Month: July 2019

Week 131 in Trump

Posted on July 31, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Best Image of the week. Victory is sometimes slow, but it is always sweet. Way to get 'er done, Jon.

In response to SCOTUS shutting down a lawsuit over the use of Pentagon funds to build a wall, Jon Zal has the most appropriate tweet for the week:

“JUST IN: Man who won election by promising voters he’d strengthen the military and force Mexico to pay for his border wall wins court battle that allows him to deplete the military and force his voters to pay for the border wall. #MAGA”

So much winning.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 27…

Russia:

  1. Ahead of Mueller’s testimony before Congress, the DOJ tells him he must limit his testimony to the public findings in his 448-page report. He said previously he would do this anyway.
  2. Mueller testifies to Congress, coming across a little feeble and off-guard. In fairness, he wears hearing aids (which don’t work well where he was sitting), he wasn’t presented with a portfolio highlighting the sections in his report that were referenced (so he had to search through the doc for every question), and he’s naturally curt and concise. But still, not compelling TV.
    • Probably no minds were changed, but I outlined a few highlights and some conspiracy theories that were new to me.
    • If you’ve read the report, the only thing new in the hearings was the astounding number of conspiracy theories that you would only know about if you watch Fox News.
    • Republicans on the committees didn’t challenge the facts stated in Mueller’s report, but did try to establish bias in the investigation.
    • Mueller definitely sticks to his promise to only testify about what’s in the report.
    • Following Mueller’s testimony, the number of House members endorsing the start of impeachment hearings increases to 107.
    • Also following Mueller’s testimony, House committees step up their requests and subpoenas for evidence. They also plan to petition a judge to unseal the grand jury evidence from Mueller’s investigation.
    • Meanwhile, Trump says the Russia investigations are finally over.
  1. One America News, which Trump promotes in his tweets, hires an anchor who’s still working for Sputnik (Russia’s state-owned media outlet).
  2. Several thousand people protest in Moscow, demanding that opposition candidates be allowed on the ballots for city council races. Around 300 people are arrested, including Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who gets a 30-day sentence for organizing the protests.
  3. The Senate Intelligence Committee releases a (highly redacted) report concluding that Russian cyberactors hacked into election databases in all 50 states in 2016, and that they were in a position to change data in an Illinois database (and also in one other state, which isn’t named). There’s no evidence they did so, though. Here are some highlights:
    • Russia began the attacks as far back as 2014.
    • The committee couldn’t figure out what Russia’s intentions were.
    • Russian diplomats were planning to undermine the results of the election, anticipating that Clinton would win. The committee thinks it’s possible that Russia purposefully left their fingerprints on the databases in order to cast doubt on the validity of the elections.
    • There’s no evidence that any votes or voter tallies were changed.
  1. Following the release of the report and Mueller’s testimony, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans block three bills passed by the Democrat-led House to increase election security and help prevent attacks such as those described in the report. The bills would:
    • Require internet companies to disclose political ad buyers by internet companies in order to identify foreign influence.
    • Place sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.
    • Sanction Russia for its cyberattacks.
  1. Full disclosure: McConnell has received donations from lobbyists for four of the major makers of voting equipment, though their donations amount to less than $10,000.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump files a lawsuit to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.
    • Trump claims the request from the House Ways and Means Committee for his tax returns is unprecedented. But documents show that when the same committee requested Richard Nixon’s tax returns, they got them within a day.
  1. A federal judge blocks subpoenas issued by Congress to obtain Trump organization financial records in their emoluments lawsuit against Trump. The judge says the suit should make its way through the appeals court first.
  2. And then, ironically, Trump’s Doral country club is listed among the finalists to hold next year’s G7 summit.
  3. Jeffrey Epstein is served court papers in jail in relation to a child rape lawsuit. A few days later, he’s found injured in his cell, semiconscious with marks on his neck.
  4. A judge rules that a class action suit against Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka for fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition in multilevel marketing companies they promoted can move forward. The judge dismisses allegations of conspiracy and racketeering.
  5. Michael Flynn’s former business partner Bijan Kian faces up to 15 years in prison after being convicted on foreign-agent felony charges.
  6. The DOJ declines to follow up on contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Justice Department announces they’ll resume the federal death penalty, and selects five inmates for whom they’ll schedule executions. Federal executions were largely ended in 1972, when the Supreme Court ruling found that the death penalty was imposed on blacks at a far higher rate than whites. Congress expanded the federal death penalty again in 1988, but there have only been three executions since then.
  2. At the same time, a Philadelphia DA asks the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule that the death penalty goes against the state constitution. He cites the inequity and prejudice with which the death penalty is served.
    • There are 45 people on death row in Philadelphia, 41 of whom are minorities.
    • Post-conviction reviews overturned 72% of Philadelphia’s death sentences.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate finally passes a bill that funds the 9/11 victims fund in perpetuity. First responders no longer have to come back to Congress to plead their case every time funding comes up for a vote.
    • Comedian John Stewart has been fighting for this for nearly a decade.
    • A quick look back at votes and bill sponsorship indicates that this has largely been blocked by Republicans over the past 18 years. I don’t understand why this is.
  1. The Trump administration tells Utah legislators that it won’t approve their request for funding for Medicaid expansion under ACA because their plan leaves out certain income brackets covered by the ACA. The administration would fund full Medicaid expansion.

International:

  1. The Navy warship that brought down an Iranian drone last week brought down a second one in the process, according to CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie….
  2. Trump says he could easily wipe Afghanistan off the face of the earth, but he doesn’t want to kill 10 million people. Afghanistan requests clarification.
  3. Trump vetos three bills that would’ve prevented the administration from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Both the House and the Senate passed the bans largely over human rights issues.
  4. The UK selects Boris Johnson to be their next prime minister. Johnson is a populist who led the original Brexit movement and is OK with a no-deal Brexit. Oh how did we get here?
    • Johnson was a journalist who created sensationalist and inaccurate stories. He was an EU skeptic even back in the early 90s.
    • He was fired from the Times of London for making up quotes.
    • He meticulously creates his persona of a bumbling, unkempt buffoon.
    • He was fired from the Parliament before he became the mayor of London.
    • He’s long wanted to be Prime Minister, but he didn’t really want it under the current circumstances and he didn’t really think the Brexit referendum would pass. Now we’ll see what he does with it.
    • His first week in office, he ramps up the Brexit rhetoric and causes the pound to fall.
  1. The Senate confirms Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense, a position that’s been open more than half a year. Esper is a former Raytheon lobbyist. He replaces James Mattis.
  2. After France passes a law taxing big tech companies like Amazon and Google, Trump says he’ll take “substantial reciprocal action.” Ironically, Trump says if anyone’s going to tax American companies it should be America. These companies barely pay any taxes in the U.S., thanks in large part to the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts. France is only taxing the amount these companies make in France.
  3. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates resigns, and Trump nominates Representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace him. You might have noticed several GOP Members of Congress auditioning for this role during the Mueller hearing, including Ratcliffe.
  4. It’s been a month since North Korea and the U.S. agreed to start up denuclearization negotiations again, but so far Kim Jong Un hasn’t even named a negotiator.
  5. Speaking of North Korea, they just launched two unidentified objects into the Sea of Japan.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. South Dakota passes a law requiring schools to display the country’s motto, “In God we trust.” State Republicans say it’s about history, but it only became the country’s motto in 1956, when Eisenhower signed it into law.
    • That was around the same time “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance, and the same time that “In God we trust” was added to currency.
    • The author of the bill says it’s based on religion (Judeo-Christian principles).
    • Over a dozen other states have either passed a similar law or have proposed one.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Supreme Court finds that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit attempting to block Trump from using Pentagon money to build his wall don’t have a legal right to bring the case. They didn’t rule that Trump’s use of these funds is constitutional, but the ruling allows him to start using the funds.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration announces a deportation process that bypasses immigration judges and allows them to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who’ve been here less than two years. Before, this expedited process was reserved for undocumented migrants caught within 100 miles of the border and who had only been in the country two weeks.
  2. A district judge blocks Trump’s new “third-country” asylum rule that prevents refugees from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they pass through a third country and don’t seek asylum there first. The administration says they’ll fight the decision.
    • The judge says the rule could put people in imminent danger.
    • This could affect refugees who’ve been trying to do this the right way by waiting their turn at ports of entry. They’ve been waiting in Mexico for months, but if this rule goes into effect, they might be required to seek asylum in Mexico first.
    • Trump threatens Guatemala with tariffs if they don’t enter a safe country agreement for asylum seekers. He also threatens a travel ban against Guatemala.
  1. ICE releases a 16-year-old U.S. citizen after 23 days of detention in an immigration center. He says he lost 26 pounds, and described awful conditions there. There were extenuating circumstances, but in the end, a U.S. citizen was unlawfully detained by U.S. officials who refused to accept his birth certificate.
    • In March, ICE detained a nine-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother, both of whom are U.S. citizens, for 32 hours. Even though they had U.S. passports, officials accused the brother of human trafficking. Their mother had to go through the Mexican consulate to free them.
  1. Remember the high school student made famous for staring down a Native American elder after a March for Life rally in DC last year? He sued the Washington Post for defamation, and a judge just dismissed the case with prejudice (meaning the suit can’t be brought up again). The family still has lawsuits pending against CNN and NBC.
  2. FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before Congress, and he says that domestic terrorism from white hate groups is on the rise. He also says, “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”
  3. Shit rolls downhill… Trump’s racist attacks against The Squad have trickled down.
    • Two New Jersey GOP officials call to eradicate Islam and call a sitting Member of Congress a terrorist on social media. They refuse to apologize.
    • The Republican County Chairmen’s association of Illinois posts and then removes a meme on Facebook that calls the squad “The Jihad Squad.” The meme also has the slogan, “Political Jihad Is Their Game,” and it shows Rep. Ayanna Pressley aiming a gun. The president of the association doesn’t apologize for the content.
  1. Trump’s mad at Elijah Cummings. He tweets that Cummings’ Baltimore district is “far worse and more dangerous” than the border, is the worst district in the U.S., and is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess—a “dangerous and filthy” place.
    • Even members of the GOP think this one went too far, and the Baltimore Sun publishes a scathing retort.
    • And, surprise! It appears that Kushner is a slumlord in that very district. Kushner Companies owns thousands of apartments in the district, which have accrued over 200 code violations in a single year, including mice infestation.
    • If you’re not clear on why these tweets are racist and hurtful, give this a listen.
  1. Active troops are now monitoring migrants at a detention center in Texas.
  2. After ICE traps a man and his 12-year-old son in their van for hours (threatening them with arrest), people in the Tennessee neighborhood provide the two with food and water. After four hours, the neighbors form a human chain around the van to help them get back into their house and prevent ICE agents from taking them into custody.
  3. A federal judge rules against North Carolina’s notorious bathroom bill, saying that the state can’t ban people from using bathrooms that match their identity. Also, the guy who authored that bill is running for the House of Representatives in a special election. Why is there a special election? Because the campaign of the Republican who ran last time committed voter fraud.
  4. Several U.S. Marines are arrested in Southern California for transporting undocumented migrants.

