Month: January 2019

Week 105 in Trump

Posted on January 28, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The shutdown has finally come to an end, at least for now; but furloughed workers and the companies they owe will take some time to recover. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this past month cost us $11 billion, $3 billion of which we won’t make back. A complete waste of time and energy. Let’s get back to the business of governing and fixing the problems of the world.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. The new Democratic governor of Maine makes good on her promise to expand Medicaid by signing an executive order that should give healthcare coverage to around 70,000 Mainers. Even though voters approved Medicaid expansion over a year ago, former governor Paul LePage refused to implement it.
  2. Also, missed from last year: The DOJ’s Office on Violence Against Women changed its definition of domestic violence. The definition was expanded under Obama and vetted by domestic violence experts. The new definition excludes psychological, mental, and emotional abuse; only felony acts can now be considered domestic violence.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. Nancy Pelosi sends Trump a letter saying she’s postponing his State of the Union address due to security concerns from the government shutdown. Trump says he’ll do it anyway… until someone tells him that Pelosi has to invite him and she can uninvited him.
    • Trump says he’ll find another venue for it, possibly the Senate or maybe a rally. And then he says he’ll postpone it until after the shutdown.
  1. Meanwhile, both sides in both chambers of Congress work on deals to end the shutdown.
  2. The House Ways and Means Committee cancels a hearing on how the shutdown is affecting American taxpayers because Steve Mnuchin refuses to appear.
  3. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross says he doesn’t understand why furloughed and unpaid federal workers are using food banks. I guess when you have over $700 million, something like this can be hard to understand.
    • Ross says “There’s no reason why some institution wouldn’t be willing to lend.” His own department’s credit union charges federal workers 9% interest on emergency loans, while other lending institutions and cities begin offering them interest-free loans.
    • Because the Trump administration rescinded Obama’s payday lending regulations, the annual interest rate for payday loans in Missouri averages over 400%.
  1. Trump says you can just talk to your grocer if you’re a furloughed worker who can’t pay their bills. And that grocer will float you until you get paid. Sure.
  2. Nancy Pelosi defends the federal workers, saying they can’t just call their fathers for money.
  3. The House has passed bills at least 11 times to reopen the government. Meanwhile, the Senate fails to pass any bills to reopen the government, even those that were introduced by majority GOP members.
  4. The White House prepares a draft declaration of national emergency for the southern border as a possible means to end the shutdown.
  5. The FAA briefly halts flights into New York’s La Guardia airport over safety concerns due to lack of air traffic control personnel. This causes flight delays across the country and especially in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Orlando, and Atlanta.
  6. 14,000 unpaid IRS employees don’t show up to work. IT staffers at the IRS are finding work elsewhere.
  7. Irony alert 1: The State Department delays its upcoming conference on border security because of the shutdown.
  8. Irony alert 2: A lack of funding because of the shutdown hampers the FBI’s ability to fight child trafficking, violent crime, and terrorism according to the FBI Agents Association.
  9. Five former Homeland Security secretaries sign a letter to Trump asking him to end the shutdown for national security reasons. The signers are John Kelly, Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, and Jeh Johnson.
  10. The most under-covered story of this shutdown seems to be the protests in DC over the shutdown. Hundreds of federal workers and supporters have been protesting in government offices for more than a week.
  11. All nine Representatives for the southern border districts say a wall isn’t the right solution. Trump’s demeaning rhetoric about migrants is pushing the area toward Democrats—only one district there is represented by a Republican.
    • Interesting side note: Trump’s rhetoric about immigration and the wall worked best for elections in states that are furthest from the wall, like Montana and North Dakota. Closer to the border, residents resent the implications.
  1. Trump and Congress reach a deal to end the shutdown for three weeks (that’s until February 15). They create a committee to negotiate a deal for DHS funding, including border security.
  2. The deal is basically the same deal that House Democrats offered all along—reopen for three weeks and negotiate border security in the interim.
  3. In his speech announcing an end to the shutdown, Trump continues to call it a wall. He doesn’t seem to understand the optics he’s created around that terminology. But he also says we don’t need 2,000 miles of concrete wall and says some can be steel slats.
    • Trump says he’d shut the government down again if needed, or declare a state of emergency.
    • He repeats the false claims that drug smugglers turn right and then make a left turn into the U.S. and that women are all taped up and trafficked over the border.
    • He claims that in the history of the WORLD it’s never been this bad.
    • He repeats false claims about gang members removed by ICE and about the number of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. He just can’t help himself from lying about this.
  1. Republicans in the Senate face much pressure from constituents. Their meetings get heated, with a bit of finger pointing (mostly at McConnell) and a lot of yelling. IMO, it’s because they aren’t leading with what they know is right on this issue.
  2. Trump promises federal workers they’ll receive their back pay very fast (the government still hasn’t completed the back pay from the 2013 shutdown).
  3. By the end of the week, the government will owe unpaid federal workers $6 billion in back pay.
  4. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the shutdown cost the U.S. taxpayers $11 billion.

Russia:

  1. Here’s a simple breakdown of where the Russia investigation stands right now—who’s been charged, who’s guilty, and how they’re related.
  2. The New York Times also has a clear breakdown of the over 100 contacts between Trump associates (including Trump himself) and Russia.
  3. Rudy Giuliani tries to walk back his previous claims that the discussions for Trump Tower Moscow were still going on into November 2016.
  4. Donald Trump Jr. states again that “we” (and by that I assume he means the Trumps) didn’t know anything about Trump Tower Moscow. He blames Michael Cohen for the whole thing. I give you exhibits a and b. There are also allegedly hundreds of pages of documents and plans.
    1. A 2013 tweet
    2. A letter of intent
  5. Michael Cohen delays his public testimony before Congress indefinitely after Trump makes vague comments that could be construed as threats of retaliation against Cohen’s family.
    • The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas him to appear before them in a closed-door hearing.
  1. Armed FBI agents raid Roger Stone’s home before dawn and arrest him on seven counts, including obstruction, lying, and witness tampering. Here are some claims in the indictment:
    • Stone communicated with the Trump campaign about the hacked emails in WikiLeaks’ possession.
    • Senior Trump campaign officials told Stone to find out more about WikiLeaks plans (WikiLeaks is “Organization 1” in the indictment).
    • Stone lied about having evidence to support these accusations, and he tried to get other witnesses to lie and withhold evidence.
    • Stone has always said (even on TV) that he had a middleman who actually contacted WikiLeaks. From this indictment it looks like there were two middlemen: “Person 1” is believed to be Jerome Corsi (confirmed by Corsi), and “Person 2” is believed to be Randy Credico.
    • After a release of hacked documents, a senior member of the Trump campaign was instructed to contact Stone to find out about any more planned releases. Stone kept this person informed of his progress. The senior member is assumed to be Steve Bannon, but this is only according to one source so far.
    • Emails and texts indicate that Stone was in frequent communication with the Trump campaign, Person 1, and Person 2 about the schedule for dumping the hacked emails as well as the content of those emails. (WaPo has a pretty thorough timeline of the messages.)
    • It was Corsi’s idea to start the rumors that Hillary is old, her memory’s bad, and she had a stroke.
    • There was a reporter who was aware of what was going on. Instead of covering it as the news it was, he or she was rooting for the emails to uncover something to destroy Hillary’s campaign.
    • After the dump of John Podesta’s emails, an associate of an unnamed senior campaign official sent Assange a message: “Well done.”
  1. Jerome Corsi says the indictment is accurate.
  2. The indictment quotes a bunch of documentary evidence supporting their charges, including emails and text messages between Stone and Person 1 and between Stone and Person 2.
  3. Stone pleads not guilty and is released on $250,000 bond. He says he’ll never make up lies against Trump, but he would be willing to testify to Mueller. Update: Whoops! He doesn’t plead not guilty until the following week.
  4. Stone is a decades-long advisor to Trump. He started his misinformation techniques on the Nixon campaign and has a tattoo of Nixon on his back.
  5. A Kiev court rules that the pro-Russian politician that Paul Manafort lobbied for, former President Viktor Yanukovych, committed treason. Yanukovych invited Russia to invade Ukraine, and has been accused of working for Russia, not Ukraine, while in office. He gets a 13-year prison sentence.
  6. Manafort has a court hearing over his alleged breach of his plea deal. The judge says she needs more information, and schedules a closed-door hearing for the first week of February.
  7. The Trump administration officially lifts the sanctions against Oleg Deripaska’s companies.
  8. It’s been three months since we determined that Russia violated the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, but the Trump administration still hasn’t imposed the required sanctions as punishment for it.

