Thursday: ARGHHH!!!

There’s just too much news going on this week. It’s hard to know what to pay attention to.

I suspect that if you’re in the Caribbean or Mexico, it’s the natural disasters. Puerto Rico lost 100% of its power during Maria and by all accounts, the island is devastated. So are the US Virgin Islands.

You can help Puerto Rico and Mexico through Stephen Colbert’s page at Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

I don’t think tourism is going to help anytime soon. They need money to rebuild and for basic survival needs right now.

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These two items are both so important it’s hard to know which should go first.

Ok, lets start with Paul Manafort. It turns out that the FBI had a warrant to bug him before he even became Trump’s campaign manager.

Just think about that for a second. That means that the Feds knew that there was something going on between Russia and the Trump campaign in July 2016. Did we hear about this investigation from Comey?? No, we did not. Instead, we got some stupid letter about some inconsequential email on Anthony Weiner’s laptop that *might* have come from Hillary Clinton. And that made all the difference in a race that was already tight due to journalistic pile on and fascination with shiny objects like an orange reality TV show habitually lying pussy grabber.

Robert Mueller is now asking for everything related to the crafting of the Russian orphans excuse letter for Donald Trump Jr.

And Facebook is going to turn over the details of 3000 campaign ads that were bought by the Russians to Congress .

Meanwhile, the Graham-Cassidy bill to dismantle healthcare as we know it is hurtling towards a September 30 deadline. Greg Sargent says the bill may be ruled invalid in a crucial part because it isn’t relevant to the reconciliation process. (I see you have My Eyes Glaze Over syndrome. Never mind) The bottom line is that states may get reduced funds through the block grant formula AND still be beholden to certain features of the ACA, such as covering all pre-existing conditions without the ability to heartlessly charge very sick patients more money. So it’s the worst of both worlds.

Over at The Weeds, health policy expert Sarah Kliff and Ezra Klein discuss just how messed up this bill is and just how much time Mitch McConell will allow discussion of it. I think it’s something like 45 seconds per side. No you did not read that wrong. Ezra and Sarah spent more time discussing this bill in public than your senator will. This podcast episode is definitely worth a listen. Sarah breaks this down brilliantly.

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And after Trump threatened to blow NoKo to smithereens, he’s now just going to impose economic sanctions.

That’s it? What are we going to do? Impose a tariff on their swank status consumer electronics industry? Prohibit their movies from being exported to the local Cinemark? Really???

It’s not like they make delicious raw milk cheese and fine wines. They can’t even grow enough rice for themselves.

{{rolling eyes}}

No one is going to take anything he says seriously. He’s completely dickless.

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I’m headed for the bus stop. Normally I wear my sunglasses and check out the populace. But I left them in the car today.

So I shall squint.

It’s a bright sunshiney day.