Month: October 2018

Week 92 in Trump

Posted on October 31, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This was an incredibly awful week. An ardent Trump supporter sent pipe bombs to over a dozen Democratic leaders and funders, a white supremacist killed two African-Americans in Kentucky (and the only reason that number isn’t higher is that the shooter couldn’t get into a locked Baptist church), and an anti-Semite opened fire in a Jewish synagogue in Pennsylvania and killed 11 people (because he thought Jews were funding the migrant Caravan in Central America). Words matter. The perpetrators were all mentally ill, yet all motivated by the same hateful, fearful rhetoric. I hope everyone who goes to the polls in the coming weeks thinks about that when they vote. Will you vote for someone who spreads this hate and fear? Who supports this hate and fear? Who says nothing when other leaders spread it? Or will you vote for someone works to unify us? Who calls out the fear mongers and hate mongers among us? Who works to decrease hate crimes like these? Words matter, and your votes matter.

Russia:

  1. National Security Advisor John Bolton goes to Moscow. While there, he says he doesn’t think Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections had any effect on the outcome of the U.S. election. He also says all the meddling did was cause us to distrust Russia, which is partially true. But it has also caused us to distrust each other.
  2. A few months ago, a federal judge refused a request from House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) for sealed testimony of key witnesses in the Russia investigation. The judge requested followup info from Nunes, which he has not yet received after all this time. Must not’ve been important.
  3. U.S. intelligence agencies say that Chinese and Russian spies have been listening in on Trump’s unsecured cell phone, which he uses frequently. Aides have given up trying to get him to stop using that phone, and they worry that he might be discussing classified information on it. Spies can use the information to find out who Trump trusts and who influences him, along with what type of persuasion influences him most.
  4. Trump says the report is boring. I guess Hillary’s email server was a big nothing burger, too, then.
  5. Robert Mueller has emails from Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi to the Trump campaign where they take credit for John Podesta’s stolen emails. Mueller is looking into whether Corsi knew about the emails before Wikileaks published them, whether he told Stone, and whether Stone told the campaign.
  6. Text messages show that Stone was working on a blanket pardon for Julian Assange. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) also pushed for a pardon.
  7. Before Trump’s inauguration, a Saudi intelligence chief, Joel Zamel, Michael Flynn, and other member of the Trump transition team met to discuss strategies for ending the Iranian regime. Joey Zamel owns a media strategy company that pitched misinformation campaigns during the elections. The Saudi intelligence chief is also implicated in the Khashoggi murder.
  8. The company that runs USA Really, a website that pretends to be American but is really Russian, admits that Elena Khusyaynova is their CEO. Elena was arrested recently for meddling in our elections.
  9. George Papadopoulos testifies for House committees (again). Republicans come away saying this proves the investigation never should’ve been opened; Democrats say there wasn’t much new to learn from it.
  10. Papadopoulos requests immunity before his upcoming testimony before Senate committees.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Newly released documents show that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross met with Chevron executives to discuss “oil and gas developments, tax reform, and trade issues” at a time while Ross’s wife had $250,000 invested with the company. This puts him at risk of violating criminal conflict-of-interest laws.
  2. A judge rules that Trump must answer questions in the Summer Zervos sexual harassment case.
  3. A new lawsuit alleges that Trump Organization was paid by three businesses to promote get-rich-quick schemes and encourage vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Florida’s Supreme Court denies outgoing Governor Rick Scott the ability to appoint three new judges to the court on the morning of the day their terms expire. Scott said he’d appoint them on that day before noon, at which time his successor will be sworn into office. The problem with that is technically Scott will no longer be governor on that day. So his successor will fill those seats. Scott is running for Senate.
  2. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley refers Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the DOJ for investigation. Grassley claims they lied to Congress. Grassley then refers them a second time for conspiracy, lying, and obstruction.
  3. Jeff Flake says he’s not sure he believes Kavanaugh, but he voted for him anyway.

Healthcare:

  1. Medicare enrollment dropped by .6% this year. It’s expected to rise by .9% next year. The drop is partly due to a good economy and partly due to stricter requirements, such as work requirements, which are dropping recipients in some states.

International:

  1. Just days after threatening to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War arms control treaty with Russia, Trump says we’ll start increasing our nuclear arsenal.
  2. And then Russia threatens a new arms race if he goes through with it. Russia has been violating the treaty for years, but it’s been holding us both somewhat in check.
  3. Even after saying he won’t meet with the Saudi prince after the Khashoggi killing, Steven Mnuchin ends up meeting with him after all.
  4. After Trump threatens to pull out of the Universal Postal Union, they reach out to us saying we’ll no longer receive international letters or packages.
  5. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, a diplomat with over 30 years in government service, resigns her post over the ongoing strained relations with Mexico. She’s leaving even though she considers this a crucial moment in U.S.-Mexico relations.
  6. Surveillance videos show one member of the Saudi security team leaving the consulate in Turkey dressed as Khashoggi shortly after Khashoggi’s murder.
  7. Trump calls the Khashoggi killing a “complete fiasco.”
  8. In the fallout from Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, Trump said that we have $450 billion worth of orders from Saudi Arabia for various goods, including $110 billion in military goods. He also said about a million jobs were on the line. None of this turns out to be true.
  9. Khashoggi’s fiancé refuses Trump’s invitation to the White House saying the invitation was only for publicity purposes.
  10. Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor now says that the Khashoggi murder was likely premeditated.
  11. Brazil elects a far-right populist, Jair Bolsonaro, as president following a violent and polarizing campaign season.
  12. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Yemen is being pushed into a catastrophic famine by the war being played out in their country between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Family Separation:

  1. The Trump administration begins releasing families being held in detention centers along with border. They’ve kept some of these families months beyond the allowed 20 days. They’re also releasing recent migrants who’ve been held only briefly, and the combined effect of releasing thousands of migrants is overwhelming non-profits who help house and settle the migrants.
  2. Health and Human Services confirms that the government failed to account for 14 additional children separated from their families at the border.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Protests break out over the Trump administration efforts the define gender as being unchangeable from what you’re born with. Protestors see this as an attempt to define transgender out of existence.
  2. The caravan of migrants coming up from Central America grows to 5,000 people (still smaller than the number that try to enter through the border each day). A second caravan forms behind it, but is having a hard time crossing into Mexico.
  3. Trump calls them hardened criminals and says there are random Middle Easterners in there. In other words, be very afraid. Neither of those statements are verifiable. Trump actually says he has no proof of this.
  4. Mike Pence repeats that lie, saying that it’s inconceivable that there aren’t people of Middle Eastern descent in the caravan.
  5. Trump says he’ll order armed troops to the border to handle the caravan of migrants. Even though Customs and Border Patrol is well equipped to handle this on their own. In the end, it looks like Trump will send more troops than there are migrants.
  6. Nearly 10 years after banning the practice of charging the families of people locked up in juvenile detention centers, LA County finally stops collecting any remaining debts, erasing nearly $90 million in debt.
  7. Three more members of the white supremacist group The Proud Boys are arrested for the New York City attacks on protestors. The arrests come from the violent fight that occurred after a Proud Boys member was invited to speak at a Republican group in New York City.
  8. Three members of the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement are arrested for attacking protestors, journalists, and a police officer in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino, and Berkley last year. This is on top of four other members who were arrested earlier this year for violence at the Charlottesville rally last year.
  9. One of those arrested had been hiding out in Central America.
  10. Yet another court ruling comes down against Trump’s attempts to defund sanctuary cities.
  11. We learn that Google covered up for three executives accused of sexual misconduct. One was given a $90 million golden parachute.
  12. A Florida man sends pipe bombs to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, CNN, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (sort of — she’s actually on the return address), Eric Holder, John Brennan, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, Robert DeNiro, Cory Booker, James Clapper, Tom Steyer, and Kamala Harris. Luckily none of the devices explode, and the FBI arrest the suspected bomber after lifting a print off one of the packages.
  13. The suspect is a self-described white supremacist, likely mentally ill, and also recently radicalized.
  14. After the right floats conspiracy theories that these bombs were a hoax perpetrated by Democrats, FBI Director Chris Wray confirms that these devices were not a hoax.
  15. On top of that, an armed man in Kentucky tries to enter a locked Baptist church with a largely African American congregation shortly following services. When he can’t get in, he kills two African Americans at a Kroger instead. He tells a white witness that Whites don’t kill Whites.
  16. And then a shooter in Pittsburgh kills 11 people at a Jewish synagogue. He, too, seems to have been recently radicalized.
  17. Trump blames the media for the violence. Just a reminder of a few things Trump has said:
    • Maybe Hillary Clinton’s secret service should stop protecting her so we could “see what happens to her.”
    • He also suggested that “the Second Amendment people” maybe could do something about her should she become president.
    • “Maybe he should be roughed up.”
    • “Knock the crap out of ‘em, would you?”
    • “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
    • “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”
    • He’s said there will be violence if Democrats win the midterm elections.
    • He’s pushed the idea that the immigrant caravan is going to storm our border (all 5,000 of them) and that they’re funded by George Soros.
    • And finally, he’s applauded violence against protestors and police mistreating suspects, and frequently calls the press the enemy of the people, often singling out CNN.
  1. Trump then issues this statement about the violence.
    “In these times, we have to unify. We have to come together and send one very clear, strong and unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America. We’re extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed this morning and we will get to the bottom of it.”
  2. Trump also says the synagogue should’ve had armed guards. IMO, houses of worship shouldn’t need armed guards.
  3. The #MeToo movement has outed 201 powerful men for sexual misconduct, and nearly half have been replaced by women.
  4. The Trump administration says they might close the U.S. border entirely to Central Americans and deny them the ability to seek asylum. I think that might be a violation of international treaties.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Interior Department approves plans to drill in shallow waters 6 miles off Alaska’s shores in the Beaufort Sea. If it goes ahead, it’ll be the first oil and gas facility in federal waters around Alaska. Hilcorp Energy, the company that won approval, has already been responsible for several underwater oil spills.
  2. A UN report on climate change is accused of bias against nuclear power. While nuclear power doesn’t contribute to climate change (that we know of), its byproduct is obviously a major pollutant that we still haven’t figured out how to deal with.
  3. Oregon state will permanently ban offshore drilling on its coastline.
  4. The New York and New Jersey Port Authority says they’ll sign on to the Paris Agreement. A big deal, because it’s one of the busiest transportation systems in the U.S.
  5. Justin Trudeau says that Canada will implement a carbon tax on four provinces in 2019.
  6. The EPA plans to rescind an Obama-era proposal for uranium waste disposal which would have reduced radon pollution. Who was it who said that a little radiation could be good for us?
  7. The EPA says a small amount of glyphosate in children’s cereal is OK. The World Health Organization lists it as a carcinogen.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump promises a 10% tax cut for the middle class before midterms, but that’s just not going to happen. (LOL. Now that I’m re-reading the story, I see that he promised the tax cut would happen in a week.) No one so far is able to provide any additional details on this plan.
  2. Trump accuses the Fed of endangering the economy by raising interest rates.
  3. The market has erased all gains made in 2018.
  4. U.S. GDP annual growth was 3.5% in the third quarter. That was higher than economists expected, but lower than the previous quarter (which, in fairness, was a pretty high 4.2%).
  5. Markets continue to tumble, and global tech stocks have lost around $1 trillion in value in October. That’s about a 9% loss overall. The decline comes from expectations for decreased demand, lower valuations, and trade wars.
  6. China is working to wean the country off soybeans. Since the U.S. provides about a third of their beans, they’ll definitely be running out shortly.