Healthcare:

  1. The Department of Health and Human Services releases their changes to health insurance guidelines for 2020. If enacted, these changes are expected to increase premiums for ACA and employer plans, cut subsidies, and raise prescription costs.
    • The HHS says this will drop hundred of thousands of people off their insurance.
    • And I quote: “The savings to the Treasury are consistent with the idea that consumers would have to pay more.”
  1. The Massachusetts attorney general sues Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family who own it. The lawsuit alleges that they’re responsible for deceptive sales tactics for OxyContin. The AG accuses the family of engineering the opioid crisis.
  2. New York passes a bill to update their outdated abortion laws to protect and expand abortion rights in the state. It expands allowances for abortions after 24 weeks to include cases where the fetus is no longer viable and where the woman’s health is at risk (previously it only included when her life is at risk.) The bills also remove abortion from the criminal code and move it to the health code.
    • Pro-choice activists cheer the changes to the law law. Pro-life activists say the law allows abortion right up to birth. (It doesn’t. Also, just 1.4% of abortions occur after 21 weeks.)
  1. A state judge rules that Iowa’s fetal heartbeat abortion law is unconstitutional. It’s one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bans, as the heartbeat can be detected as early as 6 weeks in some cases.
  2. Washington state declares a state of emergency due to a measles outbreak. There are 35 confirmed cases, and measles can be fatal in young children and older people with lowered immunity. Measles was considered to be eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, but has seen a resurgence after some people stopped vaccinating their kids.

International:

  1. In the middle of U.S. trade negotiations with China, China grants Ivanka’s company preliminary approval for five new patents.
  2. The Taliban attacks a military base, killing dozens of Afghanistan intelligence agents. Taliban insurgents control over half of Afghanistan, but American, Afghan, and Taliban negotiators say they’re closing in on a truce.
  3. The U.S. officially quits UNESCO. Trump made the announcement last year, just as UNESCO was cleaning up most of the issues the U.S. had with the organization.
  4. After Nicolas Maduro announces he’s won the country’s presidential election, opposition leader Juan Guaidó says he won and even has his own swearing in.
    • The U.S. and most Latin American countries recognize Guaidó as the interim president and urge Maduro to give up power.
    • Maduro, in turn, gives U.S. diplomats 72 hours to leave. They refuse to leave.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Republicans are working to shorten the length of time the Senate can spend debating a presidential nomination.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Supreme Court decides not to take up Trump’s DACA case for now, so Dreamers get another reprieve while the DACA program remains in place.
  2. But then…in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court allows Trump’s ban on transgender troops serving in the military to go into effect while the lower courts figure it out.
  3. The U.S. denies one of the stars of Roma, a 10-time Oscar nominated film, the visas needed to travel to the U.S. for the Oscars. Jorge Guerrero is a Mexican actor who’s been denied visas three times, despite letters from producers confirming his invitations. This isn’t the first time artists have been denied visas. Several South by Southwest artists were denied visas in 2017 after the initial Muslim ban.
  4. U.S. officials begin sending asylum seekers at the southern border back to Mexico to await the processing of their cases.
  5. The federal government issues a waiver that allows federally funded foster care agencies in South Carolina to deny services to same-sex or non-Christian couples.
  6. New York passes legislation to support Dreamers by allowing undocumented students to apply for assistance for college and by letting undocumented families take advantage of college savings programs. The bill also creates a college scholarship fund.
  7. The Trump Organization starts firing undocumented workers at its country clubs in New York. This is likely a reaction to a New York Times article that exposed them for not only hiring undocumented workers, but for also assisting these workers in obtaining false documents.
  8. Japan’s Supreme Court upholds a law that says if someone wants to change their gender on official documents, they must have their reproductive organs removed.
  9. Court records show that the police officer who led an investigation into a violent clash between anti-fascists and neo-Nazis in California focused his investigation on the anti-fascists.
    • The officer recommended charges be filed against 100 anti-fascists and against none of the neo-Nazis.
    • The officer researched the political leanings of the anti-fascists and not the neo-Nazis.
    • The officer considered the sticks for the flags carried by anti-fascists to be weapons; but then said that the sticks for the flags carried by the neo-Nazis weren’t weapons.
  1. In addition to the governor of Kansas reinstating protections for LGBTQ government workers, the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan do the same. Florida’s governor, on the other hand, omits LGBTQ people from an executive order on diversity in government.
  2. New York votes to ban conversion therapy for gay minors.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Under the Trump administration, civil penalties against polluters drop to their lowest level since 1994. And that’s not because companies stopped polluting.
  2. A Swedish teenage climate activist inspires youth rallies across Europe to bring attention to the lack of action on climate change. At Davos, she says:
    “Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
  3. 73% of Americans now believe that climate change is real, an increase of 10 percentage points over 2015. But it’s also about the same as 2009. We’ve literally gotten nowhere on this.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Furloughed and unpaid government workers will still be counted in the January jobs report as employed. Contractors who lost work because of the shutdown are considered unemployed for the jobs report.
  2. The Los Angeles teachers strike ends. Here’s what they get:
    • Smaller class sizes.
    • A nurse in every school, plus more counselors and librarians.
    • Steps against charter schools (privatization was a major issue of the strike).
    • Concessions on demands around immigrant rights, racial profiling, and green spaces at schools.
  1. Teachers are reviving the use of the strike as a worker weapon, something that’s been in decline for a while.
  2. More teacher strikes are on the horizon. Denver, Oakland, and Virginia teachers are talking about it.
  3. Union membership is at just 10.5%, down from 20.1% in 1983. The decline of unions is one of the causes for wage stagnation.
  4. The National Association of Business Economics finds that the 2017 tax reform bill hasn’t had a major impact on business investment or hiring plans.
  5. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross says that China and the U.S. are miles and miles away from ending the trade war.

Elections:

  1. Another state lawmaker changes party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. This time it’s San Diego Assemblymen Brian Maienschei, who says it’s partly because of Trump and partly because he’s changed.
  2. A judge in North Carolina denies Republican Mark Harris’s request to certify his election to Congress. His narrowly won election is still under dispute due to accusations of voter fraud and illegal ballot harvesting.
  3. A federal court decides on new district maps for Virginia’s House of Delegates districts. The maps would move the districts in favor of Democrats, which is no surprise since the gerrymandered lines were put in place by GOP legislatures.
  4. Even though ex-felons who’ve served their time can get their voting rights reinstated, several are saddled with incredible debt and owe restitution that they can’t afford. States are arguing right now whether to reinstate voting rights with or without full payment of restitution.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A 21-year-old man shoots and kills five people in a bank in Sebring, FL.
  2. Another 21-year-old man shoots and kills one man in a Pennsylvania bar and injures two others (one of whom later dies from his wounds). The shooter then breaks into a home and kills the homeowner and then himself.
  3. And yet another 21-year-old man shoots and kills five people in Louisiana, including his parents his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s father and brother. He’s later arrested in Virginia.
  4. A new report from the Anti-Defamation League finds that there were at least 50 extremist-related killings in the U.S. last year, and that every one of those was linked to at least one extreme right-wing movement (although one had switched to Islamic extremism). White supremacists were responsible for most killings.
  5. Jared Kushner’s security clearance was rejected by two career security specialists, but their supervisor, Carl Kline, overruled them. Kushner was one of at least 30 people in the administration for whom Kline overrode security clearance rejections.
  6. When Kushner’s security clearance request was bumped up to the CIA for the super-classified “sensitive compartmented information” (SCI) clearance, CIA officers called the White House security division to find out how Kushner ever got his original lower-level clearance.
  7. Trump says that he told Sarah Huckabee Sanders to stop having press briefings. SHS justifies this by saying reporters were just trying to make themselves into stars.
  8. Over the previous weekend, a viral video appeared to show students from an all-boys Catholic school mocking and disrespecting a Native American elder after the March for Life. This week, Twitter suspends the account apparently responsible for making the video go viral, calling it a fake account. (There are many interpretations of the hours and hours of video, and I’m not going to wade into that controversy. We’re all seeing it differently.)

Polls:

  1. Trump’s aggregated approval rating after the shutdown is around 39.4%.
  2. Trump’s losing his fight against the media:
    • Voters trust CBS more than him by 52% to 38%.
    • They trust NBC and the Washington Post more than him by 51% to 38%.
    • They trust ABC and the New York Times more than him by 51% to 39%.
    • They even trust CNN more than him by 49% to 39%.

Things Politicians Say:

“I am afraid it will be on my gravestone. ‘Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.’”

~Rudy Giuliani, to The New Yorker

Trump has a “revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons — who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia.”

~Chris Christie, in Let Me Finish

Week 104 in Trump

Posted on January 22, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Tijuana, Mexico--where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean and people sit on the fence and dream. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

I’m so not ready for this… the 2020 campaign season is already starting, with a bunch of Democrats declaring a presidential run. And that means that the disinformation campaigns are already out in force. So please remember to check your facts and don’t believe everything you hear. Here’s some advice for trolls that’s circulating on 4Chan to make Democrats sound conflicted or negative about Elizabeth Warren:

“Pose as a concerned Democrat and criticize her for being white,” one wrote. “Criticize her for being a woman. Do whatever it takes to further divide the left and prevent them from unifying behind a candidate for 2020. If we can manufacture another Bernie/Hillary split, they’ll get crushed in the general election.”

