We're Back Y'all! Wonkagenda For Mon., Nov. 26, 2018

Trump gasses babies at the border, Republicans still obsessed over HER EMAILS, and Facebook admits it shit the bed. Your morning news brief!

Morning Wonketariat! Like our fridge after Thanksgiving, today's Agenda is full of leftovers that are just as delicious and disgusting as they were last week. Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today!

The Trump administration cut a "deal" with Mexico to overhaul the asylum process at the southern border. Instead of being allowed to enter the US after making a claim for asylum, people will be stuck in Mexico while their case festers in the US court system. Yesterday, US Border Patrol agents began firing tear gas at hundreds of migrants protesting at the border after several hundred people attempted to cross a river and push through a small hole in the metal sheeting and concertina wire acting as a stand-in for Trump's wall.

This morning Trump is threatening to shut down the border "permanently if need be." Last night, he started shitposting about a 60 Minutes story detailing Trump's baby jails , and this morning The Burger King has kept up his anti-immigrant rants .

By all accounts, nobody had a bigger Thanksgiving tantrum than Trump did. Before literally thanking himself and going golfing for the 164th time, Trump spent the day bitching at members of the military about Hillary Clinton, the economy, the Saudis and Jamal Khashoggi, the invasion of Mexican-Muslim taco trucks, ANOTHER possible government shutdown, and electromagnetic catapults (the latter of which led to ascaldingburn). Trump then posed for pictures in front of some turkey-less club sandwiches with members of the Coast Guard, and went back to Mar-a-Lago for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with ribs, Chilean sea bass, and beef tenderloin.

Yesterday, a number of top Republicans broke ranks with Trump and tepidly sided with the US intelligence agencies that say the Saudis definitely killed Jamal Khashoggi. Even Joni Ernst plodded through the rain in her soaking wet bread bags to tell Jake Tapper we MIGHT need to hurt the Saudi's wallets.

Trump's lawyers FINALLY turned in his homework about 2016 Russian election fuckery to Robert Mueller, but he left a number of questions blank since they weren't multiple choice. He skipped all the questions about obstruction of justice, and Giuliani is running around telling every jackoff who will listen to his half-drunk gaslighting that Mueller's team still has questions that Trump's legal team doesn't want to answer.

AP has the backstory about how Trump's legal team, after months of double dealing and bullet dodging, killed a face-to-face interview with Robert Mueller that was set to go down at Camp David. Months of legal wrangling didn't stop Trump from immediately (and repeatedly) shooting himself in the foot.

Trey Gowdy really wants to Benghazi James Comey and Loretta Lynch over "decisions made and not made" about HER EMAILS, but he's worried House Republicans might embarrass the shit out of themselves if they give public testimony. With Republicans insisting on a closed hearing to make it easier to leak cherry-picked statements, Gowdy went on Face the Nation and floated the idea of videotaping testimonies , then releasing them after the wingnut caucus concocts some bogus theory.

LOL, former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos is going to jail today after a federal judge told him to fuck right off for Thanksgiving. Five bucks says he comes out and says something to the effect of, "Those 336 hours in prison were some of the roughest moments in my life..."

While nobody was looking, the federal government released a report warning the US will be totally screwed if we don't start acting to reverse climate change like RIGHT ABOUT NOW. In direct contradiction to Trump policies, the congressionally mandated 1,656-page National Climate Assessment says the economy could lose as much as 10 percent of its value, spur crop failures throughout the Midwest, destroy infrastructure in the South, exacerbate the increasing wildfires in the Southwest, and disrupt global supply chains. Oh, and thousands of people will probably die too. #MAGA [ Full Report ]

Trump is demanding his minions reduce the skyrocketing federal deficit while simultaneously insisting that nobody touch his tax cuts (for the super rich). Because he's a "very stable genius," Trump has suggested printing money to pay down "debt," while also insisting nobody touch the military, Medicare, Social Security, or his big, beautiful proposal for a border wall with Mexico.

With Congress already bracing for a government shutdown over Trump's insistence that someone pay for his goddamn wall, lame duck Republican Kevin Yoder is secretly trying to earmark billions in taxpayer dollars for Trump's monument to male impotence.

 Chuck Schumer has signed on to Sen.  Dick Blumenthal's bill to stop "grinch bots" from stealing all the Christmas and Hanukkah toys. Perhaps someone told Schumer it might be impossible touse political connections to get a "Tickle Me Elmo" from FAO Schwarz?

 Republicans are worried Cindy Hyde-Smith's repeated racist gnawing of her own foot might cause her to lose tomorrow's Mississippi runoff. After a series of racist remarks, and the revelation she attended a "segregation academy" in her younger and more formative years,Major League sportsball said it wants itsinvestmentdonation back. No matter, Trump is expected to show his white pride with Hyde-Smith at two rallies later today.

Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge has decided not to run against Nancy Pelosi for speaker of the 116th Congress. Pelosi got votes, y'all!

Nancy Pelosi and John Sarbanes have an op-ed in WaPo outlining their goal "to rescue our broken democracy" from the clutches of Republican dark money, gerrymandering and voter suppression.

