Briefing National – November 20, 2017

  • While you were sleeping: Charles Manson, the leader of the murderous Manson Family cult, died on Sunday evening [New York Times].
  • Republicans in Congress want to kill the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act to pay for massive tax cuts in their tax reform proposal. Killing that provision may not provide as much money as they’re estimating [New York Times].
  • President Trump reportedly would be open to dropping the plan to repeal the Obama-era health insurance mandate as part of the Republican tax reform plan [Reuters].
  • Democrats see a rising backlash against the Republican tax proposal as a key issue in their quest to retake control of Congress in 2018 [Washington Post].
  • Special counsel Robert Mueller has requested the Justice Department turn over a large trove of documents as part of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election [ABC News].
  • White House officials are still not sure how worried they should be about the Russia investigation as the probe enters its seventh month [Washington Post].
  • Jared Kushner is coming under increasing scrutiny as part of the Russia investigations [The Hill].
  • Sen. Al Franken will not resign after a woman said he kissed and groped her in 2006 [CNN].
  • The White House says the opioid epidemic cost half a trillion dollars in 2015 [Associated Press].
  • Here’s how to maintain your family relationships when politics comes up at Thanksgiving dinner [NBC News].
  • Trump takes the bait. After LaVar Ball, the father of two UCLA basketball players downplayed Trump’s efforts to get his son LiAngelo and two other players out of China following their arrest for shoplifting; President Trump took to Twitter to blast Ball saying he should have left the players in jail [USA Today].

On this day in history:

  • 1789 – New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
  • 1945 – 24 German leaders went on trial at Nuremberg before the International War Crimes Tribunal. 
  • 1947 – Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II of England, married Phillip Mountbatten.
  • 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the country.
  • 1974 – The Justice Department files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T, which leads to the breakup of the Bell System.
  • 1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.