Month: December 2018

Week 100 in Trump

Posted on December 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Happy government shutdown! What better way to mark the 100th week under Trump? Just a reminder, he told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer he’d take ownership of a shutdown, then he said he wouldn’t cause a shutdown, then he caused a shutdown, and then he blamed it on Democrats. Here’s what Trump had to say in 2013 about the shutdown under Obama:

“You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He has to get (the Speaker of the House) and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal… And, unfortunately, he has never been a dealmaker. That wasn’t his expertise before he went into politics and it’s obviously not his expertise now. But you have to get the people in a room and you have to get a deal.”

Here’s what else happened in week 100…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Democratic legislators in New Jersey rethink their plans to essentially make gerrymandering permanent in the state after receiving pushback from Republicans, Democrats, progressives, their Democratic governor, Eric Holder, and others. It’s no secret I’m for independent commissions drawing these lines; lawmakers should never be able to draw their own districts.
  2. The reasoning behind Betsy DeVos’s decision to end the policy of making sure minorities are not disciplined more harshly than white students is that it will help end school shootings. Huh? I don’t think any of the shootings have been perpetrated by a minority student.

Russia:

  1. We’re at the end of Trump’s second year in office, and there are 17 known investigations into Trump and Russia from seven different prosecutors (and not including congressional investigations). Here’s a list with the current status of each (all are still ongoing):
    • Russian government meddling in our elections: 25 indicted, 1 guilty plea, and 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Wikileaks: 2 Trump campaign associates implicated, with 1 of them breaking their plea agreement.
    • MidEast countries seeking to influence the Trump campaign: 2 cooperation agreements, but no public court activity.
    • Paul Manafort: 4 guilty pleas, 1 broken plea agreement, 1 indicted, and 1 convicted.
    • Trump Tower Moscow: 1 guilty plea
    • Trump campaign/transition team contacts with Russian officials: 2 guilty pleas, 16 people are known to have made contact.
    • Obstruction of justice: no public court activity.
    • Campaign involvement with Trump Organization finances: 1 guilty plea, 2 cooperation agreements.
    • Foreign donations to the inaugural committee and to Trump’s super PAC: 1 cooperation agreement, no public court activity.
    • Americans lobbying for foreign governments without registering as foreign agents: 2 charged, 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Russian spy embedded in the NRA: 1 guilty plea (Maria Butina).
    • Internet Research Agency’s election activities: 2 investigations and 2 indictments.
    • Michael Flynn’s activities in regard to Turkey: 1 guilty plea.
    • Tax fraud by Trump and Trump Organization: no indictments yet.
    • Campaign finance fraud and self-dealing by the Trump Foundation: Foundation closed.
    • Violations of the emoluments clause: making its way through court.
  1. Republicans in the House Judiciary and Oversight committees question James Comey again behind closed doors about the investigation into Hillary’s emails, the Steele Dossier, and Russian meddling in our elections. The transcript is made public the next day. There’s not really anything new to learn.
  2. Comey blasts the congressional hearings, saying they’re just wasting time and attacking U.S. intelligence agencies. He says Republican legislators need to stand up for American values and stop fearing their base.
  3. Comey explains his press conference in 2016 about the email investigation, saying he was worried about the leaks coming from the New York FBI office (to Rudy Giuliani) and felt he needed to get out ahead of those leaks.
  4. Comey accuses Trump of lying about the FBI to discredit investigations.
  5. New documents show that Trump had signed a letter of intent for the Trump Tower Moscow project on October 28, 2015. Giuliani previously said no one ever signed a letter of intent.
  6. Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicted Cohen’s current testimony. Jr. also contradicted the letter of intent when he said all activity on the Trump Tower Moscow project ended in 2014.
  7. The judge for Michael Flynn’s sentencing rips into Flynn for selling out his country and asks the prosecutors if there’s anything else they can charge Flynn with. He asks Flynn if he wants a delay in sentencing in order to cooperate more fully, which Flynn accepts. A few things here:
    • The judge has access to the redacted information in the court documents that we can’t see.
    • Conservative pundits praise the judge in the days leading up to Flynn’s hearing. Not so much in the days after.
    • Flynn supporters demonstrate outside the courthouse for leniency.
    • Flynn seemed to be on the road to getting the lightest possible sentence (if any), but the judge is irked by Flynn’s lawyers’ attempt to blame the FBI for entrapping Flynn when they questioned him. The judge gets Flynn’s lawyers to retract those accusations.
    • The judge says that Flynn worked as a foreign agent while in the White House, which he later corrects. Flynn’s foreign activities had ended by the time he got to the White House.
    • Trump wishes Flynn luck before the hearing.
  1. Two of Michael Flynn’s associates are arrested over their activities on Turkey’s behalf. Prosecutors in Northern Virginia charge Bijan Rafiekian and Ekim Alptekin with conspiracy to “covertly and unlawfully” influence U.S. politicians.
  2. Mueller releases a redacted memo describing the lies Flynn told in his interviews with FBI agents. The two major lies are:
    • He said he didn’t try to sway the UN Security Council’s vote on Israeli settlements during the transition period.
    • He said he didn’t tell Russian Ambassador Kislyak not to retaliate over Obama’s sanctions against Russia during the transition period.
  1. For the third time, Mitch McConnell blocks Jeff Flake’s bill to protect Mueller’s investigation.
  2. It turns out that Russian trolls were behind a campaign to smear Mueller by claiming that he was corrupt, that he had worked with radical Islamic groups, and that Russian interference in our elections is all just conspiracy theories.
  3. The Trump administration plans to lift sanctions against three Russian companies with ties to Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has had close financial ties to Paul Manafort.
  4. After consulting with ethics officials who tell him to recuse himself from any Russia investigations, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker refuses to do so.
  5. Putin accuses the U.S. of risking a collapse in the control of nuclear arms because Trump is threatening to pull out of a Cold War treaty limiting missile development. Putin also says the world is underestimating the threat of nuclear war.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit. The Foundation will also give away its remaining assets. The New York attorney general accuses the foundation of providing money to Trump’s businesses and for his personal use, and of illegally providing campaign funds.
  2. Under the lawsuit, the foundation might have to pay restitution, and Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric could be barred from serving on other charity boards.
  3. Despite emails showing funds from the foundation being used for campaign purposes, Trump signed filings each year saying that the foundation never engaged in political activities.
  4. During the 2016 election cycle, the Trump campaign funded ad buys through groups accused of illegally coordinating between the campaign and the NRA. The groups used a shell company to hide their activities. The Trump campaign stopped funding the groups after the 2016 election, but now Trump’s 2020 campaign is using the same groups and the same shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The federal judges assessing the 83 ethics complaints against Brett Kavanaugh dismiss all complaints, not because they don’t think the complaints are justified but because lower court judges have no authority to discipline Supreme Court justices.
  2. A judge rules that four people who brought a lawsuit against Trump and his organization over sham businesses can stay anonymous. They made the request to use pseudonyms over fear of retaliation, which the judge agreed with; she says “The manner in which the president has used his position and platform to affect the course of pending court cases is really without precedent.”
  3. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn a lower court ruling that Trump can’t immediately deport people who cross the border illegally to seek asylum. The administration argues that they can use the illegal action of crossing to deny asylum. Our law is pretty explicit that the administration is wrong—anyone who comes to the U.S. can apply for asylum no matter how they got here.
    • Not surprisingly, Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Gorsuch support the administration’s argument. Ruth Bader Ginsberg voted in opposition from her hospital bed as she was recovering from lung surgery.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Democrat send a letter to the head of the Health and Human Services Department accusing them of violating a federal court order by directing funds toward abstinence-only pregnancy prevention programs. The court order was put in place when a court found that the administration had illegally cancelled a pregnancy prevention program in favor of abstinence-only education.
  2. Ohio Governor Kasich signs a strict abortion bill into law, effectively banning abortions after 12 weeks of gestation. He vetoes a similar, more restrictive heartbeat bill (which would ban abortions after 10 weeks).
    • Ohio legislators say they’ll try to override his heartbeat bill veto.
    • Both bills would face uphill battles in courts.
  1. The VA hasn’t spend millions of dollars that were supposed to be used for suicide prevention for veterans.