Climate:

  1. A new report shows that temperature variations at the end of the last century were more extreme than any variations over the past 2,000 years. Previous variations were contained to specific areas as opposed to the global variations we see now.
  2. India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are in monsoon season, and have seen over 650 people die so far from the extreme weather and flooding.
  3. Europe is continuing its hot streak, with Paris hitting 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever recorded there. Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium also hit record highs.
  4. Four of the biggest auto manufacturers side with California in the state’s fight against Trump’s regulatory rollbacks on fuel efficiency. They strike a deal that‘s slightly looser than Obama‘s regulations, but much tougher than Trump’s. They‘ll reach 51 mpg by 2026 instead of 54.5 mpg by 2025. Trump lowered it to 37 mpg.
    • Trump is still likely to revoke California’s right to create its own emissions guidelines, but there are 13 other states who promise to uphold Obama’s tighter standards.
    • Additional automakers are interested in signing on to the deal.
  1. Tidewater glaciers are experiencing underwater melt at a rate 100 times faster than previously thought. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that end in the ocean.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The White House and Congress reach a two-year budget deal that increases the spending cap by $320 billion and that suspends the debt ceiling until after the next presidential election (because who wants that hanging over an election?).
    • The Freedom Caucus (Tea Party wing) urges Trump to reject the deal.
    • A few months ago, the White House said they would force spending cuts in the budget, but they approved this increase anyway.
    • The deal puts us on track to add another $1 trillion to the deficit this year. Candidate Trump said he’d balance the budget within 5 years. He has an perplexing strategy…
  1. And then the next day, the Trump administration announces a proposed rule that will drop over 3 million Americans off of SNAP.
    • An interesting side effect of that is that share prices for major discount grocery stores dropped.
  1. Bernie Madoff asks Trump to reduce his prison sentence. Madoff is 81, and has about 140 years out of 150 to serve for cheating hundred of people out of their money (for an estimated $64.8 billion in total).
  2. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to 2.1% last quarter.
  3. 2018’s newly revised economic growth is now 2.5%.
  4. China, which is hardly importing any U.S. soybeans at this point, approves imports of soybeans and wheat from Russia.
  5. The government announces another round of assistance to farmers hurt by the tariffs. Farmers will receive from $15 to $150 per acre, totaling $16 billion.
  6. The DOJ approves the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. States Attorneys Generals launch an antitrust lawsuit.

Elections:

  1. Three House Republicans announce they won’t be running again in 2020. They are: Pete Olson (Texas), Martha Roby (Alabama), and Paul Mitchell (Michigan). Three House Republicans and two House Democrats announced earlier this year that they won’t be running.
  2. Lawyers in Miami-Dade County, FL, say they’ve found a loophole in the state’s recently passed bill that requires ex-felons to pay any fees and fines before they can be eligible to vote. This bill overrode a measure passed overwhelmingly by the voters. The loophole is that fees and fines are not usually listed in the sentencing documents.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In a speech to conservative teens, Trump works them up by repeating his debunked story that undocumented immigrants are voting illegally. They just aren’t. There are so many procedures in place to prevent this. He also tells the kids that Article II of the Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants, among other fish tales.
  2. The governor of Puerto Rico finally resigns after weeks of protests.
  3. Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to the UN has spent 7 out of 20 months of her time as Ambassador to Canada at homes she owns in the U.S.
  4. Lawyers for Cesar Sayoc, the MAGA Bomber, claim that Sayoc was influenced by Fox News, Trump’s tweets, and Facebook. His favorites were Fox & Friends and Hannity. Sayoc mailed 16 pipe bombs to Trump’s perceived enemies.
  5. A Pennsylvania school that sent out letters to parents threatening to call child services if they don’t pay their lunch debt rejects a local businessman’s offer to pay off those debts.
  6. Illustrating why Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility, Mitch McConnell tells Trump that no politician ever lost his seat by approving higher government spending.
  7. A police officer in Louisiana posts on social media that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs a round.
  8. Trump calls for opening investigations into Obama’s book deal and reopening investigations into Hillary’s emails and the Clinton Foundation. He later complains about the air conditioning in the White House installed by the Obama’s saying that it worked fine before. Not sure how he’d know.
  9. There are eight mass shootings over the weekend. EIGHT.
    • A shooter kills three people and injures 15 more at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The shooter is also killed. He had previously posted a recommendation to read Might is Right, a white supremacist manifesto from the 1800s.
    • That same night, two shooters kill one person and injure 11 at a festival in a Brooklyn, NY, park.
    • The other mass shootings occur in DC, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Washington State,
  1. Dozens of links from major news media outlets online are now being redirected (without their knowledge) to advertising sites. I’m talking major media, like the New York Times, Forbes, BBC, and more.
  2. Brazil’s president threatens journalist Glenn Simpson of the Intercept with jail time over reporting hacked phone conversations involving the justice minister. Greenwald has generated his share of controversy, but he’s still protected by due process.

Mueller Testifies

Posted on July 30, 2019 in Politics, Trump

What you took away from Mueller’s testimony to Congress this week depends on a few things, like whether you already read the full report (or even just the summaries), whether you watched the full testimony, where you get your news from, and what you believed before his testimony.

  1. Here are the highlights if your news source employs a fact checker:
    • Russia is absolutely intent on meddling in our elections. They did it in 2016, they’ll do it in 2020, and they’re probably doing it now.
    • Trump’s campaign members and associates had many contacts with Russian agents and officials, and they pretty much all lied about it to investigators.
    • “Problematic is an understatement in terms of what [Trump’s praise for Wikileaks] displays of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal behavior.”
    • Trump tried several times to get White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and then Trump tried to cover that up.
    • Trump tried several times to get Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself from the investigation so he could limit the scope of the investigation to only future campaigns, thus excluding his own campaign.
    • Trump encouraged witnesses to stay loyal and urged them to not cooperate with prosecutors.
    • The report doesn’t exonerate anyone.
    • Trump tried to get James Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn.
    • Trump tried to keep emails about the Trump Tower meeting secret.
    • Trump asked staff to falsify records related to the Mueller investigation.
    • Trump’s written answers to Mueller were inadequate, incomplete, and sometimes untruthful.
    • Trump’s associates opened themselves up to counterintelligence risks of blackmail with their behavior during the election.
    • Mueller did not reach a determination of whether Trump committed a crime because DOJ standards say a sitting president can’t be indicted.
    • And finally, collusion is not a legal term.
  1. Here are the highlights if your news sources are Fox:
    • The FISA warrant a) began this whole thing and b) was obtained based on information in the Steele Dossier. The dossier didn’t start it, and the FISA warrant application barely mentions the dossier.
    • The Mueller report debunks the Steele Dossier. The report mostly mentions the dossier as part of the timeline of events, and isn’t used as evidence. The report does say the dossier was wrong about Michael Cohen being in Prague (Volume II, page 139).
    • The Trump Tower meeting was a setup by Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. There’s no evidence to indicate this.
    • Simpson provided the information Veselnitskaya brought to the Trump Tower meeting. This one is actually true, but it was research work done as part of a legal case for Prevezon, a client both had in common (see link above).
    • Konstantin Kilimnik is a secret FBI informant. Not really, but he is kind of a mystery.
    • Along those lines, Josef Mifsud, who met with George Papadopoulos, is a Western intelligence agent, not a Russian one. He doesn’t appear to be.
    • The Clinton campaign laundered money through a lawyer to pay a foreign agent (Steele) to get dirt on Trump. And Clinton was the one to collude with Russia, not Trump. First, the campaign‘s lawyer hired Fusion GPS, not Steele. Second, so the Clinton campaign colluded to… lose the election to Trump?
    • Peter Strzok’s and Lisa Page’s texts are evidence that the investigation itself was biased. The DOJ’s inspector general found otherwise. This line of questioning leads to a passionate defense by Mueller of his team. He says he didn’t ask anyone about their politics because they don’t affect a team member’s ability to do their job.