Elections:

  1. The Georgia NAACP files a lawsuit saying voting machines are casting votes for the wrong candidates on party-line ballots.
  2. In a bit of positive news amid all the current voter suppression, Oregon passes a law that automatically registers every eligible voter unless they opt out.
  3. A court blocks Georgia from rejecting ballots where their amateur handwriting analysts think the signatures might not match. They must go through due process to reject any on that basis.
  4. Voters in Texas are enthused to vote. They camped out to vote hours before the polling places opened this week.
  5. In Dodge City, KS, they move their only polling location outside of city limits with no public transportation. Voto Latino and Lyft partner up to give voters rides, but they should not have to take up this responsibility.
  6. Black students at a Texas university sue for more early voting locations.
  7. An online fundraiser raises over $100,000 in an hour to help Native Americans in North Dakota get the newly required ID to vote.
  8. Officials are predicting the highest voter turnout for a midterm election in decades. I have to credit Trump for that.
  9. Trump is talking about ways to throw legal challenges at the election should Democrats take over the House or Senate. He’s looking into ways to discredit the elections or declare them illegitimate.
  10. Trump justifies holding his scheduled campaign rally the day of the mass shooting in Pittsburgh by saying that the New York Stock Exchange re-opened the day after 9/11. The NYSE didn’t open for nearly a week after 9/11 because of missing and dead employees. Trump did condemn the shooting, though.
  11. Here’s Trump’s takeaway from the mass bomb mailings:
    “    Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Bomb” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows – news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on.”

Miscellaneous:

  1. Remember that fire in the National Museum of Brazil? Turns out that 80 pieces of the human fossil named Luzia were recovered. Luzia is named after the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy. Luzia is 12,000 years old, and is the oldest human skeleton from the area.
  2. A man allegedly gropes a female passenger during a flight and justifies it by saying “the president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.” I’m frankly surprised that didn’t happen sooner.
  3. Trump embraces the nationalist label, and proudly tells rally attendees that he’s a nationalist. Obviously not understanding the true meaning nor implication of being a nationalist.
  4. Not long after it was discovered George Soros was mailed a pipe bomb, Trump calls for unity and then repeats audience members’ chants to “Lock him [meaning Soros] up!” About a person who just received a bomb threat.
  5. Hours after the bomber is arrested, Trump holds a rally where he again criticizes “crooked Hillary” and the media (bombs were mailed to both Hillary and CNN). The crowd chants “Lock her up!” referring to Hillary. Who just received a bomb threat.
  6. In a speech that was supposed to unify after the bomber was arrested, Trump starts out condemning the violence. And then he complains that the bombs had taken the media spotlight away from him and the policies he’s pushing. He then suggests that the bombs are a left-wing false flag.
  7. After the bomber is arrested and found to be an ardent supporter of Trump. Trump’s response? The suspect “was a person that preferred me over others.” And “There’s no blame. There’s no anything.”
  8. Trump plans to visit Pittsburg on Monday, but Jewish leaders and the mayor ask him to postpone or not come at all.
  9. In the run-up to the midterm elections, Trump, along with several Republicans, continue to refer to Democrats as an out-of-control “angry mob” that is “too dangerous to govern.”
  10. A passenger plan crashes on take-off in Jakarta. There is no sign of survivors. The plane was carrying nearly 200 people.

Polls:

I am literally refusing to look at polls this close to the election. I don’t need that kind of stress.

Week 91 in Trump

Posted on October 22, 2018 in Politics, Trump

I heard something interesting on Marketplace. It turns out it doesn’t matter whether we cut funding for food assistance, or SNAP, like some in Congress want. Because of our trade war, many farmers lost the buyers for their crops. So part of the government bailout for farmers is going toward purchasing those crops, which will then be donated to food assistance programs like food banks, shelters, and so on. The charities currently don’t have enough resources to store all that food, and they estimate it’ll cost around $300 million to take care of it all. They say they’ll get it done, but what really just happened is that the U.S. lost all that income from those crops, the government is trying to cut taxpayer payments to SNAP, but the government did pay taxpayer money directly to the farmers who lost their buyers, and then turned around and gave that food right back to the needy. Talk about going around in circles.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. In the DOJ’s first case around Russian meddling in our elections, federal prosecutors charge a Russian woman, Elena Khusyaynova, with fraud against the U.S. She managed the finances for an operation funded by the Concord group that ran a social media disinformation campaign. This campaign wasn’t tilted toward either political side; it’s aim was to spread disinformation and increase divisiveness.
  2. This campaign spread misinformation about immigration, gun control, the NFL protests, LGBTQ and racial issues, the Confederate flag, and much more.
  3. Putin says that U.S. influence across the globe is almost over, and that he’s been more able to push Russian influence with Trump as president.
  4. Russian trolls have stepped up their spending on disinformation campaigns in 2018.
  5. Mueller will likely issue his findings in the Russia investigation after the midterm elections, specifically around whether Trump’s campaign coordinated in any way with the Russians and whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation.
  6. It’s up to Rod Rosenstein, who’s defended Mueller’s investigation, to decide whether the results will become public.
  7. Remember when we kept hearing about SARs (suspicious activity reports)? A senior employee at the Treasury Department is charged with leaking those reports related to Paul Manafort’s financial activity, along with SARs for other subjects of the Mueller investigation.
  8. A federal judge refuses Paul Manafort’s request to wear a suit to his sentencing hearing. He shows up in a wheelchair.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Michael Cohen has met with both New York state and federal law enforcement about the Trump Organization and their charity.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge orders the Department of Education to implement regulations to protect students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges. The regulations help them get their federal student loans forgiven. Betsy DeVos has been delaying the regulations while the department rewrote rules around loans, but a different judge already called those rewrites capricious and arbitrary.

Healthcare:

  1. Along party lines, the Senate votes down a repeal of Trump’s expansion of short-term insurance plans that do not have to comply with ACA guidelines. So now we’ll have cheaper plans available for the short-term, but they won’t have to cover anything required by the ACA.
  2. Mitch McConnell suggests that Republicans will try again next year to repeal the ACA, but no word yet what they’d replace it with.

International:

  1. Reports are that the U.S. intelligence community knew that the Saudis planned to kidnap Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and possibly harm him. This information had been spread across all relevant government agencies, yet Trump pretended to know nothing about this for days.
  2. Turkey says they have audio tapes of the killing, and Trump requests the tapes to be released to U.S. intelligence. As far as I know, this hasn’t yet happened.
  3. Early in the week, Trumps says he’ll send Mike Pompeo to meet with Saudi King Salman over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump also says the king firmly denies involvement, and he suggests rogue killers could be responsible.
  4. And then Trump tells the Associated Press that blaming Saudi Arabia without evidence is like blaming Kavanaugh without evidence. Just another case of “guilty until proven innocent.”
  5. Pompeo has a friendly meeting with the Saudi prince who says they’ll perform a thorough and transparent investigation into the killing.
  6. The day Pompeo arrives, the Saudi government transfers $100 million to the U.S. to help stabilize things in Syria.
  7. Trump is also concerned about a $110 million arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and he doesn’t want the Khashoggi affair to get in the way of it.
  8. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin joins many other foreign officials in saying they won’t attend what’s been called “Davos in the Desert.” It’s an economic investment conference in Saudi Arabia.
  9. Jared Kushner, who is a close friend of the Saudi prince, is involved with the Trump administration response to the killing.
  10. The ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R) and Bob Melendez (D) send a letter to Trump triggering the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The administration must now investigate the killing.
  11. The Saudi government prepares us for their admission that Khashoggi didn’t leave the consulate in Turkey and is indeed dead, but they say it was an interrogation that went wrong. And then they say that a fight broke out (which I guess somehow required the 15-man security team to kill Khashoggi and then dismember him with the bone saw that they conveniently had thought to bring with them ahead of time by the doctor they conveniently had the forethought to invite along).
  12. So the Saudi’s have gone from:
    • Khashoggi left the consulate alive, to
    • He is probably dead but we didn’t kill him, to
    • We’ll investigate this fully, to
    • He was killed by our security team but it was his fault because he started a fistfight (against 15 security guys, uh-huh), but
    • The Saudi prince knew nothing of this plan.
  1. U.S. intelligence says evidence points to the Saudi prince being involved, but it’s circumstantial right now.
  2. This comes at a critical time for the administration because we need Saudi Arabian oil to make the sanctions against Iran work.
  3. Saudi Arabia has apprehended several suspects. Four suspects are linked to the Saudi prince’s security detail.
  4. And is this always going to be their comeback? Republican lawmakers and pundits begin smearing Khashoggi to dampen criticism of Trump’s handling of the situation. They bring up his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and say he’s a friend of terrorists and “not a good guy.”
  5. Trump says we have an investigation on the ground in Turkey, but U.S. officials are unaware of any such effort.
  6. While Trump appears to be defending Saudi Arabia publicly, privately he has doubts they’re telling the truth.
  7. Germany halts all weapons deals with Saudi Arabia until further notice.
  8. The UN warns that Yemen is facing its worst famine in history because Saudi Arabia continues to launch airstrikes against them. We’re looking at over 12 million people facing starvation, which will only add to the global refugee crisis. Yemen is trapped in the middle of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
  9. The Taliban wipes out all of the top leadership in Kandahar Province in an assassination strike.
  10. Trump says the U.S. will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War arms control agreement with Russia. Trump says that Russia is violating the treaty and that it prevents us from developing weapons to combat China’s new weaponry.
  11. Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the treaty’s signers, says this decision is reckless and “not the work of a great mind.”
  12. Trump suspends yet another military exercise with South Korea. It seems they’re trying to further nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