International:

  1. Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Syria within 30 days. How’d that all go down? Oy…here’s a breakdown:
    • Trump speaks to Turkey’s President Erdogan on the phone. Erdogan can’t understand why the U.S. still arms Syrian Kurdish fighters (Turkey views the Kurds as a threat).
    • Trump says the Islamic State has been defeated in Syria (they haven’t; there are an estimated 14,500 IS fighters in Syria). Erdogan says their fighters can take care of what’s left.
    • Trump says, “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.” And boom. The deed is done.
  1. Kurdish fighters consider releasing over 3,000 Islamic State prisoners.
  2. General Jim Mattis resigns as Secretary of Defense as of the end of February. Could this be related to Trump totally taking Mattis by surprise with his announcement on Syria? Oh yeah. Turns out it’s related, all right.
    • In his resignation letter, Mattis says he and Trump have different views on how to respect and work with our allies and how to deal with authoritarian leaders. He says Trump deserves a Secretary of State who sees things more closely to the way Trump does. His letter reads as a mild rebuke of Trump’s foreign policies.
    • After tweeting about Mattis’s distinguished service, Trump decides to remove him two months early and says Mattis will be out by the New Year. Trump was apparently unhappy over the news coverage of the implications of the resignation letter.
    • Mattis wanted to stay on long enough to ensure a smooth and informed transition.
    • Trump installs Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan as Acting Defense Secretary. Shanahan has no military, international, or counterterrorism experience.
  1. On the heels of Mattis’s resignation, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition to fight ISIS, resigns in protest of Trump’s abrupt decision to pull troops out of Syria.
  2. Trump says he’s withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan—around half of all our troops there. The Taliban then declares victory in Afghanistan.
  3. Trump creates a new “Space Command,” a precursor to the Space Force (a new 6th branch of the military).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Voter rights groups file lawsuits against the lame duck bills passed by Republicans in the Wisconsin state legislature to cut the power of the incoming Democratic officials, specifically the bill cutting early voting periods.
  2. Congress passes a long-overdue prison reform bill. Here’s what’s in it:
    • Makes the conditions of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive.
    • Eases mandatory minimum prison sentences.
    • Provides more incentives for good behavior by prisoners.
    • Provides more incentives for prisoners to participate in rehabilitation programs.
  1. Outgoing Representative Bob Goodlatte blocks the Savannah Act from getting out of committee. Outgoing Senator Heidi Heitkamp brought up the bill to address the number of missing and murdered Native American women.
  2. The Senate passes a bill making lynching a federal crime. There have been attempts to pass this legislation for over a century.
  3. Trump urges Mitch McConnell to change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster so they can get funding for the wall. McConnell refuses, which could imply there aren’t enough Republican votes to support the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The World Economic Forum estimates that if the gap in economic opportunities between men and women keeps narrowing at its current rate, they will be equal in 202 years. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have the most economic equality; the U.S. ranks 51st.
  2. The judge who blocks Jeff Sessions‘ policy removing asylum protection from victims of domestic and gang violence also orders that anyone who was deported based on this policy be returned to the U.S. for a fair hearing. The judge (who is the same one overseeing Michael Flynn’s sentencing) says the policy violates the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
  3. U.S.-based anti-LGBTQ hate groups start working to meet, train, and support anti-LGBTQ groups in Italy. Good job, America—let’s spread the hate.
  4. A GoFundMe campaign raises about $14 million to help build the wall. So they’re about 1/100 of the way to raising enough to build about 1/8 of the wall.
    • The originator of the fundraiser is a triple-amputee Iraq vet.
    • The originator also lost his Facebook page, which trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories.
    • Republican legislators question whether that money can be used for a wall.
    • What happens to that money if none of the wall gets built?
  1. The Air Force fires two HIV-positive service members despite them both passing the fitness assessments. They were found unfit for duty because of Trump’s policy for “deploy or get out.” The policy removes service members who can’t be deployed abroad for more than 12 months, and HIV-positive members fall into that category.
  2. Video evidence shows that the Proud Boys initiated the violence with protestors when one of their members spoke at a Republican Club in New York City earlier this year.
  3. The Trump administration prevents a Yemeni mother whose child is on life support in Oakland, CA, from coming to the U.S. to say goodbye because she’s from a country included in the Muslim ban. The child has a rare brain disease, and his father (who is a U.S. citizen) brought him here for treatment. After public pressure, the Trump administration relents and allows her to come visit.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Interior Department takes a step forward in opening the Arctic Refuge for oil exploration and drilling by releasing its draft environmental impact report.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Senate passes a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until February 8. It still needs to be passed by the House and signed by Trump, but then…
  2. Trump is too chicken to tell us himself right before Christmas that he won’t sign the temporary spending bill to keep the government open until February because it doesn’t fund the wall. So he makes Paul Ryan tell us. We’re looking at a shutdown the weekend before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
  3. A shutdown means that more than 420,000 federal workers will work without pay and 380,000 will be furloughed. This also affects federal programs that help people obtain home and business loans, among other services.
  4. Trump blames Democrats for the shutdown even though when he met with Schumer and Pelosi, we all heard Trump say that he’d take full credit for a shutdown. He said he’d own it; he’d take the mantle.
  5. Because of the shutdown, Trump cancels his holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago and Senators who flew home turn right back around and get on a flight back to D.C.
  6. The Fed raises interest rates for the fourth time this year, but they’re also lowering expectations for the 2019 economy.
  7. The stock market has the worst week in a decade and the worst month since before the Great Depression. The market is on track to close down for the year.
  8. The Dow is up 18% so far under Trump; it was up 45% at this point under Obama. In fairness, Obama was starting from a Dow that was less than half what it was when Trump took over, so 45% was only around a 3,600 point gain under Obama. 18% under Trump is closer to a 3,000 point gain.
  9. Trump says it isn’t his fault that the stock market is down (even though he blamed Obama every time the market dropped under his administration).
  10. There’s a 23% chance of a recession in the next year.
  11. Steven Mnuchin tries to calm the market by making phone calls to certain financial CEOs, which only serves to confuse them. He wanted to reassure them that Trump isn’t planning to fire the Fed chairman as is rumored.
  12. Those CEOs say political noise is making the markets uncertain, including James Mattis’ departure, tariff threats, and the government shutdown.
  13. Trump authorizes the second rounds of bailout payments to farmers to help them get through the fallout from the tariffs, about $4.9 billion. China purchased no soy from the U.S. in November.
    • The USDA says some of the payments will be delayed due to the government shutdown.
  1. The House passes a new tax bill that provides disaster tax relief, delays and repeals some ACA taxes, fixes parts of last year’s tax cuts, improves the IRS, and repeals the Johnson Amendment (which bars nonprofits from endorsing political candidates).
  2. Sonny Perdue, head of the USDA, proposes changes to SNAP that would require “able-bodied” people between 18 and 49 with no dependents to either work or register for a training or education program if they’re on food stamps for three months or more. It’s estimated that this will drop 755,000 people from SNAP benefits.

Elections:

  1. In the 2017 Alabama senate elections where Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore, a group of social media experts used tactics perfected by Russian trolls to try to sway support for Jones. Even though it was a small-scale operation, Jones calls for an FEC investigation to make sure no laws were violated.
    • The efforts were funded by a LinkedIn cofounder.
    • It was such a small effort that it likely did not effect the outcome of the election.
    • Alabama’s secretary of state says they were aware that groups from both sides were doing this but that they couldn’t get any help from Facebook or Twitter to stop it.
  1. Trump’s re-election committee and the Republican National Committee announce they’ll merge, which will strengthen his hold over the party and form a formidable fundraising machine. This is a first for a presidential campaign.
  2. The Mercers, who were implicated in the Russian social media influence campaigns in our 2016 elections, pull back on financial support to Republicans in opposition to Trump’s policies.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration issues a regulation banning bump stocks. Anyone who already owns one has 90 days to turn them in or destroy them.
  2. Trump is already beginning to sour on Mick Mulvaney, who he just appointed as acting chief of staff. Trump’s not happy recently surfaced videos from before the election where we can hear Mulvaney calling Trump a terrible human being and describing Trump’s take on the border wall simplistic, absurd, and childish.

