So a friend of mine has been putting together these pretty epic daily summaries of all the goings on in the administration every day since Jan 20. I find that they are informative and well organized by subject headers (usually with a healthy dose of liberal snark) and I think it's time that I start sharing. These are usually pretty long but worth the read. I'll be posting them daily going forward.
Ethically Challenged
• Ex-National Security Adviser Lt. Gen (Ret.) Michael Flynn filed a Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosure yesterday, retroactively applied to $530,000 worth of lobbying work he did during the U.S. presidential campaign that may have aided the Turkish government.
On the day of the election, Flynn (acting as undisclosed foreign agent of Turkey) wrote an op-ed calling for the extradition of Fethullah Gülen to Turkey. Turkey claims he was behind the failed July coup. The DOJ has rebuffed extradition demands it fears are politically motivated by saying Turkey must substantiate claims per the extradition agreement. Flynn’s rationale in the op-ed was explicitly political.
• The Office Government Ethics sent a letter to White House counsel and the House Oversight Committee, taking issue with the White House’s decision not to discipline Kellyane Conway over her ethics violation when she plugged Ivanka Trump’s merchandise during a TV interview. Failure to discipline her, they argue, will incite further ethics breaches.
It also took exception to the broader assertion by White House that OGE rules did not apply to employees of the Executive Office of the President, calling it “critical to the public’s faith in the integrity of government that White House employees be held to the same standard of ethical accountability as other executive branch employees.”
Always Have An Exit Strategy
• After digging Kansas into a $1 billion budget hole with his tax cuts, it looks like Governor Sam Brownback will be literally getting the **** out of Dodge and taking the position of Ambassador To The U.N. Agencies For Food And Agriculture in Rome, Italy.
POTUS
• Was slated to travel to Louisville, KY on Saturday to sell a crowd on TrumpCare. Now Vice-President Pence will be going.
Already lining up scapegoats (Tea Party & Dems), not slapping his name on it, and now ducking out of a sales pitch in a red state he won by 30 points. He knows this is going to fail.
Health Care
• After 18 hours of debate, TrumpCare passed 23 to 16 in the House Ways and Means Committee before dawn on Thursday.
• Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky, the top Medicaid doctor, said today that he can not support TrumpCare because experts, data, and evidence outweigh political messaging.
• Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said today that TrumpCare will not pass the Senate and the House needs to start over again.
• House majority whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) refused to say today whether or not the bill had enough votes to even make it out of the House.
That Is Actually How This Works. That’s Actually How All Of This Works
• With bad PowerPoints and rolled-up sleeves, alleged policy wonk House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) gave his capstone presentation on Why Poor People Should Suff—er, Why The ACA Should Be Repealed. In the middle of it he said that the reason ACA insurance won’t work is because there are healthy people subsidizing the treatments sick people are receiving.
You guys… I’m not entirely sure at this point that Paul Ryan understands what insurance *is*.
Hate Watch
• Another bomb threat & evacuation... this time at Jewish Children's Museum in Brooklyn, NY.
EPA
• Administrator Scott Pruitt went on CNBC this morning and denied that carbon dioxide is “a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” This runs counter to not only the accepted scientific consensus but the position of the very organization he’s overseeing.
How’d you like to be the EPA staffer that has to give him his morning briefing tomorrow? "And turning to Page 3 you can see that we…we… You don't really care about any of this, do you?"
State Department
• Secretary Tillerson left for Asia on his first major trip. There's no deputy secretary. There are no undersecretaries. Who's minding the store?
Border Wall
• Asked at an interview with Politico today whether or not Mexico was going to pay for construction of the wall on our southern border, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was succinct in his reply: “Uh, no.”
War on Terror
• A week of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen eclipsed the annual bombing total for any year during Obama’s presidency.
Travel Ban
• Hawaii filed suit to block the revised ban, arguing it will disrupt families, harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.
• Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, & Oregon will be joining the lawsuit.
• The Attorney General of Washington State will ask U.S. District Judge James Robart to extend the current temporary restraining order on the first travel ban to cover the new one.
This has been Day 49 in Trumpistan. Good night!
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