Day 94: French election

The big news today was from the French election, where Macron and Marine Le Pen will face off in a runoff election. Essentially everybody not with Le Pen has galvanized around Macron, and with good reason - Le Pen is France's equivalent of Trump.

In more local news:

• Trump had a statement for Earth Day. It was incredibly hypocritical, as one might expect.
• There is a looming threat of a government shutdown. Trump is making things worse by demanding that funding for his fucking wall be put into the budget. Pure childishness for the purpose of stroking his own ego, made even more grotesque by his promises that America wouldn't pay for it at all. How about those billions be put somewhere useful, like the NIH or the EPA?
• Trump has been pushing for tax reform. Unfortunately, he has no idea what that even means, beyond "Cut taxes!". The chances of him closing any of the myriad of loopholes for the real estate sector are negative, but we've been promised something big on Wednesday. I expect it to be awful, like every other proposal he's had.
• Amazingly, Trump thinks that he's getting a vote on a health care bill this week. Given that nobody has even seen the text of this aforementioned bill, chances of this are essentially nil. Rumours have that pre-existing conditions coverage is on the chopping block, so this thing is going to be completely garbage.
• Do you ever listen to Trump speak and think "What the hell is he talking about? This is utter garbage!" Then you're not alone! Even for an interview under optimum conditions, professionals at the Associated Press couldn't even transcribe his mutterings.