Day 49: Presents for Russia

There is so much crap in the news today. You'll want to eat this in a few bites, folks.

• The Russian plot thickens. Some amazing journalism here. Here's Rachel Maddow discussing the revelations (I highly recommend listening to this!). This is the explanation for why the Republican party ditched the Ukraine in favor of Russia, as a former Trump staffer confessed that Trump personally wanted the language removed, despite previous denials from the Trump campaign. This hints at direct collaboration between the Trump team and Russia, and corroborates the salacious dossier so very strongly. This further video puts more of the jigsaw puzzle together. (Why was a known Russian intelligence agent working with the Trump campaign to change the language on the Ukraine? Why did a Trump staffer visit Moscow on official business two weeks earlier? Holy shit!)
• Although Trump is being slow about nominating people for positions that require senate approval, for positions that don't need senate approval, he's signed up some very shady characters. ProPublica is compiling a list of as many of them as possible. This seriously looks like a shadow government...
• The new EPA chief thinks carbon dioxide isn't a greenhouse gas. This is in contradiction to both his agency, and every scientist ever. In fact, you can do your own experiment to understand how carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Costs less than $20 to buy everything you would need, in case you don't have the required items already sitting around at home. It is unfathomable that this ignoramus is leading the EPA. Ignoring climate change is going to literally kill us all.
• Holy shit, the State Department is screwed under Tillerson (another Rachel Maddow video). Here's a written analysis.
• Trump is proposing to seriously slash the HUD budget to pay for his wall/army. Because inner cities don't need money, do they? Who thinks Ben Carson is going to stand up to him?
• At least 5 states have now gone to court to challenge the Muslim ban.
• Congress is gutting Obama's signature education rules.
• Trump is starting to campaign for the pile of wood pulp that he calls a healthcare bill, after it passed two committee hurdles. I have hopes that the bill will die in the house, but I'm pretty sure the senate really will kill it.
• Paul Ryan think the problem with the Affordable Care Act is that it forces healthy people to subsidize sick people. This can only be the Ponzi scheme known as ... wait for it ... "insurance"! Of course, he was widely lampooned for his performance on the internet.
• As one might expect, the crackdown on illegal immigrants is encouraging hostile employers to violate labor laws.
• Russia is deploying banned missiles, in what seems to be a deliberately provocative action.
• Finally, why can't many agencies fill vacancies? Because they look at the social media accounts of the applicants, and refuse anybody critical of Trump.

I also have an apology. Apparently the "World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017" is some Texan congressman's pet bill, and doesn't refer to the "American Health Care Act". Still, it's some hubris.