MSM Finally Calls A Big Fat Liar A Man Who Fuckin' Lies. Wonkagenda For Thus., Aug. 23, 2018

Trump is screaming and flailing, SO MUCH Michael Cohen shit, and Paris Dennard is a pervert. Your morning news brief.

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

Trump spent all day tweeting crazy shit, even tweeting "NO COLLUSION" at 1: 00 a.m. EST

In an interview with Fox's Ainsley Earhardt, Trump says that he's considering a pardon for Paul Manafort, says that "flipping" should be "illegal," that he knew NOTHING about Michael Cohen paying hookersto STFU, despite that pesky tape of him directing it. He claims "the market" would crash if Congress moved to #IMPEACH, rails against the DOJ and FBI Director Christopher Wray, and also says Obama is "spying" on him ... again. The whole thing is fucking insane.

The WSJ has a juicy story about why Michael Cohen flipped like diner pancakes shortly after federal agents raided his office. It was all over after his accountant and "Gene the Taxi King" mapped out Cohen's funny money payments, and it didn't help when Trump's tabloid sleazebag David Pecker rolled over and begged.

Speaking of David Pecker, here is the short and slutty story of how Pecker and Trump started working together to "catch and kill" stories about Trump's addiction to high-priced porn hoors. For you time-crunched masochists with weak stomachs, Brian Stelter breaks it all down into itty-bitty pieces, and reminds us, Lordy,there are tapes!

Meanwhile, Michael Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis has been making the rounds on the cable TV talking head circuit. Last night he told Anderson Cooper that Cohen MIGHT have a few "useful" things to say to Robert Mueller about HER EMAILS.

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER WaPo's Fact Checker has called Trump a big, fat liar. They're not saying he made "misleading" claims, or spread "falsehoods," no, they're calling that a "liar," and detailing every time he and Sarah Huckabee Sanders flat-out lied to the public about paying Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to STFU about their sexcapades.

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

Seismic tremors were reported from the grave of Nelson Mandela shortly after Trump tweeted that he wants Mike Pompeo to study why the government of South Africa was taking land from "white farmers" following a horribly ignorant story from Fox's resident white nationalist, Tucker Carlson. The focus here is the farms that were spoils of apartheid. Fun Fact: This is the first time Trump has said "Africa" (provided you don't count "shithole countries").

In yet another desperate distraction, Trump tweeted a video saying the death of Mollie Tibbets is proof of why we need to build his stupid wall and change immigration laws to keep out all the people who don't look like Fox News hosts. Employers of the apparently undocumented immigrant (the story keeps evolving) charged with Tibbetts's murder claim he falsified his ID in order to thwart government verification systems, and Republicans are going nuts.

A Trumper who kept her MAGA hat in the back of her car every day like a Jesus figurine tells about that one juror who held the verdict up for days . She tells Fox it was SO HARD to convict Manafort, and that she really wanted him to be innocent, but admitted Manafort was guilty of trying hide his Ukrainian blood money. So: good for the MAGA dummy, proud of her we guess.

At the end of Manafort's trial, his lawyers moved for a mistrial, and this prompted the Judge Ellis to make one of Manafort's defense attorney's look like a fucking idiot. LOL!

Jared Kushner's prison reform plan is still lurching its way through Congress, but it's been bogged down by hardline conservatives, and Mitch McConnell. Later today Kushner will meet with Trump and Jeff Sessions and try to convince them to lean on Senate Republicans to make life easier for white collar criminals like themselves.

Betsy DeVos wants to use a $1 billion federal grant program -- intended to help poor schools -- to buy guns for teachers after discovering a loophole.

After Trump bitched out the Federal Reserve for raising rates and making him look bad, the Fed responded by signaling its intention to raise rates again. Dolla', dolla', bills y'all. 

In light of MORE Trump scandals, Congress critters are conflicted about SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Many Democrats want to delay confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, and yesterday a federal court ordered the release of a report that might show if Kavanaugh was leaking information on the Starr Report.

Mitch McConnell's move to help Trump pack lower courts with conservative judges took another giant leap forward after McConnell stomped on filibusters for 17 of Trump's judicial nominees, virtually guaranteeing that the Senate will be busy with dealing with judicial nominations exclusively for weeks.

Both Republicans and Democrats are nervous about using Trump's evolving corruption scandals in the midterm elections. Republicans hope Trump can pull out like an Evangelical on prom night, while Democratic strategists want to beat Republicans with their failures on health care and taxes.

Democrats in California want Republicans like Rep. Devin Nunes stop calling themselves farmers. Owning less than 5 percent of a vineyard makes you a douchebag, not a farmer!

 Australian PM Malcolm  Turnbull is staring down political assassins with knives in his back after barely winning a leadership challenge. This morning MPs staged a walkoutfor the first timeever. TLDR: There's a coup from the racist Right's Peter Dutton (Australian Stephen Miller) being fought back by your average "fuck the poors" guy, Scott Morrison, and Turnbull's (meh) Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Crikey, this is bonkers! 

Conspiracy theorists are screaming cahoots after the body of Jen Moore, a prominent Pizzagate pusher, was found in a suburban Maryland hotel room. 

WaPo reports that Trump's black friend on CNN, Paris Dennard, has a history of sexual harassment offenses that previously led to his "You're Fired"-ing from Arizona State University. Last night CNN suspended Dennard so it can investigate whether he's still pervy.

In a new interview, April Ryan says she she wants Sarah Huckabee Sanders to pay for her bodyguard, and goes off on Omarosa.

Verizon throttled the the "unlimited" data on firefighters battling wildfires in California because they were talking too much. 

Here's some food for thought: Deep inside a bunch of legal papers released as part of Cohen's guilty plea was a line item about Cohen paying $50,000 to an unnamed tech company during the 2016 campaign, suggesting that Cohen may have had his dick beaters on more than just hush money payments for Trump's porn star problem.

Yesterday the DNC reported an attempted hackof its voter database. Then the DNC said, "LOL, J/K, this was only a test!" Not funny, guys. Not funny.

And here's your morning Nice Time! BABY EAGLES learning to fly! AMERICA!

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