Week 99 in Trump

Posted on December 18, 2018 in Politics, Trump

So much happened last week, but my favorite part of the week was when Trump surprised Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with a meeting with the press when they thought they were having a closed-door meeting. As far as transparency goes, that was awesome. But things went downhill fast, with a lot of shouting, a lot of misinformation, a bit of man-splaining, and some name-calling; only Nancy Pelosi was trying to talk policy. Pelosi came out of it not only looking like the adult in the room but also firmly pinning any potential government shutdown on Trump. It’s easy to see how she got the votes for Speaker.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. NASA spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrived in the orbit of an asteroid named Bennu. OSIRIS-REx launched two years ago and will spend the next year surveying and mapping the asteroid and hopefully bring us back some rock samples. Seriously. We sent a spacecraft to an ASTEROID!
  2. The week had some hate:
    • Jehovah’s Witnesses have been targeted with hate crimes 5 times this year in Washington state. The latest attack destroyed a church in a fire.
    • Again in Washington, eight self-professed neo-Nazis assault a black man, yelling racist slurs as they attack him.
    • Someone spreads anti-Semitic pamphlets throughout Pittsburgh, and a student plasters State University of New York’s Purchase College with Nazi-themed posters.

Russia:

  1. Maria Butina pleads guilty to acting as an illegal foreign agent and agrees to cooperate with federal investigators. She’s the first Russian charged to admit trying to influence the 2016 elections.
  2. Here are some highlights:
    • In 2015, Butina began working with Alexander Torshin to establish “unofficial” lines of communication with political leaders for the benefit of the Russian Federation (because official lines weren’t working).
    • Butina targeted Republicans because she thought a Republican would win the presidency in 2016.
    • She worked with her boyfriend, South Dakotan Paul Erickson, on her plan and also to make the contacts she needed.
    • Butina planned to use the NRA to lay the groundwork because of their influence over the Republican party.
    • She received funding from a Russian billionaire.
    • In the middle of all this, Butina obtained a student visa so she could stay in the U.S.
    • She worked to meet with Trump’s advisors once he was elected. Butina and Erickson also tried to set up meetings between Trump advisors and Russian officials.
  1. As of this week, we know through court filings and guilty pleas that at least 16 Trump business and campaign associates had contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign. And every one of them lied about it.
  2. Newspapers and businesses across the country receive bomb threats, suspected to come from Russian hackers. The hackers ask for bitcoin in order to not detonate the (non-existent) bombs.
  3. Everything was going so well for Michael Flynn, who was probably on track to serve no jail time. And then, his lawyers file a court document claiming that the FBI didn’t let him know he maybe needed a lawyer during the interviews where he lied to investigators (which led to the charges against him). They say that the FBI tricked Flynn into lying but still don’t say why Flynn lied.
  4. Mueller says Flynn is an experienced military man in a high-level government position. He should know better than to lie to U.S. intelligence in any situation, and there was no coercion for him to lie.
  5. Two of Flynn’s associates say he was meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 elections to talk about cooperation between Russia and the U.S. Russia would help end the Syrian conflict and the U.S. would ease sanctions.
    • The talks continued even after U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump’s campaign that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and subsequent leaks.
  1. On judge‘s orders, Mueller turns over their documentation of the interviews with Flynn where he is said to have lied.
  2. Texts and emails show that Paul Manafort was advising the Trump administration on ways to discredit Mueller’s investigations. Manafort recommended attacking the FBI, the DOJ, the Steele Dossier (and the Clinton campaign’s involvement) and any Obama officials involved in getting the FISA warrant. He recommended accusing the DNC of colluding with Ukraine.
  3. Studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee find that clearly all of the messaging coming from Russian entities was designed to benefit the Republican party and later Trump specifically.
    • One report finds that Russians used every major social media platform to influence the elections in 2016.
    • The other report analyzed how the Russian company Internet Research Agency targeted specific demographics for political messaging. IRA targeted blacks and other minorities to either discourage them from voting and turn them against Democrats.
    • Russian trolls and bots put a lot of time into dividing us on gun rights and immigration issues. They’d embed themselves in specific circles using authentic content, and then start posting provocative misinformation.
    • Posts on Instagram generated more than twice the user engagement than other major platforms.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump says he never told Cohen to break the law, but didn’t dispute that he told Cohen to pay off his mistresses to keep them quiet about their affairs. Trump says Cohen should’ve known what was legal; Cohen says he was under Trump’s sway.
  2. Sources says that Trump was involved in meetings where Cohen and David Pecker (of American Media Inc. (AMI)) talked about the payments.
  3. In his sentencing hearing, Cohen implies that he has more to talk about than just hush money payments. He gets a three-year sentence plus fines.
    • As a reminder, he pled guilty to: tax evasion, campaign finance violations, lying to banks, and lying to Congress. These are not all his known crimes.
    • Sean Hannity deletes all his tweets linking him to Cohen just before Cohen is sentenced.
  1. AMI is also in a cooperation agreement and has agreed to tell prosecutors everything they know about Trump. If you remember, AMI also has a vault of the negative stories about Trump that they killed in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
  2. David Pecker also admits to the hush money payments. AMI says the payments were to influence the elections, giving even more credence to the allegation that these were illegal campaign donations.
  3. Investigators are looking into donations to Trump’s inaugural committee and to a pro-Trump super PAC. They say foreign agents from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE might have disguised donations to buy influence over U.S. policy. Not surprisingly, Manafort it involved in this.
  4. When Trump and his siblings inflated invoices for their shell company decades ago, they also used those invoices as justification to inflate rent increases in their apartment buildings. This has caused the rent in those buildings to be artificially inflated for decades, even though the Trumps no longer own them.
  5. In a defamation lawsuit, Roger Stone admits to telling lies on InfoWars. Stone says he didn’t do his research and took the word of Sam Nunberg about alleged foreign donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Didn’t do his research” is how all this BS gets spread around in the first place so do your research!

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses to hear cases about blocking funding for Planned Parenthood. This leaves in place the lower court rulings that say states can’t cancel Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood offices.
  2. The Senate confirms Jonathan Kobes to a federal appeals court despite the ABA questioning his knowledge of the law and ability to understand complex legal analysis. This is Trump’s second unqualified but confirmed judicial nominee.
  3. The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court changes her party affiliation from Republican to No Party Preference. She says it’s been coming for a while, but Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the nail in the coffin.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration shuts down an HIV research project in Montana because they use fetal tissue to research a cure for HIV/AIDS. Restrictions on the use of fetal tissue have been shutting down research projects across the country.
  2. The Senate votes against a bill that would extend VA benefits for thousands of vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. The House passed this bill unanimously.
  3. A federal judge in Texas rules that without the mandate, certain parts of the ACA are unconstitutional. Trump says that’s great news, but even legislators who tried to kill the ACA aren’t thrilled with this ruling. Many are even confused by it. The White House assures us that the ACA will remain in place through the appeals process. Oh, and the ruling comes the day before open enrollment ends.

International:

