Month: April 2019

Week 118 in Trump

Posted on April 30, 2019 in Politics, Trump

This week, the White House directs a former security official not to appear before Congress and blocks Don McGahn from testifying. The DOJ ignores a Congressional subpoena, the Treasury ignores the House deadline to turn in Trump’s tax returns, and Trump sues to block a subpoena of his accounting firm. So House Democrats have started floating ways to get them to comply, including pursuing them in the courts (which would take a really long time) or changing the rules so they can fine them. Rep. Gerry Connolly says he’ll enforce House subpoenas in the courts, even if that means jail time. Rep. Jerrold Nadler proposes fining people who won’t comply. This is not politics as usual.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. As Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen tried to ramp up efforts to fight Russian meddling in the 2020 election. Mick Mulvaney told her not to talk to Trump about it pretty much because it makes him feel bad (it questions the legitimacy of his presidency).
    • As a result, we are not likely aware of nor prepared for the meddling to come.
  1. Trump calls the Russia investigation an attempted coup.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee issues a subpoena to Don McGahn, Trump’s former White House counsel who refused to carry out Trump’s instructions to obstruct justice.
    • Trump wants to stop McGahn from complying with the subpoena, but executive privilege went out the window when he allowed McGahn to be interviewed by Mueller.
    • McGahn told Mueller that Trump pressured him to have Mueller fired and then pressured him to deny that ever happened.
    • The Trump campaign hires a new attorney for 2020 to replace McGahn’s law firm.
  1. Trump opposes any current and former White House staff giving testimony to Congress. He plans to assert executive privilege, and says, “We’re fighting all the subpoenas” (because he thinks subpoenas are ridiculous).
  2. Trump doesn’t appear to have learned from the Mueller investigation, because he continues to threaten witnesses and refuses to cooperate with ongoing investigations, setting him up for more potential obstruction cases.
  3. Contradicting the Mueller report, Trump says, “Nobody disobeys my orders.” According to the report, the only thing that prevented Trump from succeeding in some of his attempts to commit obstruction of justice was that his staff disobeyed his orders.
  4. Trump says that he can’t be impeached because he didn’t commit any high crimes or misdemeanors. Mueller’s report lays out legal cases for obstruction, and how and why it’s now the responsibility of Congress to handle it.
  5. Democrats are still split on whether to move forward with impeachment proceedings.
  6. Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, but he threatens not to because a lawyer would be doing the questioning. Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler threatens to subpoena him.
  7. Jared Kushner tries to minimize Russia’s interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections, saying it was just a few Facebook ads. The Mueller report and court filings describe interference efforts too numerous to describe here.
    • Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray says that Russia poses a significant counterintelligence threat. Rod Rosenstein says that hacking and social media manipulation are the tip of the iceberg.
  1. Over 5,000 Twitter bots push the idea that Mueller’s investigation was a Russiagate hoax. You’d think this would be a Russian effort, but no, it came from Saudi Arabia.
  2. Trump says he’ll take it to the Supreme Court if Democrats try to impeach him. A 1993 Supreme Court ruling says the House has the sole power of impeachment and the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments.
  3. Two prosecutors who worked on Mueller’s investigation say they found sufficient evidence to indict Trump on obstruction charges.
  4. On the same day that Maria Butina is sentenced to 18 months in prison, Trump speaks at the NRA convention. Butina took a plea deal last year for conspiring to act as a Russian agent by infiltrating the NRA.
  5. A new study of Russian troll tweets shows that the Russians were trying to use Bernie Sanders to drive a wedge between Democratic voters (good job on that, btw!).
    • Part of that effort was to get Sanders voters to vote for Trump or third-party candidates; another part was to simply discourage them from voting at all. The trolls also pushed the narrative that the party didn’t treat Sanders fairly.
    • Specifically, trolls were told to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them).”
  1. Do these disinformation campaigns work? Consider these survey results: 25% believe Clinton was in very poor health, 10% believe the pope endorsed Trump, and 35% believe Clinton approved weapons sales to Islamic militants, including ISIS. None of these stories are true.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump sues his own accounting firm and House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings over House subpoenas for his financial records.
    • The House Oversight Committee agrees to postpone the deadline on the subpoena until a court rules on it.
  1. Deutsche Bank starts providing the New York state’s attorney general with documents related to loans they made to Trump and to the Trump Organization.
  2. Carl Kline, the former White House personnel security director who overrode several security clearance recommendations, fails to appear before the House Oversight Committee after the White House tells him to ignore his subpoena. The committee moves to hold him in contempt of Congress. Before they do, though, the White House says he can give limited testimony.
  3. Steve Mnuchin once more delays his decision on whether to turn over Trump’s tax returns as requested by the House Ways and Means Committee.
  4. Not only is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department under ethics investigations, but the agency’s inspector general also opened investigations into six other of Trump’s appointees in the department, largely for unethical lobbying activities.
  5. Michael Cohen now says he isn’t guilty of tax evasion, even though he pleaded guilty to five counts of it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. New York’s attorney general launches an investigation into the finances of both the NRA and its foundation. There are reports that the NRA foundation transferred more than $100 million from its charitable foundation, and there are allegations of extortion in their leadership fight.
    • Trump accuses the attorney general of opening an “illegal investigation” into the NRA.
  1. Gabrielle Giffords’ organization files a lawsuit against the FEC for not doing anything about the NRA’s alleged campaign finance violations, including using shell companies to donate to several GOP campaigns and coordinating with campaigns.
  2. The Supreme Court hears arguments about whether to add a citizenship question to the census. The question was previously blocked by three federal judges, partly based on Census Bureau experts saying that it would negatively affect the accuracy of the count.
    • This is a big deal because the census results determine many things, like representation at the state and local level and funding for programs.
    • Conservative judges on SCOTUS indicate support for the question. Some are the same judges who didn’t think we needed the Voting Rights Act anymore because we live in a post-discrimination society.
    • The question would likely discourage immigrants, both here legally and illegally, from completing the census.
  1. Outgoing deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein defends his handling of the Russia investigation while criticizing Congress, politics, and media (even though the media got most things right, according to the Mueller report). He also criticizes the Obama administration for not revealing more information about Russia sooner, apparently forgetting that Mitch McConnell refused to join a bipartisan statement and threatened Obama if he released it.

Healthcare:

  1. The World Health Organization begins administering the first ever malaria vaccine in several African nations.
  2. The U.S. threatens to veto a UN resolution on sexual violence in global conflicts because it includes giving timely “sexual and reproductive health” help to survivors of assault. The Trump administration translates that as “abortion” and forces the UN to water down their language on the resolution.
  3. The Kansas Supreme Court rules that the state constitution protects the “right of personal autonomy.” This means a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body. The ruling blocks previous restrictions.
  4. As of this week, three different federal judges have blocked Trump’s Title X “gag rule,” which eliminates federal funding for medical practitioners if they do or say anything that assists a patient in getting an abortion.
  5. In 2015, Trump linked vaccines to autism. Now he says children have to get their shots because it’s so important. I guess I applaud his evolution on the topic.

International:

  1. Now that Trump wants to recognize Golan Heights as being under the sovereignty of Israel, Netanyahu wants to name a neighborhood in Golan Heights after Trump.
  2. The U.S. charges an American engineer and a Chinese business person with espionage for trying to steal turbine technology for the Chinese government.
  3. Kim Jong Un travels to Russia where he has his first meeting with Putin. Kim wants to save face after the breakdown in denuclearization talks with the U.S. and Putin gets to intervene in our negotiations.
  4. A new report says that the Trump administration agreed to pay North Korea $2 million for Otto Warmbier’s healthcare. Both Trump and John Bolton deny it was ever paid, though.
  5. The head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan meets with Taliban leaders to start full peace negotiations.
  6. Saudi Arabia beheads 37 people convicted of offenses related to terrorism. It’s the largest mass execution in three years, when they executed 47 people. It also brings the total executed this year to 105.
  7. During his NRA speech, Trump not only announces he’s ending support for the Arms Trade Treaty, he signs a document asking the Senate to return the pact to the White House.
    • The treaty was agreed upon under the George W. Bush administration, and was later signed by Obama. It regulates international sales of all kinds of weaponry.
    • It’s meant to prevent illicit arms sales that escalate armed conflicts.
    • Congress never ratified the pact, but 100 countries did. An additional 30 countries have signed on but not ratified.
    • Again we’re joining exemplary global leaders like Russia, North Korea, and Syria to oppose global agreements.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Florida’s Senate passes a bill that would allow teachers to be armed. The House still needs to vote on the bill.
  2. Florida’s House passes a bill that restores felon’s voting rights only after they’ve paid any fees, fines, and court costs. Florida voters voted overwhelmingly to restore voting rights for all but the most heinous felons, regardless of ability to pay.
  3. Irony alert. In an op-ed, Mitch McConnell accuses Democrats of histrionic obstruction. And then at a rally he says that if he’s in power after 2020, he won’t let any Democratic bills pass the Senate. He also poses with someone holding a t-shirt celebrating the expiration of Merrick Garland’s nomination to SCOTUS. He’s a master obstructor.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The House files a motion in court to block Trump’s plan to use Department of Defense funds to build his wall.
  2. Last week, Mexican troops pulled their weapons on two of our National Guard at the border. It turned out to be a geographical error, but Trump says (with no proof) it was just a diversionary tactic to allow drug smugglers through the border.

Family Separation:

  1. A federal judge gives Trump’s administration six months to identify and reunite the remaining migrant children they separated from their parents who were seeking asylum at the southern border. The administration says it might take longer than that, because they didn’t keep track of them.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Supreme Court says it will hear two cases about whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prevents discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.
  2. The National Guard in five states will continue to allow transgender troops to serve, in opposition to Trump’s transgender ban in the military.
  3. Brunei defends their new policy of stoning people for having gay sex by saying it’s rarely prosecuted. So no big, right?
  4. Sri Lankan officials have arrested 60 people for the Easter Sunday bombings. Their president orders two top security officials to step down over the government’s handling of advance warning of the attacks. They also face coverings. The death toll from the attacks is over 320.
  5. The leader of the militia that’s been detaining migrants crossing the southern border says that his militia was training to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros.
    • The FBI has known about this since October 2017, but didn’t do anything about it until the New York Times reported it.
  1. Remember that Coast Guard officer who was arrested with a stash of weapons and was planning a terrorist attack on liberal politicians and journalists? Prosecutors now allege that he was driven by his views on race. He had searched the internet for the best gun to kill black people with, “white homeland,” and “please god let there be a race war.”
    • A federal judge orders him released from detention. They‘re working on options for supervised release.
  1. An Alabama sheriff is placed on leave after he mocks a teen who committed suicide over being bullied over his sexuality. In his anti-LGBTQ post, the sheriff says it stands for Liberty Guns Bible Trump BBQ.
  2. The Department of Justice refuses to comply with a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee over the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Attorney General Barr directs John Gore to defy the subpoena and won’t let him testify unless he can have a DOJ attorney present.
    • The census hasn’t asked a citizenship question since 1950.
  1. In keeping with Trump’s threats, the White House refuses to allow Stephen Miller to testify before the House Oversight Committee about immigration policies.
  2. The Pentagon prepares to expand the military’s role at the border, and is changing the rules about how troops can interact with immigrants.
  3. A driver intentionally drives his car into a group of pedestrians in Sunnyvale, CA. Police say the driver thought he was targeting a Muslim family. None were killed, but a young girl is in a coma.
  4. The FBI thwarts a terrorist attack planned to hit Huntington Beach, CA, a white power rally in Long Beach, and the Santa Monica Pier. The potential terrorist is a vet looking for retribution for the attacks on the mosques in New Zealand.
  5. A 19-year-old man shoots worshipers at a synagogue in Poway, CA. He kills one person, and people say he would’ve shot more but it seems like his gun jammed.
    • He posted an antisemitic and anti-Muslim manifesto online and took credit for a mosque fire a few weeks ago.
    • According to the manifesto, he was radicalized over a period of 18 months on 8Chan, an online discussion board.
  1. A small white nationalist group storms a bookstore in protest of an event on racial politics. The far-right group is linked to Identity Evropa.
  2. Joe Biden puts out a video pointing out that there were not “very fine people on both sides” of the clashes in Charlottesville during the “Unite the Right” rally, reigniting the “Charlottesville Hoax” cries from the right.
    • Trump defends his words by saying he was talking about people who were protesting the removal of a confederate statue.
    • Context: It was a white nationalist rally sponsored by hate groups and neo-Nazis. Attendees wore swastikas and chanted antisemitic slogans, like “Jews will not replace us!” If there were very fine people among that group, you would think they would’ve distanced themselves fairly quickly.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Trump administration pushes Republicans in Congress to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling and avoid another standoff.
  2. The S&P 500 hits an all-time high of 2,943, likely on optimism over trade talks with China. Nasdaq also hit an all-time high of 8,161.85.
  3. The U.S. economy far exceeds economist expectations by posting a GDP growth rate of 3.2%. Drivers include companies stockpiling their inventory and higher U.S. exports. These aren’t expected to last, but the fears of a recession are slightly eased.
  4. Trump is working hard to wind down the trade wars so he can remove tariffs before the 2020 elections. With the tariffs came higher prices for imported goods, so domestic manufacturers raised their prices to match. Trade wars are easy to win, right?
  5. The Trump administration tried to pre-empt an independent report showing minimal improvements in the renegotiated NAFTA by releasing their own, more flattering report first.
  6. The GOP tax reform forced some Gold Star families to spend thousands more in taxes by changing the way survivor benefits are taxed.
  7. After the White House decides to stop renewing waivers for countries to buy oil from Iran, oil prices hit a six-month high.
  8. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent decades courting members of the GOP. Now they’re working to become less aligned with the right. The GOP has moved toward nativism, isolationism, and protectionism, contrary to the Chamber’s support for legal immigration, infrastructure investment, and free trade.
    • According to the president and CEO, they don’t want to play to the extremes on either side and they want to fill in the gaping hole in the political middle.
  1. Likewise, the Koch political network is moving away from the GOP, despite being probably the largest benefactor of Republicans in power.
  2. She gets it. Disney heiress Abigail Disney calls on the company to give 50% of executive bonuses to their lowest-paid employees.
  3. Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Moore, says his enemies are “pulling a Kavanaugh against” him. We have it in his own writings, though, that women shouldn’t be allowed to referee men’s sports (unless they’re attractive), that female athletes want equal pay for inferior work, and that his own wife is a “loss leader” who doesn’t have a job. He’s mocked AIDS, objectified women, and has been held in contempt of court for failing to pay alimony and child support to the woman who, not surprisingly, divorced him.
  4. Herman Cain, another Trump nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, withdraws after accusations of sexual harassment arise. Trump calls the accusations a witch hunt.

Elections:

  1. Tampa elects Jane Castor as mayor, the first openly gay women to be mayor in a major city in the Southeast.
  2. As part of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s re-election effort, a Malaysian development company is under investigation for money laundering. Attorney General Barr gets a waiver to participate in the investigation even though his former employer represents a party in the investigation.
  3. The DNC makes a pledge not to use stolen or hacked material in the 2020 presidential election, and they challenge the RNC to do the same. So far, the Trump campaign has refused to make the pledge.
  4. Federal judges order Michigan state lawmakers to redraw their gerrymandered districts. They rule that 34 state and federal legislative districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans. Last year, private emails showed that Republicans drew the district lines with bias, contradicting their own defense.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A NASA subcontractor who falsified test results in aluminum manufacturing for nearly 20 years has to pay a $46 million fine. NASA says their parts caused two rocket launches to fail.
  2. Trump wants people who went through a criminal diversion program instead of serving time to divulge that information on federal job applications, making it harder for former offenders to get jobs.
  3. A bipartisan group of lawmakers oppose this move, saying it contradicts the First Step Act that Trump signed into law last year.
  4. Trump orders his administration to boycott the White House Correspondents’s Association dinner. This year, instead of being roasted by a comedian, the association hired a historian to speak.
  5. In a meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Trump accuses them of messing with his follower count (apparently he’s a little alarmed that he lost followers). Trump says a bunch of conservatives have lost followers. Dorsey says followers fluctuate, especially right now while they’re trying to keep fake accounts and bots off the platform. Dorsey, himself, has lost followers.
  6. Sonny Perdue is relocating two scientific agencies currently located in downtown Washington D.C. This will likely lead to some brain drain, as scientists and experts might not move with those agencies.
  7. Kentucky’s governor blames teachers’ “sick outs” for the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl. She was accidentally shot by her brother with their uncle’s weapon. They were home because of a sick out, but no teacher put a gun in his hands.
  8. In the midst of their national convention (at which Trump spoke), the NRA seems to have a midlife crisis. They suspend their lawyer, and Ollie North steps down as leader after just six months and accuses CEO Wayne LaPierre of financial misconduct and suggests they could lose their nonprofit status. New York launches an investigation into them and a lawsuit is filed over the handling of their election activities.

Polls:

  1. Gallup polled over 150,000 people globally and found Americans to be the most stressed out. 55% of us reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day, compared with 35% globally.
  2. 43% of Americans feel like they’ve benefited from recent economic growth; 54% say they haven’t.

Week 117 in Trump

Posted on April 23, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The Mueller report is out!

Finally the Mueller report is released, if only in redacted form. Now we can put it all behind us and lay it to rest, right? Wrong. That couldn’t be more wrong. The reactions to the report couldn’t be more different, ranging from complete exoneration to obviously there were some bad deeds done to we must impeach. Even my quick take on the report is too long to include here, but it doesn’t really exonerate anybody, there are still ongoing cases, and Congress will have to figure out whether to do the ethical thing and start impeachment hearings or the political thing and hope for the best in 2020.

Here’s that and what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. I’m working on a more detailed summary of the Mueller report, but here’s my quick take on what I’ve read so far. If you want to read the full report, here’s a good version.
  2. Russian aluminum company Rusal announces it’s spending $200 million on a new low-carbon aluminum mill in Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky. Last year, the company was under U.S. sanctions under the ownership of oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The Treasury lifted sanctions once Deripaska divested.
  3. House committees subpoena Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank. They also subpoena documents from JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America regarding potential money laundering by Russians and Eastern Europeans.
  4. During a FOIA hearing, a federal judge says that Attorney General William Barr has created an environment of distrust around the DOJ’s commitment to sharing information about the Mueller investigation. Still, the judge denies a request to disclose the full and unredacted report.
  5. Current and former White House staffers are anxious about whether their cooperation with the Mueller investigation will be revealed in his report. They say they’re doubly concerned over how Trump will respond.
  6. Officials from the DOJ met with White House lawyers several times to discuss the findings in the Mueller report, giving them nearly a month to prepare rebuttals. This is a break from precedent. Kenneth Starr didn’t let the Clinton White House review his report, but then he also released his report in full, excruciating detail on the web.
  7. The DOJ refuses to release sealed records in Paul Manafort’s court cases because there are still ongoing investigations. The Washington Post had requested the release, but ongoing cases around Manafort include Gregory Craig, Sam Patten (just sentenced), Roger Stone, Stormy Daniels hush money payments, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn.
  8. Attorney General William Barr announces he’ll hold a press conference to talk about the Mueller report before he actually releases the redacted version. This means reporters are going in with no background information on which to base their questions. Democratic House committee chairs demand he cancel the press conference, saying it’s “unnecessary and inappropriate, and appears designed to shape public perceptions of the report before anyone can read it.” And it seems they’re right. Here are some highlights.
  9. Mueller’s team, which was tight-lipped and pretty leak-proof during the investigation, has been opening up to say Barr is minimizing the evidence and findings from the investigation.
  10. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler subpoenas the full, unredacted Mueller report. For certain, the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, along with the Gang of Eight will receive a version of the report with redactions only for grand jury information unless a judge rules otherwise on the grand jury bit.
  11. Even though Trump and his legal team claim that Mueller’s report exonerates him, they’re putting together a rebuttal to the report’s findings.
  12. Republicans for the Rule of Law, a conservative group formed to defend “the institutions of our republic,” runs an ad on Fox News urging Republicans in Congress to hold Trump accountable for the wrongdoing presented in Mueller’s report and to rebuild the Republican party back to what it once was.
  13. Rudy Giuliani says there’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians. Even if the FBI warned the campaign about it and asked to be alerted about Russian contacts?

Legal Fallout:

  1. The inspector general for the Department of the Interior opens an ethics investigation into the newly confirmed secretary of the department, David Bernhardt.
  2. Sears sues Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and their former CEO, Edward Lampert. Sears alleges that as member of the board, Mnuchin helped Lampert strip Sears of more than $2 billion.
  3. The White House refuses to comply with a request from the House Judiciary Committee for documents regarding the merger between AT&T and Time Warner. If you remember, Trump told Gary Cohn to pressure the DOJ to prevent the merger (Time Warner owns CNN).

Healthcare:

  1. The DOJ brings charges against 60 medical professionals, including 31 doctors, in five states for illegally prescribing opiates and for exchanging sex for pills. The states span areas where the opioid crisis is hitting hardest (Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, and West Virginia).
  2. McConnell says he’ll block any attempts at Medicare for All. His words: ”Medicare for all? Not as long as I’m majority leader. It ought to be called Medicare for none.”

International:

  1. Trump vetoes a resolution passed in both the House and Senate that would’ve withdrawn U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
  2. The EU has been building schools for Palestinian children in the West Bank. This week, Israel damages or demolishes three of them citing permitting issues. These kids have to go to school outdoors or in tents.
  3. The Trump administration announces new restrictions against Cuba, reversing steps made under Obama to help improve relations between the U.S. and Cuba. They place restrictions on travel and on the amount of money Cuban Americans can send to relatives there. They also allow Cuban exiles to sue the government for seized property.
    • The announcement also includes new sanctions against Venezuela and Nicaragua .
  1. North Korea announces a test of a new tactical guided weapon, likely a short-range missile.
  2. A new study shows that Russia’s been hacking into the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), and using it to confuse ships and planes. Almost 10,000 incidents have been reported or detected.
  3. Trump orders the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to dismiss most of their Palestinian aid workers. Eventually he wants to bring it down to 14 workers.
  4. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo wins a second term.
  5. Ukraine elects a TV Comedian as President by a landslide—he wins by nearly a 50 point spread. He’s a bit of a populist and ran on a platform of anti-corruption.