I think I should note here that regardless of whether you do believe the Trump Tower meeting was a setup and regardless of whether you do believe Mifsud and Kilimnik are U.S. intelligence fronts, the Trump campaign was totally interested in sharing information with them while under the impression that they were Russian operatives. Nobody forced them into the decisions they made.

Week 130 in Trump

Posted on July 24, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Can we be done with this already?

What a week. The ongoing feud between Trump and the squad; a resolution of condemnation of Trump’s racist tweets; a failed impeachment vote; a contempt vote for Barr and Ross; newly unsealed evidence in Michael Cohen’s case; even more sex traffickers; tensions in Iran; Hong Kong protests; Puerto Rico protests; the USDA and BLM move across country; and an amazing database of all opioid sales between 2006 and 2012.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 21…

Russia:

  1. The judge in Roger Stone’s case bans him from all social media because the guy just can’t keep quiet about his case. The judge also limits Stone’s family’s use of social media. But two hours after the hearing, his wife posts a picture of her and Roger at the hearing
  2. The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, says they knew that Julian Assange was interfering in our 2016 presidential election. He accuses Wikileaks of manipulating the information.
  3. The Trump administration is using executive privilege to block House committees from obtaining classified documents from Mueller’s investigation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Texas Democrat Al Green forces a House vote on articles of impeachment against Trump with a focus on Trump’s behavior and moral fitness for office, which the House votes down. This resolution doesn’t cover obstruction, and it’s Green’s third time trying.
  2. Trump tells Kellyanne Conway to ignore a subpoena from Congress to testify about her violations of the Hatch Act. (She’s been accused of more Hatch Act violations than any other single person, and others have resigned over their violations.)
  3. The judge in Jeffrey Epstein’s child trafficking case denies him bail, ruling that Epstein will remain behind bars while he awaits trial. The judge also says that Epstein’s behavior around young girls seems uncontrollable.
  4. While the newly released evidence from Michael Cohen’s case implicate Trump in the conspiracy to pay hush money to women with whom he had affairs, the Southern District of New York announces there won’t be any more charges filed in the case.
    • It’s understandable, since the working theory is that you can’t indict a sitting president; but also confusing, since other people appear to be implicated in the crime as well (including Hope Hicks, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson, and AMI executive David Pecker).
    • The unsealed evidence shows the impetus to keep the women quiet came from the release of the Access Hollywood tapes where Trumps brags that he can (and does) grab women and do what he wants because he’s rich.
    • The judge ordered the release of the documents because he believes them to be a matter of national importance.
    • As a result of the document release, the House Judiciary Committee has asked Hope Hicks for clarity on the inconsistencies in her testimony.
  1. More information comes out about Epstein’s sweetheart deal brokered by Alex Acosta in 2008.
    • The jail supervisor wrote a memo to his staff to let them know that Epstein was a first-time offender “poorly versed in jail routine,” and “his adjustment to incarceration will most likely be atypical.”
    • The supervisor ordered Epstein’s cell to be unlocked with frequent access to the attorney room where they installed a TV for him.
    • Epstein was allowed to leave the jail for 12 hours a day, six days a week under a work release program. At times, he was left unattended.
  1. And because you just can’t know enough sex traffickers, the Eastern District of Virginia indicts George Nader on charges of trafficking a 14-year-old boy from Europe to have sex. George Nader worked with the Trump campaign to enable private meetings between the campaign and Russia, and between the campaign and the United Arab Emirates.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A court rules that the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, must pay $14 million in damages to a woman against whom they instigated a troll storm. The Daily Stormer launched “an online anti-Semitic harassment and intimidation campaign” against the Montana woman who had complained about her dealings with the mother of white supremacist leader Richard Spencer. This is the second multi-million judgement against the Daily Stormer.
  2. While the DOJ is concentrating on prosecuting immigration violations, opioid cases, and violent crimes, white collar prosecutions under Trump are down dramatically, both in the number of cases and the fines imposed.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge upholds Trump’s extension of bare-bones insurance policies that don’t meet the standards outlined in Obamacare. People can now keep these policies for up to three years.
  2. This database is whack. It turns out that the DEA has kept a database of every single oxycodone and hydrocodone transaction from 2006 to 2012. These account for 75% of all opioid drugs shipped to pharmacies. They’ve known all along where the problems were and where doctors and pharmacies were overselling.
    • 76 billion pills were distributed across the country during that time. In the areas hit hardest, that amounted to 150 or more pills per person per year. You can look up different areas of the country for yourself.
    • Six companies sold 75% of the pills tracked: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS, and Walmart.
    • SpecGx manufactured 29 million of the pills sold; Actavis Pharma manufactured 26 million. Purdue Pharma, which has taken the brunt of the fight against opioids, manufactured 2.5 million by comparison.
  1. DHHS will begin enforcing a new regulation preventing family planning clinics that receive federal funding from performing or referring women for abortions.

International:

  1. The BBC agrees not to share information gathered by one of their correspondents in an upcoming trip to Iran with the BBC’s Persian language channel, giving in to the Iranian government’s restrictions on a free press.
  2. Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo is arrested under an extradition warrant on corruption charges. Now Peru has arrested all of its living former presidents in connection with bribery charges connected to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company.
  3. The U.S. drops to 128th in the annual Global Peace Index, largely because of increases in violence and political instability. We’re now between South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
  4. Over the past two years under Trump, DHS has gotten rid of or reduced programs that were put in place to detect terrorist threats around weapons of mass destruction. These programs were put in place after the attacks on 9/11. DHS is tasked with domestic security, including identifying these threats.
  5. Iran seizes what appears to be a United Arab Emirates tanker carrying what Iran calls “smuggled fuel.”
  6. Trump announces that we brought down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz.
  7. Britain officials claim that Iranian authorities seized two British oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, one under the British flag and one under Liberia’s flag.
  8. Angela Merkel joins the ranks of foreign leaders who criticize Trump’s racist tweets and comments about four Congresswomen of color. Leaders have also expressed disapproval of the crowds chanting “Send her back!”
  9. Trump denies that he gave Rand Paul permission to negotiate with Iran, and then the next day he reverses himself and says he did give Paul permission. Interesting choice, since Paul is an admitted isolationist.
  10. The protests in Hong Kong continue—we’re in the fourth month. Protesters vandalize the Chinese government’s liaison office there, and police use tear gas and rubber bullets in response. In a separate incident, masked men with sticks attack protesters in a train station. Even so, the protests have been mostly peaceful, and illustrate how the populace feels about Chinese sovereignty.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Mostly along party-line votes, the House votes to condemn Trump’s racist tweets about the four Congresswomen of color. The resolution “strongly condemns [Trump’s] racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.” It received high criticism and little support from Republicans (four Republicans and one Independent voted for it). Some members of the GOP object to the use of the word “racist”n on the House floor. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
  2. The House votes to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt after they ignore subpoenas for information in the investigation into adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
  3. The House passes a bill to increase the minimum wage to $15. This will likely not be taken up in the Senate, and the Congressional Budget Office reports that this could cut jobs and might not result in higher incomes in the long term.
  4. Rep. Joaquin Castro introduces legislation to remove words from the federal government‘s vocabulary that describe immigrants in ways that are now considered derogatory.
  5. Following the Senate’s approval, the House passes a series of measures to prevent the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump is likely to veto this.