  1. Trump rejects the information given by U.S. intelligence agencies in his daily briefings on world events. Specifically, he’s denied that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, he says North Korea will halt their nuclear weapons program, and he disagrees with them about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, climate change, and the role of the Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi’s murder.
  2. Theresa May delays a vote to approve her Brexit deal, and then survives a vote of no confidence. She then returns to Brussels to negotiate once more, but returns empty-handed.
  3. On top of weeks of protests across France, a shooter kills three people and injures 13 at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, putting all Christmas Markets in France on high alert and launching a manhunt. Police later find and shoot the gunman.
  4. A cyber attack on the Marriott earlier this year accessed the personal information of around 500 million guests. Investigators blame the cyber attack on Chinese intelligence.
  5. Trump continues to stand by Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite GOP Senators standing against him on this. Interesting side note: Some members of the Saudi royal family would like to stop MbS from being crowned king, but support from the U.S. and Trump could sway them.
  6. The Senate passes a resolution that declares MbS is not only involved in Khashoggi’s murder but is responsible for it.
  7. The Senate passes a recommendation to end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
  8. Party members in Hungary that are normally in opposition to one other unite in protest against Prime Minister Viktor Ordan’s authoritarian rule. Rallies and protests have spread across the country, taking the Prime Minister and his Fidesz party by surprise. Ordan has been steadily increasing his power while weakening democratic institutions and processes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate reverses a Trump policy that helped hide information about donors to political non-profits. With the Senate bill, donors must be disclosed to the IRS.
  2. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signs a series of lame duck bills into law, curtailing the power of the office he is leaving because the person taking his place is a Democrat. From what I can see, the GOP plan seems to be: 1) Gerrymander districts so the other party can’t ever get a majority (even with a majority of votes statewide); and 2) When the populace finally votes your party out, change all the rules of government to make sure they can’t get anything done. Such a bad precedent.
    • Lawsuits against these bills are already in the works. Several of North Carolina’s attempt at passing bills to weaken incoming Democratic officials two years ago are still stuck in the courts.
    • Republicans in Wisconsin’s state legislature started working on these bills months ago just in case there was a shift in parties.
  1. Florida’s governor-elect Ron DeSantis wants to delay implementation of the voter approved ballot initiative that restored voting rights to felons who’ve served their time (excepting certain violent crimes).
  2. The House passes a bill to prevent states from holding children in adult jails and to ban the practice of shackling pregnant girls. The bill also funds tutoring, mental health assistance, and drug and alcohol programs for juvenile offenders.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The number of migrant minors held in U.S. custody is now nearly 15,000. A big reason for the backlog is that sponsors for these children are afraid to come forward for fear of being deported themselves.
  2. Church leaders form an interfaith protest at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of those seeking asylum. Officials arrest 32 faith leaders and activists at the protest.
  3. Officials in Ohio arrest a man who was plotting to kill people in a Jewish synagogue. Hate crimes against Jews have increased more than any other type of hate crime.
  4. Immigration judges for the most part want to make the right choices and not send people back to their home countries to get killed. The Global Migration Project at Columbia University recently found over 60 people who were killed or harmed after being sent home.
  5. The Trump administration starts working once again to deport refugees from the Vietnam war who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades.
  6. Trump says the updated NAFTA deal means that Mexico will pay for his wall. In case you were wondering, it doesn’t.
  7. A seven-year-old migrant girl dies after getting sick eight hours after being taken into custody. Homeland Security says that she didn’t have anything to eat or drink for days before being detained, but her family says that’s not true. The fastest way to get her medical assistance was a 90-minute bus ride, during which she worsened until she was no longer breathing when they arrived. An investigation is underway.
  8. Trump uses the shooting in Strasbourg as a reason we need to shore up our borders, but it turns out the shooter was born in Strasbourg.
  9. Trump claims that the migrants coming in to this country are spreading contagious diseases. There’s no evidence of this.
  10. Trump says a lot of his wall is already built and that it has decreased illegal migration significantly. He seems to be referring to fencing built or fixed between 1992 and 2016.
  11. Trump says says migrants crossing the border illegally are pouring drugs into the country, but according to the DEA most drugs come in through legal ports of entry.
  12. In referring to illegal immigration over the southern border, Trump says: “We caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time. Ten.” I’m not sure what he means by ‘the last very short period of time,’ but most terrorists are blocked from entry into the U.S. at airports. And a State Department study found “no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States.”
  13. Betsy DeVos moves to rescind Obama-era guidance over school discipline that prevented minority students from receiving harsher punishments than their white classmates.
  14. Miss USA, Miss Columbia and Miss Australia are caught on tape mocking other Miss Universe contestants’ English-speaking skills.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new study that compares past and future climates suggests that over the past 200 years, human activity has reversed millions of years of cooling. So yes, our climate changes, but generally not as rapidly as now.
  2. At the UN climate talks, Trump’s top climate and energy advisor is greeted with laughter when he gives a talk that includes pitching coal, the fossil fuel largely responsible for climate change. Turns out that most of the audience is there merely to protest; the U.S. couldn’t get enough people who are serious about climate change to attend.
  3. At the same talks, nations discuss the latest IPCC report which calls for dramatic cuts in emissions. Oil producing nations want to keep the report out of the final agreement, and the U.S. backs them. They end up welcoming the “timeliness” of the report as opposed to the content of the report.
  4. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that U.S. officials were working behind the scenes to continue making contributions to the Paris agreement.
  5. The Trump administration wants to reclassify nuclear waste so we don’t have to be so cautious in disposing of it, making disposal cheaper. Though this is the same administration that says a little radiation every day is good for you!
  6. The Trump administration proposes weakening the clean water rules that were created by George H.W. Bush and expanded on under Obama. The changes loosen protections against pollutants, pesticides, and toxic waste in certain waterways.
  7. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke resigns in the middle of more than a dozen ethics investigations into his political activity, travel expenses, and possible conflicts of interest. Zinke used his position roll back environmental protections and to exploit federal lands with the goal of global energy dominance.
  8. Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt will take over for Zinke temporarily. Bernhardt was a fossil fuels and water industry lobbyist before coming to the department (whose mission, by the way, is to be a good steward of our public lands).
  9. The Trump administration auctions off leases that will allow fracking on public lands near Utah’s national parks.
  10. A new study shows that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef might be adapting to the warmer waters caused by climate change. The harm done to the reef this year was less than expected despite warmer waters.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China agrees to cut tariffs on U.S. automobiles to 15%.
  2. Trump says he’ll shut down the government if the spending bill doesn’t fund his border wall. He even says he’ll be proud to shut it down.
  3. Trump signs an executive order to help fund underserved communities known as “opportunity zones.”
  4. Trump wants to get rid of subsidies for electric vehicles, which would give foreign automakers an advantage in EV development.
  5. The budget deficit for the first two months of fiscal year 2019 is double what it was in the first two months of fiscal year 2018. The administration predicts the deficit will be over $1 trillion for three straight years.
  6. In 2010, Wells Fargo incorrectly foreclosed on around 545 homeowners due to a computer glitch. Most of these people lost their homes, their current and future equity, and in some cases their pets because they had to move. To make up for it, Wells Fargo sends the borrowers checks that grossly under-compensated them for their losses.
  7. A few months ago, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau put out a report showing that Wells Fargo was price-gouging student borrowers. The Trump administration has been sitting on that information.
  8. Betsy DeVos loses a court battle and now has to cancel $150 million in federal student loan debt. The loan forgiveness affects 15,000 borrowers who were cheated by for-profit colleges.

Elections:

  1. A federal court in Virginia hands down documents in a case that concluded that 11 of Virginia’s districts are illegally gerrymandered. The case is pending before the Supreme Court, but the legislature must redraw the district lines anyway. One of the documents includes a variety of plans, but none of them redraw less than 21 districts.
  2. Things aren’t looking good for Mark Harris, Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina’s 9th District. It turns out that he sought to hire Leslie Dowless to help win the 2018 race after losing a race in 2016, knowing Dowless’ reputation for using sketchy means to win elections. Dowless illegally harvested ballots according to witnesses.
  3. George Papadopoulos feels like he’s ready to run for Congress. Now that he’s done his jail time for lying about Russian contacts, that is.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Time Magazine names a group of journalist as their Person of the Year. The group, which Time calls The Guardians, include the slain journalists at the Capital Gazette and Jamal Khashoggi, among others. One of the reasons for this choice is that “manipulation and abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories.”
  2. The House Judiciary Committee questions a Google executive for over three hours because Republicans think Google searches bring up results that aren’t fair to conservatives. Both parties are concerned about privacy issues.
  3. Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees because her defamation suit against him was dismissed.
  4. A Kansas state senator switches party affiliations from Republican to Democrat after being ostracized for supporting the Democratic candidate for governor over Kris Kobach.
  5. The Trumps cancel the White House tradition of a holiday press party. Last year, they held the event but declined the tradition of taking pictures with anyone who wanted one.
  6. After Nick Ayers turns down the chief of staff position, Chris Christie takes himself out of the running as well. Jared Kushner’s in the running, but then Trump picks Mick Mulvaney to be acting chief of staff. Mulvaney is already wearing a couple different hats.
  7. The Trumps plan to take a 16-day trip to Mar-a-Lago over the holidays.
  8. Voyager 2 becomes the second human-made object to leave our solar system (Voyager 1 was the first). Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and its equipment still functions.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating in rural areas is 61% compared to 31% in urban areas and 41% in suburban areas.

Week 98 in Trump

Posted on December 11, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Manafort, Cohen, and Flynn! Oh my!

Here’s some democracy in action. Dane Best, a 9-year-old in Colorado, wanted to be able to have snowball fights (more specifically, he wanted to bean his little brother). So he started a letter-writing campaign, spoke at a town council meeting, and convinced his community leaders to overturn a ban on snowball fights that had been in place for decades. Yes, decades. How is it that it took this long for an enterprising youngster to realize he can create the change that he wants to see? Why is it that we grownups don’t always realize we can create the change that we want to see?