Family Separation:

  1. The U.S. still has 245 children in custody who were separated from their parents. The parents of 175 of them were deported, and, of those, 125 have chosen to remain in the U.S. and request asylum. That leaves 50 kids with deported parents, and another 70 who haven’t been reunited.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump threatens to cancel aid to Honduras if they don’t stop the caravan of migrants headed our way. Because cutting off a lifeline for the country will really make people want to stay there, right?
  2. He also threatens to send the U.S. military to the border to meet the migrants, and then threatens to throw out the renegotiated NAFTA if Mexico let’s them through.
  3. The Trump administration looks at redefining gender so that people can only be defined by their biological sex at birth based on genitalia. I wonder what they think they’ll do for those born intersex? At any rate, it’s pretty easy to make the argument that transgender people are the most targeted group under this administration. Right up there with black and brown asylum seekers.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump visits the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Florida and Georgia. The death toll from the storm is up to 36. FEMA is still on the ground helping the hardest hit areas, but certain areas are pulling back on food and water in an effort to get back to a sense of normalcy. Some areas still don’t have electricity, though.
  2. Climate change is expected to dramatically increase the price of beer this century because drought will affect our ability to grow barley.
  3. Trump says at a Cabinet meeting that California better get its act together to fight forest fires, or he’ll stop giving the state federal funding for either fire prevention programs or disaster relief (it’s hard to tell which he’s referring to).
  4. Trump says he has a natural instinct for science, which is how he knows climate change isn’t manmade. Like many who deny manmade climate change, he says the climate goes back and forth, and back and forth. He also says that even scientists are divided on it, which really isn’t true.
  5. Trump claims to be an environmentalist despite rescinding regulations designed to protect the environment.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Another department store bites the dust when Sears declares bankruptcy. Trump says it’s been mismanaged for years; Trump’s Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was on the company’s board from 2005 to 2016.
  2. Interesting tidbit: Sears CEO Eddie Lampert is an Ayn Rand follower, and has been trying to run the company under the principles she espoused.
  3. The numbers are in for the end of Trump’s first full fiscal year. The federal deficit expanded to $779 billion, which is up 17% from last year when it was $667 billion. (OK. That last digit is actually a 6, but I can’t bring myself to type the devil numbers. Ask me about the sump pump incident.) The deficit as a percent of GDP also rose. Taxes received from businesses dropped by 31% from the previous year, while taxes received from individuals rose 6%.
  4. So the deficit increased by $113 billion, and federal income from corporations went down by about $92 billion.
  5. This is the largest deficit since 2012, when we were still recovering from the Great Recession.
  6. Spending only increased by 3%, but still Mick Mulvaney claims the reason for the large deficit is out-of-control spending.
  7. Mitch McConnell says the increased deficit isn’t because of the Republican tax bill, but it’s because of Medicare, Medicaid, and social security (all of which are supposed to come out of a separate fund, by the way). The tax bill is predicted to add nearly $1 trillion to the debt next year. So basically after passing a $1.5 trillion tax cut and increasing the budget for the DoD, he says the only thing we can do is cut assistance to the needy and senior citizens. Also, since McConnell became majority leader nearly four years ago, the deficit has increased 77%.
  8. In contrast, the Treasury Department says deficit growth is because of the of the tax cuts, bipartisan spending increases, and rising interest payments.
  9. In response to the news, Trump announces he’ll ask each of his cabinet members to cut the budget for their respective agency by 5%.
  10. On the plus side, job openings hit a record high in August.
  11. Looking back over the year, big banks did the best as a result of the GOP tax reform. They saw the most profit of any other industry.
  12. Volvo says it might move some of their current U.S. manufacturing operations to China.
  13. China has been importing around 330,000 barrels per day of U.S. crude oil. Those imports were down to 0 in August.
  14. Mitch McConnell says he won’t bring the renegotiated NAFTA deal to a vote until next year.
  15. China criticizes the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, especially with the trade wars going on. Trumps says the UPU, which is 144 years old, makes it easier for Chinese nationals to ship illicit drugs to the U.S.

Elections:

  1. DHS reports an increase in the number of cyber attacks attempted on U.S. election databases, and they don’t know who’s behind it. Yay for safe and secure elections.
  2. Georgia uses amateur handwriting analysis to determine the authenticity of voter registrations and ballots.
  3. Officials in Gwinnett County Georgia have rejected around a third of the absentee ballots cast so far. Over half of those thrown out were from African Americans or Asian Americans. On top of that, officials didn’t notify the voters whose ballots were rejected as required by law. Instead, these voters found out from CNN. Gwinnett is the most diverse and populous county in Georgia.
  4. So far Georgia has purged about 8% of the voters on their rolls.
  5. Officials in Jefferson County Georgia make a group of senior citizens get off the bus that was taking them to vote early. The Senior center was worried that it was a partisan event because a Democrat helped organize the event with a non-partisan voting advocacy group.
  6. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement voice concern about ongoing attempts to interfere with our elections by Russia, China, and Iran—both in the midterms and the 2020 presidential race. But still they’ve seen no signs of them being able to interfere with our actual votes.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Elizabeth Warren announces the results of her DNA test, which show she has Native American ancestry going back 6-10 generations. Trump mocks her; Lindsey Graham mocks her; Fox mocks her. WTH? Who even cares? Why is this a thing?
  2. Also, cue the amateur scientists who estimate that this makes her 1/64 to 1/1024 Native American. Except that’s not how genetics works and for some reason it took days for anyone to talk to an actual geneticist and correct the record. She could have far more than 1/64 Native American DNA or far less than 1/1024.
  3. Trump calls her a complete and total fraud. He refuses to give $1 million to a charity of her choice, even though he said he would if she got a DNA test and it showed Native American heritage. Also, donating the million was his idea, not hers.
  4. Even though Warren says she doesn’t claim tribal affiliation, the chairman of the Cherokee Nation criticizes her use of a DNA test to find out if she does have Native American heritage.
  5. A group of free-press advocates sues Trump to block him from using his office to retaliate against the press. They say that Trump’s threats and use of regulations and enforcement powers for this purpose are unconstitutional.
  6. Trump again praises Montana Republican Representative Greg Gianforte for assaulting a Guardian journalist before his special election last year. “Anybody who can do that kind of body slam, he’s my kind of guy.”
  7. The Trump administration abruptly replaces the acting Inspector General for the Department of the Interior. This is the person who will handle all the current investigations into Ryan Zinke’s potential ethical lapses and she has no investigative experience. But that turns out to be OK, because she resigns shortly thereafter.
  8. The previous Inspector General just released findings that Zinke tried to get around or change policies to justify trips with his wife that were paid for by the taxpayers, including a trip to Turkey.
  9. Don McGahn leaves his post as White House Counsel. He was going to leave later in the fall, but Trump already announced his replacement, Patrick Cipollone. Cipollone was a DOJ lawyer under Bush Sr.
  10. Remember the fire in a Trump Tower condo earlier this year where the guy died? The Trump Organization sues his estate for $90,000 in unpaid maintenance fees.

Polls:

  1. Apparently forgetting the uproar over Obama locking Fox out of one press event, 44% of Republicans think Trump should be able to shut down news agencies for “bad behavior.”
  2. 49% of Trump voters think men face a lot of discrimination in American. In fact, they think men face more discrimination than LGBTQ folks (41%), African-Americans (38%), and women (30%). Cray.
  3. Only 25% of Americans think Kavanaugh told the truth in his hearings. 35% approve of his confirmation and 43% disapprove.

Week 90 In Trump

Posted on October 16, 2018 in Uncategorized

Just a reminder that if you have ANY trouble voting, you can always, ALWAYS cast a provisional vote. Make sure to request it!