Legislation/Congress:

Congress is on recess. I hope you all went to a town hall with your Representative!

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Yo-Yo Ma gives a performance at the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, which spans between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. His message is unity, and he says, “A country is not a hotel, and it’s not full.”
  2. Last week, ICE deported the spouse of a U.S. soldier who was killed in Afghanistan in 2020, leaving their 12-year-old daughter in Phoenix. This week, ICE reverses that decision and brings him back. I don’t know the reason.
  3. Attorney General Barr orders immigration judges to deny bail to some asylum seekers, which will keep even more migrants in detention centers indefinitely (and cost us more money). DHS will have sole authority to decide who is released.
  4. Trump decides not to nominate anyone to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a continuation of his withdrawal from international agencies on human rights.
  5. Democrats in Arizona try to force a vote on the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment—yes, it’s still a thing). Republicans block the vote.
  6. Texas passes state bills that would allow municipalities to not enforce anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ Texans.
  7. The House Judiciary Committee is looking into Trump’s alleged promise to pardon Kevin McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, if he illegally blocks asylum seekers from entering the U.S. From what I’ve read about McAleenan, the offer was pointless; he doesn’t seem like a law-breaker.
  8. Trump wants 9,000 to 10,000 additional troops deployed to the border. The Pentagon says they’ll add about 3,000.
  9. The Ninth Court of Appeals temporarily lifts the injunction against Trump’s policy to make asylum applicants remain in Mexico to await their court hearings. The administration is already working to send refugees back while court cases are pending.
  10. The Mexican government contradicts Trump’s claims that they agreed to this policy of making refugees wait in Mexico.
  11. The White House considers restricting travel from counties whose citizens have high rates of overstaying their visas in the U.S. They’re largely focused on African nations.
  12. Leaders in sanctuary cities and states have varied responses to Trump’s “threats” to send asylum seekers to sanctuary localities. While they say they welcome refugees, they also say Trump thinks he’s punishing his political opponents and that it would be illegal anyway. But still, we’re set up for this and we welcome migrants, so bring it on.
    • Three House committees are looking into this proposal, and want Stephen Miller to testify since he seems to be the “boss” of all things around immigration.
  1. Despite an increase in threats that led to an increase in security for Representative Ilhan Omar, Trump continues his attacks on her, calling her out of control, antisemitic, and anti-Israel, and saying she hates the U.S.
  2. At least four House freshman women are under death threats—Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Katie Hill. I’m not sure whether this goes under “Discrimination” or mere “Far-Right Assholery” since the women in question fall into one or more of these categories: Muslim, black, Palestinian, Puerto Rican, and bisexual.
  3. U.S. officials arrest a Florida man who made threatening and hate-filled calls to Democratic officials. He specifically ranted about Muslims, black people, and Ilhan Omar. He threatened Eric Swalwell with death if he “comes after our guns.” He called Rashida Tlaib to rant about Omar. He also called Cory Booker, among others.
  4. Authorities charge Holden Matthews with additional counts of hate crimes after arresting him for starting three black churches in Louisiana on fire.
  5. Starting in 2020, based on Trump’s transgender ban, the U.S. Naval Academy will stop enrolling transgender students.
  6. Steve Bannon is funding a new academy at a monastery in Italy. They’re creating the Academy for the Judeo-Christian West, a Christian nationalist institute. I hope this goes about as well as the fortified city Glenn Beck was planning in Idaho.
  7. Here’s a twist. Canada asks the U.S. for help in stemming the flow of refugees across their southern border… with the U.S.
  8. An armed civilian militia group holds over 200 asylum seekers at gunpoint as they tried to cross the border. The United Constitutional Patriots have been “guarding” this area of the border for a few months. The FBI later arrests the leader of the group on weapons charges. Customer and Border Patrol does not support this kind of vigilante action.
  9. Fire destroys the main offices of the Highlander Center, a Tennessee social justice center that has hosted several civil rights leaders. A white power symbol is found spray-painted on the parking lot.
  10. Washington State Representative Matt Shea discussed acts of extreme violence, intimidation, and surveillance against perceived enemies (AKA, the left) with far-right figures Jack Robertson and Anthony Bosworth. Shea outed three individuals for the group to target. Shea has pushed right-wing conspiracy theories for years. Vote him out!
  11. The week ends with horrific terrorist bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Nearly 300 are dead, and over 500 injured. The attack was carried out by local militant groups, and the Islamic State claims credit for it. Police arrest thirteen suspects, and three officers are killed in the process.
    • Security officials were warned of a threat to churches 10 days prior to the attacks, and it’s not clear if any action was taken to address them.
    • Trump tweets that at least 138 million were killed, and then deletes it.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new study concludes that climate change is partly to blame for the strength of Hurricane Maria in 2017. The central region of the island typically gets 150 inches of rain a year, and Maria dropped nearly 1/4 of that in one day.
  2. Several states, including Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico, plan to retire old coal plants early thanks to lower costs of renewable energy sources. This isn’t happening due to political pressure nor to renewable energy mandates. Several states are working to ease the transition, but coal in southeast and northeast states are subsidized and immune to these market pressures.
  3. Duke Energy plans to develop six utility-scale power plants in North Carolina.
  4. New York City passes a bill limiting greenhouse gas emissions from big buildings.
  5. Over 3,000 scientists sign on to a letter of support for Youth Strike for Climate, led by Swedish student activist Greta Thunberg. The letter emphasizes the need to act now, and says that our current actions are not adequate.
  6. The EPA’s Andrew Wheeler previously dismissed a qualified and independent panel of air pollution scientists (because, you know, Obama), and now the panel admits they don’t have the expertise to make recommendations. But they propose changes to the Clean Air Act anyway that would put people’s health at risk.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Illinois passes a bill banning “right to work” laws for municipalities in the state. Right to work laws are touted as being better for everyone, but they really take away employees’ collective bargaining power.
  2. An independent analysis by the International Trade Commission shows that Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA will have a limited effect on the economy (boosting it by just 0.35%). The greatest positive effects are in manufacturing and services, but it’ll make U.S. production more expensive overall, reduce exports, and cut wages and possibly employment.
    • This still has to be approved by Congress. Democrats are pushing for better labor protections and tougher compliance enforcement with Mexico. Republicans are pushing to remove tariffs.
  1. February’s deficit was the largest one-month deficit in history, reaching $234 billion. This is partly from the GOP tax reform bill and partly from the spending bill compromise.
  2. Tariffs have brought in $82 million to the Treasury, but they also raised consumer prices in the U.S. by $1.5 billion. They did create about 1,800 new jobs, but at a cost of over $800,000 per job.

Elections:

  1. Kansas passes a law allowing people to vote anywhere in their county instead of just one assigned polling place. In 2018, they closed or moved several polling places, making it harder for people to vote. Around 1,100 voters voted in the wrong polling place so their votes weren’t fully counted.
  2. Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld announces he’ll run against Trump in the 2020 presidential Republican primary.
  3. Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders accuses the “establishment” of working against him (again) after Think Progress publishes an article that’s critical of him. They’ve published articles criticizing several other candidates, “establishment” and otherwise.
  4. Elizabeth Warren is the first Democratic presidential candidate to call for the House to start impeachment proceedings. There are two camps on this: one that thinks impeachment is a moral and ethical imperative, and one that thinks it would be political suicide for the Democratic party. IMO, this shows Warren puts ethics above politics.
    • While most candidates back more investigations before making a decision on impeachment, a handful followed Warren’s lead.

Miscellaneous:

  1. While I was writing my recap last week, Paris’s 800-year-plus-old Notre Dame cathedral went up in flames. It’s spire collapsed, but firefighters had saved the structure and stopped its spread.
    • Online conspiracy theorists immediately began spreading vile hoaxes about arson, people with Arabic-sounding names celebrating, terrorism, Muslims, and Ilhan Omar saying they reap what they sow. (She didn’t—I can’t believe I have to clarify that. She actually tweeted about the wonder of Notre Dame and prayed for firefighters.)
    • The fire is suspected to have been ignited by accident.
  1. Trump advises French firefighters to dump water from air tankers on the Notre Dame blaze to put it out. Is there anything he doesn’t know how to do better than the experts? French firefighters let him know that it could cause the entire structure to collapse. Looks like they did a fine job all on their own.
  2. Trump says Boeing should just fix the 737 MAX airliners and rebrand them with a new name. Because that’ll make everyone forget about the two deadly plane crashes, right?
  3. With the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting this week, a young woman from Florida who was fixated on the shooting causes Denver area schools to shut down when she travels to Denver and purchases a shotgun near the school. She’s later found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.
  4. Days after the Notre Dame fire, a man goes into St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City carrying gallons of gas, lighters, and lighter fluid. He’s charged with attempted arson and reckless endangerment. Earlier in the week, he was arrested for refusing to leave the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, NJ.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating took a slight dip, but is holding surprisingly steady after the release of the Mueller report. It’s at an aggregate of 41.4%.
  2. The electorate is pretty equally divided over whether to impeach or not following the release of the Mueller report.

Mueller Report – My Quick and Early Take

Posted on April 23, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Here’s my quick and early take on what’s in the Mueller report. I’m still slogging through the details, but here are a few things I’ve found. A lot of this we already know from the past three years of solid reporting on it, and a lot of the obstructive actions occurred in public right in front of our faces. But the report does fill in some details that are new to me.

Reading through it, it strikes me that the FBI told both the Clinton and Trump campaigns that Russia was attempting to interfere in the elections and told both campaigns to alert them immediately if they were approached by Russians. Mueller outlines numerous Russian contacts with the Trump campaign and the campaign did not report even one to the FBI.

  1. The released Mueller report is about 448 redacted pages. Here’s a searchable version of the report.
  2. About half of the report covers the collusion aspect and goes into details about contacts between Trump campaign members or associates and Russian officials and oligarchs. The other half covers around a dozen attempts by Trump to potentially obstruct justice.
  3. The report confirms most of the news stories we’ve read over the past three years, but does contradict a few. For example, there is no evidence that Michael Cohen traveled to Prague or that Trump directly told him to lie in his testimony.

FISA Warrant and Intelligence Investigation

  1. The report clearly says that the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign was launched not from the Steele Dossier, but from George Papadopoulos’s drunken brag to an Australian diplomat, who later reported the incident to intelligence officials.
  2. IMO, it took George Papadopoulos less than a month of being on the campaign to blow everything up. He was like throwing in a grenade. He actively worked to meet with Russians, tried to get campaign members to meet with Russians, and he spilled the beans about Russia claiming to have private Clinton documents that could help Trump. And that’s what started the investigation into the campaign.

