BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

—Liz Cheney on Trump's renewed plan to take your health care away (which she supports)

THE COVERUP COVERUP

What are they trying to hide? That should be the question on every Democrat’s lips, now that it’s clear Attorney General William Barr and President Trump are teaming up to conceal Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s findings from the public.

Trump and his loyalists continue to insist that Mueller’s report, which we know contains the words “does not exonerate [Trump],” completely exonerates Trump. But their actions say otherwise: They are going to extraordinary lengths to hide the report from Congress and the American people.

According to the New York Times, it’s “unclear” if the report will ever be released, and Barr intends only to transmit a “summary” of the report, rather than a redacted version of the full report, to Congress.

The Justice Department won’t even disclose how long the full report is or how many sections there are. Barr’s summary could simply omit material that’s damaging to Trump, and nobody outside of a select group at DOJ would ever know. On Wednesday, Barr told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler he won’t commit to releasing the report and would only share the document’s length in confidence. By what standard is that information too sensitive for citizen’s ears?

Likewise, the Justice Department insists that even this whitewashing process will take “weeks,” during which time Trump’s disinformation about the report will go unrefuted, as the public and media move on to the next episode of American Shit Show.

Trump, who repeatedly ordered or leaned on DOJ to release sensitive materials to Congress last year when he was trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation, has now seen fit to let Barr do his dirty work—he can make this supposedly exonerating report public immediately if he wishes, and the fact that he won’t tells us everything we need to know.

This coverup has the support of Republican congressional leaders. For the second time on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell obstructed Democrats’ efforts to force a vote on a resolution instructing the Justice Department to turn the Mueller report over to Congress and the public.

Until very recently it was possible to imagine a joint Trump-DOJ effort to conceal the Mueller report generating large, sustained, nationwide protests. The anti-Trump grassroots was prepared to stage marches across the country in the event that Trump moved to fire Mueller after the midterms. That grassroots should mobilize again right now with the simple demand that the Mueller report be made available to the public in full immediately.

The White House ordered the Justice Department to ask the courts to throw out Obamacare, over the objections of Attorney General William Barr, who then decided to follow orders rather than resign. Barr is on a ROLL this week.

President Trump reportedly reached this decision to neutralize a campaign vulnerability—that he promised to repeal Obamacare, but his efforts failed in Congress. He has thus, with Barr’s support, enlisted the Justice Department in his re-election efforts, dealing another serious blow to the department’s independence.

Republicans in Congress are furious about this—not because they care about the rule of law, but because it shines new light on the GOP position that millions of people should lose their health care. They hate when people point that out! It costs them… what do you call ‘em… votes. However, these same Republicans have taken no steps to use their power to stop Trump, and will reportedly object to a Democratic effort to defund DOJ’s anti-Obamacare advocacy.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is prepared to step down if and when Parliament approves her plan for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. But Parliament has already stepped in to take control of the Brexit process from her and may have different ideas, like holding a new referendum on leaving the E.U.—or it may spiral into further chaos. Get it together, U.K. You got those cool royal weddings. Prince Harry got hot AND stopped dressing like a nazi. And then you blow it?

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos expressed OUTRAGE that the media says she wants to cut funding for the Special Olympics, before going on to explain that the Special Olympics is not a federal program, and that because of the huge tax cut she and other billionaires just got, the government can’t afford to give it more than zero dollars. METAPHOR FOR EVERYTHING.

The National Rifle Association has come out against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act over a provision intended to keep guns out of the hands of abusers, because House Republicans wanted cover to vote against legislation that prevents violence against women. Terrific intersection of the Republican Party's worst instincts.

A federal judge has blocked work requirements the Trump administration allowed Arkansas and Kentucky to impose on Medicaid expansion, which bumped tens of thousands of beneficiaries off the rolls, because the requirements are at odds with the law’s core purpose of providing people with health insurance. Duh, but also, good.

For the second time in a week, a Wisconsin judge has blocked the laws lame-duck Republicans passed to strip the incoming administration of its powers after Democrats swept statewide elections there. Beating Scott Walker after beating Scott Walker is one of the most satisfying ways of beating Scott Walker.

Elizabeth Warren has unveiled a new proposal to break up anticompetitive agriculture giants, targeting companies like Tyson and Bayer-Monsanto, which have forced 30,000 family farms to close in the last 30 years. Warren continues to be the Democratic presidential field’s policy leader.

Opioid epidemic czar/shameless liar Kellyanne Conway propagated an urban legend that marijuana is increasingly laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl, despite the fact that scientists have found no evidence for this claim. (George Conway immediately tweeted a picture of himself eating an edible. Trouble in paradise???)

Conor McGregor, a UFC champiion and one of the world’s highest paid athletes, is under investigation in his home country of Ireland where a woman has accused him of sexual assault.

Don’t slice your bagel like a bread loaf, just don’t.

Get Matched to Wine

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Facebook has announced that it will ban "praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism” on its platforms and direct people searching for white seupremacy content to a nonprofit group dedicated to helping people leave hate groups. Previously, Facebook only banned “white supremacy” on the platform—just last year internal company documents held that white nationalism “doesn’t seem to be always associated with racism.”

Facebook has had some success removing content associated with foreign terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, and claims it will deploy similar tactics to stop white nationalist content. However, it has noted the inherent difficulty of detecting and rooting out implicit and coded language.

“You don’t run for second place”—Stacey Abrams responding to rumors that she’d join Joe Biden’s TBD presidential campaign as his running mate. In an interview on The View, Abrams said she’s still considering her campaign options—either as a 2020 presidential candidate or in Georgia’s upcoming Senate race. Maybe she asked Biden to be VP? New rumor!

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