Republicans Lying About Caged Kids. Wonkagenda For Mon., June 18, 2018

Trump's White House can't keep its story straight, Devin Nunes throws another tantrum, and Steve Bannon hasn't even begun to lie. Your morning news brief.

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

The FBI agent "You're Fired" from the Trump-Russia investigation for sexting and thoughtcrimes, Peter Strzok, wants to testify before the House Judiciary Committee to set a couple of things straight.

Federal prosecutors in New York revealed that they'd recovered a bunch of things Michael Cohen tried to destroy, including encrypted messages, shredded documents, and (maybe) HIS EMAILS from an old Blackberry.

 Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes went on Trump TV to blow smoke up the asses of FBI and Justice Department officials ignoring their efforts to obstruct Trump-Russia investigations, and Nunes even threatened there will be "hell to pay." 

Adam Schiff went on Meet the Press and stated it was "deeply disturbing" that Nunes received classified info from FBI field agents about HER EMAILS in 2016 and never bothered to tell anybody.

 Steve Bannon crawled out of the ooze to lie about Trump's lying with ABC's Jonathan Karl, and reinforce Trump's policy of kidnapping Mexican children. 

A new story by the New York Times examines how Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy came to fruition, and quotes Trump's senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, "It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law."

 Beto O'Rourke led a march of hundreds to a tent city in Tornillo, Texas, for a Father's Day protest of Trump administration immigration policies that separate families.

Democratic lawmakers across the country spent the weekend drawing more attention to Trump's immigration policy by joining protesters, touring detention facilities, and publicly criticizing the administration.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen yelledat the press in a tweetstorm for "irresponsible" news reports on Trump's immigration policy, stating "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period."

A few hours later, Kellyanne Conway embraced her WASPy roots on Meet the Press and said that it was, in fact, the policy -- but it was all (somehow) the Democrats fault. 

 Meanwhile, as  Trump spent Father's Day golfing and shitposting on Twitter, a number of prominent Republicans and former government officials came out blasting the administration's zero tolerance policy. Former First Lady Laura Bush wrote an op-ed in WaPo, and former NSA Director General Michael Hayden compared migrant detention centers to concentration camps. Even someone wrote a thing down for Melania Trump that kind of/sort of criticized the policy. 

Trump is hoping to leverage the anger over his policy of kidnapping and detaining immigrant children in order to get funding for his border wall, and he's already threatening to shut down the government in September if he doesn't get his way.

Later this week the House is set to vote on two immigration bills, one moderate and one conservative, but the whole thing is just a charade so vulnerable House Republicans can go back home and say they tried. Trump's already shanked both bills , and they were already unlikely to pass.

Trump's White House comms team is desperate to avoid the appearance of a purge, so they've been slowly walking people to the door, single-file, while Trump himself takes over press duties.

Don't expect the old gang to get back together anytime soon, as people from Trump's 2016 campaign like Corey Lewandowski, David Bossie and Jason Miller don't want a paltry government salary just to hawk Trump wares; they're making tons of money hanging in the Balkans supporting pro-Russian nationalists. 

A new blurb in Axios details how Trump's White House staff doesn't know what he's doing from one moment to the next, and John Kelly is sick of Trump promising not to do or say things, then going out and doing/saying the thing he swore he wouldn't do/say.

Trump's federal hiring freeze has pushed federal prisons to use nurses, teachers and secretaries to work as guards, and it's causing all sorts of horrible problems.

Trump has nominated an aide to Mick Mulvaney, Kathy Kraninger, to head the CFPB so that Mulvaney can scuttle back to the Office of Management and Budget and businesses can keep writing their own regulations. 

The assault on federal workers and their unions continues as HUD wants to kick out all union offices from its federal buildings, AND revise contracts for employees of the Social Security Administration.

 Wilbur Ross lied when he said he'd divest his business holdingsbefore getting into government. He has kept his stake in a China/Russia-linked bank(being investigated by Robert Mueller!)while he attempts to stay awake long enough to negotiate Trump's trade war.

 Paul Ryan still hasn't finished cutting up the social safety net , so don't expect him to go quietly into the night.

In Florida a constant stream of Trump-loving retirees are Republicans' best weapon against a Blue Wave because they're wealthy, white, and segregating themselves in private communities.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and racist Corey Stewart spent the weekend trading barbs, with Kaine attacking Stewart's support of white supremacistsfrom Charlottesville, while Stewart went on Kasie DC and said, "Tim Kaine hates America." 

 Independent voters in Iowa's 1st district will ultimately decide if they want to keep corporate sleazebag Republican Rep. Rod Blum, or switch things up with the totally awesome Abby Finkenauer. Here's our take on the race so far! 

 Democratic candidates refusing PACs are doing far better than expected , with people like Beto O'Rourke seeing windfalls of financial support from local donors.

 Democrats have been licking their pencils and wounds in Wisconsin and they're hoping to make a comeback in 2020 by putting money into the boots on the ground that need it most.

South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford boohoo'd to Chuck Todd about losing his primary to a crazy Trump lady,and bitched about Republicans running in fear of Trump tweets, stating,"The idea that you can't speak out and say, 'I disagree with you here, but I agree with you on 90 percent of the stuff' ... is, again, a twilight world that I've never seen."  

 Arizona is seeing a record number of politically active Native Americans, but many still harbor a great deal of mistrust for government officials.

A suspected gang shooting at a 24-hour art festival in Trenton, New Jersey, left a 33-year-old man dead, and 22 others injured. 

 John Oliver 'splainered China, and how Chinese "President" Xi Jinping has consolidated power around himself to become a dictator for life.

 The World Health Organization has listed "Gaming Disorder" as a mental health condition, and is asking medical professionals and families for help in disconnecting kids.

And here's your morning Nice Time! Sea Turtles!

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