Russian Interference and Possible Coordination

  1. Mueller found a sweeping effort by Russia to interfere in our 2016 elections through social media, political and activist events, hacking and releasing Democratic emails and documents, trying to hack into our state election systems, traveling to the U.S. to obtain information, and initiating contacts with Trump campaign members and associates.
  2. Russia is behind the online personas Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, through which they published their stolen materials.
  3. By 2016, Russian efforts were focused on lifting Trump (and sometimes Bernie Sanders) and disparaging Clinton.
  4. Mueller found that the Trump campaign and associates welcomed Russia’s assistance and showed interest in the hacked material. He also found that even though there were numerous contacts between the Russia and Trump associates, there isn’t sufficient evidence to support conspiracy or coordination of efforts.
    • I’m beginning to think Lindsey Graham was right when he said Trump couldn’t have colluded with Russia because “he doesn’t collude with his own government.”
  1. The Trump campaign knew about upcoming dumps of hacked material and had a social media, press, and PR strategy prepared to capitalize on the release.
  2. Within hours of Trump publicly calling for Russia to find Clinton’s 30,000 ‘lost’ emails, they tried to hack into her personal server for the very first time.
  3. There were several points of contact between the campaign and Russian oligarchs and officials. For example:
    • Michael Cohen, Donald Trump Sr., Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka worked periodically on Trump Tower Moscow.
    • Paul Manafort was in frequent contact with Konstantin Kilimnik and shared campaign, polling, and strategy information with him.
    • The aforementioned George Papadopoulos.
    • The Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya plus two other Russians. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort were in attendance. (This one posed a difficult legal question for Mueller’s team not over whether the action was wrong, but over whether it was willful.)
    • Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had contacts with Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, and campaign advisor J. D. Gordon.
    • Michael Flynn also discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and according to Flynn this was in coordination with the Trump transition team.
    • Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, head of a Russian-government-owned bank.
    • Several campaign associates were in contact with Dmitry Simes, CEO of CNI (a think tank with expertise in and ties to the Russian government).
    • Erik Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev in the Seychelles. Dmitriev also met with an associate of Jared Kushner named Rick Gerson.
    • Carter Page took trips to Russia, speaking at the New Economic School twice, and had several contacts with Russians, including contacts prior to the campaign with two agents who attempted to recruit him.
  1. Of note, the above lied to cover up pretty much every single one of their meetings, and several people were charged, convicted, or pleaded guilty to that.
  2. Russia released a dump of stolen emails and other material within an hour of the release of the Access Hollywood tape of Trump boasting about sexually abusing women.
  3. Mueller‘s investigation found that a Florida county’s election server network was breached, seemingly through a spearphishing effort. There’s no evidence any votes were changed, though. (Score one for former Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who made this claim on the heels of his tight loss to Rick Scott. The majority of politicians and MSM dismissed his claim at the time.)
  4. Mueller also confirms that Russians breached the Illinois State Board Of Elections computer network by exploiting a vulnerability in their website.
  5. The FBI opened an investigation into Russian interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign in July 2016, and in 2017, three congressional committees opened investigations.
  6. Russian agents and entities violated criminal law with their interference. One company, Concord, has been fighting this in court, but the others will likely never be arrested.

Potential Obstruction of Justice

  1. In Volume II, Mueller looks at several actions taken by Trump that could be construed as obstruction of justice. Much of this occurred in the public eye, so we can verify they happened. Here are a few of Trump’s potentially obstructive actions:
    • Lying about his ties to Russia.
    • Asking Comey to end the investigation.
    • Firing Comey.
    • Asking White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller (over which McGahn threatened to resign).
    • Telling McGahn to lie about his request to fire Mueller.
    • Trying to stop Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the investigation.
    • And then trying to get Sessions to unrecuse himself.
    • Trying to get Mueller to only focus on future elections.
    • Telling Corey Lewandowski to deliver a message to Sessions saying Sessions should tell the public that the investigation was very unfair to Trump and that Trump did nothing wrong.
    • Lying about the Trump Tower meeting. Oddly, this one seems to be the weakest case for obstruction.
    • Pushing top officials to publicly say his team didn’t collude with Russians, even though it was an active investigation at the time.
    • Talking to witnesses about their testimony, specifically Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort.
    • Attempting to influence Paul Manfort’s jury.
    • Publicly attacking Michael Cohen and his family after he started cooperating.
    • Interactions with his personal lawyer (Michael Cohen) over his testimony to Congress. Apparently Trump’s lawyers helped form Cohen’s testimony, but Mueller didn’t establish that Trump actually told him to lie.
  1. The people who lied about their contacts with Russian agents listed in the previous section actually did commit obstruction of justice.
  2. Lucky for Trump, multiple people whom he told to obstruct justice in some way ignored his requests (instead of explaining to him why they were wrong). This likely saved Trump from a slam-dunk case of obstruction of justice. To quote:
    “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”A few of the people who refused to obstruct: House Counsel Don McGahn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowsky, White House official Rick Dearborn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Staff Secretary Rob Porter, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy FBI Directory Andrew McCabe, National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland, and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.
  3. Trump never sat down for an interview with Mueller’s team; he provided written answers instead, which were incredibly useless. He states at least 30 times that he doesn’t recall. The report also says they didn’t subpoena him in the end because the White House would continue to delay and Mueller thought it better to wrap up the investigation as they weren’t likely to find out anything new.
  4. Trump was concerned that talk about Russian interference would make his presidency look illegitimate.

Ongoing Investigations

  1. Mueller spun off 14 additional inquiries from his investigation, which are currently being investigated in other jurisdictions. Two that we know of involve Gregory Craig, a Manafort associate and former Obama White House lawyer, and Michael Cohen. The other 12 are redacted.
  2. Mueller also transferred 11 cases in progress to be wrapped up by other prosecutors.
  3. In all, 15 people have been indicted in this and related cases, plus 25 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations (including Internet Research Agency (IRA) and Concord Management and Consulting LLC).

Lies Our Press Secretaries Told

The report exposes a few lies from our White House press secretaries:

  1. Spicer lied when he said the decision to fire Comey was all Rod Rosenstein’s. Sanders also lied about who was involved in the firing. According to the report, it was Trump’s decision with several people weighing in after the decision was made.
  2. Sanders lied about the timing of the decision to fire Comey.
  3. Spicer lied about who decided to fire Michael Flynn.
  4. Sanders lied when she said countless FBI agents had lost faith in Comey. She later excused this by saying it was a “slip of the tongue,” though the damage on that one is done and done.
  5. Sanders lied when she said Trump “certainly didn’t dictate” the Trump Tower meeting statement for Donald Jr.

Conclusions

  1. In the end, Mueller finds there isn’t sufficient evidence to support criminal charges for coordination or conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign on Russia’s interference in the election (though he does say some communications were destroyed, and subjects of the investigation used encrypted apps or apps that don’t store data to communicate). To quote:

    “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

  2. Mueller declines to prosecute on the obstruction charges, and instead lays out the legality of each attempt and leaves it to Congress to decide what to do next (as a reminder, Congress is the arm of government that constitutionally serves as a check and balance to the president). Mueller includes a pretty large section on the responsibilities of Congress as put forth in the constitution around this issue. Again, to quote:

    “With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.”

    And

    “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

  3. In the report, Mueller says they declined to prosecute Trump on obstruction not because there isn’t enough evidence to do so, but rather because of DOJ rules around indicting a sitting president. Volume II of the report plainly outlines possible crimes and gives Congress a clear path toward impeachment should they choose to go that route.
    • The report also says indictment could preempt impeachment, the constitutional process to address presidential misconduct. Quoted from the report, “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” (So it doesn’t exactly exonerate anyone.)
    • The report also states that while a sitting president can’t be indicted, once that person is no longer in office, charges can be brought.

William Barr on the Mueller Report

Posted on April 23, 2019 in Bad Politicians, Politics, Trump

Attorney General William Barr gave a controversial press conference hours before releasing the Mueller report. Like we can’t read the report for ourselves? He’s had nearly a month to put out his own narrative on the report and then embed that narrative in the minds of the American public. Because of this and because of conflicting and overblown media reports, I really do recommend reading the report on your own. If not the full report, at least read the summaries at the beginning of each volume and the conclusions at the end of each volume.

Here are a few highlights from Barr’s take on the report:

  1. Barr uses “collusion” and “coordination” interchangeably in his press conference, which is unusual for a lawyer of his caliber. They’re generally much more careful with terminology, and collusion is not a legal term (Mueller even states that in his report).
  2. While Mueller laid out a pretty solid path to indict on obstruction, Barr says he doesn’t think the evidence is sufficient to charge Trump.
  3. Barr says:
    “As you will see, the Special Counsel’s report states that his “investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.””
    But this leaves out contextual information. Here’s that full sentence from the report:
    “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
  4. Barr says, correctly, that we know:
    • The Russian government interfered in our elections through a social media campaign to sow disinformation and discord.
    • The GRU hacked into U.S. servers and stole documents and emails, which they later publicized.
  1. Barr also says Russia didn’t have the knowing or intentional cooperation of Trump or his campaign, or any other American for that matter. However,the report clarifies that to meet the requirements of coordination would require an agreement, tacit or expressed.
  2. Barr says that there’s not enough evidence to establish Trump committed obstruction of justice, despite all the evidence Mueller lays out. According to the report, Mueller actually declined to prosecute based on DOJ norms, and specifically says the evidence does not clear Trump and if it did, he would say so.
    • In neither his letters nor his statement does Barr give the reason Mueller gave for not deciding to prosecute. It wasn’t because he didn’t think there were crimes; it was because of DOJ guidelines around indicting a sitting president.
  1. Barr only mentions the bolded part below, ignoring the remaining supporting information for obstruction of justice:
    • “…the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. But the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the President’s conduct. These include concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events—such as advance notice of WikiLeaks’s release of hacked information or the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians—could be seen as criminal activity by the President, his campaign, or his family.”
  1. In his press conference, Barr goes into a lengthy defense of Trump, and even says if he did obstruct it was because he was frustrated over the investigation (let’s see how that excuse works for your everyday criminal).
  2. Barr also says the White House cooperated with the investigation fully and completely, even though about 182 pages of the Mueller report is about obstructive actions, Trump refused to sit down for an interview, and he said he didn’t recall about 30 times in his written answers.
  3. I‘m not clear if Barr means to say that Trump believes this investigation was propelled by his political enemies and fueled by illegal leaks or if that’s what Barr himself believes. It’s not clear in his speech or his transcript. Either way, it’s a weird thing for an attorney general to say.
  4. Barr makes no mention of the plea deals and convictions that came from the investigation.
  5. Barr implies that because there was no crime of conspiracy or coordination, Trump couldn’t be guilty of obstructing justice. Mueller directly contradicts that in the report, saying:“In addition, the President had a motive to put the FBI’s Russia investigation behind him… But the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.”

Week 116 in Trump

Posted on April 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

This week reminds me again of how we can all interpret the very same occurrence in vastly different ways. Even though we hear the exact same speeches, our reactions vary. Maybe we hear what we want to hear or maybe we actually do just support very different values in those speeches. No, I’m not talking about William Barr’s testimony. I’m talking about Candace Owens, who Republican leaders brought in to testify on the rising problem of white nationalism. Among other things, she said the Southern Strategy never happened (we have the audio to prove it did), that Democrats want black and brown people to live in fear (not any Democrats I know), that the statistics showing the rise in hate crimes are faked (even though the numbers come from Trump’s own government agencies), and the real problem isn’t white nationalism, it’s far-left extremism (even though our intelligence agencies say it’s far-right extremism).