Here’s what really happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In late December, Trump signed an executive order that expands logging on public lands. The EO also orders the clearing of underbrush on 4 million acres and treating pests on another 1.5 million acres. Trump says this will help prevent forest fires, but experts say this is only useful when done near homes. The EO could mean a 30% increase for the logging industry.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. Here’s some fallout from the shutdown this week:
    • The Federal Aviation Administration calls back furloughed safety inspectors to work without pay. The IRS does the same with its employees, and the FDA brings back food safety inspectors (without pay). U.S. Fish and Wildlife bring back some workers so people can hunt on wildlife refuges.
    • The Coast Guard becomes the first branch of the armed services to not get paid.
    • FBI agents are now working without pay.
    • The SEC stops processing initial public offerings.
    • The NTSB suspends investigations of fatal accidents.
    • The State Department is calling furloughed diplomats to come back to work without pay.
    • Trump’s economists double their estimation of how much economic growth is being lost each week of the shutdown.
    • Some states begin allowing federal workers who are working but not being paid to receive unemployment benefits. The Trump administration has said these workers don’t qualify for benefits.
    • Over 40,000 immigration hearings have been cancelled due to the shutdown. Immigrants who miss their hearings are being given new dates years from now.
    • Businesses are doing their part to help furloughed workers by helping them to delay payments and reorganize loans, and by providing free services and free food.
    • The NY Met gives free tickets to furloughed workers to see their performances.
  1. A federal judge denies requests from federal employees and unions 1) to require that air traffic controllers be paid, and 2) that employees who are essential shouldn’t be forced to work without pay.
  2. The House passes a package to reopen the government, and, for the third time this year, Mitch McConnell block bills to reopen the government in the Senate.
  3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it’s Democrats fault that Trump had to feed the Clemson Tigers champion football team fast food.
  4. Nancy Pelosi sends Trump a letter saying they need to postpone the State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends due to security concerns. The White House asks Mitch McConnell if he can invite them to do it in the Senate instead.
  5. In apparent retaliation, Trump postpones Pelosi’s congressional delegation (codel) trip where Pelosi planned to visit NATO officials in Brussels and then troops in Afghanistan. The codel was already on a bus on the way to the plane and Capitol Police already had their people on the ground in Europe awaiting their arrival.
  6. Trump orders that government officials can’t use military planes until the shutdown is over. Then he sends Melania to Mar-a-Lago on a military plane.
  7. Trump says Pelosi and her group can take a commercial flight if she wants. Recent history note: Trump took an official plane to Iraq during the shutdown.
  8. Pelosi says she’s now postponing even their commercial flight abroad because Trump took divulged the codel’s travel plans to the public.
  9. Nearly 400 immigrants tunneled under a border wall in Arizona and present themselves to border patrol agents for asylum.
  10. While border crossings are down, family units now makes up 80% of apprehensions. And they’re mostly seeking asylum.
  11. Trump starts telling stories about women trafficked over the border who’s mouths are taped with electrical tape. He morphs the story to include multiple kinds of tape and body parts. People who work with anti-trafficking NGOs at the border say it’s possible, but they haven’t seen it.
  12. Trump offers Democrats a three-year reprieve for people currently protected by DACA and TPS, saying he won’t try to deport them during that time if they fund his wall. Soooo he tried to take away DACA and TPS, and now he says he’ll give them back if Democrats give him the wall. Again, the courts have struck down his actions on DACA and TPS, so they’re currently protected by the courts.
    • Conservative pundits call this amnesty. To be clear, this is not what amnesty looks like.
  1. Here’s where Pelosi says Democrats want border funding to go toward:
    • Increased infrastructure investments at our ports of entry including additional ports and roads;
    • Advanced technology to scan for drugs, weapons and contraband and to detect unauthorized crossings;
    • More customs personnel including filling the more than 3,000 customs and border patrol vacancies; and
    • More immigration judges.
  1. The House cancels January recess in order to deal with the shutdown.
  2. The DOJ hires two lawyers likely to deal with issues of eminent domain at the border.

Russia:

  1. Mueller’s team subpoenas three new Jerome Corsi associates to testify before the grand jury. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Corsi himself.
  2. Both Mueller and Manhattan prosecutors are investigating a breakfast event held at the Trump International Hotel in DC two days before Trump’s inauguration. In attendance were Michael Flynn, Devin Nunes, and several foreign diplomats.
  3. The House votes to overturn the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on a company that Oleg Deripaska has a stake in. 57 Senators, including 11 Republicans, also vote to keep sanctions, but it falls short of the 60 votes required to overturn the decision.
    • Under the Treasury decision, Deripaska must reduce his stake in two companies and the other sanctions against him remain. But a binding and signed document shows that it allows Deripaska to get rid of $100s of millions in debt and for him and his associates to retain a large share of ownership.
    • The primary company involved is a major aluminum producer, and the sanctions are hurting American companies.
    • With an overwhelming majority, the House passes a resolution of disapproval for rolling back the sanctions.
  1. Last year, I refrained from reporting on Anastasia Vashukevich, who says she was Deripaska’s mistress and that she has tapes of him bragging about how Russia stole our 2016 elections. She was subsequently arrested in Thailand on charges of prostitution. So I was waiting to see what would come of this, if anything. This week, Thailand releases her and deports her to Belarus… with a layover in Moscow where officials there arrest her at the airport in dramatic fashion.
  2. BuzzFeed releases a report that starts out with a bang but quickly fizzles. (Note that I don’t typically use BuzzFeed as a source, but the story generated a lot of buzz, so I figured it was newsworthy.)
    • BuzzFeed reports that Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations to hide Trump’s involvement.
    • Trump’s legal team reaches out to Mueller’s office about this.
    • Mueller’s office disputes parts of the reporting, but not the substance. This is important because his office rarely jumps in with statements on news stories. They issue this statement:
      “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
    • BuzzFeed stands by their story, but they’re also working to learn what specific parts Mueller’s team is disputing.
    • If the reporting turns out to be right, it would mean Donald Jr. perjured himself during his testimony to Congress.
  1. Rudy Giuliani says Trump and Cohen were discussing building a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout 2016, possibly into November.
  2. Giuliani also admits that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but he maintains that Trump did not. He later says he doesn’t know if there was any collusion.
  3. Cohen’s testimony before Congress next month will be limited so as not to interfere with Mueller’s investigation. So if you were expecting the full scoop, you’re not going to get it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A new report from the Inspector General for the General Services Administration says that GSA officials chose to ignore the constitution’s anti-corruption clauses when they continued leasing the Old Post Office Building to the Trump International Hotel after Trump took office.
    • An example of why this is an issue: Last year when T-Mobile needed approval from the Trump administration for a merger, nine T-Mobile executives booked rooms at the hotel with one of them staying there at least 10 times.
  1. Michael Cohen confirms that he paid a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump’s favor during the 2016 elections. He also says this was “at the direction of and the sole benefit of” Trump. I don’t think this is illegal, but it is ironic given that Trump kept complaining about how rigged the polls are.
    • Fun fact: Cohen also used this company to promote himself as a sex symbol on Twitter.
  1. Court filings show that Paul Manafort attempted to fill Trump’s administration with his allies, but it’s not clear how successful he was.

Courts/Justice:

  1. William Barr, who’s currently being evaluated for confirmation as Attorney General, once said that the DOJ might need some “political supervision.” He thinks that we went too far in pushing the DOJ to be independent following Watergate.
    • Barr doesn’t say he wouldn’t jail journalists if they report on things that “might hurt the country.”
    • Barr says it’s vitally important that Mueller be able to complete his investigation, but he refuses to recuse himself even though he has expressed opinions on the case previously without full knowledge of the evidence obtained so far.
    • It takes Trump by surprise to learn during Barr’s testimony that Barr has been friends and colleagues with Mueller for 30 years. I would’ve thought that would come out in the vetting process. Was there a vetting process?
    • Unlike Jeff Sessions, Barr says he won’t go after marijuana sales in states where it’s legal.
  1. A district judge says Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes must answer questions for a court case in writing, but denies a request to make them sit for depositions. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department last year over the handling of missing emails. Rice and Rhodes will answer questions about the talking points used after the Benghazi attacks. Because that hasn’t been investigated enough yet.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge issues a nationwide injunction against Trump’s attempted rollback of the ACA’s birth-control mandate. Just previous to that, a different judge blocked the rule for several states just hours before it was to take effect.
    • If successful, Trump’s rollback would let employers avoid providing contraceptive coverage as part of the insurance policies they offer to their employees. Under the ACA, they must provide this at no cost.
  1. WHO issues a list of the top 10 most significant health issues facing us today (in no particular order):
    • Air pollution and climate change
    • Noncommunicable diseases (like heart disease, cancer, diabetes)
    • A global flu pandemic
    • Fragile and vulnerable settings (caused by things like drought, famine, and war)
    • Antimicrobial resistance to existing treatments
    • Weak primary healthcare
    • Anti-vaccination movements
    • High-threat pathogens (like Zika, Ebola, and SARS)
    • Dengue fever
    • HIV
  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that stopped Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood. In the original case, Texas tried to oust Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid program based on the videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood workers discussing illegal sales of fetal material. This doesn’t reverse the ruling, but instead throws the ball back into the original judge’s court and forces him to use a different standard to review the case.
  2. The Senate fails to get the 60 votes needed to pass a bill that would permanently ban federal funding for abortions and place new restrictions on abortions.