Trump caps off the week with an interview with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. In the interview he says even though he mocked her at a rally, he treated Blasey Ford with respect; says it doesn’t matter whether Blasey Ford was telling the truth because “we won”; misrepresents both NATO and the EU; and blames Obama for both the family separation policy and the current environment of divisiveness in the U.S. And finally, this: “Lesley, it’s okay. In the meantime, I’m president–and you’re not.” (Neener-neener-neener) I wrote up more highlights from the transcript, if you’re interested.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. While Russia was pressing forward with their trolling campaign in our 2016 election, Rick Gates requested proposals from Israeli company Psy-Group on ways to use social media to manipulate those elections. Proposals included:
    • Creating fake online identities to influence 5,000 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
    • Opposition research and intelligence activities on Clinton.
    • Exploiting existing divisions and sowing further division among opposing factions.
    • Planting disinformation among Republican delegates and voters in the primary elections.
  1. Though the proposals have surfaced, there’s no evidence the campaign acted on them. Donald Jr. did meet with the company’s owner, though.
  2. Andrew Miller, who worked for Roger Stone and is refusing to testify in Mueller’s case, filed a suit to invalidate Mueller’s prosecutorial authorization. He lost and is appealing, because he says now that Kavanaugh’s on the bench, he feels better about his chances.
  3. Court documents show that Paul Manafort lobbied Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) as part of his lobbying for Viktor Yanukovych, a former Ukraine pro-Putin president. In 2013, Rohrabacher started to advocate for Yanukovych. Rohrabacher and Manafort met that year, and Manafort made a small donation to Rohrabacher’s campaign.
  4. In response to a lawsuit against the Trump campaign that they illegally conspired with Russians to orchestrate the release of Clinton’s hacked emails, the campaign argues that the First Amendment protects their “right to disclose information – even stolen information.”
  5. Trump and Rod Rosenstein finally have their meeting. It turns out Trump won’t be firing him, at least not right now.
  6. Dutch security services catches four Russian hackers trying to hack into the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). One of their laptops is linked to the hacking of an investigation into Malaysian flight MH-17 and to the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The phones they were using were activated near GRU headquarters.
  7. Republican funder Peter Smith raised $100,000 in 2016 to obtain Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails. He then directed the money to the “Washington Scholarship Fund for the Russian students” a few days after the email started leaking. The scholarship fund doesn’t appear to exist, and emails referencing the fund talk about email releases.
  8. The U.S. government freezes all of Oleg Deripaska’s assets based in the U.S. Deripaska is a Russian oligarch who is knee-deep in Mueller’s Russia investigation thanks to his ties with Manafort.
  9. Kirill Dmitriev, who was part of the infamous Seychelles meeting, reached out to at least three people in contact with the Trump transition team just before Trump’s inauguration.
  10. Reddit’s CEO says that they’ve seen activity by suspicious Russian accounts over the past month.
  11. Richard Pinedo, who pleaded guilty to felony ID fraud based on his work with Russian trolls, receives a sentence of six months in prison followed by six months of house arrest.
  12. Someone throws a molotov cocktail into the offices of the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, starting the offices on fire.
  13. Trump’s legal team starts responding in writing to Mueller’s questions about any Trump campaign involvement in the Russian meddling in our 2016 elections.
  14. Facebook purges 559 pages and 251 accounts that they say are hyper-partisan and post spam. Facebook only purged based on the ways these pages and accounts spread content, and didn’t take political leaning into account (according to Facebook).

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump says that Christine Blasey Ford made up her accusations and they’re a disgrace. He says Kavanaugh got caught up in a hoax set up by Democrats. Just a reminder, after Blasey Ford’s testimony, Trump said he found her credible.
  2. During Kavanaugh’s swearing in, Trump says “On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.” He also says, incorrectly, that Kavanaugh was proven innocent. Nothing was proven either way.
  3. Kavanaugh takes his seat on the court.
  4. GoFundMe campaigns for both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh have raised over $600,000. Blasey Ford is using hers to pay for security and housing, since she’s unable to return to her home due to threats. The guy who started Kavanaugh’s campaign has been unable to work with Kavanaugh’s people to get him the money.
  5. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill nominates Blasey Ford for a Distinguished Alumna Award for “speaking truth to power.”
  6. FBI Directory Christopher Wray confirms to the Senate that the White House limited the scope of the investigation into Blasey Ford’s claims, but that it was normal procedure to do it that way.
  7. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refers over a dozen misconduct complaints against Kavanaugh to the 10th District Court of Appeals. The court is likely to dismiss the complaints now that Kavanaugh’s on the Supreme Court.
  8. Senate Democrats agree to confirm 15 judges for lifetime appointments in return for Mitch McConnell letting them go home to campaign. The reasoning being that they all would’ve been confirmed no matter how long Democrats tried to drag it out, so they might as well cut their losses.
  9. Fox News reports on leftist radical violence after the Kavanaugh confirmation, but in reality, politicians from both sides of the aisle are getting threats of violence and death.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump places an op-ed in USAToday decrying what he calls the Democrats’ call for Medicare for All. Not only does he use debunked claims as proof, but he links to sources that dispute his claims.
  2. Once again, the administration plans to take down the ACA sign-up sites for maintenance during the sign-up period like they did last year. The fact check is too long to include here, so here’s the link.

International:

  1. According to Mike Pompeo, Kim Jong Un says he’ll let foreign inspectors take a look at the nuclear testing site he claims to have destroyed. But he won’t provide an inventory of their nuclear arsenal.
  2. Nikki Haley resigns as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and is leaving on good terms with Trump. She’s one of the few remaining cabinet members with approval from both sides.
  3. Trump says that no one would be a better replacement for Haley than his daughter Ivanka, but he can’t appoint her because he’d be accused of nepotism.
  4. The Turkish government releases American Pastor Andrew Brunson, whom they arrested along with over a dozen others in relation to the attempted coup against Erdogan’s government. The Trump administration is still working on releasing the rest, who they’re calling political hostages.
  5. According to the Turkish government, Washington Post journalist Jamel Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi security team inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The Turkish government says they have audio and video recordings of the Saudi security team torturing and killing the journalist, and that the security team then dismembered Khashoggi to remove his remains.
  6. Saudi Arabia denies that they’re behind this. Trump says even if they are, he wouldn’t sanction Saudi Arabia and definitely wouldn’t stop a deal to sell them arms. Just FYI: It’s not really a “deal” yet.
  7. Trump says this happened in Turkey and Khashoggi isn’t even a U.S. citizen, so maybe we don’t need to do anything.
  8. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio says that our “moral credibility” is on the line if we fail in our response to Khashoggi’s murder.
  9. Then Trump threatens action if we do find that Saudi Arabia is responsible. So the Saudi government threatens to manipulate oil prices among other things. Then the Saudi stock market tanks and international businesspeople pull out of Saudi economic forums.
  10. China detains Interpol President Meng Hongwei, whom they say they’re investigating for bribery.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Washington state abolishes the death penalty, the 20th state to do so. The state’s Supreme Court ruled that the penalty is applied unevenly. Duh.

Family Separation:

  1. The Trump administration is looking into new ways to separate children from their parents at the southern border.
  2. According to an ACLU lawsuit, the government actually is still separating families; they’re just doing it quietly.
  3. State judges can hand over immigrant children who we separated from their parents to American foster families without notifying the children’s parents. Because immigrants were deported and coerced into signing paperwork they didn’t understand, they might have signed away rights to reunite with their kids.
  4. Children as young as two continue to appear and testify in court with no representation or parents. How can a two-year-old testify as to their asylum request?
  5. Officials gave a five-year-old child who was separated from her grandmother legal papers for her to sign away her request for a Flores Bond Hearing. She could’ve been deported if not for the months-long effort of advocacy groups.
  6. A Phoenix shelter housing undocumented immigrant children separated from their parents closes after staff members were found to have abused the children. Southwest Key was already in danger of losing their license.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration proposes limiting protests near the White House and the National Mall, and possibly charging fees. Charging fees has already been deemed an infringement of the First Amendment.
  2. Trump makes up a brand new, fake Senate bill in a campaign rally “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders – and it’s a bill. And it’s called The Open Borders Bill. What’s going on? And it’s written by – guess who – Dianne Feinstein.” FYI: The bill doesn’t exist.
  3. Contradicting what he told Congress, it turns out that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did speak with Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Ross also says the reason for the questions is to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, but emails contradict that, saying that the reason is to make sure undocumented immigrants don’t get representation. Ross is about to be deposed for a related lawsuit.
  4. Following a speech in New York by the founder of the Proud Boys, an all-male, far-right hate group, violence breaks out between protestors and Proud Boys members. Police arrest three men, but it’s not clear whether they’re members of the Proud Boys or if they were protestors. The bigger question is why the New York Republican party a) thought it was a good idea to invite them and b) appears to embrace the Proud Boys overt racism.
  5. Earlier in the day, anarchist symbols were spray painted on the building where the founder was about to speak.
  6. A FOIA request shows that the ICE sweep in February in Oakland, CA detained 111 people who had no criminal convictions. Only 47 of the 233 who were detained had major criminal convictions. ICE said they were only going after known criminals.
  7. EPA head Andrew Wheeler engages with and likes conspiracy theorist and racist content on social media. As recently as last week.
  8. Melania says she’s one of the most bullied people in the world. Uh, how about this? And this?
  9. Representative Kevin McCarthy introduces a bill to fully fund the wall, in an apparent attempt to bolster his chances at becoming the GOP House leader. The Senate is already indicating they won’t pass it.
  10. 20 years ago this week, Matthew Shepard succumbed to his injuries from being beaten and left tied to a farm fence for being gay. Now his remains will be interred at Washington National Cathedral.
  11. The MacArthur Foundation gives Pastor Williams J. Barber a $625,000 genius award for his activism against poverty and racism. They couldn’t reach him to tell him because he was being arrested at the time for protesting low wages in front of MacDonald’s headquarters.
  12. Harvard University gives Colin Kaepernick the W.E.B. DuBois award for his work against racial inequality.
  13. Seattle dismisses over 500 pot convictions after a court rules the convictions were unfairly applied to people of color. Again, duh.
  14. A judge rules that Trump can’t deny federal funding to San Francisco over it’s sanctuary city policies.
  15. A man who ICE detained while he was delivering pizza to a military base earlier this year is released, because it turns out that ICE had no reason to detain him.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Here’s a little more on that UN report that found we have 12 years to address climate change to mitigate the most extreme effects.
    • Unless we make drastic changes within the next few years, we’ll see $54 trillion in damages.
    • We’ll see a major increase in food shortages, wildfires, and dying coral reefs within 20 years.
  1. ExxonMobil plans to spend $1 million lobbying for a carbon tax and dividend program.
  2. Hurricane Michael hits Florida’s panhandle as a category 4 storm, flattening much of Mexico Beach, FL and causing flooding and power outages from the panhandle up to the Carolinas. It’s the fourth most powerful storm to make landfall in the U.S., and it leaves 16 dead and 1.27 million without electricity.
  3. The Senate votes to confirm a climate skeptic and former industry lawyer to the environment division of the DOJ.
  4. The Trump administration plans to remove a federal ban on selling high-ethanol gas blends in the summer. These blends contribute to smog on hot days. The corn industry supports this, while the gas and oil industry oppose it.
  5. The EPA disbands their panel of air pollution experts, which determines safe levels of pollution for us to breathe.
  6. Elon Musk redeems himself a bit by donating money to Flint, MI schools for water fountains with filtration systems, so schools finally have clean drinking water.
  7. The Supreme Court refuses to hear a lawsuit against an Obama-era ban on new uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, which mean the ban remains in place.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The budget deficit for the 11 months through August rose to $898 billion. Spending increased by 7% while revenue only increased by 1%. Revenue from corporations fell.
  2. After the Dow Jones falls by over 800 points, Trump blames the Fed for raising interest rates and calls the Fed loco. He won’t fire Jerome Powell, though.
  3. Larry Kudlow says we shouldn’t take what the president says seriously. Ignore the tweets, ignore the rallies.
  4. In all, the Dow Jones drops 1,800 points before starting its way back up.
  5. After a federal judge rules against Betsy DeVos’s attempt to roll back Obama-era rules that protect students from predatory lenders, the Education Department says it will stop trying to delay the rules.
  6. Ford plans to lay off around 12% of its global workforce as part of a reorganization. They say Trump’s tariffs, which have had a $1 billion impact on the company, are throwing a wrench into their reorg.
  7. The DOJ approves the $69 billion merger between CVS and Aetna.
  8. American weapons sales to foreign countries are up 33% from the previous year.