I’m not saying Owens voice isn’t important, it is. But it didn’t add anything but controversy to a hearing with victims of white nationalist hate crimes in attendance. I remember white nationalist groups when I was a kid. I remember when we all took them as a serious threat. We should all take them as a serious threat now.

Anyway, off my soapbox. Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Attorney General William Barr testifies before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Here are some highlights:
    • Barr says that Mueller declined to review Barr’s initial letter summarizing the main findings of the report.
    • Barr won’t say whether he’s briefed the White House on the report or whether he even showed it to the White House.
    • Barr says he’ll release a redacted version of Mueller’s report to Congress and the public within a week.
    • The redactions will be color coded so we know the reason we can’t see the information. Some information is protected under grand jury rules, some affects ongoing investigations, some is defamatory (does that qualify as protected?), and some is simply classified.
    • Barr says he won’t ask a judge to rule on whether he can release any of the grand jury information.
    • And here we go again. Barr says he formed a team to investigate the investigations into the DOJ and FBI leading up to the federal probe and FISA warrants in the 2016 elections. This is the second IG review of the events, and the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee held year-long hearings on them.
    • Barr tells the Senate Appropriations Committee that the government was spying on Trump’s campaign, but he doesn’t give any evidence supporting that assertion. Barr does add that he didn’t think any rules were violated, and he doesn’t think there was an endemic problem in our intelligence agencies.
  1. Trump says Mueller‘s investigation was an attempted coup to remove him from office.
  2. In rare bipartisan form, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes send a demand to Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Rod Rosenstein that Mueller must brief them on all materials obtained during his investigation.
  3. Nunes says the Mueller report is a partisan document, even though Mueller’s a Republican and Nunes hasn’t see a single word of the report.
  4. Devin Nunes says he’ll send eight criminal referrals in the Russia investigations to Barr. Most of the referrals are around lying to or misleading Congress, but three involve conspiracy and have to do with the FISA warrant request.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, retires as a federal appellate judge. She was under investigation for violating judicial conduct rules based on the tax schemes she and her family were involved in. Stepping down effectively ends the investigation.
  2. Steve Mnuchin says the Treasury will miss the deadline to deliver Trump’s tax returns. It’s OK though, because Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Congress isn’t smart enough to understand his tax returns.
  3. Mnuchin consulted with the White House over releasing the tax returns.
  4. Trump’s attorneys threaten legal action against an accounting firm if they comply with a subpoena to release his financial records.
  5. If federal efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns fail, New York lawmakers prepare to introduce a bill allowing the New York Department of Taxation and Finance to release state tax returns if requested by a congressional committee.
  6. Officials in the UK arrest Julian Assange, and the U.S. charges him on conspiracy to hack a Pentagon computer. This is related to his 2010 dump of classified documents and his work to help Chelsea Manning crack a password. It’s not related to his actions during the 2016 elections.
    • Ecuador withdrew his asylum, opening the door for the arrest.
    • The U.S. has an extradition warrant for Assange.
    • Trump, who has previously said he loves WikiLeaks, now says he doesn’t know anything about WikiLeaks.
  1. At first, Assange’s arrest starts a major debate over what this means for freedom of the press (though I wouldn’t technically call WikiLeaks the press, some do). But it turns out he’s not being charged for disseminating classified information; just for the commission of a crime in obtaining it.
  2. The DOJ adopts a new and narrower definition of the emoluments clause, which would allows some of Trump’s hotels to accept foreign payments or gifts.
  3. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduces a bill to remove fellow Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In a play on Trump’s nickname for Schiff, Gaetz calls it the PENCIL Act. He accuses Schiff of slandering the president and also wants Schiff’s security clearance revoked.
  4. U.S. attorneys charge Gregory Craig with lying to officials over whether his work for the Ukrainian government meant he should have registered as a foreign agent. Craig served as White House Counsel during Obama’s first two years, and not surprisingly was working with Paul Manafort when on the Ukraine project.
  5. Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti faces 36 charges of defrauding his clients. This is on top of the charges of attempting to extort Nike.
  6. Devin Nunes has been busy. He’s suing Twitter over two parody accounts that make fun of him and he’s suing McClatchy Company for defamation stemming from an article about a winery of which he is part owner.

Healthcare:

  1. Texas State Rep. Tony Tinderholt introduces a bill that would criminalize all abortion without exception, and possibly give women the death penalty if they do it. Remind me again how this is pro-life?
    • Tinderholt, who’s been married five times, says he just wants to make women more responsible. Don’t get me started. Find me an unwanted pregnancy that a man wasn’t responsible for.
  1. As he does every year, Lindsey Graham sponsors a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks.
  2. The Ohio legislature passes one of the most restrictive “heartbeat” anti-abortion bills in the country, which would outlaw abortion after just five or six weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Former Governor Kasich vetoed such bills, but current Governor Mike DeWine says he’ll sign it.
  3. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) blames people for being unhealthy and says healthy people shouldn’t have to share in the cost of their insurance. I get what he’s saying; people with unhealthy habits cost us all more. Except that cancer doesn’t care how you lived your life. Neither does MS, Crohn’s, arthritis, or a host of other diseases.
  4. Democrats in the House are trying to investigate prescription drug pricing, but are being thwarted by certain House Republicans who are warning drug companies against providing any information.
  5. New York orders mandatory vaccinations in areas hit hardest by the measles outbreak. They can’t force people to vaccinate, but they’re fining people who don’t $1,000.
  6. The measles outbreak in Madagascar has killed over 1,200 people. They have a vaccination rate of under 60%, but not because people don’t want to vaccinate their kids. They do. The country just doesn’t have the resources to get them all vaccinated.

International:

  1. Trump designates Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. Benjamin Netanyahu says it was his idea. Iran responds by designating the United States Central Command a terrorist organization.
  2. Even though the parties of Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent, Benny Gantz, nearly tied in this week’s elections, Netanyahu won by courting far-right extremist parties to establish a stronger coalition than Gantz pulled together.
    • Netanyahu is facing possible indictments on bribery and breach of trust. He calls it a witch hunt. Sounds familiar, no?
  1. Great Britain and the European Union agree to delay Brexit until the end of October, largely out of consideration for Ireland. The longer this drags out, the worse the effects are on the UK’s economy.
    • Theresa May and opposition party leader Jeremy Corbyn are now in negotiations.
    • This puts everyone in a weird spot when European parliament elections come up in next month. At first May said the UK wouldn’t participate, but now she says they will. I’m not sure why they should have a voice in the EU at all right now.
    • Residents of Britain are stockpiling their favorite supplies in case they lose access to goods during the Brexit process.
  1. The Trump administration cancels a deal made in December to provide a safe way for Cuban baseball players to come to the U.S. to play in the major league.
  2. Russia’s foreign minister says trust in the U.S. is waning across the globe and that the balance of economic power is shifting from the West to the East.
  3. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is ousted in a military coup. He led the genocide in Darfur, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House votes to reinstate net neutrality regulations, which were reversed by the FCC in 2017. Net neutrality prohibits service providers from slowing down internet traffic or from charging certain entities extra for service.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Pentagon awards almost $1 billion in contracts to build part of Trump’s wall. As it turns out, the contracts are for new fencing.

Family Separation:

  1. Trump repeats the debunked narrative that family separations occurred under Obama and that he (Trump) was the one who stopped it. Let’s go over it again:
    • Under both Bush and Obama, children were separated from their family only when the family member was considered a danger or criminal.
    • The Obama administration did consider family separation, but deemed it too inhumane.
    • The Trump administration began a pilot separation program in the middle of 2017.
    • In April 2018, Jeff Sessions publicly announced their zero tolerance policy that led to widespread family separations (if it was already a thing under Obama, why would he have to announce the change in policy?).
    • The kids in cages that Trump points to under Obama were from an influx of unaccompanied minors (not the same as us separating them with no reunification plans).