Here’s what else happened in politics last week. It was a big week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. An Indiana judge orders the governor to turn over emails between then-governor Mike Pence and Trump about jobs at Carrier Corp.

Russia:

  1. Roger Stone refuses to testify or to turn over requested documents, invoking the Fifth. It’s possible (likely?) that Stone’s lawyer is mistaken in thinking the Fifth applies here.  
  2. Trump praises Stone for his lack of cooperation with the investigations.
  3. Sean Hannity tells listeners of his radio show not to talk to the FBI, even if they’re aware of crimes, because the FBI is too focused on the Russia investigation.
  4. Mueller’s team says they’re beginning to tie up loose ends in their investigation.
  5. Because of the false testimony exposed by the recent plea deals in the Russia investigation, House Democrats plan to send Mueller transcripts of the testimony given to them by Trump associates. They want Mueller to review the transcripts for any misinformation.
  6. Rudy Giuliani says they haven’t had time to draft a response or rebuttal to Mueller’s report, but Trump says they’re almost done with it—87 pages worth. Trump adds that they can’t finish it until Mueller issues his report.
  7. George Papadopoulos finishes his 12-day sentence and now has a year of probation and 200 hours of community service.
  8. Maria Butina’s boyfriend, Paul Erickson, is under suspicion of acting as a foreign agent and enabling Butina’s illegal activities by helping her develop contacts with political leaders, including in the NRA. Butina is in prison for her alleged activities and is likely to take a plea. (Note: I originally named Paul Erickson’s incorrectly as Erick Erickson.)

Michael Flynn

  1. Robert Mueller issues his recommendation on Michael Flynn’s sentencing for his plea deal, recommending that Flynn serve no prison time due to the extent of his cooperation and his “substantial assistance.”
  2. Mueller’s sentencing memo is highly redacted, but implicates high-ranking transition officials in the Trump transition team, likely including Jared Kushner.
  3. Flynn says a very senior transition team member told him to contact foreign officials (including in Russia) about a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. At the time this was going on, Obama was getting ready to allow a Security Council vote on the resolution.
  4. Flynn also called a senior transition official at Mar-a-Lago to talk about what to say to the Russian ambassador about the impending sanctions. Transition members wanted Flynn to let Russia know not to escalate the situation. At the time this was going on, Obama was preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over their election meddling.
  5. Flynn learned that transition members did not want Russia to escalate the situation, according to court papers.

Paul Manafort

  1. Robert Mueller files his report about why he thinks Paul Manafort breached his plea deal:
    • Manafort lied about contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, who is implicated in both the Russian hacking scheme and attempts to tamper with witnesses in Manafort’s cases.
    • Manafort lied about a wire transfer related to his charges.
    • Manafort lied about information relevant to an unrelated DOJ case.
    • Manafort lied about having recent contact with Trump administration officials.
    • Mueller has documented proof of the above lies.

Michael Cohen

  1. Even though Michael Cohen has been very cooperative with the investigation and complied with his plea agreements, federal prosecutors recommend substantial prison time for his crimes (four years). Mueller recommends concurrent time for lying to government officials.
  2. As a result of the court filings around Michael Cohen, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York determine that Trump participated in federal crimes with Cohen. Some of these crimes are around hush money to his mistresses. The coverup is always worse than the crime. Always.
  3. Mueller’s sentencing filing shows that the Trump campaign was approached by Russia in 2015 to develop government-level political synergy.
  4. It turns out that Cohen did expect a pardon if he just stayed on the president’s message.
  5. Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee make several referrals for prosecution to Mueller. It seems several referrals stem from what we’ve learned from Cohen recently.
  6. If Cohen’s account is accurate, then Russia did have leverage over Trump because they knew he was lying about contacts with Russians and business dealings with Russia.

James Comey

  1. James Comey testifies for House committees behind closed doors for six hours about the integrity of FBI investigations. Apparently six hours weren’t enough, because he’s testifying again on the 17th.
  2. This seems to be part of yet another congressional investigation into the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails. The inspector general has investigated this as have multiple congressional committees.
  3. Here are some highlights from the released transcript:
    • Contrary to Trump’s accusations, he and Mueller are not best friends; not even social friends.
    • Barack Obama did not order the FBI to spy on Trump’s campaign, but if he would’ve, the FBI would’ve refused.
    • A lot of this is just rehashed information we already know from previous testimony and from the IG report.
    • Republicans say they’re unhappy that Comey’s lawyer advised against answering several questions, but the transcript contradicts this. Most of the questions he didn’t answer were about Mueller’s ongoing investigation. He was also unable to comment on hypotheticals.
    • Republicans also say they’re unhappy with the number of times he said he didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Many of these questions were about details of FBI investigations that were below his pay grade.
    • Comey acknowledged that the Steele Dossier was a result of opposition research, first by Republicans and then by Democrats.
    • The Russia investigation began because of Papadopoulos.
    • The FBI’s New York field office was leaking information to damage Clinton, which is why Comey decided to make the public statement on the email investigation in 2016.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The fallout from the Panama Papers begins in the U.S. when the DOJ charges four people with tax evasion based on information found in those papers.
  2. Maryland and DC subpoena financial records related to Trump’s hotel in Washington. It seems the lease is being violated; no elected official can hold the lease because it’s the Old Post Office building and leased from the federal government.
  3. The FBI raids the home of Dennis Cain, who was granted whistle-blower status for providing documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee around the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One.
  4. Jeff Sessions directed U.S. Attorney John Huber to open an investigation into the Clinton Foundation at congressional Republicans’ urging.
  5. A private investigation firm is also looking into the foundation. The firm, MDA Analytics LLC,reportedly used ex-U.S. intelligence to do the research, but I can’t find any information about the company.
  6. A federal judge orders more fact-finding about Clinton’s private email server in a case alleging that the she used the server to protect herself from the Freedom of Information Act.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Hundreds of former DOJ employees call on Trump to replace Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker (who is a walking, talking conflict of interest). They also call on Trump to quickly nominate someone, and in the meantime to replace Whitaker with someone who the Senate has actually confirmed.
  2. Whitaker has yet to tell us how he’ll handle conflicts of interest as Acting Attorney General, and we know there are a few.
  3. Trump nominates William Barr to take over as Attorney General. Barr served in that position under George H.W. Bush.
  4. Reminiscent of Bill Clinton running into Loretta Lynch when she was overseeing the investigation into Hillary’s emails, Jared Kushner invites Matt Whitaker on a flight with him aboard Marine One while Whitaker is overseeing an investigation of which Kushner is a subject.

International:

