Day 147: Shady Business

I'm just going to dive straight into this one.

• Senators from both sides of the aisle are complaining about the secretive drafting of the health care bill in the Senate.
• Trump also tried to get the NSA Chief to absolve him of any Russian collusion. Wow, he tried everybody, didn't he?
• Remember how Sessions refused to answers questions, based on the possibility of a claim of executive privilege? Here's an analysis of that tactic, which has now been employed three times in the span of a week. This is well worth reading.
• Pence is apparently lawyering up in response to the Russian investigations. He's bound to be as neck-deep as everybody else, so this is probably a good move for him.
• Sessions appears to have been caught in a lie. A lobbyist working for Russian interests met with him a few times and even helped write part of a foreign policy speech by Trump.
• After a white male attacks members of congress in broad daylight, who do you think they might be concerned about? Why, Muslims of course! This report is disgusting.
• The Department of Energy is shutting down their office working on the effects of climate change abroad. The administration's response to climate change is so utterly, utterly depressing.
• Manafort continues being an incredibly shady shit, doing international deals promising Chinese access to Trump, despite being the subject of an FBI investigation.
• Standing Rock protestors have had a victory in court. A judge ruled that "the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to perform an adequate study of the pipeline’s environmental consequences when it first approved its construction". However, he did not shut down the pipeline, instead ordering further environmental review and further hearings on whether it should be shut down.
• Here's a great article about the obstruction of justice charge and what appears to be a subsequent investigation into financial dealings. A somewhat speculative but very enjoyable read.