Family Separation:

  1. Here’s what happening at the border. A family at a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso was told that one parent would be sent back to Mexico and one parent could stay in the U.S. with their children. The agent then asked their three-year-old daughter to choose whether her Mom or Dad should be the one to stay. The girl said Mom, but cried when they started to take away her Dad. The agent said to the girl, “You said with mom.”
    • By the way, the three-year-old has heart disease and has had open heart surgery.
    • The only reason this family is together right now is because of the hard work of an American doctor who examined the little girl.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. While defending Trump’s racist tweets, Kellyanne Conway asks a Jewish journalist what his ethnicity is. This is in response to the journalist asking which country Trump wants the [mostly U.S.-born] Congresswomen to return to.
  2. Trump says he tried to stop the crowd from chanting “Send her back” at his first campaign rally after he made his racist tweets about the Congresswomen of color. He says he started speaking very quickly to cut off the chant, but video shows that he leaned back and soaked it in for about 15-20 seconds before beginning to speak. And 12 minutes later, he says, “If they don’t like it, let them leave… You know what? If they don’t love it, TELL THEM to leave it.”
    • Lara Trump throws Trump’s supporters under the bus, saying they were the ones who started the chant. She says Trump didn’t do anything.
  1. The following days, Trump continues his fight against the women, calling them pro-terrorist and anti-Israel and anti-USA. Trump’s aides have been working overtime to get him to stop.
  2. But eight days later, Trump is still tweeting about the Congresswoman, accusing them of hating America and Israel. He lies about:
    • Ilhan Omar supporting Al Qaeda (she doesn’t).
    • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling the U.S. people garbage (she didn’t).
    • All four women calling Jews evil (they haven’t).
  1. The Anti-Defamation League, which was founded to stop defamation of Jewish people, criticizes Trump for using Israel as a shield to defend his racist tweets. They point out how white supremacists across the country are cheering his tweets. The neo-Nazi who runs the Daily Stormer tweeted, “This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for…”
  2. The four Congresswomen hold a press conference condemning the “recent xenophobic, bigoted remarks from the occupant of the White House.” They call this a distraction. They also call for Trump’s impeachment.
  3. Now we’re learning that Trump’s attacks on the squad was part of a strategy gone awry, seemingly because he doesn’t understand how racist it was. He meant to drive a wedge between House leadership and the squad, but his words unified the two groups in their condemnation Trump. He’s also trying to make this four women the face of the Democratic party in the run-up to 2020.
  4. Upon returning to her home state of Minnesota, Ilhan Omar is welcomed home by cheering supporters at the airport.
  5. The DOJ issues a new rule that you can’t seek asylum in the U.S. if you traveled through another country to get here and didn’t request asylum from that country. This is targeted at Central Americans coming through Mexico, but the DOJ is forgetting that Mexico is not safe for many asylum seekers because people they are fleeing follow them there.
    • Unlike Canada, neither Mexico nor Guatemala has a safe third-country agreement with the U.S.
    • That’s OK, though. Trump’s new rule doesn’t require that the third country be deemed as safe for asylum seekers.
    • These rules also apply to minors crossing the border alone.
    • The ACLU files a lawsuit to block the rule, saying “It’s patently unlawful under U.S. law as well as international human rights law.”
  1. A federal judge definitively blocks Trump from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The judge also retains jurisdiction in the case to ensure that the census is processed properly.
  2. Trump tells aides that he wants to fire Wilbur Ross after the failure to get the citizenship question on the 2020 Census.
  3. Customs and Border Protection open an investigation into 70 current or former Border Patrol employees who belong to the Facebook group that mocked and denigrated both migrants and elected officials.
  4. Wanna know how all that funding for border security is being spent? Southwest Key Programs paid six employees at least $1 million in 2017. Southwest Key is a nonprofit agency that provides housing for thousands of migrant children.
  5. Catholic sisters, clergy, and parishioners gather in the Russell Senate Office Building in DC to protest Trump’s immigration policies and our treatment of immigrants. 70 are arrested by DC police.
  6. Even though you can’t pray away the gay, Amazon is getting flack from House Republicans for no longer carrying books by a leading proponent of gay conversion therapy. Conversion therapy has not only been debunked, it’s also been found to lead to mental problems and even suicide.
  7. During a House Oversight and Reform Committee meeting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asks DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan if he’d seen the photoshopped images of a violent rape of AOC that were being spread by border patrol agents. She then asks whether the people who spread these images are still in charge of taking care of women and children. McAleenan has no answer.

  8. Under the Trump administration, undocumented immigrants who serve in the military are being denied citizenship at rates higher than foreign-born immigrants who don’t serve.
  9. CBP uses tear gas to stop a group of about 50 migrants who try to rush the barriers on a bridge at the border in Rio Grande City.
  10. The Pentagon authorizes 1,100 more troops and 1,000 Texas National Guard soldiers to be deployed to the border.
  11. The DOJ announces they won’t bring charges against the police officer who killed Eric Garner because they say they can’t prove the officer acted willfully. Garner was killed five years ago. “I can’t breathe.”
  12. Three more white supremacists are sentenced to prison sentences for charges stemming from the violence in Charlottesville where activist Heather Heyer was killed.

Climate:

  1. The Trump campaign comes up with a novel way to own the libs. They start selling MAGA plastic straws to get back at environmentalists who have pushed through regulations banning plastic straws.
  2. NOAA and NASA say that this past June was the hottest June on record (which goes back to 1880).
  3. The EPA announces that they will not ban chlorpyrifos even though the EPA’s own experts have linked the pesticide to serious health problems, especially in children.
  4. The USDA blocks the release of their own plan for responding and adapting to the effects of climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China’s economic growth continues to slow. Last month, their growth rate was the slowest it’s been in nearly three decades. This is partly from the trade war with the U.S., but their growth rate is still 6.2%.
  2. Manufacturing employment shows a slight increase in July, but is still down overall because of a deep dive in June.
  3. Retail growth slowed in the first half of the year, largely because of the struggles of brick-and-mortar stores. Online retail sales have also been slowing down over the past
  4. Corporate earnings decline for the second quarter in a row.
  5. Chinese investment in the U.S. has fallen from $46.5 billion in 2016 to $5.4 billion in 2018.

Elections:

  1. The Marine Corps orders Duncan Hunter to stop using their emblem and phrase on his re-election campaign materials.
    • Duncan’s racist mailers tie two of his fellow members of the House to terrorism as well as tying his Democratic opponent to terrorism.
    • The mailer, not surprisingly, does NOT mention that Hunter has been indicted on campaign finance charges. It also doesn’t mention the numerous affairs he had on his wife using said campaign finances.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump tweets that his administration will take a look into allegations by Peter Thiel that Google is compromised by China.
    • Thiel has no evidence and says he was just raising questions, but he did say they needed to be investigated by the FBI and CIA.
    • Larry Kudlow, Trump’s chief economic advisor, dismissed Thiel’s claims.
  1. Trump lets loose with a barrage of lies during his cabinet meeting. He falsely claims:
    • The governments of Guatemala and Honduras are forming and sending migrant caravans.
    • Asylum seekers who are released on their own recognizance don’t show up for hearings (89% do).
    • Human traffickers don’t come through ports of entry (they do).
    • Democrats want open borders (the vast majority do not).
    • He approved the permits for an energy facility in Louisiana (Obama’s administration approved them).
    • The program to repatriate remains of U.S. soldiers who died in North Korea is still going on (it’s been suspended).
    • The renegotiated NAFTA would force auto manufacturers to stay in the U.S. (there’s nothing in the new agreement that would require that).
    • We’re building lots of wall at the southern border (no actual construction has begun on any new fencing).
    • The most China has purchased from famers in a year is $16 billion, and since we’re taking in many times that in tariffs, we can pay the farmers $16 billion to make up for their loss in sales. (I can barely unwind this one. The most China spent in a year is nearly $30 billion, the tariffs have generated about $21 billion (which is not many times $16 billion), and Americans pay those costs, not China or Chinese companies).
    • During the Obama administration, the trade deficit with China was $500 billion (it’s never been that high; in fact, the highest it’s ever been is 2018 when it was $381 billion for goods and services, and $420 billion for just goods (we’re an exporter of services)).
    • The Chinese economy has lost $20 trillion since Trump’s election (China’s GDP continues to go up, and their economy grew by 6.6% last year).
    • The Iran deal cost Obama’s administration $150 billion (it wasn’t U.S. money, it was Iran’s; it wasn’t all held in the U.S. but in financial institutions around the world; and it was closer to $60 billion in Iranian-owned assets that were unfrozen).
  1. Trump announces he’ll nominate Eugene Scalia to be Secretary of Labor, replacing Alex Acosta who left over the Epstein scandal. Scalia is the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
  2. Puerto Rican protestors are out in force trying to oust their governor over leaked misogynistic and homophobic texts exchanged with his top advisors. Anger at the governor has been brewing over his mishandling of the economy, but this put a match to the flame. The governor says he won’t step down, but he won’t seek re-election next year. Protestors say that’s not good enough.
  3. The USDA suffers a brain drain, as they move offices from DC to Kansas City and force workers to move there as well if they want to keep their jobs. Less than 2/3 of the researchers asked to relocate have accepted the offer.
  4. At the same time, the BLM is moving its headquarters from DC to Grand Junction, CO. Some worry that this means the agency will have less clout in decision making in DC.
  5. A Pennsylvania school sends letters to parents threatening to send their kids to foster care if they don’t pay their past-due school lunch debts.
  6. Attorney General William Barr donated $51,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee over the five months leading up to his confirmation. Aside from that, he’s given just six times since 2009.