Elections:

  1. Accusations of voter suppression abound in the weeks before the midterms.
    • The Supreme Court upholds a North Dakota voter ID law that could suppress the Native American vote. The law says you must have a street address on your ID, and a large portion of Native Americans only have a P.O. Box. County coordinators are working overtime to generate addresses for everyone (yep, they pretty much just make them up, so I’m not sure why that’s any more secure). They’re generating new IDs so fast, their machines started melting the IDs.
    • In Georgia, Secretary of State Kemp has been overseeing voter roll purges affecting mostly minority voters at a time when he is in the race for governor running against one of those minorities. Over the years, he’s purged 700,000 voters from the rolls.
      • 70% the 53,000 voter applications placed on hold this year are African-American voters.
      • Activists file a federal lawsuit against Kemp, saying his methodology is racially biased.
      • Kemp ran into legal trouble before with his “exact match” method of purging voters. Everything must match exactly, or the voter is purged or placed on hold. I worked in name and address matching for nearly 20 years. You have no idea how many different ways people can screw this information up.
      • Georgia tried the exact match system nearly a decade ago, but it was blocked in court due to violations of the Voting Rights Act. After SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, Georgia reinstated the program.
      • Remember that Kemp refused federal assistance to bolster Georgia’s voting system in 2016 saying it’s ridiculous to think that Russia could break into their system. Hours later, someone called Kemp to let him know Georgia’s voter registration system was wide open to the public.
      • Mueller’s indictment against Russian GRU agents for hacking election systems specifically mentions their hacking attempt on Georgia’s system.
  1. In good voter ID law news, Missouri’s voter ID law doesn’t hold up in court. This is the ninth time a court has found in favor of the voting rights group Priorities USA.
  2. California’s motor voter program is not working as intended. First they found that around 23,000 registrations had errors, mostly minor and none including ineligible voters. Until now… when they found that they registered 1,500 ineligible voters due to human error. None were undocumented immigrants, but they were not eligible to register just the same. All the errors have since been corrected.
  3. Two Arizona Republican field organizers used aliases to try to make a donation to Democratic candidate Tom O’Halleran from a Communist Party group in an attempt to link O’Halleran to far left politics. The campaign returned the money to the Republican field office where the two worked. And also, it’s a crime to donate under a fake name.
  4. Federal officials arrest a man who planned to set off a 200-pound bomb in Washington’s National Mall on election day. He said it was to draw attention to his political belief of sortation, which is a way of randomly selecting government officials.
  5. Sheldon Adelson donates $10s of million more toward Republican campaigns to hold on to their power in Congress. This comes on the heels of a report that Trump worked with Shinzo Abe to get Adelson a casino license in Japan. I do not want to hear another word about George Soros. Big donors exist on both sides.
  6. You know who votes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens? Mexican citizens for one. And South Koreans. Also most of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. So get off your butt and vote!

Miscellaneous:

  1. From 2015 to 2018, Google exposed data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users and didn’t tell us until now. Their response? They’re shutting down Google+.
  2. Trump says he’s lost $2 or $3 billion since becoming president. Uh-huh.
  3. Documents show that Jared Kushner has likely not paid federal income taxes for years. Though he made millions in income, he used depreciation on many of his properties to avoid paying taxes. Note that this is likely legal.
  4. Hope Hicks, who left the White House in April, takes a job at Fox as Chief Communications Officer.
  5. A Los Angeles judge dismisses Stormy Daniels’ defamation suit against Trump, saying the tweet in question was covered under Trump’s First Amendment rights since she’s a public figure. The judge also ordered her to pay Trump’s legal fees. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, says they’ll appeal.
  6. Kanye West visits the White House to meet with Trump about prison reform and gang violence. I don’t necessarily find this newsworthy, except that it got a little circus-like in the Oval Office and he did use some colorful language on live TV.

Polls:

  1. 51% of Americans disapprove of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, compared to 41% who approve.
  2. 53% support further investigation into Kavanaugh, while 43% are opposed.

Highlights From Trump’s 60 Minutes Interview

Posted on October 16, 2018 in Trump

On Sunday, 10/14/18, Trump gave an interview to 60 Minute’s Lesley Stahl. I was going to include the highlights in my weekly news recap, but the recap was getting too long as it was, and is this really news? Here are the highlights:

  1. When talking about whether he really needed to mock Christine Blasey Ford, he says he thinks he treated Blasey Ford with respect. Remember that he had his whole crowd laughing and jeering at her, and she did say that the one thing that is stuck in her memory is how her attackers laughed about it.
  2. When Stahl pushed Trump on whether he said Blasey Ford lied, Trump says “I’m not gonna get into it because we won. It doesn’t matter. We won.” Then he goes on to say that “we won – have you seen the polls?”
  3. Stahl pushes him on climate change after he says he doesn’t think it’s a hoax (in 2016, it was a Chinese hoax, remember?). But he still won’t give in to science.
  4. Trump says he wouldn’t take the potential arms sale to Saudi Arabia off the table if we find out they were behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Because we won it. Everyone else wanted it, and we won it.
  5. Trumps says the day before he came into office, we were going to war with North Korea. Just an FYI, we weren’t.
  6. Trump says the EU was formed to take advantage of the U.S. on trade. Wow. We’re not the center of everybody’s universe. He also calls them hostile. Our allies.
  7. Trump refuses to say that NATO has helped keep the peace for 70 years. He also says that General Mattis never told him that the reason for NATO and our alliances is to prevent World War III. He goes on to say that he knows more than Mattis about this.
  8. Trump agrees that Russia meddled in our elections, but says China did, too.
  9. Trump refuses to pledge to not interfere with or shut down Mueller’s investigation.
  10. When Stahl asks him if there’s anything he’s said that he regrets, he says his only regret is that the press treats him so badly.
  11. He refuses to say that family separation was a bad idea and deflects blame to Obama. He also won’t say whether or not he’ll start it up again. Just FYI, this wasn’t done under Obama’s administration.
  12. Trump blames the country’s divisiveness on Obama, and says he sees the country uniting. Huh? When asked why he doesn’t try to bring us together and heal the nation, he says that Hillary made a really nasty comment.
  13. And finally, because it’s all about winning, Trump says, “Lesley, it’s okay. In the meantime, I’m president–and you’re not.”

Week 89 in Trump

Posted on October 8, 2018 in Politics, Trump

One of these voted their conscience; two of them pretended to.

I’m so tired. I’m so tired of the Kavanaugh nomination sucking up all the air in the room and igniting everyone’s emotions. I’ve never seen people on both sides so emotionally vested in getting their way on a Supreme Court Nomination. It’s possibly because there’s more at stake right now, and none of our leaders made any effort to quiet down the vitriol. Voters from both sides ended up feeling unheard. Victims ended up feeling unheard. What was really painful was to have friends share their sex abuse stories with me, which was made all the more painful by friends who dismiss the claims of victims. It’s time to take a step back, regroup, and look at what we really believe in. Can we continue to let boys be boys while slut shaming the women those boys take advantage of? I just don’t think that’s gonna fly anymore.

Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox. Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Here’s a sad statement of the current politics of partisanship. When Jeff Flake was asked if he could’ve requested an FBI investigation and delay in Kavanaugh’s hearing if he was running again, he said “Of course not!”
  2. In case you were wondering if there’s any traction on making Trump’s tax returns or financial statements public, last week 21 Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted against releasing any of that information. That’s OK, because this week the New York Times beat them to the punch. More later.

