Putin Is Watching You Masturbate. Wonkagenda For Fri., March 16, 2018
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today, but first, if you're in Chicago you should come out and drink wine with your Editrix, Robyn and me! (And Pittsburgh, you're Sunday!)
The DHS has laid out how Russian hackers penetrated critical US systems, achieving operational control of at least one US power plant, as well as entry into water, energy, aviation, and manufacturing. In other words, Putin had/has his finger on your light switch.
Now that Russia is assassinating people on foreign soil, the Trump administration finally sanctioned Russia in response to 2016 election fuckery by copy/pasting people already indicted by Robert Mueller. No, it's not the sanctions Congress passed last year, those were too mean to Putin. [ More Morning Maddow ]
Stormy Daniels's lawyer was on Morning Joe earlier and said Stormy Daniels was threatened with physical harm by Trump and/or his people. "60 Minutes" has confirmed that Daniels's interview will air on March 25th.
The NRA is quietly freaking over its weird Russian friends after Democrats investigating election fuckery started sticking their noses into FEC filings.
James Comey's book comes out next month, and there's a media blitz being planned that Axios is refers to as "hot." Pff, he's no Hansel.
WaPo reports that Trump's White House staffers are betting on who will be "You're Fired" next, and the odds are HR McMaster is next to leave. [ More Morning Maddow ]
Canada isn't sure what the hell Trump was talking about when he started rambling to richracists donorsin Missouri about trade deficits.
During yesterday's press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried to spin Trump's nonsense, even though there's audio of Trump saying the things she says he didn't say.
ProPublica issued a rare correction regarding Gina Haspel, Trump's pick to lead the CIA, noting that Haspel didn't oversee the waterboarding of an al-Qaida suspect at that Thai black site after all.
One of Ben Carson's aides at HUD has been fired after people found out he wasn't actually a multimillionaire and international property developer, he was just some broke asshole would couldn't pay his rent in Texas.
Steve Mnuchin has blown a million dollars on high-flying fuckery on US military planes. Clearly he's too good to fly first class with all the proles.
House Democrats say they have proof that the Trump administration tried to purge the State Department of people perceived as "disloyal" to Donald Trump after new emails surfaced from Newt Gingrich and former aides to Dick Cheney. I love the '90s!
People are demanding an apology from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke after he made an ignorant and quasi-racist comment to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in response to Hanabusa talked about her interned grandfather. Domo-arigato, Dickhead-san.
Oil and gas companies are pissed about Trump's tariffs; they're begging for exemptions in order to keep laying pipe all over America's heartland.
As the Trump administration puts the finishing touches on its plan to solve the opioid crisis, word has leaked out that the plan will include the death penalty for suspected drug dealers. As if stoners weren't already paranoid...
Two shady Republican fraudsters and mega-donors are locked in a legal battle over an alleged scam to hide shitloads of stolen money hidden in a bunch of shell companies.
Former Obama staffers are sick of Rep. Dan Lipinski, and they called him out for being a lying, two-faced jerk who has no business repping Chicago after Lipinski sent around a mailer using Obama's image in an effort to slime his primary opponent. YA BURNT!
Some lawyers in St. Louis are suing Missouri AG and Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley after they noticed Hawley got pro bono legal representation from a fancy law firm during his 2016 election, with one lawyer telling reporters, "You don’t get to take large sums of money or valuable things as a candidate and not disclose it."
California's Democrats might drown in their flood of candidates as the top-two primary system could weed them all out and leave nothing but Republicans in November.
A conservative blog posted a "leaked" email from North Carolina Republicans showing frantic warnings about a potential blue wave that could not only wipe out their super majority, but actually tip the House in favor of Democrats.
A new report scrutinizing Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios shows a windfall tax break for Chicago's richest people, saving them $2.2 billion in property taxes, while simultaneously screwing the poor. This is old school Chicago Politics.
Teachers in Oklahoma are threatening to go on strike after years of mismanagement and tax breaks for oil and gas companies have left the state teetering on the edge of a financial collapse. : (
Two people are dead after fleeing ICE agents who mistook them for someone else. They leave behind six children, and a 1-year-old grandchild. Thanks, Trump.
Investigators are releasing details about a January cyber attack in Saudi Arabia that was designed to cause an explosion at a petrochemical plant, but they're not pointing fingers (yet).
The Swedes are digging in as Russians try to peer across the border, and they want everyone to know that they won't go down without a fight.
In response to US sanctions, Russia has expanded its "black list" of Americans, and bitched about "American political stubbornness." Whatever.
Good guy hackers and cyber security experts are shaking their damn heads and warning that the US is just opening itself up for more attacks if all we're going to do is slut shame the bad guys.
DJTJ's wife filed for divorce, and we can't really blame her.
And here's your morning Nice Time! OCELOT KITTENS! Look at their little spots!
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