Polls:

  1. 68% of Americans polled say Trump’s tweets and comments about the four women in Congress are offensive. 75% of women find the tweets offensive. But only 25% of Republicans find them offensive. And here’s where we have the disconnect in this country. It’s also why you don’t hear Republicans in Congress calling Trump out for racism.
  2. A separate poll found Trump’s approval rating among Republican rose 5% after his racist tweets.

Week 129 in Trump

Posted on July 17, 2019 in Politics, Trump

This week ended with a bizarre series of racists tweets from the Commander in Chief who was apparently trying to pick a fight with four freshman Representatives who also happen to be women of color. It appears Trump is trying to make them the face of the Democratic party ahead of the 2020 elections so that his base will believe that Democrats = Socialists. For anyone who believes that, I have some recommended reading on socialism.

But the worst thing is that he told them to go back to their countries. He didn’t tell any white male immigrants in Congress to go back to their countries; he told four women of color, all of whom are U.S. citizens and three of whom were born here, to go back to their countries. If you don’t get it, here’s a little background on why “go back to your country” is racist.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 14…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. Now that I’m reading last week’s New York Times piece about the conditions in Clint, it turns out that even border agents are broken up about the conditions the kids are being kept in. They have repeatedly reported the conditions to their superiors with no response and no assistance.
    • With all the recent publicity, though, an internal investigation into the facility was ordered last month.
    • It’s a really tough read.

Russia:

  1. The White House blocks Annie Donaldson, Don McGahn’s former chief of staff, from answering over 200 questions from Congress about obstruction of justice. The Mueller report cites Donaldson’s notes dozens of times, and Congress asked her to elaborate.
  2. The DOJ interviewed Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the now infamous Steele dossier, for 16 hours last month as part of the inspector general’s investigation into the Russia investigation. At first, the interviews were contentious with interviewers hostile to Steele’s information, but they found his testimony to be both credible and surprising.
    • Reminder #1: The surveillance of Carter Page began after he left the Trump campaign.
    • Reminder #2: The FISA warrant didn’t rely on the Steele dossier, though they did use the dossier as a supporting document.
  1. The House Judiciary votes (along party lines, of course) to authorize subpoenas of a dozen witnesses as part of their obstruction probe: Jared Kushner; Jeff Sessions; Rod Rosenstein; Michael Flynn; John Kelly; Rob Porter; American Media, Inc. executives David Pecker and Dylan Howard; Keith Davidson (Stormy Daniels’ one-time attorney), Corey Lewandowski, Rick Dearborn, and Jody Hunt.
  2. Robert Mueller and House Democrats reach an agreement to delay his testimony by one week and to extend the length of his interview in order to give more members a chance to question him.
  3. The DOJ orders two of Mueller’s investigators not to appear for House interviews. I’m not clear on how anyone can look at this and not realize how obstructive the DOJ is being.

Legal Fallout:

  1. New York State passes a law that allows congressional committees to access state tax returns for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose.” This opens the door to them getting Trump’s state tax returns, if not his federal returns. Suits to obtain Trumps federal returns are pending against the Treasury and IRS.
  2. Congressional Democrats who are suing Trump for using the presidency to profit from foreign governments issue dozens of subpoenas to Trump Organization and other Trump businesses. The DOJ asks an appeals court to stop the subpoenas. Wait… is it the DOJ’s job to get involved in lawsuits against a sitting president?
  3. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses a separate emoluments case involving the Trump Hotel in DC. This case was brought by the Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
  4. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta defends the plea deal he brokered with Jeff Epstein a decade ago, which allowed Epstein to plead to soliciting prostitution (a reduced plea for what he actually did). Acosta says it was the best he could do, and blames the state attorney’s office.
    • A Palm Beach County attorney disputes Acosta’s account, saying that a lengthy indictment was prepared but never used after Acosta brokered the plea deal.
    • Though Trump takes Acosta’s side in the controversy, Acosta resigns as Labor Secretary. As with all the questionable characters who’ve fallen from this administration, Trump says he feels very bad for Acosta. I wonder if he also feels bad for the children Epstein hurt?
    • Finally, can we all just call this what it is and stop candy-coating it? Epstein raped these girls over and over again, and he pimped them out to his friends to be raped over and over again.
  1. If you’re feeling sorry for Acosta, he’s never had the interest of children at heart. As Secretary of Labor, he tried to cut the budget allocated to fighting child labor, forced labor, and child trafficking from $68 million to just $18.5 million.
  2. After recusing himself from the Epstein sex trafficking case, Attorney General William Barr unrecuses himself (hey, Jeff Sessions, I guess you can unrecuse!). He will recuse himself from any investigation of Epstein’s previous case in Florida. Barr’s former law firm had represented Epstein.
  3. When federal officials arrested Jeff Epstein last week, they found a trove of nude photos of underage girls locked away in a safe.
  4. Michael Flynn was supposed to testify against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian. But prosecutors no longer believe Flynn’s version of events and view Flynn as a co-conspirator. So far, the judge says there isn’t enough evidence of that.
  5. Felix Sater finally sits down with House Intelligence Committee investigators for an interview about Trump Tower Moscow dealings. Sater has delayed his testimony before and missed his previously scheduled testimony.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A unanimous ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a previous ruling that Trump cannot block followers on Twitter because he uses the account for government business. Please remember this before dismissing Trump’s tweets as insignificant.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge blocks Trump’s rule that would’ve forced drug companies to include prices in their TV ads. This was part of Trump’s efforts to reduce drug prices.
  2. After that, Trump withdraws a plan to limit drug rebates to middlemen like insurance companies and Medicare.
  3. Republican Senators express hope that the courts do completely gut Obamacare, though they have no plan at this time to fall back on in case the courts do rule that way. They’re awaiting a decision in a Trump-backed lawsuit.
    • If the courts do decimate Obamacare, it would likely cause chaos in the insurance markets.
    • Mitt Romney says he has some ideas. And of course he does. Obamacare was based on the plan Romney instituted in Massachusetts.
    • Susan Collins, on the other hand, thinks it would be very bad if the courts decide to do away with Obamacare. Too bad she didn’t think about that while she was voting to confirm judges who won’t uphold Obamacare.
  1. Trump signs an executive order directing DHHS to develop policies to improve treatments for patients with kidney problems. The goals are to reduce kidney failure, reduce the need for dialysis, and make more kidneys available for transplant.

International:

  1. Massive protests continue in Hong Kong even though the Chinese extradition bill they were protesting has been deemed dead.
    • People! This should be your wakeup call. If you want to effect change you have to get out and protest. You have to call your Members of Congress. Across the world, we’ve seen how effective protests are for the people.
  1. The British ambassador to the U.S. resigns after his cables criticizing President Crazy Train are leaked (and after Trump calls him a pompous fool). Turns out his cables weren’t undiplomatic at all; they’re typical of how ambassadors criticize governments (in private). It also turns out that our own ambassadors to other countries have been behaving worse, and very publicly so.
    • Our ambassador in Berlin regularly and openly criticizes the German government (he started within hours of taking his role).
    • Our ambassador to the Netherlands has lied about their being “no go” zones in the country because of Islamic extremists (though he later admitted he had no idea what he was talking about).
    • Most of the foreign ambassadors in DC share the UK ambassador’s view of Trump.
  1. The former ambassador to the UK reported back to his country that Trump was embarking on “an act of diplomatic vandalism” when he pulled out of the Iran deal, and that the reason Trump pulled out was merely because it was a deal brokered by Barack Obama. The White House failed to produce a “day after” plan for the withdrawal, which is likely why we’re now looking at a uranium-enriched Iran.
  2. After the cables are leaked, Trump criticizes Theresa May for making a mess of Brexit. Two weeks ago, Trump said May had done a very good job handling Brexit.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House votes to prevent Trump from launching a strike against Iran without Congressional approval.

