliani then bitched about HER EMAILS after Chris Wallace flat-out called him a liar, screaming, "Nobody crushed cell phones like Hillary did; nobody deleted 33,000 emails like Hilary's people did, and nobody bleached a server like Hillary did." (Note: According to the Mueller Report, they did. ) [Transcripts: MTP / SOTU / Fox ]

White House TV talking head and desperate housewife Kellyanne Conway was also yammering on about EXONERATION, telling ABC's Martha Raddatz that it wasn't "the job" of a prosecutor to #LockThemUp (it actually is). KaC then lied about a bunch of other crap while her husband sat on the couch retweeting people who think we should impeach Trump.

Trump's 2020 campaign has "You're Fired" Don McGahn's super fancy law firm, Jones Day, after the Mueller report revealed McGahn was snitching. Publicly, Trump World says they're simply saving money, but the usual cadre of unnamed assholes tells Politico that it's "payback" for all the times McGahn shat on Javanka, and for trying to quit instead of doing Trump's "crazy shit."

The New York Times has a long, windy yarn about how Michael Cohen flipped on Trump after everyone else fucked off to DC. It's a good piece, and serves as a decent reminder that all these people are self-serving scumbags.

Similarly, WaPo has its own super long tale about how Robert Mueller investigated Russian fuckery in the 2016 campaign, and how Trump World's constant lying kept leading investigators down dead end roads.

US prosecutors want to lock up CONVICTED Russian spy Maria Butina for 18 months as part of a plea deal, but her lawyers argue she shouldn't serve any jail time, and should instead be deported like common Mexican.

Nixon "rat fucking" hatchet man and Trump lackey Roger Stone is (ALLEGEDLY) broke, so he's speaking at titty bars in order to raise cash for his legal defense.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump's approval rating has cratered (again) , in the wake of the Mueller Report, leaving him at a new record low of 37 percent. [ Data For Nerds ]

After being barred from attending a roundtable discussion about "school choice" featuring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Kentucky Republican Governor Matt Bevin, student journalists at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School decided to write a brutal editorial wondering why public school students, parents and teachers weren't invited. The student journos did some shoe leather reporting and it was really a forum for a Koch brothers PAC, the local business community, and the state school board to bitch and moan about public schools. The outrage spurred one local member of the Fayette County board of education to mock the meeting on Twitter:

Exclusive photo of my meeting with Education Secretary @BetsyDeVosED and @GovMattBevin during their visit to Lexing… https: //t.co/3lKXg03eUs
— Tyler Murphy (@Tyler Murphy) 1555529954.0

Jared Kushner's prison reform bill has a nasty little caveat for low-level offenders. A provision in the law forces people who've been part of pretrial prison avoidance programs to disclose they're currently floating around in judicial purgatory. Prison reform advocates argue disclosing this kind of personal information negates the entire point of the pretrial programs, and that the bill actually makes it harder for people convicted or accused of crimes to get government jobs.

The notorious RBG made the rest of SCOTUS look like a bunch of boobs during a trademark case about the use of the word "FUCT." Without getting into a law 'splainer, just know that RBG pointed out the hypocrisy in conservatives, and there were many potty words justices did their damndest to avoid saying out loud.

House Democrats are quietly whispering about slavery reparations, but there's some disagreement on just how far we should go. The whippersnappers caucus want to have frank and open discussions about our sordid past, but Democratic leaders are urging caution, instead offering support for an exhaustive study on the impact of reparations. In the meantime, House Democratic leaders want to steer cash to programs that can immediately help minority minority communities, like public health programs, historically black colleges, and food deserts.

INDICTED California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter released a video that depicted him attempting to cross "THE BORDER" between US and Mexico in Yuma, Arizona. A spox for Hunter says he was onlysimulating how easy it is for Mexican Muslims to invade the southern border with their taco trucks, and that the indicted rep didn't actually violate his parole -- he was simply pulling a dumbass stunt. [ Video ]

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton says #HesRunning. In a campaign video that went live this morning, the 40-year-old Marine combat veteran centers his campaign around national defense and Trump. Moulton will now run around to early primary states and radio shows and try not to make an ass out of himself (again).

Washington state Republican Senator Maureen Walsh might want to avoid hospitals for a while after she accused nurses of playing "cards for a considerable amount of the day." Walsh's comments came in support of an amendment that would exclude small and rural hospitals from a bill requiring "rest breaks" for nurses. Shortly thereafter, nurses startedposting grizzly photos of bloody emergency rooms to social media; reminding the world that they regularly work 12 hour shifts without pee breaks.

Axios gossips Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a group of Iranian-Americans that the Trump administration wasn't planning to bomb-bomb-bomb bomb-bomb Iran, despite what the neocons and the rest of Trump World says. Pompeo said they'd rather win hearts and minds by encouraging non-violent regime change. This morning a number of news outlets reported the administration is expected to end sanctions waivers for US allies and trade partners who buy oil from Iran.

The leader of some redneck militia was arrested by the FBI after the group filmed themselves detaining undocumented immigrants along the Mexican border. Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, was arrested for being a felon hoarding tons of guns and ammo.

John Oliver 'splainered bits of Mueller's Trump-Russia report .