  1. CIA Directory Gina Haspel briefs senators on Saudi Arabia and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. GOP Senators contradict Trump and say they are more convinced than ever that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in this murder.
  2. Trump has held that evidence of the Crown Prince’s involvement is inconclusive, as did Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis in an earlier briefing. GOP senators pretty much say Trump is trying to help Saudi Arabia cover this up, and that Pompeo and Mattis mislead the Senate.
  3. Here’s an interesting thing Lindsey Graham says about this: “If they [Pompeo and Mattis] were in a Democratic administration, I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.” So just to make sure I have this straight, since they’re in a Republican administration, they are not in the pocket of Saudi Arabia? Party over country…
  4. Turkey issues an arrest warrant for the top aide to MbS and to his deputy head of foreign intelligence.
  5. We learn that Jared Kushner, one of MbS’s fiercest defenders in the White House, advised MbS on how to manage the Khashoggi scandal.
  6. Trump nominates Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as the UN ambassador. Nauert is the current spokesperson for the State Department, and before that was an anchor on Fox News. Trump will also downgrade the UN ambassador position from a cabinet-level position.
  7. Trump says that he’ll suspend our participation in the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate-range Nuclear Force in two months unless Russia starts to comply with the conditions. That would let us develop and test new missiles.
  8. Satellite images now show that North Korea is expanding one of their long-range missile bases.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After losing all the statewide seats in the midterms (governor, lt. governor, and secretary of state), Republican state legislators in Wisconsin begin a power grab to change the rules of their government and limit the power of the incoming Democrats. They pass a plan to:
    • Limit early voting.
    • Restrict the new governor’s ability to make appointments.
    • Shift some of the legal responsibilities of the governor and secretary of state to the legislature.
    • Lock in a work requirement for Medicaid.
  1. Protestors take to the State Capitol to voice their disapproval, even shouting over the Christmas tree lighting ceremony and choirs of high school students singing carols. Conservatives are quick to denounce the Christmas protest because of those poor students, but it turns out the students were in on it as well.
  2. And then Michigan follows suit by passing bills to:
    • Restrict the voter-approved legalization of marijuana.
    • Override voter-approved minimum wage requirements.
    • Prevent political non-profits from having to disclose their donors.
    • Add restrictions to the “promote the vote” initiative passed by voters, making it harder instead of easier to vote.
    • Restrict the voter-approved redistricting plan that takes redistricting out of party hands and puts it into the hands of a non-partisan commission.
    • Shift some of the legal responsibilities of the governor and secretary of state to the legislature.
  1. Just a reminder that in 2016, North Carolina’s legislature tried to place limits on the incoming Democratic governor, who in turned filed a series of lawsuits. So far, the courts have found largely for the governor.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Last month, a court blocked Trump’s policy of overly stringent vetting of green-card holders in the military. So now, the Pentagon sends thousands of recruits to basic training who’ve been in a backlog waiting to get in.
  2. We’ve been expecting a new trial in Florida for Jeffrey Epstein, who’s been accused of multiple incidents of child and sexual abuse, but the case settles just before it was to start. After his first trial, Epstein’s charges were highly reduced, and he served a light sentence with freedom to leave jail to work for 12 hours a day, six days a week.
  3. A jury finds James Alex Fields guilty of first degree murder for killing Heather Heyer when he plowed his car into a group of people protesting a white nationalist rally. He was convicted of multiple other counts of wounding other protesters. He has yet to be tried for multiple federal hate crimes.
  4. Ammon Bundy leaves the patriot movement he helped lead. He faced harsh criticism over his views on immigration after he issued a compassionate statement about immigrants and asylum seekers who are in need and should get a fair hearing. He says the patriot movement blindly supports Trump.
  5. Trump’s New Jersey golf course hires undocumented workers, including Trump’s own personal housekeeper there. When Trump was elected, a supervisor told his housekeeper that she needed documentation showing permanent residency, which the supervisor helped her obtain (though not through legal channels from what I’ve read).
  6. The replacement for NAFTA removes protections for LGBTQ workers.
  7. Emantic Bradford, who was shot by police when they suspected he was an active shooter, turned out to have been helping people escape the gunfire. Bradford had a weapon, but also had a license to carry. The officer who shot him (three times in the back) is still on duty and was also the only person to kill someone that night.
  8. Not surprisingly, protests erupt over the shooting and several protesters are arrested.
  9. Trump has more confidence in Kirstjen Nielsen after her tough stance on the migrant caravan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A judge refuses to hear a challenge to Trump’s border wall from an environmental non-profit. The non-profit says the wall will destroy a protected butterfly habitat and could harm endangered species like the monarch butterfly and ocelots.
  2. French President Emmanuel Macron suspends planned carbon taxes that sparked weeks-long protests.
  3. Climate scientists and policy experts say countries aren’t implementing strong enough rules to help fight climate change. Several major countries are failing in their targets set in the Paris agreement.
  4. Global carbon emissions reach their highest levels ever recorded. They grew 1.6% in 2017 and are expected to grow 2.7% in 2018. The U.S. is the second largest emitter; China is first.
  5. A 15-year-old activist calls out global leaders for their lack of climate action. Greta Thunberg, who’s been sitting in front of the Swedish parliament every Friday since September, says:

“For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions, and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise… So we have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again. We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not.”
You can listen to the full speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cve4bLDrlM

  1. The Trump administration plans to end tax credits and incentives for electric cars and renewable energy. Maybe he’ll end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry as well (LOL I crack myself up).
  2. Trump proposes increasing carbon emissions limits for new coal plants. Under Obama-era rules, they were required to burn some natural gas to keep their emissions lower.
  3. The Trump administration moves to loosen protections for the sage grouse to enable to more oil and gas drilling.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The market has a really rocky week, with the Dow Jones dropping 1,600 in two days, rising back up 700 the next day, and then dropping almost 1,100 points the next.
  2. The drop came as investors lose confidence that our trade war with China is actually de-escalating. The markets aren’t helped at all when Trump tweets, “I am a Tariff Man.”
  3. In truth, when Trump tweeted after the G-18 that China would reduce and remove tariffs on our cars, aides said they didn’t know of any such commitment from China. And the press statements issued from the White House and from China are contradictory, indicating that nothing solid was agreed upon.
  4. On the same day that Trump announces a trade truce with China, Canada arrests Wanzhou Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei, at the request of the U.S. Huawei is a major telecom company in China, and Meng is the founder’s daughter. This throws yet another wrench in efforts to stabilize tariffs. Her charges are based in trying to get around the sanctions against Iran to do business with sanctioned companies.
  5. And now I feel more secure… Trump says it doesn’t matter if he deals with our increasing debt because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it all blows up.
  6. Congress passes a two-week extension on the funding bill deadline, which means if that all blows up, it’ll happen four days before Christmas. The impasse is over funding the border wall. Trump says he’s fine with a government shutdown.
  7. The U.S. becomes a net oil exporter. Barely.

Elections:

  1. In a runoff election, Republican Brad Raffensperger defeats Democrat John Barrow to become Georgia’s secretary of state. This was a closely watched election because the previous GOP secretary of state oversaw an election in which he won the governorship and in which several registrations and ballots were rejected, allegedly for spurious reasons. The office faces accusations of ongoing voter suppression.
  2. During the 2018 midterm campaigns, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was hacked and email accounts were monitored by the hackers for months.
    • They are working with the FBI, but they still don’t know who was behind it. There are some similarities to the DNC hacking in 2016.
    • The NRCC found out in April, but didn’t reveal it to the victims or GOP leaders until the press found out about it this week.
  1. The North Carolina Board of Elections and Ethics has refused to certify Republican Mark Harris’ apparent win due to voting irregularities. According to witnesses, an operative working for Harris paid people to “harvest” ballots. In other words, they illegally collected people’s mail-in ballots, and in some cases filled them out. (Note that collecting ballots in itself isn’t illegal, but getting paid for it, not turning ballots in, or filling in a ballot without the voter’s consent are all illegal.)
  2. Trump and the NRA used the same media consultants to launch complimentary ad campaigns during the 2016 elections. This gives the appearance of campaign finance law violations, but it’s not clear whether the two actually coordinated.
  3. Trump made extensive use of Air Force One to campaign during the midterms. It cost taxpayers around $17 million. Rules say he’s supposed to pay for some of that from party or campaign money, but so far he’s only reimbursed $112,000 (or less than 1%).
  4. Massachusetts’ former governor Deval Patrick, who thought about running for president, says:
“… knowing that the cruelty of our elections process would ultimately splash back on people whom Diane and I love, but who hadn’t signed up for the journey, was more than I could ask.” That says something about how we campaign now.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Wednesday is a national day of mourning for George H.W. Bush. Flags fly at half-staff and federal offices close for the day. His state funeral is held at Washington National Cathedral.
  2. And in what becomes one of the most awkward presidential moments in my lifetime, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, and Barack and Michelle Obama are joined in the front row of the cathedral by Donald and Melania Trump.
  3. In an interview, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Trump is “pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read” and that he tries to do illegal things.
  4. Trump responds by calling Tillerson dumb and lazy.
  5. Trump announces that White House chief of staff John Kelly will leave by year’s end. Also, no one wants the job of replacing him.
  6. Trump nominates Army General Mark Miller to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Joseph Dunford, the current chairman, has nearly 10 months left to serve.
  7. Michael Avenatti says he won’t run for president in 2020 after all. Did anyone really think he would?
  8. Shortly after Trump tweets about the media being the enemy of the people, CNN evacuates their New York studio because of a bomb threat.

Polls:

  1. 58% of Americans agree that climate change is influenced by humans.