Russia:

  1. Before the 2016 elections, several Republican Trump critics were victims of attempted hacking by Russian operatives. The FBI now says that the scope of that investigation has become greater than just computer intrusion, and they refer the case to Robert Mueller’s team.
  2. The DOJ indicts seven members of the Russian military, charging that they hacked into drug tests for Olympic athletes and leaked the information. This seems to have been in retaliation for all the investigations into Russian doping that resulted in several Russian athletes being unable to compete.
  3. Paul Manafort starts meeting with Mueller’s team as part of his plea agreement.
  4. Randy Credico, who was Roger Stone’s middleman between him and Julian Assange, says he’ll plead the fifth in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  5. Two money laundering experts from Mueller’s team have left and gone back to their regular practices. Mueller team now has 13 staffers.
  6. Russian trolls and Russian TV have been supporting the Kavanaugh confirmation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told Michael Cohen to get a restraining order to prevent Stormy Daniels from talking to the press. Trump told Cohen to coordinate this with his son, Eric, who then asked a Trump Organization lawyer to draw up the papers.
  2. The New York Times publishes a lengthy article detailing the alleged methods, both legal and not so much, that the Trump family used to avoid paying hundreds of millions in taxes. Note: I haven’t read the full article yet, and I know there are some sketchy loopholes that blur the lines between legal and illegal tax avoidance.
  3. Here are some claims in the article:
    • Trump’s father gave him today’s equivalent of $413 million over the decades. Only a big deal because Trump says he’s a self-made billionaire, having only received $1 million in startup money from his father.
    • The Trumps transferred over $1 billion to their children, and paid a tax rate of about 5% on that.
    • Trump started earning $20,000 a year from his father’s company at age 3 in 1950.
    • After college, he received around $200,000 per year. This increased to about $2.5 million a year in his 40s. (Note: The NYT converted the numbers to today’s dollars; I converted them back for a little reality check. So these are approximations.)
    • Fred Trump also lent Donald Trump $60.7 million, most of which was never paid back. Fred bailed Donald out of a few potential bankruptcies, including making an illegal loan under New Jersey gaming laws. Fred provided the collateral for bank loans to Donald when he got into financial trouble.
    • When Fred Trump was ailing, Donald Trump tried to get him to change his will and to make him sole executor of the estate. At this point, it seems Fred no longer trusted Trump not to bankrupt the company and refused the changes.
    • The Trump children created a shell company to siphon money from Fred Trump’s estate into their own estates to avoid taxes. Family companies for managing family estates are not unusual, and they come with their own legal tax loopholes. But this company used questionable tactics like padded invoices to justify expenditures.
    • The family created a grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT, to transfer assets. Also completely legal, but in this case they severely undervalued the assets that were transferred in order to avoid taxes.
  1. After publication of the above article, New York Tax Department considers opening an investigation into the allegations. Even if the statute of limitations has expired, civil fines can still be levied for uncollected taxes.
  2. A lawyer for Trump says there was no “fraud or tax evasion” and that any actions taken were on the advice of financial professionals.
  3. Fun fact: If you’re wondering what led to the New York Times’ report, the story opened up when a reporter came across a filing from Maryanne Trump Barry, Trump’s sister. When she was being confirmed by the Senate to her judgeship, she included a document in her filing that showed a $1 million dollar contribution from what turned out to be a shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Tom Cotton says they’re opening an investigation into Dianne Feinstein’s handling of Christine Blasey Ford’s letter and into Blasey Ford’s lawyers. Mitch McConnell echoes the call for investigation.
  2. Harvard cancels the classes taught by Kavanaugh. Then we hear that he withdrew from teaching, so I’m not sure exactly how that all shook out. Students were circulating a petition against him teaching there.
  3. McConnell says they’ll vote this week on Kavanaugh’s confirmation no matter the results of the investigation, and they do.
  4. At the opening of the FBI investigation into accusations against Kavanaugh, Trump tweets that the FBI can interview anybody they want, but at the time of the tweet, the FBI was still under the limits reported last week (with limits on who they can talk to and which allegations they can investigate). It sounds like Trump did want to give FBI free reign, but White House counsel said that would be disastrous.
    • The FBI didn’t interview either Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh.
    • Several accusers and witnesses request that the FBI interview them and try to get information to the FBI, including texts sent before some accusations came out. None of these are included in the investigation.
    • The above referenced text messages show that Kavanaugh was contacting classmates asking them to deny Ramirez’s accusations before those accusations were made public.
  1. Lindsey Graham tells Trump that if Kavanaugh’s nomination fails, he should renominate him.
  2. Two ethics complaints against Kavanaugh come before the DC District Court, which ironically is overseen by blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. The complaints center around perjury (filed prior to his testimony about sexual misconduct) and partisanship (filed after that testimony).
  3. The DC Court has already forwarded more than a dozen complaints against Kavanaugh to Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court. The DC Court had already dismissed some of the complaints as frivolous, forwarding only those thought to have substance.
  4. It turns out the ABA had questions about Kavanaugh in his 2006 confirmation hearings as well. They downgraded his rating from “well qualified” to just “qualified,” which is still positive. Their change was based on evaluations of Kavanaugh’s temperament, where he was called “unprepared” and “sanctimonious,” and where his ability to be balanced and fair was questioned.
  5. Kavanaugh’s testimony this week even turned some of his long-time friends and colleagues (both Republican and Democrat) against his nomination.
  6. Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford IN A CAMPAIGN RALLY. I don’t know what’s worse, the way he mocked her or the way the crowd cheered and then yelled “Lock her up!” At any rate, Trump lied about what Blasey Ford could and could not remember, and the crowd ate it up.
  7. Both Jeff Flake and Susan Collins denounce Trump for mocking Blasey Ford.
  8. The GOP accuses Democrats of using and dumping Blasey Ford. Meanwhile, Republicans have been following Trump’s lead by discrediting and mocking her.
  9. Sarah Huckabee Sanders defends Trump in a press briefing the next day, saying that he was only stating the facts.
  10. And then Trump mocks Al Franken for folding like a wet rag when accused of grabbing several women’s butts. This is how Trump feels about people who take responsibility.
  11. 2,400 law professors sign a letter outlining why Kavanaugh shouldn’t be confirmed.
  12. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says Kavanaugh shouldn’t be confirmed. Stevens first supported Kavanaugh, but changed his mind after Kavanaugh’s partisan statements during his testimony this week.
  13. The National Council of Churches calls on Kavanaugh to withdraw.
  14. Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) says Trump should’ve nominated someone else, gave an impassioned speech about the #MeToo movement and sexual assault, and then voted to confirm Kavanaugh.
  15. Kavanaugh writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his behavior in front of the Senate. He claims he was overcome, even though he read a planned opening statement.
  16. Senators are allowed to view the FBI reports in a sealed room, one at a time and then in groups.
  17. Chuck Grassley releases an executive summary of the FBI report (though I don’t know who wrote the summary). The summary says their interviews provided no corroborating evidence, but Republicans start saying that the interviews refuted Blasey Ford’s account. Tip: Not corroborating something is not the same as refuting it.
  18. Eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ask Chuck Grassley to correct the record when he says that there was no sign of any inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse in any of the six FBI reports on him. Those Democrats say that information is not accurate. But we’ll never know unless the information becomes public.
  19. Republicans say the FBI report was thorough; Democrats say it was incomplete.
  20. Emotions continue to escalate (I didn’t think they could get much higher than the previous week), and both pro- and anti-Kavanaugh protests pop up across the country. Hundreds of anti-Kavanaugh protestors are arrested in DC. My favorite protest is the kegger they throw outside of Mitch McConnell’s office. I like beer.
  21. Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, who are two of the key votes, say they’ll vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Heidi Heitkamp says she’ll vote no, and Jeff Flake, despite all his reservations, votes yes.
  22. The ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary revisits it’s evaluation of Kavanaugh’s rating based on his temperamental testimony this week.
  23. Trump threatens Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election chances, saying that she’ll never recover from her “no” vote (which was actually a “present” vote). Trumps adds that he’s very popular in Alaska.
  24. Trump says it’s a scary time for men and boys right now because of all these accusations. I guess it’s a scary time if you have something to hide.
  25. And after all that turmoil, Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court by the narrowest margin for a Supreme Court Justice in over 130 years. The vote was 50-48. If Manchin would’ve voted no, Mike Pence would’ve come in to cast the deciding vote.
  26. There’s already an effort to drum up support to impeach Kavanaugh, so now’s a good time to remind everyone how hard that is. Even if it gets through the House, it would never pass the threshold in the Senate.
  27. And just a reminder, Blasey Ford still has been unable to return to her home due to threats. Remind me again why victims don’t come forward?

Healthcare:

  1. The EPA proposes loosening restrictions on radiation. Their announcement includes assessments from scientific outliers who say a little radiation could be good for human health. Even though very small amounts of radiation are known to cause cancer.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo announces that the U.S. is ending the Treaty of Amity, a 1955 treaty with Iran, after the UN tries to use the treaty as a basis for ordering the U.S. to ease up on sanctions for humanitarian goods.
  2. John Bolton later says that the U.S. will also pull out of a dispute resolution protocol from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He bases this move on a challenge from the Palestinian Authority of our decision to move our Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
  3. Mike Pence gives a speech at the Hudson institute designed to move American public sentiment against China and to support the idea that they’re trying to meddle in our elections using economics because they don’t like Trump and want a different American president.
  4. The U.S. accuses Russia of building a missile system that could launch nuclear weapons to Europe and Alaska. The development of such a system was banned under a Cold War treaty.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California has now passed over 1,000 new laws this year, including several aimed at recovering some of the regulations Trump has dissolved at the federal level around issues like net neutrality, energy and climate, gun control, and #MeToo.

