Naughty Or Nice? Wonkagenda For Mon., Dec. 24, 2018

Trump gets America nothing for Christmas, and the Busies swarm the swamp. Your morning news brief!

Morning Wonketariat! We're gonna have a half day today, a no-day tomorrow, and a lazy rest of the week ASSUMING there's not gonna be no news. Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.

The Trump administration is happily digging in on the border wall. On Saturday Trump called his congressional crazy caucus to the White House for a pity party where they agreed to ruin Christmas. Yesterday, Mick Mulvaney said the shutdown could last well into the New Year unless Congress (not Mexico) gives him $5 billion to build Trump's wall, adding the administration is "not interested" in any negotiations about DREAMers. [ Transcript / Video ]

During his tour of TV talking heads, Mulvaney tried to downplayTrump's screwup in Syria by telling Fox's Chris Wallace that "ordinary people" who have "no idea" about the Middle East think Trump pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Syria is a good thing. So what if the Beltwayeggheads actually agree with the military warhawks, that Middle East envoy Brett McGurk suddenly resigned in protest, or that Turkey is now massing troops at the Syrian border! What do those so-called "experts" know anyway? [ Video ]

Over the weekend news began floating that Trump was openly asking aides if he could "You're Fired" Fed chair Jerome Powell. In an attempt to ease Wall Street's fears, Steve Mnuchin tried distracting the finance wizards spazzing out at the thought of Trump taking control of the banking system with a very   disturbing phone call about bank liquidity while on vacation at a posh Mexican resort.

Vanity Fair gossips that the Trump family is sad it ruined its own vacation plans. Meanwhile, rich, gullible idiots (read:  Mar-a-Lago members ) are whispering the whole family is about to be indicted, Trump is negotiating a plea deal, and Wall Street's failures are part of a DEEP STATE plot to make Donald Trump look like A Idiot.

 The Bushies are back in business now that Trump has scared off or "You're Fired" every other swamp creature in DC. Politico reports that Trump's White House is so desperate for staffers that they're swallowing their white pride in order to learn how to NOT get caught while running legally questionable schemes. So much for the Never Trumpers!

Despite its on-again and off-again corporate sale, Blackwater suddenly started running full-page ads in gun fetish magazines that simply say "We are coming." As far as anyone knows, the former founder and CEO, Erik Prince, has no connection to Blackwater's rebirth; Prince been very busy buying his own private army, navy, and air force;and trying to get himself appointed as "viceroy" of Afghanistan. HHMMMMM

New surveillance footage from an Oct. 12 New York Republican dinner featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin Mcinnes shows his white supremacists charging anti-fascist protesters. The ensuing brutal clash left several people injured, and culminated in riot and assault charges for at least nine Proud Boys -- but only after the NYPD let the Proud Boys leave the scene.

Buzzfeed has a list of the 30-plus scandals involving Facebook this year, including Cambridge Analytica, pushing anti-semitic conspiracy theories, its role in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims, and its apathy towards Russian election fuckery.

The WSJ reports that its resident conservative creep, Joel Kaplan, has been pushing to make the Daily Caller a fact-checker in order to avoid hurting the delicate fee-fees of the brainwashed masses in fly-over country.

Earlier this year Sen. Tammy Duckworth passed a law forcing airline companies to report how they lose or break wheelchairs, but the airline industry was worried people might find out how common it is, so they began lobbying the Trump administration to slow roll the law. Safe travels, y'all!

Even though the rest of the government is shutdown, NORAD's Santa Tracker is still functioning. Good thing Congress passed a separate defense spending bill earlier this year!

And here's your morning Nice Time! A VERY TOPI X-MAS!! 

CHRISTMAS DAY - Topi the Corgi    www.youtube.com 

Follow Dominic on Twitter and Instagram! 

We're 100% ad-free and reader-supported, so consider buying us coffee, or get a subscription!