Family Separation:

  1. Here are some highlights of the House Oversight Committee report on child separations:
    • In March 2017, the Trump administration announced the child separation policy would be used as a deterrent.
    • In April, Jeff Sessions announced the ‘zero tolerance’ policy. Kirstjen Nielsen approved the policy in April or May.
    • In May, Trump and Nielsen both lied about creating these policies. Trump also lied about the separations being necessary to prosecute the parents on federal criminal charges; most parents were never sent to federal criminal custody. Some who were sent were returned because federal prosecutors declined to prosecute.
    • Parents were deported without their children.
    • At least 18 infants and toddlers under two were removed from their parents for anywhere from 20 days to 6 months due to these baseless policies. Nine of these were under one year old.
    • Hundreds of the children were held for far longer than is legal.
    • And finally, the Trump administration is lying about ending the policy of family separation. They’re still doing it. The report finds that this is contributing to the crisis at the border.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The judge overseeing Trump’s case about getting the citizenship question on the 2020 Census denies the DOJ’s request to change out their entire team of lawyers on the case.
  2. Trump blames the radical left for blocking the citizenship question, even though it was a conservative right SCOTUS that actually blocked it.
  3. The House announces a vote next week on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt regarding their refusal to comply with subpoenas over the citizenship question. Of course, the DOJ will refuse to charge them with a crime (in fact the DOJ urges people not to comply with these subpoenas).
  1. 4chan has always been an online forum for hate speech, but racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender slurs have increased by 40% since 2015.
    • If you think it’s harmless, former users say that the constant exposure to the hate desensitized them to hateful language and even violence in their real lives.
    • The proportion of terrorist attacks carried out by the far-right has tripled in the last five years.
    • Extremists have posted about their terrorist plans on 8chan, which is an even more vitriolic version of 4chan. Other users encouraged their terrorist activities, such as the Christ Church mosque shooting.
  1. Trump invites a group of alt-right online social media personalities to the White House, and announces to them that instead of adding a citizenship question to the White House, he’s issued an executive order to obtain citizenship information from government agencies. Which is actually how it already works.
    • Barr, speaking after Trump’s announcement, essentially says that this is a workaround of the legal system.
    • The invited group of online personalities include discredited videographers from Project Veritas, online conspiracy theorists (especially those who spread the QAnon crazy), and online meme creators.
    • The event ends in Rose Garden chaos as Seb Gorka gets in a screaming match with a journalist.
  1. ICE opens three new detention centers despite being told by Congress not to. Congress also told them to stop detaining people.
  2. We learn that ICE has been using facial recognition software to go through drivers license photos to identify undocumented immigrants. That means they’ve combed through photos of American citizens without their permission.
  3. Migrant children being held at yet another overcrowded Arizona migrant detention facility accuse border patrol officers of sexual abuse.
  4. There are over 800 candlelight vigils across the globe in solidarity with migrants, especially the children, being held at the border in horrible conditions.
  5. President Crazy Train rounds out the week with a series of tweets, several of which are directed at four progressive Democrat women in Congress “who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all)” and that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” 
    • The only problem is that all but one of them were born in the U.S., and the one who wasn’t came here as a refugee. The president of the United States should at least know these facts.
    • His tweets unite Democrats and get a firm backlash from Speaker Pelosi.
    • Trump’s feelings are apparently hurt when the four women don’t take it sitting down and instead take to Twitter to defend themselves. He says they should apologize to him for the bad things they say about him.
    • And finally, the media is actually using the term “racist” as opposed to couching it in terms like “racially charged.”
  1. Trump threatens all week that he’ll deport thousands of undocumented immigrants in wide-ranging raids across the country, but for the second time in as many weeks, this threats fail to materialize and a very small number are actually arrested.
    • New Orleans was on the list of cities to be raided, but with the flooding and a tropical storm on the way, ICE cancels that one. They learned something from Katrina.
  1. Apparently unable to grasp the optics here, Trump’s Doral golf club plans to host a charity tournament put on by a strip club where golfers can buy a stripper to be their caddy girl for the day.
    • It’s for a worthwhile charity, but the charity pulls out after seeing the ads touting how you can buy your own caddy girl. The event is ultimately canceled.

Climate:

  1. The DC area gets hit with wide-spread flooding from slow-moving rain storms; even the White House basement is flooded. 
  1. New Orleans was already flooding by the time Hurricane Barry made landfall (and thankfully turned into a tropical storm and then a depression).
  2. An intelligence analyst in the State Department resigns after the White House blocks evidence in his testimony on climate change and its relationship to national security. The military has long understood that climate change is one of our greatest national security threats.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Religious charities and publishers warn that Trump’s newly proposed tariffs on Chinese goods will likely reduce the availability of Bibles in the U.S.
  1. The lowest-paid workers are finally seeing a better increase in wages than their higher paid counterparts. This has been the slowest economic group to recover from the Great Recession. Only the top 10% of earners have recovered fully from the recession.
  2. In response, corporations report a record level of concern about the cost of labor. Investors aren’t concerned about it at all. Corporate earnings are still growing faster than wages.
  3. Even corporations like Walmart and Amazon are lobbying for a $15 minimum wage (likely to put pressure on small competing businesses). But this week, the Congressional Budget Office issues a report saying that while 27 million Americans would get a raise, it would remove 1.3 million jobs and reduce family income by 0.1% by 2025.
  4. Economists forecast very low GDP growth for the second quarter of 2019, coming it at just 1.4%, the weakest since Q4 2015. The reason given is that the impact of the tax cuts has faded. Inventory investment is also expected to be down.
  5. The Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, spearheaded by Ivanka, announces its first grants totaling $27 million for 14 projects in 22 countries. More than half of it is for incentives for private businesses to partner up with them.
  6. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warns that the U.S. is running out of cash faster than expected, and is concerned that the government might have to default on its debts before Congress returns from summer recess in September. We can’t borrow money because of a congressional debt ceiling, which needs to be raised.
  7. The deficit is also growing quicker than expected, due in part to the tax cuts. The deficit for the first nine months of fiscal year 2019 is 23.1% higher than the year before. Gosh. If only there was a way we could’ve had $1.5 trillion more in tax revenues.
  8. Fed chairman Jerome Powell signals a likely cut in interest rates due to the drag on the economy caused by Trump’s tariffs.

Elections:

  1. Trump asks his aides to look into ways to devalue the dollar in order to boost the economy ahead of the 2020 elections.
    • Trump thinks the high value of the dollar is getting in the way of his America First initiatives
    • This practice is called currency manipulation, a practice Trump has publicly said he hates.
  1. Trump acknowledges that the number one reason for adding the citizenship question to the 2020 Census is to tilt the legislative districts in favor of Republicans.
    • Note that this reason was never used for justification of the question in any previous arguments, though many on the left have alleged that this is the ultimate purpose.

Miscellaneous:

  1. DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser sends Trump a letter stating that Trump’s 4th of July event bankrupted their emergency security funding, and that the city is still owed $7.1 million from Trump’s inauguration.
  2. Trump has been telling aides he wants to replace Dan Coates as national security director. The last adult in the room. What could go wrong?
  3. There are more open civilian and military positions at the Pentagon than at any other time in history, including the positions of Defense Secretary and Deputy Defense Secretary.
  4. Sunday’s Twitter meltdown over the four Democratic women in Congress wasn’t Trump’s first meltdown of the week. On Thursday, he:
    • Tries to shame the fake news media while misremembering not just the month but also the year he launched his bid for office
    • Says he’ll stay in office for 14 years
    • Tries to insult Mayor Pete Buttigieg by mistakenly tagging someone who is clearly not a Trump fan
    • Body shames Elizabeth Warren while at the same time managing to get in a racial slur (and saying she’s 1000/24 Native American—whoopsies)
    • Criticizes a small Minneapolis suburb
    • Lies about his dealing with Deutsche Bank.

And that was all before 8 AM.

  1. A new book says Paul Ryan couldn’t stomach another two years with Trump and saw retirement as his escape hatch.
    • This, of course, launched a one-sided feud with Trump blasting Ryan’s performance as Speaker of the House.
    • It should be noted that the rhetoric of leaders like Ryan helped lead the Republican party to elect someone like Trump.

Week 128 in Trump

Posted on July 10, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The billionaire most vilified by the right and the billionaire most vilified by the left have joined forces to end what they call “forever war.” Yes, George Soros and Charles Koch are creating a think tank to work on coming up with diplomatic solutions instead of using bombs and threats. That they’re working together on this underscores just how important they think it is, and it’s something most of us can get behind. And if they can come together, maybe the rest of us from opposite ends of the spectrum can start to do the same. Maybe?

Here’s what else happened in politics for the week ending July 7…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. Illinois becomes the 11th state to decriminalize marijuana, and will vacate around 800,000 previous convictions.

Russia:

  1. A new study underscores the success of the Russian disinformation campaign in the 2016 presidential campaigns. The study found a direct correlation between Trump’s popularity and the social media activity of Russian trolls and bots. For every 25,000 retweets, Trump’s popularity moved up 1%. The Russian activity didn’t have much of an effect on Clinton’s popularity.
    • For comparison, Trump won by 0.7% in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and by 0.3% in Michigan.
    • Reminder: Correlation doesn’t equal causation; but given that the election hinged on 75,000 votes across three states, there’s a strong likelihood that there was an effect on our elections.
  1. One of Trump’s campaign consultants is taking a page from the Russian disinformation playbook and now runs several fake websites spoofing Democratic presidential campaigns. He also runs a Republican political consulting firm. Seriously folks. Learn how to discern real websites from fake ones. Your country is depending on you.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The House Ways and Means Committee sues the Treasury and IRS for Trump’s tax returns. The lawsuit alleges that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig “have mounted an extraordinary attack on the authority of Congress to obtain information needed to conduct oversight of Treasury, the IRS, and the tax laws on behalf of the American people who participate in the Nation’s voluntary tax system.”
  2. The House Ethics Committee opens an investigation into Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) essentially for witness tampering. Gaetz threatened Michael Cohen the night before Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee, saying he was going to release embarrassing personal information about Cohen.
  3. Officials arrest child molester and trafficker Jeff Epstein, charging him with new sex trafficking charges.
    • You might remember that Acting Labor Secretary Alex Acosta gave Epstein a sweet plea deal for similar charges in Florida where Epstein basically ended up pleading out to far lesser counts of soliciting prostitution. Epstein was actually trafficking and molesting underage girls.
    • As part of that deal, Epstein also could pretty much come and go from prison as he pleased during his short sentence.
    • Acosta is now Trump’s nominee to be Labor Secretary.
    • This could have far-reaching implications given the number of high-power, wealth men who hung around with Epstein.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge temporarily blocks Ohio’s fetal heartbeat law, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
    • The term “fetal heartbeat” is a misnomer, because at six weeks a fetus doesn’t have a formed heart.
    • What is detectable at six weeks is a flurry of electrical impulses in the area where the heart will eventually form.
    • These impulses aren’t audible, even with a stethoscope.
  1. The AMA sues the state of North Dakota over their Compelled Reversal Mandate law. The law forces doctors to tell their patients that a medication-induced abortion is reversible if they don’t finish their course of pills. This is false and unscientific, and it forces doctors to breach their Hippocratic oath.

