So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. Wonkagenda For Tues., August 27, 2019
The push to #IMPEACH, the Amazon is on fire, and hillbilly heroin.Your morning news brief!
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.
The House Judiciary Committee wants to drag former White House wife beater Rob Porter up to the Hill to answer some questions about the times Trump tried to obstruct justice, like his attempt(s) to "You're Fired" Robert Mueller. It's highly likely the White House will invoke executive privilege and deny the committee's subpoena, since Porter had a hand in everything that crossed Trump's desk (including Hope Hicks ... before they were both quit-fired).
In a related story, the House Judiciary is trying to kick a lawsuit over their subpoena for former White House counsel Don McGahn into maximum overdrive. The committee argues that the White House is trying to stall, and that it needs McGahn's testimony in order to determine whether or not they should #IMPEACH. The committee says, "No one is above the law," and that the courts need to help them drag McGahn's ass into a chair to answer questions raised by the Mueller Report.
Democrats have been getting chewed out by their constituents over whether or not to #IMPEACH.Politico reports a number of freshman Democrats in Orange Country are trying to surf the blue wave they rode to DC without bailing by threading a narrow needle, but constituents are getting aggro; demanding reps stop being groms and just drop-in already. HOW'S THAT FOR SURF LINGO!? [Dok adds: Are we sure that's not just a bunch of mixed metaphors?]
Midwest and rustbelt states that broke for Trump in 2016 are the new battlegrounds in in 2020 as the Trump campaign hopes to leverage another win with an curious app designed to suck up and award users the more they pour data into it.
LIBRUHL media vultures are piling onto Joe Walsh, asking him all sorts of mean questions about his racist shitpostings over the years. In an appearence on MSNBC,Walsh apologized for saying awful things about the Sandy Hook moms who sued gun manufacturers after their children were slaughtered, shrugging off using the "N-word," and calling Preznit B. Berry Bams a Jew-hating Kenyian Muzlin. Later, in an appearance on CNN, Walsh said he won't apologize for EVERY racist thing he's ever said because he's not really a racist. He then said he's only running for prez-nit because Trump has a poopy mouth, and also he was "You're Fired" from his talk radio show. Insert sad "I got nowhere else to go!" video clip here.
Former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh says his Republican challenge against Pres. Trump is "not about the issues. It's about Tr… https: //t.co/7rZLEPnqj2
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@Anderson Cooper 360°) 1566869349.0
Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched a new website, and political wizards are wondering if #ShesRunning for governor of Arkansas in 2022. The site has been called "sleek," presumably because there aren't many tacky stock photos of her trademark table cloth dresses.
Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy says he's thinking about a primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey next year. Yesterday Kennedy wrote a social media post saying he might run, but then immediately filed paperwork that says #HesRunning. Kennedy says he's tired of waiting for his "turn" as calls for Kennedy to run for Senate grow louder. Politico notes that the veteran Markey has been bracing for a primary challenger, and that both Kennedy and Markey havemillion dollar war chests with which to slap each other silly.
Senate Foreign Relations chair Ron Johnson has been denied a visa for a state visit to Russia as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation. The Russian Embassy says it denied Johnson his visa because he is "rude" and has a "Russophobic manner" that denigrates Russian autocrats. In response, Johnson's office said Russia's tantrum was in line with its snuffing out of pro-democracy protests, its invasions of "shithole countries," and support of Syria's child murdering dictator. Curiously, Johnson made no mention of Russian election fuckery.
Brazil's rightwing autocrat-in-training, Jair Bolsonaro, is refusing free money to stop the Amazon from burning down. Bolsonaro says he never asked for help, and that he rejects the "colonial mentality" of other governments trying to keep the worlds oxygen supply from going up in smoke.
A judge in Oklahoma has found Johnson & Johnson guilty of being a public nuisance, and ordered them to pay $572 million for their peddling of opioids throughout the state. The judge said the pharmaceutical giant knowingly lied and downplayed the addiction risk of hillbilly heroin and "caused exponentially increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths." The company has vowed to appeal, arguing that it only supplied the poppies used in the making of horse, and that the sale of its own opioids in Oklahoma were too small to kill so many people.
A political communications professor called New York Times conservative columnist Brett Stephens a "bedbug"on Twitter following reporting by Ashley Feinberg that the"every floor" of the newsroom had been infested with bedbugs. Somehow Stephens saw the obscure tweet, threw a tantrum, and appeared to threaten the professor via email. The professor posted the email and gave us all more reasons to hate the Pulitzer Prize-winning, climate-denying, race-baiting, campus rape apologist.
Edgy alt-right apologist Andy Ngo has been quit-fired from Quillette, the right-wing online rag and phrenology fansite. The Daily Beast reports Quillete's editor-in-chief says Ngo left because he had bigger and better projects, but the Beast notes Ngo's exit comes shortly after the Portland Mercury reported on Ngo being present at a bar while Patriot Prayer edgelords plotted to beat up anti-fascist protesters. Ngo never reported on that little detail, which seems like maybe it was relevant to the story.
And here's your morning Nice Time: A BABY SLOTH!
Our adorable baby sloth Elio is a girl! www.youtube.com
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