Family Separation:

  1. An investigation by the Inspector General of the DHS finds that they never had a centralized database to track the immigrant families that they separated earlier this year. Instead, they were using spreadsheets that they compiled manually from emailed Word documents. That sure explains why they were unable to find family members in their computer system.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration begins denying visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats, saying they must be married in order to receive a visa. Some of these diplomats come from countries where gay marriage is illegal, so they’re unable to get married.
  2. Federal prosecutors charge and arrest four members of the California-based Rise Above Movement for their intent to incite a riot and commit violence at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville last year. This group is small but violent, calling themselves an alt-right fight club.
  3. Federal inspectors at the Adelanto detention center in San Bernardino County, CA, find dismal conditions. They find 15 nooses made out of bed sheets hanging in cells, and they find health and dental care severely lacking. Adelanto is part of the GEO Group, a private, for-profit prison company.
  4. I’ve talked before about steps taken by the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Sudan, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nigeria. This week, a federal judge grants a preliminary injunction that blocks any deportations for now. TPS protections will continue while a legal case is decided, giving temporary relief to over 300,000 people who were threatened with deportation.
  5. Even though Congress placed a hold on the funds, the Trump administration moved forward with plans to give Mexico $20 million to deport immigrants so they can’t make it to our borders. Despite the hold, Trump transferred the funds anyway. Mexico says they never approved of this plan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal court holds that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is in compliance with the law. Obama created the massive monument off of the New England coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
  2. Denmark says they’ll ban the sale of new fossil-fueled cars by 2030.
  3. California allocates $800 million to be able to store energy generated by solar panels to have more electricity available from solar in the nighttime hours.
  4. The EPA rewrites its rules about what scientific studies can be used in making public health policy against the wishes of its scientific advisors. Proprietary information can no longer be used, which will exclude findings from patients participating in private-sector studies.
  5. William Nordhaus and Paul Romer win the Nobel Prize for Economics. Nordhaus has been working in climate change’s effects on economy since the 1970s, and his model is widely used to show the relationship between the climate and the economy.
  6. A UN report on climate change expects an increase in global temperatures of 2.7 degrees F much sooner than previously thought. This would intensify sea level rise, droughts, wildfires, and poverty. They call for a 45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and for halting them by 2050. Trump has said he’ll increase greenhouse gas emissions, though we’re already halfway to that 2.7 degree rise.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Amazon announces that they’ll start paying all of their employees at least $15 per hour.
  2. It turns out that most of the changes to NAFTA were already included in TPP. Trump and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly denounced those trade deals as two of the worst deals ever, but they’re calling the USMCA, basically a mashup of the NAFTA and TPP, one of the best deals ever. The dairy concessions from Canada are probably the biggest difference.
    • That means we could’ve pretty much gotten the same deal without alienating many of our trading partners and without giving China the extra trading power they obtained from the hole we left behind by cancelling the TPP.
  1. Unemployment hits record lows at 3.7%.
  2. The U.S. trade deficit expanded to 6.4% in August. Despite all the tariffs, the deficit was $53.2 billion, the highest level in six months.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Wikipedia says its authors shouldn’t use Breitbart and InfoWars as news sources on its pages. They call Breitbart unreliable, and say InfoWars is a “conspiracy theorist and fake news website.”
  2. In a press conference, Trump tells a female reporter “I know you’re not thinking. You never do,” while a group of men behind him chuckle and smirk.
  3. In the official White House transcript of the event, they change the word “thinking” to “thanking.” Mm-hmm…
  4. The Pentagon screening facility finds two envelopes suspected of contain ricin, and the Secret Service says that another suspicious envelope was addressed to Trump. A man was arrested in Utah in relation to the envelopes.
  5. The death toll in Indonesia from the earthquake and resulting tsunami reaches 2,000. Thousands are still missing.
  6. Trump falls back on that old tired narrative, claiming that Kavanaugh protestors are being paid by Soros. To which I say “Where’s my damn check, George ?”

Polls:

  1. Worldwide, 7 in 10 people have no confidence in Trump. Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Xi Jinping, and even Vladimir Putin all received higher confidence ratings.
  2. 37% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 60% in the 80s.
  3. This Quinnipiac poll on support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation is hard to distill, so here’s a link to the results, broken down by demographics. It’s pretty interesting.
  4. 41% of Americans oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination, with 33% supporting it.
  5. 45% of Americans believe Blasey Ford; 33% believe Kavanaugh.
  6. 56% of Republicans would still consider voting for a candidate accused of sexual harassment; 81% of Democrats say they’d definitely not.

Week 88 in Trump

Posted on October 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This has been an ugly and uncomfortable couple of weeks. With Ford’s triggering testimony, Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham screaming and crying, and additional accusers trying to come forward, it’s been exhausting. I’m not even taking sides about who is telling the truth here, but the way this was handled was atrocious.

Here’s why every accusation needs to be taken seriously. Every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in America. That’s 881 times a day. 321,795 times a year. How many of those are reported? How many aren’t reported for years or decades?

For every 1,000 sexual assaults:

  • 310 are reported to the police
  • 57 of those lead to an arrest
  • 11 of those are referred to prosecutors
  • 7 of those lead to a felony conviction
  • Which leads to just 6 out of 1,000 rapists going to jail.
  • So for all those 321,795 assaults, just under 2,000 of the perpetrators pay for their crime.

 

Is it any wonder victims don’t come forward? How does a real man handle a situation like Kavanaugh’s? He mans up, admits his mistake, and learns from it. Cue Cory Booker.

And here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Sam Patten takes a plea deal in Mueller’s investigation, pleading guilty to funneling Russian money into Trump’s inaugural fund. He also pleads guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for his lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch.
  2. Before the Kavanaugh vote got delayed, Trump and Rod Rosenstein were supposed to meet on Thursday to discuss Rosenstein’s employment situation. Once it becomes clear the vote won’t happen, that meeting is postponed.
  3. Emails show that Roger Stone tried to contact Julian Assange of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign.
  4. The House Intelligence Committee votes to release transcripts of over 50 interviews done during their investigation into Russian meddling into our elections. Intelligence agencies will redact these documents before releasing them.
  5. House Democrats plan to force a vote on whether to protect Mueller’s investigation by adding an amendment to a tax-related bill.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A court rules to advance a case filed by 200 Democrats against Trump for alleged violations of the emoluments clause.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Kavanaugh and his wife appear on a Fox News interview to defend his integrity. He claims that he wasn’t a drinker in high school and that he was a virgin all through school and many years after. He says he didn’t even come close to having sex. These things are refuted by his classmates and his calendar.
  2. Four of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate sign a statement disputing the account of Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s second accuser. However, two of those former students subsequently asked to have their names removed from that statement.
  3. Trump defends Kavanaugh, saying that Ramirez was drunk and “all messed up” so her allegations can’t be trusted.
  4. Michael Avenatti’s client, Julie Swetnick, signs an affidavit saying she witnessed Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge spiking punch at parties to get women drunk and take advantage of them. She says they also drugged women, and that Kavanaugh was overly aggressive with and verbally abusive to women.
  5. Swetnick also recalls an incident where she was taken advantage of by several drunken high school boys at a party where she says Kavanaugh was in attendance. She doesn’t say Kavanaugh participated.
  6. Kavanaugh says (under oath) that he doesn’t know who Swetnick is, and that she’s lying.
  7. There are additional anonymous accusations, but they’re impossible to corroborate.
  8. Amidst the additional accusations, Mitch McConnell says the votes will happen by the end of the week.
  9. Over 100 Yale law students walk out of classes and have a sit-in in support of Blasey Ford.
  10. Protests at the hearings in D.C. have been a daily thing, with hundreds of protestors being arrested. Even female members of the House stand in silent protest in the back of the committee room.
  11. Attorneys for Blasey Ford send affidavits to the Senate from four people who say that Ford talked to them about her accusations against Kavanaugh before Trump nominated him to SCOTUS. Some say she told them about it long before.
  12. Blasey Ford agrees to testify to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, with Kavanaugh testifying afterward.
  13. Two men come forward individually to claim that they, not Kavanaugh, are guilty of the assault. GOP Senators dismiss their claims.
  14. Susan Collins questions why the Judiciary Committee hasn’t subpoenaed Mark Judge.
  15. Republicans on the committee hire a female lawyer who prosecutes sex crimes to question Blasey Ford. The original plan was to have her question Kavanaugh as well, but after Kavanaugh’s passionate and emotional opening, Republican Senators start asking their own questions.
  16. Lindsey Graham and Kavanaugh both scream at Democrats on the committee, accusing them of being behind Blasey Ford’s allegations and saying this is a coordinated smear campaign.
  17. Kavanaugh references the calendars he kept in 1982 as proof that he wasn’t at the party. In his Fox News interview, he said he didn’t drink in school, but his calendar was marked with dates with his buddies to drink beer.
  18. In their testimony, Blasey Ford says she’s 100% sure that Kavanaugh attacked her and Kavanaugh says he’s 100% sure he didn’t. So there we are.
  19. Blasey Ford did answer all questions she could and was fairly respectful to the committee; Kavanaugh didn’t answer all the questions directly and was fairly combative and angry.
  20. The committee plans to vote on Brett Kavanaugh the day after Blasey Ford and he both testify.
  21. Here’s what the oldest of the white men on the committee think about victims of assault:
    • When a women tells Lindsey Graham that she was raped, he walks by and says “I’m sorry, tell the cops.”
    • Orrin Hatch says Ford is an attractive witness, pleasing. Like that’s got anything to do with this.
    • I looked for anything similar from Patrick Leahy, the Democrat’s old white man, but all I could find is that he calls her testimony compelling.
  1. Add Jeff Flake to the list of people getting death threats. In talking about it, he says “The toxic political culture that we have created has infected everything, and we’ve done little to stop. Winning at all costs is too high a cost.” Too right.
    • And speaking of Flake, hours before the vote to move Kavanaugh out of committee, Flake is confronted in an elevator by two victims of sexual assault. The confrontation is intense, as these women opened up about their stories, and Flake is visibly shaken. 
Later in the committee room, Flake taps Democratic Senator Chris Coons on the shoulder and the two go outside for a long talk.
    • That’s when Flake agrees to vote Kavanaugh out of committee under the condition that Mitch McConnell must promise to delay the floor vote for a week so the FBI can investigate. Lisa Murkowski also calls for a full investigation. Four Republican governors join the call for a delay in order to investigate: John Kasich (OH), Larry Hogan (MD), Phil Scott (VT), and Charlie Baker (MA).
  1. Some of the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee walk out in protest before the vote.
  2. The committee votes along party lines to move Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote to the Senate floor. While at the same time…
    • The ABA, which originally gave Kavanaugh the highest ratings, calls for a delay in the Senate confirmation vote until the FBI can complete their investigation.
    • The Yale Law School Dean who endorsed Kavanaugh this summer calls for a full investigation.
    • The ACLU, which typically stays neutral on Supreme Court nominees, comes out against Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
    • The Jesuit Review pulls their endorsement of Kavanaugh (Kavanaugh had a Jesuit education at Georgetown Prep).
  1. Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge says he’ll cooperate fully with the FBI investigation. Judge’s ex-girlfriend also wants to talk to the FBI about her claim that Judge told her that he once joined a group of guys in taking turn having sex with a drunk woman.
  2. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley seeks an injunction to stop a full vote on Kavanaugh due to the “unprecedented obstruction of the Senate’s advice and consent obligation.”
  3. Jeff Flake says that if Kavanaugh lied to the Senate, his confirmation is over. But we already know he lied about mostly little things and about some big things, for starters:
    • I got into Yale on my own (he didn’t).
    • I didn’t drink in high school (he did).
    • OK I did drink but it was legal (it wasn’t).
    • Holton-Arms girls didn’t hang out with us (they did).
    • Ford’s witnesses refuted her testimony (they didn’t)
    • I didn’t know about Ramirez’s allegations before the story came out (texts show he did).
    • I didn’t work on certain judge nominations (emails show he did).
    • I was unaware of any spying on Democrats under Bush (emails show he was).
  1. A Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s writes an op-ed in the New York Times saying that Kavanaugh mischaracterized his behavior in school and that he drank, drank a lot, and was a mean drunk. The classmate also says that Kavanaugh started a bar fight that landed one of their friends in jail.
  2. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they have had a hard time getting responses from Kavanaugh’s accusers, but recent emails show that a Republican aide refused calls from Deborah Ramirez and her lawyers.
  3. President George W. Bush starts calling up GOP Senators to urge them to confirm Kavanaugh.
  4. Texts show that Kavanaugh was working behind the scenes to convince his college friends defend him and not corroborate Ramirez’ accusations before she even brought them up, possibly as early as July. Kavanaugh has accused Ramirez of talking to classmates before the story broke, when it seems to have actually been him doing the talking.
  5. One of those friends gave the information to “Brett’s team” and to the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. Another friend has been trying to get the texts to the FBI. One friend says that Kavanaugh reached out to her, worried that Deborah’s accusations would come out.
  6. The texts also show that Kavanaugh lied when he said the first he’d heard of this was when the story broke on September 30.
  7. In other SCOTUS news, a case coming before the Supreme Court could decide whether someone can be tried for the same thing at both the state and federal level. The precedent case, Gamble v. United States, says that they can; but the new case could change that. The outcome of this case could change Mueller’s strategy, since he might not have the promise of a state case against witnesses in the Russia investigation if Trump pardons them.
  8. After Blasey Ford’s testimony, calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline were up over 200%.