Week 97 in Trump

Posted on December 4, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Former President George H.W. Bush lying in state in the Rotunda. (Morry Gash/Pool/Getty Images)

George H.W. Bush passed away at 94 years old; just 7 months after his wife, Barbara, passed away. He’ll lie in state, and December 5 will be a national day of mourning for him. And even over this, we were so fast to divide ourselves. One group is wistful for a president with his grace and character; the other group thinks he was just plain awful. Can’t we just, for a short period, let people eulogize and remember a man who’s long and full life just came to an end? Give the family some time to grieve, and then go ahead and point out his policy flaws. We don’t have to hate at every turn. It makes me tired…

And you know what else makes me tired? Everything else that happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In his first year, Trump ordered a complete and independent audit of the Pentagon. Now the auditors say the job is impossible to complete. The Pentagon fudges their numbers and documents in order to justify increases to the Pentagon budget (whether or not the money gets used–a common business practice). Their records have irregularities and errors, and lack the needed information. The Pentagon’s defense? “We didn’t expect to pass it.”
  2. A federal judges rules that a lawsuit against the Trump Foundation can proceed. The suit accuses Trump of misusing funds from the charity for political and personal gain. Trump’s legal team says he can’t be sued because he’s president; the judge says he can.

Russia:

  1. Robert Mueller drops Paul Manafort’s plea deal, saying Manafort breached their agreement by continually lying to investigators. On top of that, Manafort’s lawyers were keeping Trump’s legal team abreast of their discussions with Mueller’s team.
    • Mueller considers filing additional charges against Manafort, and will file a report on what Manafort lied about.
    • Since Manafort already pleaded guilty, he’s now on the hook for those crimes… and also probably for conspiring to defraud the U.S. and obstruct justice.
    • According to The Guardian, Manafort met with WikiLeak’s Julian Assange around the same time he joined Trump’s campaign, and the two had met a few times before that. Both deny they ever met and no other media outlet has confirmed this story, so I’m taking this report with a grain of salt.
    • After Mueller pulls Manafort’s plea deal, Trump says Mueller’s gone rogue and is forcing witnesses to lie.
    • Rudy Giuliani brags about the arrangement with Manafort’s lawyers. He says it was a valuable source of information about the investigation of which his client is a subject.
    • Trump doesn’t rule out a pardon for Manafort.
  1. Michael Cohen enters a new plea agreement with Mueller, pleading guilty to lying about when talks with Russia about a Trump property ended. Cohen told Congress that the talks ended in January 2016, but they were still going on until June 2016. We have the texts to prove it. 
Cohen is the 33rd person charged by Mueller in the Russia probe.
  2. Cohen says he spoke with Trump and his family about the Trump Tower negotiations during that time; previously Cohen said they didn’t talk about it.
  3. The new court filings show that:
    • Cohen, Trump, Felix Sater, and Russian officials were in negotiations from January through June of 2016 for Trump to travel to Russia to meet with Putin.
    • They discussed Cohen going to Russia to negotiate the details of the visit before the Republican National Convention, and Trump going to Russia after.
    • In early to mid-June of 2016, Cohen told Sater that the trips were cancelled and that the Trump property deal was also cancelled.
    • Cohen says he lied to Congress to limit the Russia investigation and to support Trump.
    • Trump Organization offered to give Putin a $50 million penthouse in the tower.
    • Trump lied to us all when he said he didn’t have any interests in Russia.
    • Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicts Michael Cohen’s testimony.
    • Trump was kept abreast of his campaign members who were contacting both Russia and Wikileaks, and they subsequently tried to hide those activities.
  1. Rudy Giuliani first says Cohen is a liar, and then says that Trump’s written answers match Cohen’s version. So either Trump is a liar, or Cohen is telling the truth.
  2. Trump says Cohen is a liar and a weak person who’s just trying to save himself from receiving a prison sentence for unrelated charges.
  3. The revelations about Trump Tower Moscow aren’t necessarily criminal or impeachable. Trump says there was nothing wrong with him continuing to do business as a candidate. Which is technically true. However, the American public have a right to know where a presidential candidate’s financial interests stand.
  4. We now know that the final House committee reports submitted by the majority Republicans include the lies from Cohen’s and Trump Jr.’s original testimony. Committee reports submitted by minority Democrats include snippets of emails that contradict those lies. Democrats want to call Cohen back in to correct the record.
  5. As a results of this plea deal, Senate committees begin reviewing the testimony given to them.
  6. The Trump Tower Moscow deal was dissolved right around the time the Washington Post published the first article detailing the Russian hacking of the DNC servers.
  7. Republican Senator Jeff Flake demands a vote on a bill to protect Mueller, or he’ll stop voting to advance Trump’s judicial nominations to a full Senate vote. Republican Senator Mike Lee blocked a bipartisan effort to force a vote on the bill.
  8. An email trail between Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi, who pulled back on his plea deal with Mueller, shows that two months before WikiLeaks dumped Clinton campaign emails, they were discussing details about an October dump that would be damaging to Clinton.
  9. Mueller investigates call logs from the 2016 campaign where Trump made several late-night calls from a blocked number to Roger Stone.
  10. Trump cancels his meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit over Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and then says he’ll meet with Putin one-on-one. They ended up having an informal meeting.
  11. James Comey asks a federal judge to block a request from Republicans in the House that he testify in private. In the end, Comey agrees to testify behind closed doors, but a transcript of his testimony will be made public.
  12. British intelligence say that Putin was likely behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on UK soil.
  13. Democrats in the House start making a list of targets to investigate when they take back over the House next year. They’ll likely revisit the 64 subpoenas that Republicans blocked over the past year and a half.

Legal Fallout:

  1. German police raid Deutsche Bank headquarters as part of a money laundering investigation spawned by the Panama Papers. The bank was previously fined for helping to launder Russian money.
  2. The raid has no apparent ties to Trump, but after an internal investigation earlier this year, Deutsche Bank found questionable transactions by Jared Kushner, which they shared with Mueller. They were also one of the few banks willing to loan money to Trump after his financial collapses.
  3. Federal agents raid the Chicago offices of Ed Burke, who previously did tax work for Trump. We don’t know if the raid is related to Trump at all.
  4. It was a mystery to me why Facebook would launch a smear campaign against George Soros when defending themselves over personal data breaches. It turns out that Soros criticized the company at the World Economic Forum, so Sheryl Sandberg asked for information on whether Soros had something to gain from that. This led her staff to hire a GOP opposition research firm.
  5. House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) says that Ivanka’s use of personal email is OK because it’s just really hard to comply when you’re dealing with so many emails and so many rules. He says it’s nothing like Hillary’s use of a personal email server.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Mike Pence casts the tie-breaking vote when Jeff Flake refuses to advance Trump’s judicial nominee, Thomas Farr, out of committee for a floor vote. Flake didn’t refuse to advance Farr because of Farr’s long and sordid history of working to suppress the Black vote in North Carolina; Flake refused to advance him because he wants McConnell to bring the Mueller bill to the floor for a vote.
  2. Farr might have made it out of committee, but he wasn’t confirmed in the Senate. It turns out that the Black Republican in the Senate isn’t fond of judges who work to disenfranchise Black voters, so he joined Jeff Flake in voting against him.
  3. Christine Blasey Ford announces she’ll donate the remaining money raised from a GoFundMe campaign to organizations that support survivors of sexual assault. Up till now, the money went to securing and relocating her family multiple times due to threats of death and violence.
  4. New reports allege that Acting Attorney General Matt Whittaker continued his support of a patent company that was engaged in fraud while at the same time hindering an FTC investigation into that company.
  5. Whittaker is also under investigation by the Office of the Special Counsel (not to be confused with Robert Mueller) for possible Hatch Act violations for accepting political contributions while employed by the government.
  6. Bill Shine, the White House deputy communications chief, will receive about $15 million from Fox News over the next two years as severance pay and bonus. At the same time, he gets a U.S. government salary and he’s in a position to show favoritism to Fox News.

Healthcare:

  1. New enrollments for health insurance through the ACA is down 13% from last year at this time. The administration isn’t providing marketing or education for help with signing up (again).
  2. Drug overdoses reached a record high of 70,237 in 2017, largely due to fentanyl.
  3. Bloomberg’s foundation plans to donate $50 million to fight the opioid epidemic. They’ll start with a limited number of states and find out which programs are the most effective. Then they’ll put more money towards those programs in other states.
  4. The number of uninsured children increased in 2017 for the first time in a decade. Texas has the largest number of uninsured children, partly because they’re one of the states that refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA.

