Politics

Disaster victims in Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida can breath a sigh of relief. A piece of legislation authorizing $36.5 billion in aid for communities affected by recent hurricanes and wildfires easily passed the House on Thursday, despite some conservatives' concerns about the growing cost of disaster relief as wildfires raging in California - expected to be the costliest in modern California history - place yet another strain on FEMA's budget. All of those who voted against the legislation were from Republicans, but the bill managed to passeasily in the 353-69 vote.

Having failed to repeal (or replace) Obamacare in the Congress on three separate occasions, on Thursday morning Trump took matters into his own hands, when as previewed last night, the President signed an executive order to begin the process of unwinding Obamacare, paving the way for sweeping changes to health-insurance regulations that would allow an expansion of less-comprehensive health plans.

In what may be the final nail in President Trump's tax reform proposal, months after the White House proposed ending a tax break for people in high-tax states - which would suggest Trump had more than enough time familiarize himself with how it all works -  Trump reportedly "grew angry" when he learned that the change would hurt some middle-income taxpayers, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with his thinking.

As Facebook COO Sherly Sandberg completes her desperate DC walk of shame in an attempt to appease Mark Warner and the rest of the Facebook-scapegoaters, she gave Axios an interview to explain (strawman) what the biggest social media platform in the world will do about the Russian menace that has Made America Divided Again (allegedly)...

Sandberg said she had "very productive" meetings yesterday with congressional leaders investigating Russian efforts to use social media to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

US intelligence agencies are claiming that the Russian government leveraged the popularity of Kaspersky Labs’ cybersecurity software to create what is tantamount to a global spy network with the company’s explicit cooperation. However, Germany’s intelligence agencies say they’ve found “no evidence” to suggest these reports are true.