The suit and tie crowd on Wall Street is placing its bets on whether Michael Bloomberg will buy the Democratic nomination in 2020, bur they're worried progressives will never support a mega-rich ex-Republican. #HesRunning

It would seem like discontent over being known as the state with flaming rivers has driven officials in Ohio to begin accepting Bitcoin for tax payments. Never mind that Bitcoin has lost 40 percent of its value in only two weeks, now hovering just under $4,000; state officials feel that the almighty blockchain will magically save them from being the political equivalent of Wile E. Coyote. 

People are pissed after police in Alabama (kind of) admitted theymight haveaccidentally shot 21-year-old black man Emantic Bradford Jr. on Thanksgiving during a shooting the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover. Yesterday, protesters descended upon the mall, and called bullshit on the police shooting that has left the real killer at-large.

Officials at Cal Fire say the Camp Fire is now 100 percent contained after burning ONLY 153,336 acres, destroying more than 13,000 homes, and leaving 85 people dead and 271 missing. After being criticized for a dramatically pathetic response in comparison to other natural disasters, FEMA officials held a town hall in Roseville, California , to at least appear like they care.

The Daily Beast reports that Obama can no longer be known as the "Drone President" after Trump ramped up the number of secret robo-killings in "shithole countries." 

European leaders shrugged and OK'd the UK's Brexit plan. The plan put forth by British Prime Minister Theresa May still hogties the UK to the EU, and forces it to cough up the $50 billion bill it owes the EU for a Brexit. The next step is a vote in Parliament where the plan will be tortured to death like William Wallace, and likely plunge the UK on a path to a second referendum.

 Hillary Clinton shit the bed and fed racist trolls in an interview where she told Europe to fix its immigration crisis. Without acknowledging the fact that she herself exacerbated the problem, Clinton later clarified her position in a series of tweets. 

In a hilarious slap in the face to Vladimir Putin, Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong Yang to serve as president. Following the suspicious detention of the former head of Interpol by Chinese authorities, Russian officials had quietly attempted to install a former Russian Interior Ministry official . That would have been so lit.

 Tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated yesterday following an incident in the Strait of Kerch. Russian gunships opened fire on several Ukrainian gunboats, rammed a tugboat, and then seized three ships and their crews after they attempted to enter the contested Sea of Azov near Russian-occupied Crimea. In response to Putin being an asshole (as usual), Ukraine is considering martial law , and there are new fears that Russia is trying to goad NATO forces into an full-blown war.

On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg tried to do damage control in an interview with CNN where he bitched that the New York Times snitched on Facebook for using Republican PR firms to blame all their problems on THE JOOOOZ. Zuckerberg says stories about Facebook workers being extremely depressed are "bullshit," then launched into his bogus spiel about connecting the world adding, "We can't lose sight of all of the really positive things that are happening here as well."

The outgoing head of Facebook's comms department waited until after reporters decided to start drinking last Wednesday night before admitting Facebook knew its Republican PR stooges were attacking George Soros. In a blog post, Elliot Schrage falls on a sword to save the asses of Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg, stating Facebook never ASKED anyone to create "fake news" -- the PR companies did that on their own -- they simply said anyone shitting on Facebook needed a good ol' fashioned dick punching.

In an unprecedented showing, the UK Parliament has seized internal documents from Facebook that reportedly show how executives knew damn well what companies like Cambridge Analytica were doing, but simply didn't care. Now that it's boxed into a legal corner , the tech world (and Zuckerberg) is blaming COO Sheryl Sandberg , and Facebook says it will send its VP of policy solutions, Richard Allen, to get bitched out by top policymakers from Canada, the UK, Ireland, Singapore, Latvia, Brazil, and Argentina.

 Axios sat down to blow Elon Musk in a dumbass interview that you don't need to watch. The only thing you need to know about is that Elon Musk wants us to be cyborgs, and fight Skynet.

A new analysis by WaPo has found a dramatic spike in right-wing violence over the past decade that includes shootings, bombings, and forms of domestic terrorism. Of course, there's bad dudes on many sides...

Slap-happy and Trump-loving conspiracy jackholes Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie paid someone to write a new coloring book for Trump that takes cheap shots at "Trump's Enemies." It's another 300 pages of racebaiting gibberish that nobody will read.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, former Fox co-president and current White House deputy chief of staff for comms, Bill Shine, got an $8.4 million golden parachute from Fox. Shine will also be paid $3.5 million for the next two years -- and this is on top of all the Ameros Trump's White House is paying him to gaslight the people.

Emily Jane Fox gossips that Rep. Elijah Cummings "You're Married" Mika and Joe at the National Archives -- in front of the Constitution no less -- while everyone else in DC was hiding from the rain and their relatives. Mazel, y'all.

Here's a most excellent cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody as performed by FLOPPOTRON, a series of floppy disk drives, a dot matrix printer, and a dial-up modem. You're welcome!

 Dr. Olivia Hooker has passed away. Hooker was a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riots (that is what you call it when white people massacre all the black people in town, yes?), and the first African-American to join the US Coast Guard during World War II. She was a badass, and 103.

And here's your morning Nice Time! FUZZY DUCKLINGS!
 

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