Trump Glad Everyone Busy With Dead Kids. Wonkagenda For Tues., Feb. 20, 2018.
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.
All those dead kids in Florida gave Trump's White House a "distraction or a reprieve...from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled" by the press over their constant screwups with top secret clearances, wife beating, Trump fucking porn (more) stars, travel grift, and Russian fuckery.
Trump's White House has declined an invitation to a town hall to talk about gun violence with survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, instead offering to "listen" to them at Trump's leisure in DC. The students declined, suggesting Trump get off his ass and come down there to do something other than spend 20 goddamn minutes posing for pictures.
DJTJ has been begging his daddy to stick to his guns, despite all the kids in Florida protesting in the blood of their peers.
While people bitch and moan about another mass shooting, the NRA has quietly ramped up its pro-gun propaganda in order to force single issue elections in swing districts.
A new poll shows that most Americans are blaming Trump and Congress for not doing enough to stop mass shootings.
A growing white men's choir of Republican voices is urging Trump to start issuing blanket pardonsfor all the people involved in Trump-Russia, even if they haven't been accused of any crimes. Nothing says "abuse of power" like a mass pardon.
Robert Mueller has a growing infatuation with Jared Kushner and his funny Not American money, asking all sorts of questions like, "Where does it come from," and "Why the fuck are you in so much debt?"
That comedian Roger Stone boasted about being the middleman between Trump and Julian Assange says that Stone is full of shit because he would have immediately run to DJTJ with any dirt on Hillary Clinton. You know, like the Russians.
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter had a plan to combat Russian fuckery in the real world and cyber space when Trump waddled into the Oval Office, but it looks like it was shredded.
Former government cyber spook Clint Watts has practical advice about how the US should strike back and guard against Russian troll farms and fuckery ahead of the 2018 midterms.
Last year House Republicans voted to kill the Election Assistance Commissions, the federal agency that helps make sure federal elections aren't hacked because it "outlived its usefulness and purpose." Thankfully they failed, however ProPublica found many voting machines in fly-over country are woefully out of date and insecure. [ h/t C&L ]
Republicans are getting ready for hearings on the opioid crisis in an attempt to convince people that they're actually holding their big pharmaceutical donors accountable. [ Archive ]
DJTJ is headed to India to sell some overpriced Trump-branded apartments to fabulously rich people who don't need to literally poop in the street .
John Kelly is about to throw out all the bums in Trump's White House who can't get security clearances, and everyone is wondering if that includes Jared Kushner. [ Morning Maddow ]
Republicans have invited the new blonde, blue eyed star of the French nationalist party, Front National's Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, to speak at CPAC where she'll undoubtedly give an anti-immigrant speech after Mike Pence calls everyone a sexual deviant.
Somewhere in the nondescript basement of a Colorado Air Force base, the National Space Defense Center opened. Operating outside of the traditional DOD sectors, it will use a hodgepodge of spies and military and civilian contractors to start the space war.
As Trump gets ready to dump trillions into a troop surge, military leaders are warning that three-quarters of eligible Americans are fat, stupid drug-addicted criminals who can't get jobs, and that's a big problem for a military that wants tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and cyber ninjas in the next few years.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is worried about "the fundamental nature of war" upon realizing the defense industry is moving for robots to fight our wars , for better or worse.
Pennsylvania's new congressional map is expected to favor Democrats now that the state Supreme Court has issued a map that hasn't been gerrymandered by Republicans.
There's a hell of a lot of pissed off women running for office against Republican incumbents in flyover country, and their stories are to resonating with voters.
Rachel Crooks is one of the 19 women who've accused Trump of sexual assault. Now she's running for office in Ohio, and refuses to be quiet.
Now that we've established that it's not-fucking-OK to give a free pass for a pattern of sexual abuse, maybe we should think about impeaching Clarence Thomas for perjury. Or maybe we shouldn't open up a Supreme Court seat right now, dummies.
The Iraqi Army has had a huge problem holding on to the tanks they bought from the US back in 2008, and now the makers of war toys are threatening to withhold BFGs.
The South Korean official in charge of regulating crypto currency has been found dead of an apparent stress-induced heart attack at 52. Authorities are investigating.
Having lost all their money for hookers and blow, Congress is thinking about regulating Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
In the wake of Robert Mueller's indictment blaming Facebook for turning a blind eye to Russian fuckery, a Facebook executive tweeted that people should be less dumb. [ Archive ]
Tech-bros like Peter Thiel think that Silicon Valley is full of oppressive douchebags who keep violating their safespace, so they're fucking off for cheaper, greener pastures to bro their seed. [ Archive ]
And here's your morning Nice Time! ADORABLE RIVER OTTER PUPS!
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