International:

  1. Trump has privately and repeatedly pushed withdrawing from NATO. At the NATO summit last summer, he told his national security officials that he didn’t see the point of the coalition. Both Jim Mattis and John Bolton spent the summit scrambling to make sure there was no mention of a withdrawal.
  2. Turkish President Erdogan says Trump called him up and said that he’s still going to withdraw troops from Syria.
  3. The UK Parliament fails to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal with a vote of 432 to 202, a huge defeat for her government.
    • As a result, May faces a vote of no confidence, which she wins.
    • The official Brexit due date is March 29. May can try to ask the EU for more concessions, but they’ve drawn a firm line.
    • It’s possible this will lead to another vote on Brexit, but it’s not clear that if voters decide to NOT Brexit that it wouldn’t happen anyway.
    • Parliament could amend the EU Withdrawal Act to force May to request an Article 50 extension on the Brexit deadline if there is no agreement on an exit plan.
  1. An explosion in Syria kills two U.S. troops and two civilians, with the Islamic State claiming responsibility. Just a few weeks ago, Trump said ISIS was defeated and we’re pulling troops out of Syria.
    • On the day of the explosion, Mike Pence states that “the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”
    • Brett McGurk, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, says that Trump’s choice to withdraw troops is giving IS fighters new life.
  1. Trump plans another North Korea summit with Kim Jong Un in February. A new report claims there are at least 20 previously undisclosed ballistic missile sites in North Korea.
  2. The Trump administration rejects a deal with Russia to keep the Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is intended to contain nuclear arms proliferation. They say there’s no way to verify Russia is keeping their end of the deal. This sets the stage for a six-month withdrawal from the treaty starting next month.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Three GOP Members of Congress have either had their committee assignments stripped or won’t get any assignments due to misconduct:
    • Steve King: Stripped of assignments due to racist comments.
    • Duncan Hunter: Indicted (when elected)
    • Chris Collins: Indicted (when elected)

Family Separation:

  1. An audit finds that the Trump administration has separated thousands more children than was publicly known. They started separating families over six months before they announced it, and they didn’t track those families. So we don’t know exactly how many, where the parents or children are, or whether they’ve been reunited.
    • The first separations started no later than October of 2017; Jeff Sessions didn’t announce the policy until May of 2018.
    • The separations continued after Trump ended the policy in June of 2018 (largely due to a court order).
    • Amnesty International estimates 8,000 “family units” were separated. I’m not sure what they mean by family unit.
  1. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asks the FBI to open an investigation into whether Kirstjen Nielsen lied under oath to Congress when she said that the administration never had a policy for family separation.
  2. Merkley gave NBC News a draft of a 2017 memo from the DHS and DOJ that describes plans to separate families, to deport minors and deny them asylum hearings, and to force asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in Mexico instead of the U.S.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A judge blocks the Commerce Department from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and rakes Secretary Wilbur Ross over the coals in his ruling. He says Ross and his aides broke a “smorgasbord” of federal rules, cherry-picked facts, twisted evidence, hid their deliberations, and lied under oath.
  2. The Pentagon extends the mission of the troops assisting DHS along the border through September. There are about 2,300 troops still at the border, down from 5,900.
  3. The Virginia Senate ratifies the ERA (yes, this is still a thing). If the GOP-led House of Delegates follows suit, we’ll have enough state ratifications to finally ratify it. Interesting history note: The original draft of the amendment was created almost 100 years ago, in 1921. Can we get this done already? We shouldn’t need to!
  4. The House passes a resolution nearly unanimously condemning white supremacy and white nationalism. Even Steve King, at whom the resolution is directed, voted for it. The lone nay vote, Democrat Bobby Rush, doesn’t think the wording is strong enough.
  5. While Representative Tony Cárdenas was speaking on the House floor, a Republican representative yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” The congressman later called Cárdenas to apologize and said he wasn’t addressing him, he was referring to the Democratic contingent that had a retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year. At the time, the House was trying to pass a continuing resolution to reopen nine departments.
  6. Hundreds of thousands show up across the country for the third annual Women’s March. The marches have gotten smaller each year, and this year the National March in DC was marred by accusations of anti-Semitism.
  7. New York bans gay conversation therapy, and adds gender identity and gender expression to their anti-discrimination laws.
  8. The new Democratic governor of Kansas reinstates protections for LGBTQ state employees.
  9. The Trump Organization received at least 192 visas for foreign workers last year. That’s the highest number since 2008.

Climate/EPA:

  1. On top of learning earlier this month that the oceans are warming waaaay faster than we thought, now we learn that the Antarctic is now losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 80s. It’s gone from 40 billion tons a year to 252 billion tons.
  2. The U.S. is increasing oil and gas drilling faster than any other nation, even though scientists say we have just 11 years to sort out this whole climate change thing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) becomes the first woman and the first African American to chart the Financial Services Committee in the House.
  2. Los Angeles County teachers strike for higher wages and an increase in staffing levels. They’re trying to bring attention to the needs of public schools.
  3. Our six biggest banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs) made $100 billion in profit last year. That’s a first, it’s expected to grow when 4th quarter numbers come in, and it’s due to the tax cuts.
  4. The Trump administration refuses to extend emergency food assistance to Puerto Rico, calling it “excessive and unnecessary.”
  5. Economists worry that the extended shutdown could push us into a contraction. A contraction starts when there are two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
  6. Economic growth was already slowing in the last quarter of 2018, with downward pressures including the trade war with China, the fading effects of the $1.5 trillion tax cut, and slower global growth in general. The government shutdown is expected to slow it further.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge blocks parts of the lame duck bills passed in Wisconsin aimed at disenfranchising typically Democratic voters. The judge blocks attempts to curb early voting, to limit the use of student IDs, and to limit the use of receipts for people with exceptional barriers to getting IDs.
  2. McConnell accuses Democrats of encouraging voter fraud and trying to swing elections toward one party with their sweeping election reform bill. His exact words are “power grab” and “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party.”
    • There’s a general summary of the bill here (under Legislation): http://cjrules.com/week-102-in-trump/
    • The point of the bill is to make sure every citizen can vote and none are disenfranchised from their right to vote. So I guess if more people voting swings elections toward one party…
  1. New York passes election reform bills to allow early voting, preregistration of minors (so they’re able to vote upon turning 18), and voting by mail.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump officials reverse an Obama-era safety rule (this is so commonplace that it isn’t even news). This rule required trains that carry flammable material (like oil) to install special brakes to reduce the risk of derailment and explosion. The move was proposed just over a year ago, right around the time the Amtrak train derailed in Washington.
  2. A federal judge finds four women guilty after they enter a national park and leave food and water for immigrants crossing the border. The charges include entering a national refuge without a permit, driving a vehicle in a national refuge, and leaving things behind in a national refuge.
  3. Ouch. Betsy DeVos breaks her pelvis and hip socket in a biking accident.

Polls:

  1. 57% of American voters say they’ll definitely vote against Trump in 2020.
    • 30% say they’ll vote for Trump in 2020.
    • 13% say they have no idea who they’ll vote for.
  1. 72% of federal workers oppose the shutdown, with 64% strongly opposed.
    • 21% support the shutdown, with 14% strongly supporting.
  1. 56% of federal workers oppose building the wall, with 45% strongly opposed.
    • 34% support building the wall, with 25% strongly supporting.

Week 103 in Trump

Posted on January 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

A fence or a wall? Both are designed to separate, both disrupt migration for both people and animals. Is one better than the other?

Poor Mick Mulvaney. He was just trying to help. When Trump was negotiating with Congressional leaders over the budget for the wall, Mulvaney attempted to find middle ground by proposing that both sides give a little. Trump didn’t really like that much, and said, “You just fucked it all up, Mick.”