International:

  1. Iran says they now have more low-enriched uranium than the limit allowed by the JCPOA (the Iran deal). Up until Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, and even for a while after, Iran followed the conditions of the deal.
    • Europe has been trying to work around the U.S. sanctions, and now Iran says they’ll restart working toward weapons-grade uranium if Europe doesn’t offer them a deal.
  1. Protests continue in Hong Kong against the Chinese extradition bill, which has since been suspended. Things get more heated this week as protestors ransack and occupy Hong Kong’s Legislative Council chambers, and police end up using tear gas.
  2. Days after Trump paid a “surprise” visit to North Korea to meet briefly with Kim Jong-Un, North Korea accuses Trump of lying. While he’s pushing the public narrative that the two countries have an open dialog, North Korea claims he’s also “hell-bent” on hostile acts.
  3. Brexit party leader Nigel Farage says it’s more important to Brexit from the EU, deal or no deal, than it is to keep the United Kingdom together.
    • Both of Farage’s kids are German citizens and he’s applied for German citizenship himself. If successful, he’ll still be a citizen of the EU. Filing this one under “Hypocrite.”
    • Meanwhile, about 40% of the citizens of the UK are so worried about the aftermath of Brexit that they’re stockpiling food and supplies. Businesses warn of shortages coming up within the next few weeks.
    • The Scottish government pushes for a second referendum on separating from the UK and remaining part of the EU.
  1. When asked about his relationships with dictators, Trump tells reporters, “I get along with everybody. Except you people, actually… I get along with President Putin. I get along with Mohammad from Saudi Arabia. President Erdogan, he’s tough but I get along with him.”
  2. Someone leaks cables from UK’s ambassador to the United States, which reveal that the ambassador has called Trump incompetent, inept, and insecure. He also says conflicts within the White House are like “knife fights.” The White House says they will no longer deal with this ambassador.
  3. We’re not the only country that treats refugees with callousness. European counties have been deporting refugees back to Libyan detention camps, placing them in the middle of a war zone. This week, an airstrike kills 53 migrants being held in Tripoli.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. While the Senate is blocking nearly every piece of legislation put in front of them, here’s a taste of what the House has passed, all while pursuing investigations into Russia, obstruction, and corruption (yes, lawmakers and walk and chew gum at the same time):
    • HR1, For the People Act: One of the most sweeping election reform bills to ensure voting rights and give power back to the people.
    • HR5, Equality Act: A bill to protect the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters in the areas of employment, housing, education, loans, and the jury system, among others.
    • HR6, American Dream and Promise Act: A bill to protect DACA recipients and those with Temporary Protected Status, and to provide them with a pathway to citizenship.
    • HR7, Paycheck Fairness Act: Equal pay for equal work. Note that this doesn’t say that if my husband makes X, I should make X. It says if my colleague who does the same job as me with the same experience and productivity makes X, then I should also make X.
    • HR8, Gun Violence Protection Act: Closes loopholes that allow gun sales without background checks. In other words, mandates universal background checks.
    • HR9, Climate Action Now Act: Requires the president to provide an annual plan for how the U.S. will meet its promises under the Paris Agreement.
    • HR 1644, Save the Internet Act: A bill to restore the FCC’s net neutrality rules, keeping the internet free and open, and preventing internet service providers from price-gouging customers or throttling bandwidth.
    • HR 1585, Violence Against Women Act: This is just a re-authorization of an existing act that improved criminal justice and community responses for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Why does this even need to be reauthorized? Why isn’t it permanent? And why won’t Republicans reauthorize it?
    • 10 bills to lower healthcare and drug prices.
  1. In fact, the House has passed 180 bills, most of which are dead in the Senate. These include a number of bills to help veterans, to mitigate the effects of climate change, to protect women’s rights, and more.
  2. House Democrats fold in a fight with Senate Republicans over emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis (caused by us) at the border. Republicans refused to approve additional requirements for how CBP treats detainees, along with these requirements for refugees:
    • Basic medical care
    • Basic nutrition, water, and hygiene
    • Translators at ICE, CBP, and Citizenship and Immigration Services
  1. Michigan Representative Justin Amash leaves the Republican Party after resigning from the House Freedom Caucus over lack of motivation to impeach Trump. Amash is one of the more conservatives members of Congress, and is a founding members of the Freedom Caucus. He might run for president as a Libertarian.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A federal judge orders CBP to allow medical personnel into detention centers holding immigrant minors to ensure the children are in a safe and sanitary environment.
  2. CBP has not been having a great couple of weeks. Last week, a group of immigration lawyers reported on squalid and unhygienic conditions in an immigrant detention facility. This week they try to repair their image by cleaning things up and inviting some journalists for a visit, but they don’t let them talk to the kids.
  3. But then, a disastrous report containing the findings of the DHS inspector general‘s investigation into detention centers is publicized.
    • The report talks about standing-room-only quarters, no access to showers (they were given wet wipes instead), and no hot meals (just bologna sandwiches). Some children were given hot meals once inspectors arrived.
    • The report also warned DHS two months ago that conditions at a specific facility in El Paso had gotten so bad that agents there were gearing up for possible riots. There were four showers available for 756 detainees, more than half of whom were being held outdoors. Inside was five times past capacity, people couldn’t lay down to sleep, and temperatures were above 80 degrees.
    • DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan disputes his own inspector general’s report.
  1. And then, ProPublica releases messages from a Border Patrol Facebook page that are extremely racist and misogynistic.
    • Former and current agents joke about immigrant deaths and photoshop a picture to show Trump forcing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to give him head.
    • There are 9,600 members on the page, and these are the guys who are taking care of vulnerable women and children. Yay.
    • It’s easy to see why the CBP has trouble hiring and retaining female agents.
  1. And then, we find out that CBP has known about this page for years and has dealt with complaints on the posts before.
  2. And then (yes, there’s more), it leaks that Border Patrol agents tried to humiliate a male Honduran migrant by making walk past detainees holding a sign that said “I like men.”
  3. Members of Congress visit detention centers, including the above-mentioned AOC (who said women in detention told her that border patrol officers told them to drink water out of the toilet). Understandably, the congressional members questioned whether they were actually safe visiting the centers. Democratic presidential candidates have also visited facilities.
  4. The Trump administration gives in on adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
    • But then, the DOJ announces that they’re looking into ways to add it, per Trump’s request. Trump floats the idea of delaying the Census (he can’t), or adding the question through an executive order.
    • This leads the judge in the case to call an emergency meeting with lawyers from both sides of the case. For an uncomfortable read, here’s the laughable transcript of the DOJ lawyers trying to explain the change of plan to the judge, though they don’t have a new plan.
    • And now, the DOJ is trying to replace the current lawyers in the case. So either the current lawyers objected to the new tactics or they’ve just lost credibility because of the chaos from the White House.
    • DOJ lawyers are now scrambling to come up with a legal justification for adding the citizenship question. Attorney General William Barr believes there’s a way. Which tells me he is ignoring a boatload of evidence about the reasons behind the question.
  1. Trump plans to end the practice of having court interpreters for immigrants and asylum seekers at their initial hearings. What could go wrong?
  2. The Trump administration prepares to launch a panel focused on “natural law and natural rights.” The panel will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on human rights. This is an issue because “natural law and natural rights” typically means anti-LGBTQ rights.
  3. A federal judge blocks Trump’s attempt to deny asylum seekers timely bonding hearings and detain them longer. If Trump had been allowed to go forward with this plan, it would’ve meant indefinite detention. Which is crazy when you think of how overcrowded the detention centers already are.
  4. DHS fines some undocumented immigrants nearly $500,000 for failing to leave the U.S. ICE says that under the law they can find people $500 per day for each day they are in violation of an order to leave, and immigration lawyers say they’ve never seen that clause used like this.
  5. Trump again threatens major ICE raids and deportations after July 4th, saying he’ll deport all undocumented immigrants because “that’s what we do.”
  6. A pregnant Alabama woman got in a fight with another woman that resulted in the other woman shooting her in the stomach, causing her to lose the pregnancy. A grand jury refuses to indict the shooter (it seems they thought it was self defense), but they did indict the pregnant woman for putting herself in a position where her fetus could be harmed. So she was arrested. After a boatload of backlash over it, the DA decides not to prosecute and releases here. Talk about personhood laws run amok.
  7. After the American women’s soccer team wins the World Cup, the fans break into echoing chants of “Equal pay! Equal pay!”

