Politics

With the Senate already having launched the process of repealing Obamacare when, as reported yesterday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi released a 2017 budget resolution setting up the process to partially repeal Obamacare early in Donald Trump’s administration, on Wednesday vice president-elect Mike Pence met with Republican congressional leaders to plot the strategy of how to repeal Obama's signature healthcare law.

Donald Trump has ripped the CIA a new one over faulty claims that Russia influenced the US election and helped him win.  Trump blasted the agency on Twitter late on Tuesday, criticising their decision to postpone a scheduled briefing with him to present their case for the claim that “Russian hackers” infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Russia-insider.com reports: The tweet is a devastating and unparalleled public display of lack of confidence in the US government’s official position by a US president-elect. He is throwing down the gauntlet to the US intelligence establishment.

Russia has accused the US government of allowing ISIS militants to steal oil in Syria in order to earn hundreds of millions of dollars.  Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov warned that the US-led international coalition deliberately avoided bombing oil production facilities run by ISIS due to the fact that the US had a vested interest in the illegal oil sales.

WikiLeaks is offering a $20,000 reward to anyone who exposes the destruction of "significant records" by a member of the Obama administration. In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Wikileaks said “We are issuing a US$20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest or exposure of any Obama admin agent destroying significant records,” however, it has not explicitly alleged that the administration is suspected of inappropriately eradicating material.

In an effort to front-run any plans to suggest further problems in US healthcare are due to Republican/Trump meddling, the president-elect tweeted the narrative that should be well understood when it comes to President Obama's legacy...

Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017