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. At a presser, Trump says of people crossing the southern border: They wait at the gate (this seems to be in reference to gates on ranchers’ lands) and then when the gate is open, they kill people. And then they take the truck (because a lot of times they don’t even want to go to the house) so you always go to the gate in doubles. Some are good people and they’re dying on the way.
  2. A judge blocks Trump’s policy of forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico once their asylum application has been accepted. DHS implemented the policy at a few ports of entry, and Kirstjen Nielsen wanted to expand the program further. Migrants forced into Mexico can now come back to the U.S. while they await asylum hearings.
  3. The day after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigns, Trump tells Mick Mulvaney to ask Secret Service Director Randolph Alles to leave as well. The DHS also lost its FEMA director this year, and when Kevin McAleenan moves over to temporarily replace Nielsen, the position to head the CBP will also be open. Also, under the law, Nielsen’s replacement should automatically be Undersecretary Claire Grady, but she was also asked to leave.
  4. After Trump drops Ron Vitiello from his nomination to head ICE, he replaces him with Matthew Albence, the guy who said that migrant detention centers are like summer camps. He also thinks we should be able to detain minors for as long as we want.
  5. The White House has been complaining that the DHS hasn’t done enough to stem immigration, which is likely the reason for the shakeup.
  6. It turns out that Trump threatened to cut aide to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala the day after Kirstjen Nielsen signed a major pact with them to address immigration and smuggling.
  7. Five former SOUTHCOM commanders put out a statement condemning Trump’s decision to cut off aid funding for those Central American countries. The generals say cutting funding will increase the flow of refugees, and cite Colombia as an example of where funding has worked. It has also helped stem the flow from El Salvador.
  8. The number of attempted border crossings has ballooned this year, and now Trump is happy that the media is reporting about the crisis at the border. Instead of taking concrete steps to deal with this problem, he helped create the crisis by (according to my own analysis):
    • Detaining everyone who crosses illegally, not just criminals, and filling up detention centers and clogging courts.
    • Separating children from their parents so he can detain the parents longer.
    • Making it harder for sponsors to step forward and claim minors in custody, making sure detention centers stay full.
    • Attempting to overturn the Flores ruling so immigrant families could be detained together indefinitely.
    • Dealing with the now-overcrowded detention centers by forcing refugees to wait in Mexico to apply and by slowing down processing to a trickle, leaving them in cities south of the border that don’t have the resources to assist them.
    • Shifting border agents from ports of entry to border areas between ports (slowing down legal traffic).
    • Threatening to close down the border.
    • Cutting funding to the countries from which the refugees are fleeing.
    • Threatening to start separating every family again.
    • Gutting the top-level officials in the DHS and pulling his nomination to lead ICE.
  1. Trump wants to hand over the credible fear interviews for asylum seekers to CBP agents instead of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officers who are actually trained in this matter. Stephen Miller says fewer people will pass if CBP handles this.
  2. Trump pressures immigration officials to release asylum seekers to so-called “sanctuary cities” as a way to punish those cities. Those cities, for the most part, say they’d welcome that, since they’re set up with the resources to assist refugees. Top ICE officials warn that this gives the appearance of political retribution.
  3. Trump tells the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection that he’d pardon him if he got sent to jail for breaking the law by stopping asylum seekers from entering the U.S.
  4. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told Stephen Miller he’s in charge of immigration, but Trump pushes back saying he’s the only one in charge.
  5. Trump’s ban of transgender troops in the military goes into effect. Troops can no longer transition, and they can be discharged if they don’t present as their gender assigned at birth.
    • The ban has been blocked by the courts, but in January the Supreme Court allowed the ban to be enforced while it goes through the courts.
    • Certain military organizations are working on ways to circumvent the ban.
    • The ban could affect up to 13,700 troops. IMO, we should just let people who are willing and able to serve do so. And we should be grateful for their service.
  1. Massachusetts becomes the 16th state to ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors.
  2. Police arrest the suspected arsonist of three black churches in Louisiana. He turns out to be the son of a sheriff. They’re not saying whether it’s a suspected hate crime.
  3. Trump tweets a propaganda video vilifying Representative Ilhan Omar over her comments that seem to undermine the seriousness of 9/11.
    • Omar’s point was that you can’t judge all 1.8 billion Muslims because 20 Muslims carried out the attacks. She did misspeak about the origins of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), though.
    • Omar reports an increase in threats against her and her family after Trump’s tweet (arrests have previously been made for people threatening to kill her).
    • Speaker Nancy Pelosi then meets with the U.S. Capitol Police and sergeant-at-arms, who are now having to put extra work into assessing and protecting the safety of Omar, her family, and her staff.
    • And then Trump doubles down on his comments, accusing Pelosi of protecting Omar.
    • So basically, a statement by the president of the U.S. puts a sitting Representative in danger. And then the president criticizes the Speaker for protecting the Representative. This is just weird. And it’s not OK.
  1. White nationalists meet in Finland for their second annual “Awakening” conference, featuring prominent hate leaders and neo-Nazis from the US, Ukraine, Sweden, and Russia.
  2. The Trump administration proposes a new policy that lets the Social Security Administration monitor people’s social media accounts to make sure they qualify for disability benefits. Because God forbid anyone with a disability is just out there trying to lead a normal life.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump signs two executive orders to make it easier to build pipelines and harder for activists to stop or delay construction.
    • One order requests that the EPA review parts of the Clean Water Act that are used to block permits and makes it easier to transport natural gas, among other things.
    • The second order gives the president the power to issue permits for infrastructure projects that cross international borders with the U.S.
  1. The Senate confirms David Bernhardt to be Secretary of Interior. Bernhardt is a former fossil fuel and agribusiness lobbyist.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Herman Cain, Trump’s nominee for the Federal Reserve, says that we don’t have to worry about climate change. God will tell us when to stop using fossil fuels. He also calls the Senate Banking Committee a bunch of yahoos. The Senate Banking Committee has to approve his nomination.
  2. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) becomes the fourth GOP senator to come out against Herman Cain. Cain’s not likely to be confirmed at this point.
  3. The deficit grew to $693 billion in the first half of FY2019. It was $600 billion in the first half of FY2018. Tax revenues were up slightly, likely because people found themselves paying more at the end of the year or receiving smaller refunds (which doesn’t necessarily mean their taxes went up overall).
  4. The tax cuts of 2017 increased the number of companies that pay $0 in taxes from 30 to 60.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The woman who made her way into Mar-a-Lago last week with a variety of electronic devices had even more devices in her hotel room (not at Mar-a-Lago). She had a device to detect hidden cameras, more cell phones, nine USB drives, several SIM cards, thousands of dollars in cash, and several credit cards.
    • In case you’re wondering how they discovered the malware on her thumb drive, a Secret Service agent plugged the device into his computer, which started the installation of the malware on his computer.

Polls:

  1. 51% of voters support the efforts by House Democrats to obtain Trump’s tax returns.
  2. 64% of Americans think Trump should release those returns himself.

Week 115 in Trump

Posted on April 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The economy has added jobs for a record 102 months, since October of 2010.

Here’s a stealth release of last week’s recap (ending April 7) because I’m so darn late with it. My typing fingers are still recovering from rock climbing earlier this week.

This week reminds me that while soundbites are easy to remember and fun to say, we should beware of politicians who talk in soundbites and don’t actually talk about specific policies. I know policies are boring as hell, but I’d rather elect someone who can tell me about their policies than someone who’s still trying to figure out how policies work.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. I know this isn’t news, but it was quite a thing to watch. Trump tells reporters to look into the oranges of the Russia investigation. Yes, oranges. He says this three times.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee votes to authorize the use of subpoenas, if necessary, to force the release of the full and unredacted Mueller report to Congress.
  3. House Committees have so far been ignored by over half of the entities from whom they’ve requested documents in obstruction and corruption investigations. The deadline was March 18.
  4. Trump goes from saying that the Mueller report should be released in its entirety to putting out hostile tweets about Democrats who want it released.
  5. Members of Robert Mueller’s team say that Attorney General William Barr’s initial assessment of the final report undermines the seriousness of their findings, as well as how damaging those findings are to Trump. Note that these are all just leaks right now.
    • They also say they created completely unclassified summaries of each section, which Barr could easily release now.
    • The House Judiciary Committee requests that Barr release these summaries.
  1. The DOJ defends Barr, saying every single page of the report must be combed through because they all contain protected grand jury information.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A former Trump campaign staffer files a lawsuit alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her during the 2016 campaign. She says he grabbed her and kissed her.
  2. The House Ways and Means Committee formally requests six years worth of Trump’s personal and business tax returns from the IRS, as is their right per the IRS tax code. Steve Mnuchin has said he wouldn’t do that.
  3. Trump’s lawyers say handing over the tax returns would be a dangerous precedent… even though every presidential nominee in recent history has released their tax records.
  4. Michael Cohen says he just found a trove of files that could be valuable to investigators. He requests a delay or shortening of his sentence so he can review them.

Courts/Justice:

  1. We learn that DOJ officials invited William Barr to meet with them last year on the same day he published his memo criticizing Mueller’s investigation and claiming a president can’t commit obstruction of justice.

Healthcare:

  1. The number of measles cases is at its second highest in nearly 20 years. The disease was considered to be eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but a lower rate of vaccination has brought it back.
    • In an effort to control the outbreaks, some municipalities ban unvaccinated people under 18 from being in public places.
  1. After Mitch McConnell warns him the Senate won’t take it up, Trump says he’ll put off a Congressional vote for an ACA replacement until after the 2020 elections. Probably because they don’t have a replacement and they aren’t close to having one.
  2. Last week, the DOJ announced they wouldn’t defend the ACA in any lawsuits, so I’m not clear what Trump’s change of direction means for this. The ACA could be struck down at any moment, and there is no plan to replace it.
  3. Despite there being no backup plan, Mick Mulvaney says no one will lose their healthcare coverage if the ACA is struck down.
  4. The House passes a non-binding resolution condemning Trump’s support for the lawsuit to strike down the ACA.
  5. The Trump administration proposes a new inspection system for the meat industry, which would put companies more in charge of checking for things like salmonella and E. coli. Currently, testing for those two is required; under the new plan, they wouldn’t be.
  6. A group of states sue the Trump administration over its reversal of Obama’s nutritional standards for school lunches.
  7. China bans fentanyl, cutting off its supply to the U.S.

International:

  1. The Saudi Arabian government has given Jamal Khashoggi’s (grown) children million-dollar homes as well as large monthly payments to compensate them for their father’s murder. Officials want to be sure that the family exercises restraint in criticizing the government over their father’s death.
  2. The British Parliament fails to pass any of the four new options for Brexit. The votes result in even more defections from the parties.
  3. Even though Brexit hasn’t happened yet, England’s already taking a financial hit. Investment has slowed down and major corporations have moved jobs and assets (over $1 trillion) out of England to other European cities in preparation.
  4. The House passes a resolution demanding an end to U.S. participation in the Yemeni war. The Senate has already passed such a resolution, and Trump will likely veto it.
  5. Trump says there are still key issues to work out in order to get a trade deal with China, and he won’t meet with Xi Jinping until those issues are settled.
  6. Turkey’s strongman president Erdogan might be seeing his support fade. His party loses municipal elections in the capital, Ankara, and the biggest city, Istanbul.
  7. Reminiscent of our own elections, a network of fake Twitter accounts smear Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents in the run-up to Israel’s election.
  8. India’s elections get hit with fake news and fake social media accounts as well.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House passes a stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
    • A sticking point in the Senate will likely be a provision that prevents stalkers from purchasing guns. Because what could go wrong with a stalker with a gun?
    • Republicans are also concerned about provisions that give Native Americans more jurisdiction to deal with domestic violence that occurs on their lands.
  1. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduces a constitutional amendment to ditch the Electoral College and let the popular vote pick the president and vice-president.
  2. Mitch McConnell triggers the “nuclear option” to reduce debate time on lower-level nominees.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Regarding a border wall, Pope Francis says, “Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up.”
  2. Trump visits the border wall at Calexico, CA, where Kirstjen Nielsen attached a plaque with Trump’s name on it to the fencing. Trump says this is where he’s built part of his wall, though it was actually a program begun under Obama to update existing fencing.
    • Fun fact: To date in Trump’s term, no new fencing has been completed; only repairs to existing fencing.
  1. California, in coordination with 19 other states, launches a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Trump’s declaration of national emergency to fund his border wall. At the same time, California’s governor Gavin Newsom goes to El Salvador to learn why so many people are fleeing.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump is considering appointing an immigration czar. Not a bad idea, until you look at his potential candidates. Kris Kobach has pushed for and implemented many anti-immigration policies and works for WeBuildtheWall Inc. Ken Cuccinelli has pushed to get rid of birth-right citizenship.
  2. Trump says his father was born in Germany. Except for that he was born in New York City. This isn’t the first time he’s said that. He also says Obama was born in Kenya, so maybe he’s just bad with geography.
  3. The Mormon church announces that they no longer consider same-sex couples to be apostates (people who renounced their faith). Their children can now be baptized in the church. Likely the change came because after they put their previous policy in place, over 1,500 people left the church.
  4. Trump backs down on his promise to shut down the border with Mexico.
    • Even so, staffing shortages cause huge slowdowns in border transit. The previous week, the Trump administration pulled border agents from their positions at ports of entry to help process asylum seekers.
    • At key economic crossings, the wait to drive into the U.S. can be more than 10 hours.
    • The delays are hurting business production schedules and deliveries, and costing companies in both countries millions. But Mexico is being hurt the worst, facing contract cancellations and massive layoffs if this continues. None of those laid off workers will try to come here to work, right?
  1. In a huge raid, ICE arrests over 280 people at a phone repair company near Dallas. This is part of ICE’s new focus on businesses that hire people without the proper documentation.
  2. Trump tells reporters we need to get rid of family-based migration, the visa lottery, the whole asylum system, and the practice of releasing asylum seekers while they await their hearings. He also says we should get rid of judges and not everyone should get a court case (not everyone does).
    • I didn’t quote his dehumanizing language directly. He used the loaded terms “chain migration” and “catch-and-release” (what are they, fish?).
  1. Trump pulls his nomination to head ICE, Ronald Vitiello, saying he wants to go in a tougher direction.
    • It’s a huge surprise to DHS officials. Vitiello has worked at U.S. Border Patrol for 30 years, and he’s currently the top official.
    • White House advisor Stephen Miller has always opposed Vitiello, and despite his failed policies, Miller has Trump’s ear on immigration.
  1. Trump decides not to close the southern border as he’d previously threatened to do.
  2. Kirstjen Nielsen abruptly resigns as Secretary of Homeland Security following a meeting where she angers Trump by telling him it would violate the law to force asylum seekers to choose between keeping their children and being deported back to their country (another Stephen Miller idea).
    • Fun fact: For a few months now, Trump has been pushing to reinstate blanket separation of migrant families at the border. He‘s convinced that this has been the most effect deterrent to asylum seekers. Interviews with asylum seekers show most don’t know about this policy until they reach the border.
  1. Trump puts CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan temporarily in charge of Homeland Security. A good choice if Trump is looking for bipartisan support.
  2. The U.S. revokes the travel visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor over allegations that she’s investigating war crimes in Afghanistan.
  3. Officers arrest a New York man who threatened to kill Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) because she’s a Muslim. He says she’s a terrorist.
  4. Trump defends adding a citizenship question to the census because otherwise the census is “meaningless.” I don’t think he understand the purpose of the census.
    • The next day, a third judge rules against the plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The judge says that Wilbur Ross made up a fake reason to justify adding the question.
    • Fun fact: The Census Bureau itself has consistently recommended against adding the question.
  1. At a gathering of donors and Jewish Republicans, Trump says the U.S. is full, so refugees should just turn around and go back. That anyone in the room laughed at this is remarkable given the criticism of the U.S. for turning away an ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees in WWII.
    • I heard this while driving through empty swaths of land in southern California. The irony was not lost on me. We are not full.
  1. Even though far-right extremism, white nationalist and supremacist groups, and domestic terrorism are all on the rise, last year the Department of Homeland security disbanded a group focused on analyzing those very threats.
  2. Motel 6 agrees to a $12 million settlement for giving ICE personal information on 80,000 of their guests with Latino sounding last names. Big brother is watching… that’s why they leave a light on for you.