Healthcare:

  1. Arkansas has a test program running to analyze the effects of work requirements on Medicaid. The Trump administration says those requirements will lift people out of poverty, but in the first month alone, 4,300 people were kicked off the program.
  2. The House and Senate both pass a bill that lets pharmacists tell customers whether it would be cheaper for them to pay out of pocket for medications instead of using insurance. How is it that they couldn’t before?
  3. It turns out insurance companies overshot their mark in 2017, raising their premiums too high. Premiums will likely go down some for the next enrollment period.

International:

  1. Trump discovers that his rally talking points don’t work on an international audience. His claim that no administration has done as much as his has done in two years plays well to his base here in America, but when he uses it in his opening speech at the UN, the world laughs at him. Trump always said the world laughed at Obama; now the world has laughed at Trump IRL.
  2. Trump later claims that they were laughing with him, not at him.
  3. When he repeats his claim that Germany will be totally dependent on Russian energy, the German delegation laughs at him. Of note, Germany has an ambitious program to transition to renewable energy sources.
  4. He says that he’s wiped out ISIS in Syria, but the Pentagon says there are still many threats and still much to do there.
  5. At the UN meeting, French President Macron slams Trump’s protectionist policies, criticizing Trump’s policies on Iran, climate change, the UN, migration, Mideast peace, and more. He lauds the continuation of the Paris accord, and suggests that we shouldn’t do business with countries that don’t comply.
  6. Even though Trump vilifies Iran, all other signatories to the Iran deal reaffirm their commitment to the agreement.
  7. Trump praises North Korea and Kim Jong Un, a complete about-face from what he said about him one year ago in this very venue. He says when he and Kim met, they fell in love.
  8. Trump says he declined a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada says they never asked for.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California follows Florida’s lead and signs into law new age restrictions on buying guns. The law also bans gun ownership for domestic abusers and for some people with a history of certain mental illnesses. The law increases training requirements for concealed carry permits and also includes red-flag restraining orders, which allow police officers to remove somebody’s weapons if they are deemed a danger.
  2. California signs net neutrality into law, reinstating the FEC’s previous rules under Obama. The Justice Department immediately threatens to sue.

Family Separation:

  1. DHS moves hundreds of detained immigrant children to a tent city in Texas due to overcrowding. Changes to immigration rules under Sessions have resulted in exponentially higher rates of detention, and they didn’t anticipate it well enough to be prepared for this. These are mostly children that they think will be released shortly.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that would have denied immigrant children the right to a court-appointed attorney regardless of whether they are seeking asylum.
  2. PayPal ends it’s dealings with InfoWars, Alex Jones‘ platform for conspiracy theories and hate speech.
  3. Trump announces a new policy that prevents non-citizen immigrants who use public benefits from obtaining green cards. These people must now choose between assistance they need right now and trying for a green card that will let them work legally at some point in the future. While this isn’t supposed to affect people with green cards who want to become citizens, many are afraid that using public benefits will count against them in their citizenship requests.
  4. A black female state legislator in Vermont resigns over ongoing racial harassment.
  5. Mike Pence legitimizes hate against the LGBTQ community by speaking at the Values Voter Summit.
  6. Trump backs down from his promise to shut the government down if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall, now promising to keep the government open.
  7. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) asks the House Ethics Committee to investigate claims by his ex, Karen Monahan, that he abused her.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal judge blocks the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from removing endangered species protections for grizzly bears around Yellowstone National Park.
  2. The Trump administration predicts a rise in global temperatures of 7 degrees F (or 4 degrees C) by the end of the century. Instead of seeing this as a call to take action, they say the planet’s fate is sealed and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even though scientists know what we can do about it…
  3. A recent study shows that warming waters in the Antarctic are caused by human activity.
  4. The Northern Indiana Public Service Company announces a plan to close down all of their coal power plants and replace them with wind and solar within a decade.
  5. The EPA plans to eliminate the Office of the Science Advisor. This is a senior post that advises the agency about the scientific research on which health and environmental regulations are based. Their mission is to ensure that the agency’s policies are based on the highest quality research.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump finalizes his first bilateral trade deal. The deal with South Korea is not much changed from the agreement negotiated under Obama. It does open the South Korean market to more U.S. automobiles and excludes South Korea from steel tariffs. No U.S. automaker has come close to the existing caps, so this isn’t likely to give much of a bump to the auto industry.
  2. Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, says businesses are increasingly concerned about the trade wars. They say there have been supply chain disruptions and increased costs as a result.
  3. Trump has said he’s turned the economy of West Virginia around, even though the state is one of two whose poverty rate has risen in the past year
  4. Canada and the U.S. agree to new terms for NAFTA. Mexico and the U.S. agreed on terms about a month ago. The new deal leaves much of the old deal in place.
  5. The Canada compromise includes giving the U.S. a slightly bigger dairy market, a slightly higher threshold below which goods can come from Canada duty-free, and protections from certain automotive tariffs for Canada. The biggest changes in the deal favors automakers in North America over Mexico.
  6. The updated deal will be called USMCA (United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement), because, you know, NAFTA was “one of the worst deals” in history (as was the Paris agreement, the Iran deal, TPP, and so on and so on).
  7. The House passes a tax bill that will make the previous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy permanent. The bill would increase the deficit over 10 years by $631 billion, on top of the $1.5 trillion of the previous tax cut.
  8. The SEC orders Elon Musk to step down as the chairman of the board at Tesla, and forbids him from serving on the board for 3 years. They also fine him $20 million. He’s still the CEO though.
  9. Farmers say that Trump’s aide package won’t make up for the losses they’re seeing because of tariffs.

Elections:

  1. Trump holds a campaign rally in Las Vegas, where he again brings up his electoral college win, Hillary Clinton, and Obama. He paints Democrats as evil and laughs at their reaction to his election. But this could be any of his rally speeches.
  2. Candidates for Senate must file their financial reports electronically, which will make donor information publicly available more quickly.
  3. Ted Cruz got heckled out of a restaurant in D.C. by people protesting Kavanaugh. In response, Cruz’s opponent in the race for his Senate seat tweets that this is not cool and there needs to be some respect.
  4. Trump tells the UN that China is interfering in our 2018 midterm elections because they don’t want him to win (because he’s the first president to shake up trade). They’re interfering by targeting their tariffs strategically apparently.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A 7.5 earthquake and resulting tsunami hits Indonesia, killing more than 800 people.
  2. Raj Shah, the White House deputy press secretary, will leave his position after Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote.
  3. Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) pawns himself off as a California farmer, and while his family did farm in the Central Valley for decades, they’ve since moved their farm operations to Iowa. AND sources say they employ undocumented workers (as does nearly every large farm in the area).

Polls:

  1. 52% of voters want Democrats to control Congress and 40% want Republicans to. With gerrymandering, though, it could still fall in the Republicans favor.