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Last week I reported that Ford scrapped plans to build a plant in Mexico in favor of expanding U.S. operations. I was wrong. This story was from two years ago, before Trump took office. This rumor recirculated when Donald Trump, Jr. retweeted a two-year-old story.
  2. Trump starts off a meeting with Members of Congress over the shutdown with 15 minutes of profanity-laced talk about impeachment. He also says he prefers to call it a “strike” and not a “shutdown.” (from the Wall Street Journal)
  3. It took two weeks after shutting down for the administration to realize that a shutdown would cause 38 million Americans to loose SNAP benefits and that, without continued HUD assistance, thousands of people could be evicted.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. After requesting $5.7 billion for the wall and spurning Mike Pence’s negotiations to find a middle ground, Trump ups the ante and asks for $7 billion.
  2. A group of Senate Republicans work on a deal to reopen the government, but Trump shoots that one down too.
  3. The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, calls on Trump and Congress to end the shutdown.
  4. Last week I gave a link to a summary of the misrepresentations and lies being told about the border and illegal crossings. Well, the lies continue this week, so here’s another helpful explainer.
  5. Trump holds a televised address from the Oval Office to talk about immigration policies, the wall, and the shutdown. Network stations agree to carry the address, even though they refused to air Obama’s speech on immigration policy because it was too political.
    • Fact checkers abound, but it’s not really necessary because he doesn’t say anything we haven’t already heard before.
    • Following the Oval Office address, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer give a rebuttal.
    • The address doesn’t change anyone’s mind, according to polls. But more people are now blaming Trump and Republican lawmakers than they were before. Which is weird because those earlier polls were before Democrats officially took back the House.
    • Trump tells TV anchors in an off-the-record lunch that he doesn’t really want to give the Oval Office address nor does he want to visit the border in Texas. His advisors talked him into it.
  1. A second federal employees union sues the Trump administration over the shutdown. The named plaintiff in the case is a Customs and Border Patrol officer. In a similar suit brought against Obama’s administration during the 2013 shutdown, the court took the side of federal workers.
  2. Trump storms out of a border security meeting with Democratic leaders. Trump says Democrats refused to negotiate; Democrats say Trump threw a temper tantrum.
  3. The Coast Guard Support Program advises furloughed Coast Guard employees to have garage sales or become mystery shoppers to help make ends meet. The program warns that bankruptcy is the last option. Jeez… I hope the government isn’t going to bankrupt any of its employees.
  4. Despite claiming hundreds of times (at least 212 just on the campaign trail) that Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump now says he never meant that Mexico would directly pay for the wall. Historical note: His campaign website featured a memo at one point suggesting that Mexico would pay a one-time fee of $5-$10 billion.
  5. Trump cancels his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland because of the shutdown. He blames Democrats, though—and I can’t say this enough—the shutdown happened under full Republican control.
  6. The first federal workers start missing their paychecks, and around 1,000 of them start GoFundMe accounts. Restaurants start offering them free meals. By the end of the week, there are over 10,000 GoFundMe accounts.
    • Interesting bit of shutdown history: Government workers are still waiting for back pay from the 2013 shutdown, and the government doesn’t even know how much they owe.
  1. The House passes bills to reopen parts of the government, but Mitch McConnell refuses to bring them to a vote in the Senate. Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid did the same thing in 2013.
  2. Around 100 landowners near the border have received letters from the government requesting access to their land for surveying for the wall. This is the first step in the process of eminent domain.
    • The landowners promise a legal battle to stop the land grab. It’s worth noting that lawsuits from use of eminent domain related to the 2006 Secure Fences Act are still being fought in court.
  1. Another migrant caravan is organizing in Honduras, and Mexico is preparing a strategy to manage them. Trump says the only thing that will stop them is a big wall, though CBP has done a pretty good job of stopping the current caravan.
    • The number of people coming in caravans represents a minuscule proportion of the total number of border apprehensions. But caravans are cheaper and safer than coyotes, so they might become the new norm.
  1. Donald Trump Jr. posts on Instagram comparing the wall to the “walls” that separate animals and people at the zoo. First, is he comparing migrants to animals? And second, if the animals are separated from us by walls, how can we see them?
  2. The shutdown becomes the longest in history.
  3. Trump reiterates his desire to declare a national emergency and use funds earmarked for other purposes for the wall. Also, Border apprehensions are at some of the lowest levels in decades.
  4. Trump considers using FEMA disaster relief funds (that is, those tagged for Puerto Rico, Florida, the Carolinas, and so on) to pay for his wall.
  5. Trump and his advisors think if they declare an emergency, it would reopen the government but the declaration of emergency would be stuck in the courts for so long, that it might never actually happen. So the government would reopen and Trump could save face.
  6. The DOJ furloughs 5,000 intelligence analysts, special agents, lawyers, and other employees. They also freeze funds for ongoing investigations.
  7. The Mayors of McAllen, TX, and its sister city across the border, Reynosa, oppose building a wall between the two cities. The two mayors often work together on initiatives to improve both cities. Also, McAllen is rated the 7th safest city in the U.S., according to FBI statistics. Trump just visited the border there to gin up support for the wall.
  8. GoFundMe says they’ll refund all the donors who donated a collective $20 million to go toward building the wall. The creator of the GoFundMe account had originally said all the money collected would go to the government to help build the wall, but he has since created a non-profit where he wants to direct the funds. His plan is to start building the wall himself, but that goes against his original GoFundMe mission.
  9. Nine Republican Senators introduce a bill that would put an end to government shutdowns, including the current one.
  10. Trump orders many of the activities that were prohibited under previous shutdowns to resume. Those include processing tax refunds, SNAP, mortgage processing, flood insurance programs, and national parks.
    • However, the FDA stops routine inspections of food-processing plants.
  1. The mortgage industry lobbies to restart the IRS’s income verification service so that loans can be processed. Trump complies.
  2. Mexican officials discover another tunnel under the border. This is the third tunnel they’ve found this month, adding more questions about how effective a wall would be.
  3. Kevin Hassett, the chief economic adviser, says furloughed workers are better off because of the shutdown. They didn’t have to use any vacation days to get time off over the holidays.
  4. Trump tweets misleading crime statistics for undocumented immigrants, citing numbers up to three times higher than they actually are. Now’s a good time for a reminder that crime rates for immigrants, documented or otherwise, are lower than crime rates for native-born Americans.
  5. It turns out that this shutdown was at the urging of Freedom Caucus Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. The Tea Party is just the gift that keeps on giving. It completely took Mitch McConnell and a few others by surprise, because they thought they had a deal to avoid this.
  6. McConnell, Ryan, and McCarthy all warned Trump against the shutdown, yet none of the three did anything to stop it. And McConnell and Ryan had the power to override it.
  7. A passenger was able to board a flight from Atlanta to Tokyo carrying a firearm. That’s a pretty good argument for ending the shutdown and letting TSA workers get back to doing their jobs.
  8. A group of Democrats catch flack from the right for heading to Puerto Rico during the weekend to attend a retreat, which includes the opening of Hamilton there. I’m torn—part of the reason for the opening is to support Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts, so it’s not all play.

Russia:

  1. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indict Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (of Trump Tower meeting fame) for obstructing a money laundering investigation. This isn’t tied to the Trump Tower case, but it confirms her ties to Russian government officials.
  2. Mueller interviewed Blackwater’s Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos’s brother) about meetings with Russians in the Seychelles two years ago. This week, Prince says he’d rather have a proctology exam than sit down with Mueller’s team.
  3. A (Trump-appointed) federal judge scolds Russian company Concord Management, which was charged by Mueller. The judge says their brief was inappropriate, unprofessional, and ineffective. The brief quoted the movie Animal House. One of their previous briefs quoted Casablanca.
  4. The Supreme Court refuses to vacate a lower-court order forcing a foreign-owned corporation to comply with a subpoena in the Russia investigation.
  5. It seems Manafort’s lawyers accidentally reveal collusion (by Manafort, not by Trump). They fail to thoroughly black out redacted information in a court filing, and reporters were easily able to see the redacted text by copying and pasting the PDF.
    • The filing shows that one of the things Mueller thinks Manafort lied about was that he shared Trump campaign polling data with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik (who’s also criminally charged in the Russia investigation).
    • Mueller accuses Manafort of lying about a text message asking if someone could use Manafort’s name to get an “in” with Trump.
    • The filing also shows that Manafort and Kilimnik talked about a Ukraine peace plan, something Manafort previously denied. In 2016, the Trump campaign altered the GOP platform to block a provision for the U.S. to arm Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Michael Cohen has also confirmed work on a Ukraine peace plan that would benefit Russia.
    • There are three more breaches of the plea agreement that are not yet public.
  1. A new report says that Mueller’s office has spoken with Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio.
  2. Steve Mnuchin briefs House committee leaders on why the administration plans to lift sanctions on Russian companies associated with Oleg Deripaska, who’s implicated in Russia’s meddling in our 2016 elections. Democrats complain that most of the information they got was unclassified and that Mnuchin gave them little information. They call for a delay in dropping the sanctions.
  3. Michael Cohen will give public testimony to the House Oversight Committee next week.
  4. We learn that FBI counterintelligence opened an investigation into Trump following the firing of James Comey. They were looking into whether Trump was working on behalf of the Russian government against American interests (either with knowledge or unwittingly).
    • Even though they became suspicious during the 2016 campaign, the FBI hesitated to open the case, unsure how to handle such an unprecedented situation.
    • We don’t know if the investigation is still ongoing.
  1. Trump confiscated the interpreter notes from his Hamburg meeting with Putin, and now we have no reliable record of what was discussed. Democrats discuss subpoenaing the interpreter, which is dicey since they’re supposed to keep their info confidential.
  2. In case you were wondering whether Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin’s plans to infiltrate the NRA were sanctioned by the Russian government, it turns out that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed off on it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses oral arguments for the first time in 25 years while she’s at home recovering from lung surgery. She’s out all week recovering, and Trump and Republican lawmakers start talking about how they’ll be able to seat another conservative judge. Morbid.
  2. Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department if and when a new attorney general is confirmed. Other sources say Rosentstein will stay until the Mueller investigation is complete. He’s not being forced out.
  3. An appeals courts rules that politicians can’t block people on social media. This echoes a similar case against Trump, where it was ruled that he can’t block people on Twitter.
  4. William Barr, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General begins speaking with members of the Senate Judicial Committee, or at least Republican members.
    • At first he refuses meetings with committee Democrats until one of them makes that public.
    • He drafts a memo saying a president can’t obstruct justice in the process of exercising his official powers. The memo also questions Mueller’s authority.
    • Interesting history: Barr is the reason that every person involved in the Iran-Contra affair got pardoned by Bush Sr.
    • Despite his previous criticism of Mueller’s investigation, Barr tells Senators that it’s vitally important that Mueller complete his investigation.

