Politics

Venezuela's ongoing protests against the Maduro regime took tragic turn when at least 12 people were killed overnight during looting and violence in Venezuela's capital. Most of the deaths took place in El Valle, a working class neighborhood near Caracas' biggest military base where opposition leaders say a group of people were hit with an electrical current while looting and trying to steal a refrigerator from a bakery.

RIP BAT - the Border Adjustment Tax, which was floated in November under a proposal from Paul Ryan and which met with fierce resistance, is effectively dead. According to Bloomberg, Trump’s "tremendous" tax plan to be revealed next week likely won’t include the controversial border-adjusted tax.

Representative Dave Brat (R-Va), a Freedom Caucus member who voted against the first TrumpCare bill, appeared on CNN earlier this morning to suggest that he may be ready to support a new version of the bill that allows individual states to opt out of certain components of Obamacare that require minimum coverage levels and restrict insurers from charging more to patients with pre-existing conditions.  Per The Hill:

It's deja vu all over again...

• *TRUMP SAYS HE WILL UNVEIL TAX PLAN NEXT WK: AP
• *TRUMP SAYS PLAN TO INCLUDE `MASSIVE' CUT FOR COS., INDIVIDUALS

And the machines fell for it...

As AP reports, President Donald Trump says businesses and individuals will receive a "massive tax cut" under a tax reform package he plans to unveil next week.

Just when you thought it was over - after Trump 'Tomahawks' Putin's pal Assad, and Tillerson trounces Lavrov - and the media had stopped the constant "Russia did it" narrative, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which seems like as big an oxymoron as can occur) has called numerous current (and former) officials to testify once again on Russia's "active measures during the 2016 election."

As NBC Nightly News reports,