Intel chiefs call BS on Trump.

Pillar by pillar, Trump’s foreign policy and fictions were torn down yesterday by his own intelligence chiefs when they testified before Congress. A sampling:

• Trump: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”
  • DNI Coats: “ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States.”
  • CIA Director Haspel: “They still command thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.”
  • Trump: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
    • Coats: “We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to give up nuclear weapons.”
    • Trump: “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
      • Coats: “We expect Russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies.”

CNN reporter Jim Sciutto wrapped it all up in one tidy tweet.

Notably, not once in their testimony did a single intelligence official discuss the need for a southern border wall, which “Trump has portrayed as the single most pressing need facing the country,” and over which he was proud to shut down the government for 35 days.

Trump, in his usual fashion, attacked the intelligence chiefs on Twitter today, calling them “passive and naïve.” But if Trump’s not getting his intelligence advice from his own advisors, is he getting it from Putin instead?

IF IT WALKS LIKE A LOBBYIST…

When a lawmaker leaves Congress, there’s a 12-14 month legally mandated “cooling off” period before they can become registered lobbyists. Why? To prevent the corruption of ex-lawmakers “lobbying their recent colleagues.”

Unsurprisingly, lawmakers are very good at finding a loophole to this: not calling themselves “lobbyists.” Already, more than ten GOP lawmakers who left Congress this year have “already taken positions with lobbying firms, policy shops, and political interest groups.”

House Democrats’ H.R.1 would help put a stop to this (thinly) veiled corruption. It’s no surprise that Congressional Republicans are fighting it tooth and nail.

GTFO.

Young people have a message for climate science-denying lawmakers: If we can’t persuade you to believe the facts surrounding climate change, then you need to #GTFO of Congress.

On the heels of a new CAP Action analysis identifying the 150 members of Congress who still don’t believe in climate change, Generation Progress is launching a new campaign: GTFO. Located at GetTheFactsOut.com, GTFO highlights the most egregious climate deniers in Congress and provides activists with easy click-to-tweet responses to their most common climate lies.