All Sizzle. Wonkagenda For Mon., Sept. 23, 2019
Trump snitched on himself, 2020 Dems in Iowa, and a lady bites camel balls. Your morning news brief!
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.
Calls to #IMPEACH Trump are growing even louder this morning after Trump essentially snitched on himself, bragging that he did lean on the new Ukrainian president to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for $250 million in military aid. While Trump says he MIGHT release details of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, which he's called an "absolutely perfect conversation," multiple outlets are reporting moderate Democrats are beginning to say Trump's constant fuckery is forcing them to reconsider their opposition to impeach the motherfucker already. Over the weekend, Rep. Adam Schiff told CNN that impeachment "may be the only remedy" if Trump did engage in the quid-pro-quo scheme. Shortly after Schiff told Jake Tapper that, "We very well may have crossed the Rubicon," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired off a rare Sunday letter to House Democrats saying if the administration continued to block Congress's attempt to get a whistleblower report detailing Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president, it would be a "a grave new chapter of lawlessness" and lead Democrats "into a whole new stage of investigation." [ SOTU / Pelosi's Letter ]
Politico has a deep dive on how Trump's army of TV lawyers are there for one thing only: preventing his impeachment, even if they won't publicly admit it.
Meanwhile, Trump's loyal scabs spent Sunday trying to downplay the possibility of impeachment and the ALLEGED quid-pro-quo scheme. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pomepo said the call shouldn't be released, with Mnuchin whining that the call was "private" and that it would be "highly inappropriate to release a transcript" of the call because it's between two world leaders. When asked what he would sayif Obama had done this, Mnuchin started gagging on his bullshit. For his part, Pompeo called it "appropriate" to investigate the already debunked Ukrainium One scandal, with even Fox News reporting Pompeo "dodged" most of host John Roberts's questions. Later,Rudy Giuliani had a(nother) meltdown while trying to peddle Ukrainium One, forcing Roberts to call him a goddamn liar. In an interview with Fox's Maria Bartiromo earlier this morning, Giuliani slurred Trump never "threatened" to cut off aid to Ukraine, then immediately walked the statement back.
President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani responds to reports he traveled to Ukraine to investigate Biden's… https: //t.co/y0KL6V0sU8
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) 1569162345.0
Trump's "Howdy, Modi" shitshow in a Houston football stadium was intended to celebrate the ties between India and America, most notably those between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but it was really just a weird opportunity for both leaders to circle jerk each other while trash talking immigrants. The Houston Chronicle notes that Modi is being sued in US federal court for human rights abuses in Kashmir.FUN FACT: Trump's spawn have beentrying to open up hotels all over India, promising early investors flights to the US and private meetings with DJTJ at Trump trash palaces. Records show DJTJ even billed US taxpayers $100,000 for a February 2018 trip to shill his family's bullshit, a move that even Vox 'splained was "staggeringly corrupt."
Good guy hackers are helping 2020 campaigns shore up their digital operations by probing for vulnerabilities and cyber fuckery. They're even getting a little help from the FBI, DHS, and the DNI, offering counterintelligence briefings to campaigns that want them. At the top of the list are so-called "deep fakes," which experts warn could be pushed through the phone lines as well as the interwebs.
This weekend 2020 Democrats went all-in on Iowa. On Friday, Joe Biden shit the bed (again) when he criticized the moderator of an LGBT forum in Cedar Rapids. On Saturday, 17 candidates participated in the annual Steak Fry. After candidates made their stump speeches to a record, rain-soaked crowd of over 12,000, a new poll from CNN and the Des Moines Register found Sen. Elizabeth Warren is now in a statistical dead heat with Joe Biden, edging him out with 22 percent to Biden's 20 percent. [ Poll ]
#NEW Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa Poll: Warren 22% (+7 since June) Biden 20% (-4) Sanders 11% (-5) Buttigieg 9% (… https://t.co/6DWNr5Mqsj
— Political Polls (@Political Polls) 1569116346.0
Sen. Cory Booker needs to make about $2 million by the end of the week, or he's going to drop out. In addition, NBC got its hands on an internal Booker campaign memo that says a number of lower polling candidates are facing the same problem, and that the 2020 field "is about to narrow dramatically." [ Donate ]
Axios gossips that their admittedly unscientific focus group of women voters in Wisconsin showed they prefer lefty populist policies from people like Elizabeth Warren, even if they don't like the candidate (because she's a woman who will have to be a "bitch" to "win and survive" a House and Senate full of old white guys).
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump has a YUGE unfavorability problem with a historic 69 percent of voters saying they don't personally like President Pussgrab, regardless of his policies. [ Poll ]
Rachel Bade writes in the Washington Post that a number of congressional Republicans are crying about Trump's hostile takeover of their party, and they're simply quitting Congress instead of growing a spine and publicly standing up for themselves against the tweeter-in-chief.
Tech Crunch got its hands on some internal documents from Nokia that show how the Russian government is spying on phone and internet companies, sucking up virtually all digital communications that pass through its pipes. It should be noted that this is totally legal in Russia -- just as it is in the US and UK -- but more expansive as police and government agencies can access data under dubious pretenses, and only the FSB knows what's being sucked up.
Convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza tried to make a false equivalency between super awesome teenaged climate activist Greta Thunberg and a Nazi propaganda poster, but he was quickly ratioed back to the cesspool he slithered out from.
Sometimes, even if you pull the handle twice, a turd will turn out to be an unflushable floater. Meet Dinesh D'Souz… https: //t.co/0lDxRQUEJ1
— Mike Godwin (@Mike Godwin) 1569202567.0
A man and a woman's stop at an infamous Louisiana truck stop with a petting zoo ended with the woman biting the camel's testicles. The couple had apparently been tossing treats into the camel's enclosure when their unleashed dog ran after the food. The couple then ignored the "no trespassing" signs and chased after their dog inside the enclosure, swatting at the camel. When the camel attempted to defend itself by sitting on the woman, she "bit his balls to get him off."
And here's your morning Nice Time: MOUNTAIN PYGMY-POSSUMS!
Mountain Pygmy-possums are waking up www.youtube.com
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