Climate/EPA:

  1. California strengthens protections for their wetlands and streams that will lose federal protections when the Trump administration rolls back the Clean Water Act.
  2. A new study from the Canadian Environment and Climate Change Department finds that Canada is warming at about double the rate of the rest of the globe.
  3. After Trump disbanded a climate panel put together under Obama, the formed a new independent group, the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment. This week, they release a new report aimed at helping communities mitigate the negative effects of climate change.
  4. At an NRCC fundraiser, Trump says that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. Studies dispute this (yes, it’s actually been studied), as do the two Republican Senators in the state where Trump said it (Iowa).

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Trump administration proposes tightening work requirements for SNAP participants, which would likely cut more than 750,000 people from the program.
  2. The first quarter of 2019 saw the U.S.’s highest level of layoffs since 2015 (and the highest in the first quarter since 2009, during the Great Recession).
  3. After February’s dismal job numbers (with only 33,000 jobs added), March rebounds with 196,000 jobs added.
    • Fun fact: This is the 102nd month in a row of job gains, the longest period of job growth on record. That’s 8 1/2 years, or since October of 2010.
  1. Trump plans to nominate Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve board. Moore is dicey because he owes so much in back taxes. Cain is dicey because of all the sexual harassment accusations against him (among other qualifying issues).
  2. The Fed says they don’t plan any rate hikes this year, indicating that while the economy is strong, it’s also losing some of its tax-reform momentum. Trade uncertainty with China is also a drag on the economy.
  3. As of January, 19 states had raised their minimum wage. This could help with wage growth, which has been stagnant.
  4. We’re in the middle of a labor shortage. That’s a good sign for the economy, but we don’t have enough workers to fill blue-collar jobs. And with the administration’s restrictions on legal immigration, those jobs will stay empty.
  5. Directors at the World Bank select Trump’s nominee, David Malpass, to run the bank. A weird choice for them, because Malpass has been critical of the bank. But then no one else stepped up to run for the position.
  6. The Senate and House are deadlocked over disaster funding, with the House wanting more funding for Puerto Rico than the Senate will agree to.

Elections:

  1. New Mexico becomes the 14th state to enact the National Popular Vote. Once enough states sign on, these states will give all their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.
  2. Federal prosecutors indict Robin Hayes, the chairman of North Carolina’s Republican Party for bribery, wire fraud, and making false statements.
    • Fun fact: Hayes was also one of the original architects of the GOP’s REDMAP plan, which led to unlawfully gerrymandered legislative districts. Many of the involved states have faced legal challenges to their district lines for the past 8 years (and most have lost).

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Secret Service arrests a Chinese woman who entered Mar-a-Lago with two passports, four cell phones, a laptop, a thumb drive containing malware, and a hard drive.
  2. Trump says Puerto Rico isn’t part of the United States. It is.
  3. Earlier this year, Trump asked Mitch McConnell to prioritize the confirmation of his nominee for chief counsel for the IRS over that of his nominee for attorney general.
  4. Even though David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior, legally ended his lobbyist status is 2016, he was still working as a lobbyist at least into April of 2017.

Polls:

  1. About the same number of voters don’t trust Trump (59%) or the GOP (58%) to improve healthcare.
  2. 53% of voters trust Democrats to improve it, a surprisingly low number, IMO.

Week 114 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Refugees waiting in a pen under a bridge in El Paso.

Robert Mueller’s work might be done, but there are a bunch of ongoing investigations—more than I realized. If you’re curious about the players, the charges, and evidence requested, check out CNN’s interactive guide. It’s ridiculously thorough, and you can view it by investigations, charges, people, and investigators. Pretty interesting, and something to keep you busy until we see the actual report.

Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Russia:

  1. After Attorney General William Barr released his summary of the Mueller report, the Trump campaign sends an email to several TV producers demanding they challenge guests who’ve accused his campaign of collusion with Russia. The email goes on to list Democratic politicians, the DNC chair, and former intelligence officers they should challenge.
    • The letter also says there’s no other way to interpret Mueller’s lack of action other than “as a total and complete vindication of President Trump.” Just a reminder that previous special counsels have also declined to decide on charges.
  1. Lawyers and former intelligence officials question Barr’s claim that there can’t be an obstruction case if there was no cooperation between Russia and Trump. According to legal precedent, obstruction is a crime whether or not you can prove an underlying crime.
    • Lawyers also question why Barr included his own legal argument in his summary.
  1. Lindsey Graham says that Barr told him he’ll send Mueller’s report to the White House first so they can make any redactions based on executive privilege.
  2. Barr sends a second letter to Congress saying that his original letter was misinterpreted and that he’ll provide the redacted Mueller report in mid-April. He says Mueller is helping with the redactions, and that he’ll redact:
    • Info that is secret according to the laws about grand juries.
    • Info affecting ongoing investigations.
    • Info that could compromise our intelligence community’s resources and methods.
    • Info that would “infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” (that sounds pretty broad).
  1. Barr says he will NOT, in fact, submit the report to the White House for review before sending it out.
  2. Barr clarifies that his original letter was never intended to summarize Mueller’s findings.
  3. A federal prosecutor says in court that the grand jury convened by Mueller is still “continuing robustly,” indicating that there could be more developments.
  4. Mitch McConnell again blocks a resolution in the Senate to have the Mueller report be made public.
  5. Democratic chairs of House committees demand the Mueller report and underlying evidence be released in full to those committees by April 2.
  6. Kellyanne Conway says House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff should resign. Schiff’s Republican colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee give their opening statements in a committee hearing criticizing Schiff and calling on his to resign.
    • Did people call for Devin Nunes to resign when he made his midnight run to the White House? I think they just requested that he recuse himself.
    • I’ve never seen Schiff mad, but his response was epically angry. You can see the Republican accusation at 6:15 and Schiff’s response at 9:30 in this C-SPAN video.
  1. BTA Bank, along with the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, sues Trump real estate associate Felix Sater, accusing him of planning to launder money stolen from the bank. They say Sater used Trump real estate deals and Trump-branded skyscrapers to launder the money.
    • Sater is a convicted felon turned state’s witness in unrelated cases.
    • The House Intelligence Committee postpones Sater’s planned testimony.
  1. A Swedish bank (Swedbank) is accused of being a conduit to launder money from the former Soviet Union into the West. The bank is also accused of being the pipeline for sending money from Russia to the Trump campaign and Paul Manafort.
  2. In an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump promises to release the complete and unredacted documents used to obtain the FISA warrants in the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference. He’ll also release the FISA warrant itself.
    • Trump calls the FBI treasonous, calls the former director of the CIA mentally ill, and calls Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) a criminal.
    • Trump also says (possibly correctly) that none of this (the Russia investigation) would’ve happened if William Barr would’ve been his Attorney General from the start.
  1. A federal judge orders the release (to the courts) of James Comey’s unredacted memos covering his interactions with Trump. This is part of a lawsuit brought by media organizations to obtain the information.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Newly surfaced documents show how Trump inflated his assets in order to obtain loans. The “Statements of Financial Condition” show he lied about the number of lots available in a golf course development, the size of the vineyard in Virginia, and the number of stories in Trump Tower, among others.
  2. The GOP revs up their own plans for investigations into the 2016 elections, focusing on investigating the investigators of both Russia’s meddling and Hillary’s emails (again), abuses of FISA warrants (again), and former Obama officials.
    • Some claim that the Steele Dossier started the whole Russia investigation, but the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee found in 2018 that the investigation was triggered by George Papadopoulos’s drunken confession to an Australian diplomat.
  1. Here’s a weird one. According to Jeff Bezos’ security consultant, his investigation into the AMI release of Bezos’ private texts found that the Saudi Arabian government hacked into Bezos’ phone. He’s not sure if it’s related to the National Enquirer’s publication of private text messages between Bezos and his mistress.
    • Remember there was an issue a while back about AMI’s relationship with Saudi Arabia surrounding the fluff issue they published on the crown prince.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses to temporarily block the federal ban on bump stocks, so the ban remains in place while the case moves through the justice system.

  2. The ACLU files suit against three South Dakota anti-protest laws, including the Riot Boosting Act, which could fine or criminalize protestors. Two previous laws put similar restrictions on freedom of speech.
  3. A federal judge in San Diego strikes down California’s ban on owning high-capacity gun magazines (defined by the law as holding more than 10 bullets). He based his ruling partly on instances he cited where people ran out of bullets while protecting themselves from home invaders.
    • The judge also claims that the problem of mass shootings is “very small.”
    • California’s ban on purchasing high-capacity magazines is still in place.
    • Also, the fact that a handful of homeowners ran out of bullets might support an argument that we need better training in order to obtain a gun.
  1. Trump told confidants that he’s saving Judge Amy Barrett for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat. That’s kind of morose, no?