International:

  1. Despite Trump’s claim that he’s removing troops from Syria by the end of the month (and they’ve already started removing equipment), John Bolton places conditions on removal that will slow it down.
    • The remaining bits of the Islamic State must be defeated.
    • Turkey must guarantee they won’t attack our Kurdish allies.
    • This kind of falls on Bolton. He’s mostly ended internal policy debates that allow administrations to flesh out and plan decisions like this. Bolton was taken by surprise with Trump’s decision, and has had to scramble to create a plan that in normal times would take weeks, if not months, to complete.
  1. When asked if Trump made a mistake on this, Lindsey Graham says “This is the reality setting in that you’ve got to plan this out.” And this is why Trump as president makes people nervous. Planning isn’t in his nature.
  2. Turkey’s President Erdogan harshly criticizes Bolton for saying Turkey has to promise not to attack the Kurds.
  3. The month-long protests in Hungary against the autocratic regime of prime minister Viktor Orbán continue to spread. Orbán is another anti-immigrant hardliner trying to control the press and the judiciary. He’s working toward one-party rule in Hungary, and wants anti-immigrant leaders to take over the EU. He’s already created a coalition with the like-minded leaders of Poland and Italy.
  4. The Trump administration reinstates the diplomatic status of the EU’s delegation to the U.S.
    • Trump quietly downgraded that status in December, and only brought it back temporarily and only because they protested it.
    • We only found out about it when the delegate’s name wasn’t called in the correct order during George W. Bush’s funeral.
    • Unlike every previous modern president, Trump views the EU as a foe.
  1. In anticipation of Brexit, banks and financiers move $1 trillion from Britain into other EU countries. That’s about 10% of UK’s financial sector.
  2. Mike Pompeo gives a speech in Egypt, criticizing Obama’s handling of the region. One of the biggest departures from the Obama administration is that there wasn’t any focus on democracy or human rights. Another difference was the venue: Obama chose one where he addressed the people, Pompeo chose one where he addressed elites and government officials.
  3. U.S. officials say that the White House requested plans to launch an attack on Iran last year after an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad by a military group associated with Iran.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The CEO of the Tornillo migrant child detention facility says that the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement kept pressuring him to hold more minors at the facility. He says the reason the facility is being closed is that he refused to accept any more because ORR wasn’t releasing any of them.
    • The facility was able to rapidly release all the children in custody because HHS waived the new stringent vetting requirements for the children’s sponsors. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were paying to detain these children when they could’ve been staying with family or guardians who would’ve paid for their needs. Because what this administration really wants to do is deport people.
  1. A judge rules that Sandy Hook families suing InfoWars can access InfoWars internal marketing and financial documents, among others. Next week, the judge will decide whether the families’ attorneys can depose Alex Jones.
  2. Around 1.4 million Floridians become eligible to vote. Last year, voters there passed a referendum ending the practice of reinstating ex-felons’ rights on a case-by-case basis. The new rule automatically gives ex-felons their voting rights back after they’ve served all time and probation (excluding certain violent criminals).
  3. A judge temporarily prohibits ICE’s new practice of conducting unannounced raids on Cambodian immigrants’ homes and businesses. Sudden deportations to Cambodia were up 279% last year. Deportees don’t get to talk to their lawyers or loved ones first, they haven’t been to Cambodia since childhood, and Cambodia doesn’t want them.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Carbon emissions in the US increased by 3.4% in 2018, despite the large number of coal plant closures last year. This is likely tied to the uptick in manufacturing, and is a reversal from the previous 12 years during which emissions declined.
  2. Trump threatens to halt FEMA payments to victims of the California wildfires, and then he later tweets that he’s already ordered FEMA to stop sending money. It’s not clear whether he actually did that and if he did, whether it’s legal.
  3. I feel like this was already reported last year, but a new study shows that oceans are warming 40% faster than previously expected. 2018 is the warmest year for oceans, with 2017 coming second and 2016 coming third.
    • Oceans absorb nearly 93% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
    • Heat causes the water to expand, and that accounts for most of the rise in sea levels that we’ve seen so far.
  1. State legislatures across the east and west coasts introduce bills to fight Trump’s expansion of offshore drilling, including Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island. California has already passed such a bill into law.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China starts buying soybeans from the U.S. again, and they’ve cut tariffs on American cars. They say they’ll stop demanding corporate secrets from companies doing business in China.
  2. Trump puts a freeze on the planned $10,000 pay raises for Mike Pence’s staff.
  3. Democrats propose rescinding the tax breaks for the top 1% to fund raises for the country’s teachers.
  4. One year into the new tax plan, it hasn’t panned out as planned. Federal tax revenues fell by 2.7%, despite strong annual economic growth of 3%. The last time growth came close to this, tax revenues increased by 7%.

Elections:

  1. Democratic Senator Doug Jones officially requested an investigation into the social media disinformation campaign run by a Democratic group in Alabama when Jones got elected. The group ran test cases against Jones’ opponent using Russian disinformation methods on social media.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump has had twice as much staff turnover as any other president at this point in their presidency. He’s at 12; Clinton is the next highest with six.
  2. In 2013, Mike Pence harshly criticized Obama for some of the same things he’s supporting Trump on now in regard to government shutdowns.
  3. Three top Republican members of the House rebuke Representative Steve King for wondering what’s wrong with the phrases white nationalist and white supremacist. When King made racist statements prior to the 2018 midterms, only one member of the House said anything.
  4. Former GOP Senator Jon Kyl turns down Trump’s offer to take over as Secretary of Defense.

Polls:

  1. Here’s a great summary from Pew Research of their polling on immigration and the wall.
  2. 74% of Americans say the shutdown is embarrassing; 72% say it’s hurting the U.S.
  3. During the first days of the shutdown polls showed that between 43% and 47% blamed Trump for the shutdown and around 1/3 blamed Democrats. Now, 47% to 51% blame Trump, while 1/3 still blame Democrats.
    • What’s weird about this? Right before the shutdown, Trump took complete responsibility for any shutdown, Democrats weren’t even in power when it happened, and the Senate had a veto-proof majority to override Trump’s veto. So why weren’t more blaming Trump then?
    • Interesting history note: The country was similarly split during the 2013 shutdown, with 53% of Americans blaming Republicans.
  1. 59% of Americans oppose the wall, and 39% support it.
    • 74% of Republicans support the wall, but that percentage drops for Republicans who live within the vicinity of the border.
  1. 69% of Americans are against declaring a national emergency over the wall.
  2. Trump’s approval rate is trending downward, now at 40.6%. His disapproval rate is trending up, now at 54.3%.

Things Politicians Say:

  • “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”
    —Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to the     New York Times
    Thank you, Iowa, for continuing to force this racist on the rest of the United States.
  • “When during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it. Obviously I never said that and I never meant they are going to write out a check.” —Donald J. Trump, this week.“It’s an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” —Donald J. Trump,three years ago.

Week 102 in Trump

Posted on January 8, 2019 in Politics, Trump

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

We have a new Senate and a new House, and our government is still shutdown. For the record, I’m confused by how Trump can blame the shutdown on Democrats when the shutdown started while Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House. It’s almost as if the outgoing Republican House set up the new Democratic House for an immediate clash with Trump.

Here’s what happened last week…

Border Wall/Shutdown:

The shutdown and wall deserve their own category, since they’re front and center of what’s been happening.

