Day 153: Mixed Bag

Today is an odd mixed-bag of headlines. Nothing particularly major, but bits and pieces from all walks.

• Trump wants solar panels on his wall. Of course, he's claiming it's his own idea (it isn't). Of course, a stupendously better idea would be to invest the money earmarked for the wall in solar panels.
• A DHS official in a senate hearing reported she knew of evidence of Russian electoral hacking in 21 states. Not quite as many as had been previously leaked, but still definitely worth paying attention to.
• Now Sessions has retained counsel too. His lawyer sounds like a terrible person.
• The DHS never ran any audits to determine if the election results were hacked. This seems monumentally stupid to me. They should be required to run risk-limiting audits by default.
• Under likely pressure from the White House, the House has accused the Senate's sanctions bill of violating the constitution. This appears to be a delaying tactic; the House could easily remedy the supposed situation.
• The EPA plans to make 8% of their workforce redundant. Remember that the EPA is still in a hiring freeze. Yup, hard to do your job at the EPA in this climate. Disgusting.
• Trump wants sharp cuts to subsidized housing in every program except the one that makes him a profit. Why am I no longer surprised...
• Having essentially forced out the previous government loan chief, DeVos has picked a new candidate for the job who is a relative nobody, has limited experience, and an extremely dodgy-sounding PhD. This is going to end in tears. There is no other way.
• Yikes - Senate Republicans seem to be setting up to rewrite the senate rules again in order to get their crappy healthcare bill through. This is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set. Shifting the goalposts every time you don't get your way is no way to govern.