International:

  1. Just before Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, the Saudi Crown Prince exchanged several messages with the senior aide accused of overseeing the murder. These messages are part of what led our intelligence agencies to conclude that the Crown Prince likely ordered the killing.
  2. Even Mitch McConnell is pushing for a congressional response against Saudi Arabia in the Khashoggi case.
  3. The White House prevents CIA director Gina Haspel from briefing the Senate on Saudi Arabia. Instead, Mike Pompeo and James Mattis handle the briefing.
  4. Not only is the arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia non-binding (meaning either party can back out), but the dollar amount of the deal was inflated at Jared Kushner’s direction from $14.5 billion to $110 billion.
  5. Paris has its worst riots in 50 years. The riots started two weeks ago over a gas tax coupled with anti-Macron sentiment.
  6. Activists call Obama the ‘Drone President,‘ but Trump relaxed requirements for targets of drone strikes and has launched 30% more than Obama did in his first two years (238 drone strikes to Obama’s 186).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Democrats nominate Nancy Pelosi to be House Speaker.
  2. The Senate advances a resolution to stop providing military help to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. Fourteen Republicans vote for the resolution, and 19 switch their votes from their previous vote because of an inadequate briefing by Mattis and Pompeo and because of Khashoggi’s murder.
  3. Congress reaches a deal on a farm bill that does not include work requirements for SNAP recipients. Trump and House Republicans were pushing for those requirements.

Family Separation:

  1. There are still around 60 children in custody who were separated from their (now-deported) parents. Almost all of these children have sponsors they could be released to in the U.S. In total, 140 children who were separated from their parents or guardian are still in custody.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump tweets that Mexico should just send back everyone in the migrant caravan to whatever country they came from and by any means possible. He says again (and without evidence) that many of them are stone cold criminals.
  2. A review of global terrorism shows that violent acts motivated by far right-wing ideologies far outnumber acts of domestic terrorism acts in any other category over the past decade.
  3. A memo from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the Trump administration said it’s OK to not thoroughly vet staff at detention camps for migrant minors.
  4. Instead of releasing government documents on actual costs/benefits of undocumented immigrants, Trump retweets a false rumor that they receive $3,874 per month in assistance.
  5. The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2016 hit the lowest number in over a decade, with an estimated 10.7 million.
  6. The head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media apologizes to George Soros after they aired a program smearing Soros and using anti-Semitic tropes. The program called Soros a “non-practicing Jew of flexible morals” and said he was involved in “clandestine operations that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union.” It also said he architected the 2008 financial collapse. The program got most of it’s information from Judicial Watch, which has long sought to pin some kind of wrongdoing on Soros.
  7. Deteriorating conditions at migrant camps near the border are leading more immigrants to attempt illegal crossings so they can seek asylum. This is what the Trump administration was trying to avoid, but by trapping them at the border, the administration created the conditions that are now worsening the problem.
  8. The ACLU files a lawsuit against a Florida Sheriff’s Office that detained a U.S. citizen on ICE’s request. The man was arrested in the Keys and detained for weeks despite having a U.S. birth certificate. He was finally transported to ICE, who released him once they looked up his birth certificate. In Miami. With no money or transportation to get back to the Keys. Interesting side note: ICE has an agreement with this Sheriff’s Office to pay them $50 per detainee.
  9. The police officer who shot her black neighbor when she mistakenly walked into his apartment thinking it was her own is charged with murder.
  10. One more reason we need #MeToo. Seven hospitals agree to a settlement after they illegally billed sexual assault victims for their own forensic rape exams.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Fox News disciplines employees who were involved in crafting topics and questions with the EPA for an interview with Scott Pruitt. Fox & Friends coordinated the entire interview with Pruitt (or his aides) and Pruitt lied about the number of Superfund sites cleaned up under Obama versus under Trump.
  2. Who knew all you had to do to get out of fraud charges is to quit? The inspector general of the EPA closes two investigations into Scott Pruitt’s conduct during his time as head of the EPA because he doesn’t work there anymore.
  3. At the G20 summit in Brazil, 19 world leaders reaffirm the Paris agreement with one leader abstaining. Trump reiterates our decision to withdraw. Yay us. We affirm our strong commitment to not deal with climate change.
  4. Exxon plans to use renewable energy—wind and solar—to help power up their gas and oil drilling in Texas’s Permian Basin, an area with extensive fracking operations.
  5. Washington, D.C.’s city council votes unanimously to adopt 100% clean electricity by 2032.
  6. Patagonia announces they’ll give $10 million of what they received in corporate tax cuts this year to grassroots organizations supporting the environment.
  7. Andrew Wheeler, the acting head of the EPA, gives Trump the credit for a 2.5% reduction in carbon emissions in 2016… before Trump took office. He also says carbon emissions are down 14% since 2005. This is in no small part due to the Obama regulations this administration has worked to reverse.
  8. Wheeler can’t name three Trump rules that contributed to the decrease in emissions, (unless you include the proposed reversals of Obama emissions-reducing rules that he named).
  9. Trump approves company requests to run seismic tests in the Atlantic Ocean, which could kill tens of thousands of marine animals. Underwater seismic tests are used to locate gas and oil.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The VA has been behind on GI Bill payments to vets because of a computer glitch, and now they’re saying they won’t reimburse vets who weren’t paid the full amount owed them.
  2. Auto companies warned us last summer that the tariffs would have negative economic effects on the industry. This week, GM announces they’ll stop production at five plants and layoff over 14,000 people. They offered buyout packages to 18,000 employees in October.
    • The reasons for the cutbacks include changing their lineup to align with Americans’ changing tastes, the decimation of unions (unions used to train employees on the new skills they need to adapt), and costs related to the trade war and tariffs.
  1. Trump threatens to eliminate GM’s subsidies if they go ahead with the closures. Trump also blames the declining stock market and the Fed for the closures and layoffs.
  2. Over 40% of companies say they’ll raise prices due to the higher costs they’re incurring as a result of the trade war. 10% say the tariffs are pushing them to move jobs offshore.
  3. Even though Paul Ryan oversaw legislation that will add trillions to our debt, he says his biggest regret is that he didn’t address our federal debt.
  4. Just before the start of the G20 summit, Trump, Trudeau, and Peña Nieto sign the updated NAFTA deal. Trump says it’s the biggest trade deal ever. But of course it is.
  5. Also at the G20, Trump and Chinese President Xi come to a verbal agreement on tariffs. They basically agreed that Trump won’t add any new tariffs, China will start buying our stuff again, and the two countries will begin talks.
  6. Qatar announces it’s leaving OPEC next year so they can develop their liquified natural gas.

Elections:

  1. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith wins the Mississippi Senate race, showing once and for all why Mississippi is so far behind the rest of the country in race relations. But since it was the closest race there in 30 years, maybe that means they’re a little less racist than before. I can hope.
    • With her election, Republicans have picked up a total of three Senate seats in the midterms.
  1. Paul Ryan calls the ballot process in California bizarre and loosey-goosey after seven GOP House seats shifted to Democrats as mail-in and provisional ballots were counted. Ryan says he doesn’t question the validity of the results, though, so I guess he just wanted to be sure he planted that question mark in everyone’ heads.
  2. The Office of Special Counsel (again, not to be confused with Mueller’s office) says six Trump administration officials tweeted support for Republicans or for Trump on their government Twitter accounts. This is a violation of the Hatch Act, but not enough for disciplinary action.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Representative Raul Grijalva wrote an op-ed criticizing Ryan Zinke over his ethical scandals and saying Zinke should resign. Zinke’s response from his official Interior Department Twitter account? “It’s hard for him to think straight from the bottom of the bottle.” This country is being run by children.
  2. Trump threatens House Democrats, saying that if they play tough with him when they become the majority, he’ll declassify documents that will be “devastating” to them. He says he could’ve used those documents against them already, but he’s saving them for when he really needs to use them. A) I think that’s called extortion, and B) he doesn’t have a great track record so far of declassifying information to further his cause.
  3. Making good on a promise he made after the Las Vegas shooting, Trump says he’ll approve a federal rule banning bump stocks. Current owners will either have to destroy their bump stocks or turn them in.
  4. Eric Bauman, the chair of the California Democratic Party, resigns after accusations of sexual misconduct are publicized. An investigation is ongoing.
  5. NASA and JPL land another successful spacecraft on Mars. InSight will investigate the planet’s interior and measure Mars-quakes.
  6. And speaking of quakes, Anchorage experiences a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale (with 1,000 aftershocks). We still don’t know the extent of the damage; there are collapsed roads, buckled bridges, cracked buildings, power outages, and people are still boiling water.