  1. A brief timeline; I’m sure we can all see the dysfunction at work here:
    1. In December, the Republican Senate passes two bills to keep the government running.
    2. Just before the outgoing Republican House was ready to pass those bills, Trump says he won’t approve them without funding for his wall.
    3. The Republican House fails to pass them.
    4. The government shuts down.
    5. Trumps says he won’t re-open the government until he has border wall funding.
    6. The new Democratic House passes the same two bills the Republican Senate did last year, but the Senate has to vote on them again since it’s a new session.
    7. Mitch McConnell refuses to bring the bills to a vote because Trump disapproves, even though there’s a veto-proof majority in the Republican Senate.
  2. Trump and his administration put out a number of “facts” about the illegal border crossings, but many are misleading or flat-out incorrect. Here’s a summary.
  3. As a defense for his wall, Trump says that the Obamas have a 10-foot wall around their house. Pictures of the property show that they don’t. They have a little retaining wall around the front of their property that looks to be about two feet hight, to which they added a security fence. They also added chain link fencing in the back for the Secret Service. People need to learn the difference between a fence and a wall. Jeez.
  4. Trump says he’ll keep the government shut down for months or even years if that’s what he has to do in order for his wall to be built.
  5. A federal workers union files a lawsuit against the Trump administration saying that the shutdown is illegally forcing federal workers to work without pay.
  6. Trump says he’ll consider declaring a state of emergency if that’s what it takes to get his border wall funded. It’s been three years since he started talking about his border wall; I think he’ll have a hard time proving there’s any imminent threat.
  7. As an example of how NOT a crisis this is, average monthly border apprehensions under Trump are just over a third what they were under Bush. They’ve been decreasing for decades.
  8. Though Trump tries to blame Democrats for the shutdown, he doesn’t deny it’s his fault when asked by reporters whether he’s still proud to call it his shutdown (as he said in a public meeting with Pelosi and Schumer in December).
  9. The idea of trading wall funding for a pathway to citizenship for DACA comes back up, but Trump refuses to consider that.
    • Just a reminder, last year, Democrats offered Trump full funding for his wall ($25 billion) in return for citizenship options for DACA and Trump turned it down.
  1. Security experts fear that since the wall has taken over the narrative, they won’t be able to get any of the other needed reforms around immigration.
  2. TSA screeners start calling in sick to work because they can’t afford to get to work without their wages. Some are finding part-time work that actually pays them for what they do. (Reports that air traffic controllers are calling in sick appear to be unfounded.)
  3. The largest airline pilots union sends a letter to Trump imploring him to end the shutdown out of concern for air safety.
  4. Senior administration officials say that the Trump administration is only just now starting to realize the longterm effects of a shutdown, such as delays in processing tax refunds, SNAP recipients being unable to buy food, and HUD assistance being withheld.
  5. Lawmakers on both sides request that their paychecks either be withheld or donated during the shutdown.
  6. The Trump administration sends a letter to congressional leaders indicating that there is no compromising on a wall. Though he does soften his language to say physical barrier.
  7. Mike Pence is tasked with negotiating a deal, and he brings a $2.5 billion compromise to the table. Which Trump promptly shoots down.
  8. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that most illicit drugs in the U.S. come in through the border. The vast majority of drugs come in through legal ports of entry—by land, water, and air. Even Chris Wallace calls her out on that one.
  9. Trump gets a little reprieve from some of the lawsuits he’s facing when Manhattan federal courts shut down civil litigation due to the government shutdown.
  10. Trump has opted to leave national parks open during the shutdown despite lack of staff, while Obama closed them during his shutdown for safety reasons against much criticism. Three park visitors have died during the current shutdown.
  11. Polling shows that government employees really hate the shutdown. 71% oppose it while 22% support it. Trump says that they’re behind him and that he can relate to furloughed workers who can’t pay their bills. Sure.

Russia:

  1. A judge extends Mueller’s grand jury for another six months. The jury is coming up on the end of its 18-month term.
  2. Russia detains a U.S. marine, accusing him of spying. Two things:
    • The marine has citizenship in four countries.
    • Russian politicians suggest they might be interested in swapping him for Maria Butina, the Russian national who pleaded guilty to espionage.
  1. Igor Korobov, who has run the GRU military intelligence agency since 2016, dies after a “long illness.” The agency is accused of meddling in U.S. elections and hacking our election systems, and Korobov is suspected to be behind the poisonings of Russian ex-pats.
  2. About that dossier, here’s a good summary of how it’s stood the test of time so far.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court agrees to hear two gerrymandering cases—one from North Carolina and one from Maryland. Two lower courts found the district maps violated the constitution. The Supreme Court has avoided ruling on gerrymandering, but with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the issue has become more urgent.

Healthcare:

  1. After years of taking steps to put abortion rights at risk at the state level, new state legislatures start proposing bills to make a woman’s right to choose more secure.

International:

  1. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds a chaotic presidential election where fake results start circulating on social media. So they cut internet and messaging service in the entire country.
  2. The State Department issues a warning that U.S. citizens could be randomly detained if they travel to China.
  3. National Security Advisor John Bolton says the U.S. won’t withdraw troops from Syria until Turkey promises not to attack the Kurds (who’ve been helping us in the region). Trump had previously said he wanted the withdrawal to happen quickly.
  4. The private information of hundreds of German politicians was hacked and released on Twitter. This affected every group except the far right.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The new Democratic-majority House gets sworn in and officially take their seats. There are 111 new representatives and senators, which includes 42 women and 24 people of color. This is the most diverse congress in history, but women still make up just 25%.
  2. The House elects Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy becomes the House Minority Leader and Steny Hoyer becomes the House Majority Leader. No surprises there.
  3. Hours after being sworn in to Congress, Michigan Representative Rachida Tlaib recounts a conversation she had with her son where she told him “…we’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker.” That creates lots of fodder for conservative circles.
  4. House GOP members boo Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she places her vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker. They really have it in for her.
  5. The new House immediately passes two bills to re-open the government. They are basically the same bills that the Senate passed before Christmas, but now that Trump refuses to support those bills, Mitch McConnell refuses to bring it to a vote in the Senate. Even though the Senate had veto-proof support.
  6. Trump tells a group of legislators that he can’t sign the two House bills because it would make him look foolish. I’m sure there are plenty of furloughed workers thinking that it’s better for him to look foolish than for them to keep losing their wages.
  7. Trump meets with congressional leaders for a border security briefing, hoping to reach a compromise.
  8. The evening before the new Congress begins, the Senate confirms 77 of Trump’s nominees in a bipartisan effort. They include the ambassador to Yemen, a Census director, a National Drug Control Policy director, and just a few judicial nominees. Most were for executive branch positions.
  9. This is the first time since the current budget process was put in place 42 years ago that Congress has transferred power with major parts of the government shut down.
  10. Democrats in the House make climate change a priority and create a select committee to focus on it.
  11. The first major bill put forward by the Democrats is a major elections reform bill. It includes:
    • Making it easier for citizens to vote.
    • Cracking down on voter suppression policies like voter roll purges and gerrymandering.
    • Reinstating parts of the Voting Rights Act that prohibit discrimination against groups of voters.
    • Making money in politics more transparent by disclosing donors and ad buyers.
    • Helping House candidates who can’t raise as much money by matching their fundraising with federal dollars.
    • Placing limits on super PACs.
    • Forcing presidential candidates to release their tax returns and requiring them to have ethics plans once elected.
    • Prohibiting House members from serving on corporate boards.
    • Prohibiting House members from using federal dollars to pay out sexual harassment settlements.
    • Cracking down on lobbyists.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Three teens with the migrant caravan in Tijuana are kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom. When they can’t pay (because OF COURSE THEY CAN’T), the kidnappers kill two of them and the third manages to escape.
  2. A DOJ memo shows the Trump administration is thinking about rolling back parts of the Civil Rights Act known as “disparate impact.” Disparate impact labels actions as discriminatory if they have an uneven impact on different groups of people.
  3. The DOJ acknowledges errors in a report it issued last year linking immigration and terrorism, but once again refuses to correct the errors.
    • The report claims that nearly 75% of convicted terrorists are foreign-born. Of the people they included in this statistic, over 1/3 were never charged with a crime related to terrorism.
    • The report makes misleading statements about sex offenses committed by immigrants, claiming they were responsible for nearly 70,000 offenses in three years when it was actually over a 55 year period. The number also represents arrests, not convictions.
    • The report cherry-picks examples to support a policy of ending chain migration.
  1. Trump falsely claims that CBP has apprehended 3,775 known terrorists at our southern border. The numbers come from a DHS briefing, but the briefing doesn’t say where the apprehensions occurred. In reality, this number refers to apprehensions mostly at airports and across the globe, not just the U.S. Many of these were stopped simply because their name matched an entry on the terrorist watch list and not necessarily because they themselves were terrorists.
  2. Kirstjen Nielsen says they’ve apprehended 3,000 special interest aliens at the southern border (but didn’t specific a time period). For the record, anyone not from the Western Hemisphere who crosses the border legally or otherwise is classified as special interest.
  3. Maine’s outgoing Governor Paul LePage repeats his debunked claim that 90% of drug dealers in Maine are out-of-state blacks and Hispanics, and that they impregnate Maine’s white women. And then he pardons a former Republican (white) lawmaker who was convicted on drug trafficking charges.
  4. Trump’s administration stops cooperating with human rights investigations in the U.S. by the UN.
  5. Trump’s crackdown on MS-13 gangs caught up and deported high school students who had no criminal background and who were not actually associated with the gang. Many were here legally, but were deported anyway, destroying their American dream.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Despite Trump’s efforts to resuscitate the coal industry, more coal plants have closed in Trump’s first two years than in Obama’s entire first term. The decline is expected to speed up in 2019 as coal consumption continues to fall.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The unemployment rate ticked up in December even though employment increased by 312,000. But that’s not bad news; it went up because more people have moved back into the job market. Wages were also up in December.
  2. Putin says that Russia will fill in the trade gap left by the U.S. by providing soybeans and poultry to China.
  3. Trump blames the stock market’s worst month since the Great Depression on a glitch.
  4. The U.S. national debt rises to $21.974 trillion. It’s grown $2 trillion in Trump’s first two years.
  5. Ford scraps plans to build a new plant in Mexico and will instead expand operations in Michigan. They’ll still move some production to Mexico though.