Healthcare:

  1. In a new legal filing, the Department of Justice reverses its previous opinions and says we should strike all of the ACA from the law.
    • Previously, they said that only protections for people with pre-existing conditions needed to be stricken.
    • Striking the ACA would cause an estimated 20 million more Americans to be unable to obtain coverage.
    • Around 129 million Americans would lose coverage for pre-existing conditions or face higher premiums.
    • States’ attorneys are defending the law.
    • Even though Trump has promised a way better plan for three years, neither Republicans in Congress nor the White House have brought up a plan to replace the ACA. There aren’t even plans to make a plan.
    • This directive came straight from Trump, who was convinced by Mick Mulvaney. Attorney General William Barr, VP Mike Pence, and HHS secretary Alex Azar oppose it.
  1. At the same time, Democrats unveil their new plan to strengthen and expand healthcare. Their plan would:
    • Expand insurance subsidies by increasing tax credits and loosening eligibility requirements.
    • Reverse Trump’s changes to the ACA.
    • Create a national reinsurance program to offset high insurer costs and keep premium prices steady.
  1. Parts of the ACA are popular. Voters in several states have passed referendums to force the ACA’s Medicaid expansion after their own elected officials refused to do so. (Carol’s tip of the week: Stop electing those officials.)
  2. A federal judge rejects efforts by the Trump administration to place work requirements on people receiving Medicaid in Kentucky and Arkansas.
    • And yet, Indiana is phasing in work requirements with no plans to stop, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to approve other states’ work requirements.
  1. A federal judge strikes down a law in North Carolina that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He gives the state two months to amend the law or appeal his ruling.
    • A bill in 2015 made the 1973 law more restrictive, but the state claims it never intended to enforce it. In that case, I don’t know why they bothered amending the original bill.
  1. This year alone, 14 states have brought up bills banning abortions after six weeks (commonly known as “heartbeat bills”). Most won’t pass, and the courts will strike down those that do. Pro-life advocates hope that one will make it to the Supreme Court and end up overturning Roe vs. Wade.
  2. A federal court strikes down Trump’s changes to the ACA that allowed small businesses to offer insurance policies that don’t fulfill the requirements of the ACA.
  3. Trump names Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) to be the point person on the GOP healthcare plan. Interesting choice, since Scott resigned as CEO from Columbia/HCA after what became the largest case of Medicare fraud in history. The company was fined $1.7 billion.

International:

  1. Palestinians launch a rocket from the Gaza Strip that hits near Tel Aviv and injures seven people. Hamas says it was a mistake. Israel responds with warplane attacks on Hamas targets. Egypt negotiates a cease-fire.
  2. Theresa May promises to resign if the parliament accepts the Brexit deal, and still they can’t agree on it. Now May wants to hold yet another vote (that’ll be the fourth vote on this).
    • So now they vote on a series of options to move forward, like renegotiating (it sounds like the EU is giving this a hard pass), having a new general election, or holding a vote of no confidence. April 12 is the new deadline.
  1. Here’s the most international story of the week: Ten members of a dissident group raid a North Korean embassy in Spain, stealing computers and documents. They flee through Portugal to the U.S. and offer their stolen goods to the FBI. A Mexican national who graduated from Yale and has done time in a Chinese jail is the group leader. They wants to topple the Kim regime.
  2. Slovakia elects their first female president, Zuzana Caputova.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) reads Mein Kampf on the House floor to scold Democrats.
    • He compares the Russia investigation to Hitler’s “big lie.”
    • He mistakenly calls Hitler a socialist (he was closer to a fascist, though more extreme).
    • He seems to suggest that the Democratic party is repeating the moves of Hitler.
  1. Colorado’s Senate passes a “red flag” gun bill. Red flag laws allow judges to temporarily remove weapons from people deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. Some Colorado sheriffs say they won’t uphold the law.
  2. On the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota’s legislature passes a bill that bans taxpayer-funded gun buyback programs.
  3. The NRA opposes the expansion of the Violence Against Women Act. Specifically, they oppose preventing people who’ve committed domestic violence from obtaining weapons. Over half of the women murdered in the U.S. in a single-victim or single-perpetrator crime were romantic partners with their killer.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. After Trump vetoed a resolution passed by the House and the Senate to block his declaration of national emergency, the House fails to garner enough votes to override his veto. So the national emergency stands.
  2. The Pentagon tells Congress that they’ve authorized $1 billion earmarked for other projects to be used for new border wall construction. Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee lodge a protest against the transfer of funds.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. This story won’t die. Prosecutors drop all charges against Jussie Smollett, saying he’s already paid his penance by doing community service and donating his bond to the city. They do say, however, this doesn’t mean they don’t think he’s guilty; they do.
    • The mayor and chief of police are furious over the decision, so I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about it. Trump says the FBI is opening an investigation into it, but I doubt that.
  1. After conversations with academics and civil rights groups, Facebook expands its policies on hate groups by banning white nationalism and white supremacy.
  2. Trump delays the deportation of Liberians who migrated here under protected status. I don’t know what brought about his change of heart.
  3. Trump says he’ll close down the border with Mexico unless Mexico stops all unauthorized border crossings. DHS says that would be a disaster so it would only be used as a last resort. I’ll miss those delicious avocados and fresh veggies.
    • Over a half-million people cross that border legally each day in Texas alone, many for work (and it goes both ways).
  1. The next day, the State Department announces that Trump is cutting off all direct aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (or as Fox News put it, the “three Mexican countries”). Because that will stop people from wanting to leave those countries for a better life here, right?
  2. CBP holds asylum seekers in El Paso in a makeshift, penned-in encampment under a bridge because there’s no space left for processing.
  3. Kirstjen Nielsen asks Congress for permission to immediately deport unaccompanied minor migrants back to their home countries. Currently, Mexican minors can be deported immediately, but not those from other countries. She also wants to detain migrant families together until their asylum requests are processed.
    • Why should we pay for this detention? It’s soooo much cheaper to release them on their own recognizance or to a sponsor.
    • Halting the previous release program and making it harder for sponsors to come forward are what’s causing most of the overcrowding in the detention centers.
  1. James Fields, the man found guilty of murdering Heather Heyer in the Charlottesville rallies, pleads guilty to 29 hate crimes.
  2. The House passes the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen the Equal Pay Act. It lets employees discuss salary, expands collection of pay data, prevents employers from requiring you to divulge your salary history, and helps people fight pay discrimination.
    • Women still make 80 cents to each dollar men make, and only about 27% of that difference can be explained by differences in education, occupation, or experience.
    • The pay gap is smaller for younger women than for older women, so there’s some good news.
    • Men are more likely to negotiate a higher starting salary, and women who do so are still likely to be punished for it.
  1. PR failure for NASA. They cancel their first all-woman spacewalk because they didn’t have enough spacesuits to fit them all. Now one woman and one man will go instead.
  2. Orange County ends its contract with ICE, meaning they won’t hold ICE detainees in their jails. Detainees will likely be sent to other holding facilities where they won’t get as much charitable assistance.
  3. The Supreme Court blocks a Texas execution because the prisoner was denied the presence of a Buddhist spiritual advisor. Compare this to the case in Alabama where the Supreme Court allowed them to execute a man though he was denied having a Muslim imam be there.
  4. Since the beginning of 2018, five white nationalists/supremacists have been convicted after threatening to kill Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA).
    • Prosecutions for death threats against Trump were also high in 2018, but not as high as for Obama in six of his eight years in office, for Bush during any year in office, or for Clinton for his last three years (the only years I have numbers for). In fairness, it depends on how each administration decides to prosecute.
    • Threats against officials overall were up 41% in 2018.
    • Going back to 1990, the perpetrators are 85% white males (almost all are male and U.S. citizens). 75% come from the far right.

Climate/EPA:

  1. House Democrats introduce the Climate Action Now Act to reduce carbon emissions, keep our part of the Paris agreement, and pave the way for more clean energy.
  2. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer announces a Special Committee on the Climate Crisis to help develop policies on energy and the environment.
  3. Mitch McConnell brings the Green New Deal to a Senate vote. He‘s trying to force Senate Democrats to put their support on record, but most simply vote “present.”
  4. Puerto Rico passes a bill requiring the island to be powered by 100% renewable energy sources by 2050.
  5. Two-thirds of Iran’s provinces are either already flooding or facing imminent flooding.
  6. In response to a judge delaying construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, Trump tries to circumvent the court by issuing a new permit for construction.
  7. A federal judge restores Obama’s ban on offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. She says Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed the bans.
  8. At a rally in Michigan, Trump vows to fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative even though he proposed to cut by 90% in his recent budget. Well, actually in his last three budget proposals. The Great Lakes restoration was one of Obama’s campaign promises.
  9. David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior, once blocked a report that found the pesticides malathion and chlorpyrifos to be so toxic that they endanger the existence of 1,200 species. No wonder people had so many health problems after they doused Los Angeles in malathion in the late 80s.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s tariffs cost Americans about $1.4 billion a month in reduced income according to the Fed. That’s if the government offset the cost; if the government didn’t, then the cost is closer to $12.3 billion.
  2. A different economic study says the trade policies of the last two years cost the American economy $7.8 billion.
  3. Betsy DeVos appears before Congress to defend the Trump budget cuts to educational programs, specifically to programs that help people with disabilities and most prominently to the Special Olympics.
    • After a major backlash, Trump takes credit for overriding DeVos and reinstating funding for the Special Olympics even though she just spent three days defending his cuts. He’s cut funding for this in all three of his budgets.
  1. Trump complains about the amount of disaster relief funds earmarked for Puerto Rico, claiming an amount that’s far higher than the actual. He wants to halt funds for their relief and refuses to meet with the governor.
  2. Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow wants the Fed to cut interest rates by 50 basis points (or .5%). Trump blames the Fed’s interest rate increases for slower economic growth.

Elections:

  1. A study finds that in Florida’s 2018 midterm elections, mail-in ballots from college-age voters in Parkland went uncounted at a much higher rate than the statewide average. About 15% of those ballots were rejected or didn’t arrive in time to be counted; the Florida average is 1.2%.
    • Election officials dispute these findings.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The EU votes to eliminate changing time zones during spring and fall (seems to be going around these days).
  2. Because Trump’s tweets are public record, Twitter wants to label any of his tweets that violate their policies instead of deleting them.
  3. Emails surface between NRA official Mark Richardson and Wolfgang Halbig, a Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, harasser of victims‘ families, and Infowars employee. Richardson tried to get Halbig to push a conspiracy theory that there was more than one shooter at Parkland.
  4. Speaking of Infowars, Alex Jones says in a deposition that he had a form of psychosis when he was tormenting Sandy Hook families and pushing conspiracy theories about the shooting.
  5. Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is charged in a multi-million-dollar extortion scheme against Nike. He’s already facing charges for bank fraud, tax fraud, and stealing $1.6 million from a client.
  6. Trump holds a campaign rally in Michigan, which I won’t go into. He doesn’t have any new material.
  7. According to a White House security adviser, Trump overrode 25 denials of security clearance in order to give clearance to people in the White House.
  8. Mike Pence talked Dan Coats out of resigning last year after Trump decided to pull troops out of Syria. And this was after Trump pushed Coats to prove that Obama wiretapped him, told Coats to say our intelligence agencies are biased, and accused Coats of leaking info.

Polls:

After William Barr releases his summary/not-summary of the Mueller report:

  1. 29% of Americans think Mueller’s report cleared Trump of wrongdoing.
  2. 40% believe he has not been cleared.
  3. 31% are unsure.

Well played, Mr. Barr. Well played.