Elections:

  1. Another Republican Senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, announces he won’t run for re-election.
  2. Courts in Virginia issue documents around congressional voting district maps, saying the current districts are gerrymandered. The court is redrawing the maps, but the case is before the Supreme Court.
  3. Elizabeth Warren kicks off her 2020 campaign for president. Julián Castro and John Delaney are also running.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Mitt Romney pens an op-ed criticizing Trump and saying that he hasn’t risen to the mantle of his office. Lindsay Graham warns him that criticizing Trump will hurt him and hurt Utah.
  2. Thirteen years after launch, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft visits Ultima Thule, the most distant object we’ve explored. New Horizons is sending back pictures of the 20-mile-long object.
  3. There’s another mass shooting this week, this time at a bowling alley in Torrance, CA. Three people are dead, two are injured.
  4. Trump holds a stream-of-consciousness press conference. Here are a few highlights.
    • In the midst of a government shutdown where hundreds of thousands of workers aren’t getting paid, he confirms that Pence and his cabinet get a $10,000 raise.
    • He says he’ll use Eminent Domain to take land from people who own it near the border so he can build his wall (or fence, or whatever he’s calling it now). He says he can do this without congressional approval.
    • He says he might declare a national emergency to get the wall built without congressional approval.
    • He claims that other presidents have told him they wished they built the wall themselves. (They haven’t. In fact, all four living presidents and a spokesperson for the late Bush Sr. deny having any such conversation.)
    • He calls Rashid Tlaib’s comment about impeachment and calling him a motherfucker “disgraceful.” He’s not that far off base here, but he’s also the pot calling the kettle black.
    • He says you can’t impeach someone who’s doing a great job (even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), standing behind him, couldn’t help but chuckle).
    • He claims we’ve already built a lot of the wall. (We haven’t; we’ve only worked on existing fences.)
    • He claims drugs are pouring into the country and they don’t go through ports of entry. (The majority of drugs entering the country come in through legal ports of entry.)
    • The updated NAFTA deal will pay for the wall. (It won’t. If it did, he wouldn’t be asking for money. He also says the deal is brand new, which it isn’t.)
    • He says Russia’s not happy we’re pulling out of Syria. (Russia says their happy we’re pulling out of Syria.)
    • He takes credit for lower gas prices, and says he averted a recession. (Turns out the market for oil just relaxed on the realization that sanctions against Iran won’t create a shortage.)
    • He says the U.S. has taken in many billions of dollars of tariffs, apparently not understanding that the American people actually pay for the tariffs.
    • And it wouldn’t be complete if he didn’t say there was no collusion; that he won and Hillary lost; and that he’s done more in two years than any other president.
  1. Trump holds a cabinet meeting where he:
    • Compares the border wall to the walls in the Vatican (not the same thing).
    • Says there are 30-35 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. (there are closer to 11 million).
    • Says his generals are better looking than Tom Cruise.
    • Says he knows more about drones than anybody.
    • Claims that Obama gave Iran $150 billion and $1.8 billion in cash. This has been debunked a gazillion times, but as a reminder, the first amount was the release of frozen Iranian assets (in other words, property of Iran that we were holding) and the second amount was repayment of a debt owed.
  1. In a repeat of his first cabinet meeting, members took their turn at heaping praise on Trump.
  2. And in the realm of “draining the swamp,” a former Boeing executive runs the DOD, a former coal lobbyist runs the EPA, a former pharma lobbyist runs Health and Human Services, and a former fossil fuel lobbyist runs the Department of the Interior. Winning!

Week 101 in Trump

Posted on January 7, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Yep, we're still shut down. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP/Getty Images)

This is a catch up entry for the week ending 12/30/18. Thankfully it was a slow news week because of the holidays, but unthankfully the holiday week was marred by the government shutdown and ongoing chaos at the border.

Here’s what happened in week 101…

Russia:

  1. House committees conclude their investigations into Russia’s meddling in our elections and into the investigations into the investigation. In a letter to the DOJ, Republican committee leaders reiterate their concerns over how the investigations were handled.
  2. We learn that when Marine Le Pen needed extra cash for her campaign for president in France, she took out a 9.4-million-euro loan from a Russian bank. The bank has since gone under and now Russian officials are demanding payment.
  3. UPDATE: I don’t know how this one slipped under my radar, but a former Mossad chief reiterates that Russia worked to make Trump president, and that their online disinformation campaigns are the greatest threat to democracy and the world order right now.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump’s lawyers request a delay in the emoluments case against him due to the government shutdown.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is released from the hospital following surgery to remove tumors from her lungs.

International:

  1. Russia sends two Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela. These bombers have nuclear capability.
  2. Hot on the heels of an NBC story about how Trump is the first president to not visit any troops over the Christmas holiday, Trump and Melania pay a surprise visit to troops in Iraq.
  3. Following his visit, Iraqi officials demand the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from their country. Iraqi government officials are reportedly angry that Trump didn’t visit the Prime Minister while he was there.
  4. Trump posted a video following his visit that revealed the identities and location of a SEAL team, traditionally protected information.
  5. Israel’s government announces that the Knesset will dissolve and new elections will be held in April. Netanyahu has a narrow majority, and his defense minister resigned recently.
  6. The acting secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan, says he won’t push back against Trump’s ideas the way James Mattis did.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Merry Christmas, refugees. ICE drops off 200 refugees at a bus stop in El Paso with no assistance two days before Christmas. Because of the government shutdown, the local officials had no warning. ICE drops off another 1,000 by the end of the week.
  2. A new lawsuit alleges that in Vermont, ICE placed spies inside migrant activist groups and attempted to hack into their networks. Vermont’s DMV helped them out by passing on drivers permit information about undocumented immigrants. ICE used the information to target activists.
  3. A second migrant child dies in DHS custody. Trump blames the deaths on Democrats. Kirstjen Nielsen says there are more sick migrant children coming to the U.S., but doctors who are examining the children dispute that assertion.
  4. Trump begins readying Americans for what a barrier at the border might really look like. He starts using terms like “wall system” and “fence”, indicating that he realizes a big wall across the entire border is not achievable or practical.
  5. The FBI and state investigators are looking into Trump’s Bedminster golf club for their alleged practice of hiring undocumented workers and helping them to get papers to cover it up.
  6. After Mollie Tibbetts’ murderer was arrested, several immigrant workers fled the town. Mollie Tibbetts’ mother adopted one of their children so he could finish out his school years in the town he grew up in. So please stop making political hay about the fact that the murderer was an undocumented immigrant. Her family doesn’t want that.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A tugboat pushing 15 coal barges in the Ohio River hits a bridge, causing six of those barges to sink into the river and spilling tons of coal into the water. The cleanup effort is going on 24/7, but workers aren’t getting paid because of the government shutdown.
  2. The Trump administration announces a new policy that would loosen limits on pollutants emitted by coal powered plants, including mercury. Under the Obama policy that is being changed, mercury pollution has been reduced by 80%.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump discusses firing Fed chairman Jerome Powell.
  2. Trump says federal employees support his government shutdown over the wall. Federal workers take to Twitter to say otherwise. #ShutdownStories
  3. Trump says most of the workers who are furloughed because of the shutdown are Democrats. So not true.
  4. On Christmas Day, Trump says he’ll keep the government closed until he gets funding for his wall. Then he says he’ll shutdown the border if Democrats don’t cave in and give him his wall. Shutting down the border would cost an estimated $1 billion per day.
  5. Trump suggests that furloughed workers offer to help their landlords with chores in return for reduced rent (because landlords love to use amateur electricians and carpenters). The administration actually sends them a draft letter that they can use to make such an offer. The administration also gives them advice on how to survive financial hardship by negotiating with lenders and utilities.
  6. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, says it’s not his job to end the shutdown.
  7. Trump institutes a pay freeze for federal civilian employees. Merry Christmas!

Elections:

  1. North Carolina’s election board dissolves following a court decision that it was unconstitutional. This throws the one remaining congressional race that the board refused to certify into further chaos.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump spends most of Christmas Eve attacking his perceived enemies on Twitter, including Democrats, Republican Senators, the fake news, our former envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, and the Federal Reserve, among others.
  2. His tweet storm seemed to be a drag on the stock markets, which fell again on Christmas Eve.
  3. Trump tells troops in Iraq that he got them a giant pay raise — 10% — after a decade of no raises. In reality, they’ve received raises of between 1% and 4% each year for the past 10 years, and there is no 10% raise this year.
  4. Departing Chief of Staff John Kelly gives an exit interview in which he says:
    • The wall isn’t actually a wall (I’m guessing he means it’s more like a fence). In fact, he says that they gave up on the idea of a wall a long time ago, but Trump still uses it to stir up his base.
    • The family separation coming from the zero-tolerance policy at the border was Jeff Sessions’ fault.
    • Trump surprised Kelly with his Muslim Ban order.
  1. An American becomes the first person to complete a solo crossing of Antarctica.
  2. A tsunami in Indonesia caused by an underwater volcanic eruption kills over 400 people with many still missing.