Climate:

  1. Anchorage, Alaska, sets an all-time heat record this week, reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s five degrees hotter than ever previously recorded there. Other cities across Alaska set their own heat records as well.

Budget/Economy:

  1. As a means to push oil prices back up, OPEC agrees to continue production cuts for 9 more months. They state the following reasons: trade tensions, central bank policies, increased U.S. production, and “geopolitical issues.”
  2. Because of a long-lasting subsidy dispute between Boeing and Airbus, Trump adds more EU products to the list of items to be subject to new tariffs.
  3. 77% of publicly traded companies issue warning ahead of their earnings announcements, saying they won’t make their expected numbers. But it doesn’t seem to hurt their stock prices; U.S. stock markets hit new highs this week.
  4. Morgan Stanley analysts warn of a coming recession, but we’ve been hearing this for more than a year now, so take it with whatever grain of salt you’re comfortable with.
  5. Global manufacturing numbers for June are in. They were weaker; in fact they were at their weakest since October 2012. New orders contracted sharply.
    • This could partly be from the impact of all the newly imposed tariffs, and this could reverse if there’s really a truce.
  1. May’s job numbers were low enough to give economists a little scare (72,000), but June’s numbers bounced back up to 224,000.
  2. People of color are finally starting to reap the benefits of a tight job market, and the unemployment gap between white people and people of color is beginning to shrink.
  3. An analysis of last year’s tax returns finds that around 2/3 of Americans paid less in taxes and 6% paid more (I was one of those lucky ones).
    • Refunds for people making between $100,000 and $250,000 dropped, but rose for people making between $250,000 and $500,000 (which could be from the change in withholding rules).
    • Even though the IRS was more lenient in handing out penalties for underpayment, the penalties they did impose were higher.
    • Note that these numbers don’t include taxpayers who filed for an extension, who tend to be higher-income with more complicated returns.
    • The tax rate dropped for all income brackets, and no income bracket below $500,000 in income reached a 20% rate. And even the average of the highest earners didn’t reach 30%.
    • The number of people using the standard deduction instead of itemizing jumped by 70%.
    • The AMT was essentially removed for households with incomes under $1 million.

Elections:

  1. After Kamala Harris talked about being bussed to desegregated schools, Donald Trump Jr. shared a tweet questioning whether Harris was black enough to talk about the issues facing black Americans. This fits in with the latest right-wing attack on Harris that she isn’t really black because her father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. Sorry hon, that lady is black.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump decides he wants to insert himself into the annual 4th of July celebration on the National Mall in DC. The last time a sitting president spoke on the National Mall on July 4th was nearly 70 years ago, when Truman marked the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
    • So Trump hosts a 4th of July ceremony, a Salute to America, where he gives a speech with military tanks and a military flyover. It looks like it could get rained out, and many are concerned that Trump will make the 4th all about himself, but after a rain delay, he mostly sticks to the teleprompter and doesn’t go too far off the rails.
    • The National Park Service is forced to divert $2.5 million in park fees to help fund Trump’s display.
    • The White House reserves VIP tickets to Trump’s 4th of July event for major Republican donors and political appointees.
  1. The White House hires Breitbart’s White House correspondent to the office of Domestic Policy Council.
  2. California has it’s largest earthquake in years, which is followed up the next day by another quake 11 times stronger than the first one. The earthquakes are centered in Ridgecrest, a town near the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, which is no longer mission capable and is evacuated because of the quakes. There have been thousands of aftershocks, and the quakes left a huge fissure in the Mojave desert. The governor declares a state of emergency.

Tweet of the Week:

This tweet captures the citizenship question chaos:

“The DOJ gave up on this yesterday, but then President Crazy Train issued a tweet that required a federal judge to call the DOJ to the carpet to demand an explanation, and they don’t have one.”

I wish I knew who it was, because that crazy train takes another turn this week.

Week 127 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Trump likes to say that Obama separated families at the border and locked kids up in cages. Obama didn’t separate families, but he did have a huge influx of migrant children in 2014 and built the makeshift detention centers we still see today. He also had a record number of family units coming across the border. At first the Obama administration released family units with notices to appear. Then they tried to hold them in detention centers together, but human rights activists protested that move and they risked violating the Flores Agreement. So they went back to releasing them. In fact, in 2016, ICE implemented a very successful pilot program, the Family Case Management Program, designed to keep families together, out of detention, and in compliance with immigration laws. The program had a high rate of compliance and helped refugees thrive. In 2017, Trump shut that program down and later that year began his own pilot program, this time mandating the separation and detention of families.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the factsheet for that program. And here’s the AP’s story on ending the program. And here’s Jeff Session’s announcement of the zero tolerance policy (though we now know they were already separating families in fall of 2017). Trump said ending Obama’s program would save money, but it costs us $750 per day per person in private detention centers. That’s a lot of money each day and private companies are making a fortune off the American taxpayers (around $4 billion per year, at the rate we’re going).

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 30…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. Jared Kushner travels to Bahrain to describe how he’ll solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offers an economic development plan, but no pathway to get to an agreement between the two sides nor any way of dealing with the underlying conflicts. No government officials from either side of the conflict show up, and Palestinian officials dismiss it as a “snow job.”
  2. Mike Pompeo says privately that the plan isn’t particularly original and it’s likely not executable.

Russia:

  1. After much discussion, Robert Mueller agrees to testify in public hearings before both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. It’s scheduled to happen July 17. Both committees issued subpoenas before coming to this agreement.
    • Members of Mueller’s team will also testify, but not in public hearings.
  1. In response, Trump accuses Mueller of committing a crime (deleting emails from FBI agents involved in the investigation, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, of which Trump has no evidence). He also calls Page and Strzok “pathetic.”
  2. The White House refuses to tell the House Oversight Committee where the translator notes are from Trump’s private meetings with Putin. Trump took the notes from the translator personally. The House Oversight Committee says these notes must be maintained under our laws for preserving federal records.
  3. When asked what Trump and Putin will talk about at their G20 meeting, Trump tells reporters that what he says to Putin in private isn’t any of their business.
  4. Trump later jokes with Putin and Russian officials about meddling in our elections, telling them not to meddle at a press conference while they all laugh.
    • Mueller’s investigation concluded that Russia ran a “sweeping and systematic” operation to influence voters in the 2016 elections.
    • The last time the two met, Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies when asked about Russian interference.
  1. Trump then jokes with Putin about “getting rid” of journalists.
  2. The Trump-appointed FBI director, Christopher Wray, maintains that he believes there was no spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump says he disagrees and also refuses to say that he has confidence in Wray.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Paul Manafort pleads not guilty to state charges on mortgage fraud brought by New York. Manafort’s lawyer intends to fight this case under double-jeopardy rules, but the Supreme Court just ruled that state and federal agencies can bring up the same charges.
  2. In keeping with the tradition of the Trump administration, the Commerce Department orders a former official not to answer any questions from House committees about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
  3. The House Oversight and Reform Committee moves to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt after they ignore subpoenas on the topic of the citizenship question.
  4. Play it again, Sam… The White House orders Kellyanne Conway to refuse to testify at the House Oversight Committee’s behest. They want to talk to her about violations of the Hatch Act as outlined in a report from the Office of Special Counsel (reminder, that’s nothing to do with Mueller).
    • The committee subpoenas Conway after she fails to appear.
  1. Nearly 200 Democrats are suing Trump, claiming that his private business dealings violate the emoluments clause. A federal judge rules against Trump this week, saying the lawsuit can proceed.
  2. The Justice Department sues Omarosa Manigualt Newman, a former advisor to Trump. They say she failed to file a financial disclosure report after Trump fired her. Newman argues that she can’t, because the White House didn’t return her personal files to her.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that gerrymandering is out of the scope of federal courts and that it should be handled by legislation.
    • This means that North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, and Michigan all get a pass on having to redraw their gerrymandered district lines as was previously ordered by lower courts
    • Voters are getting tired of gerrymandering, and voted in five states last year to limit the power of the state houses to gerrymander. That’s on top of states that already have independent redistricting commissions.
  1. The Supreme Court blocks the citizenship question on the 2020 Census for now, saying that the Commerce Department could have a right to reinstate the question but that their reasons were contrived. The case gets kicked back to a lower court.
    • So Trump says he’ll just delay the census. FWIW, he can’t.
    • The Census Bureau estimates that adding the question would cause about 6.5 million people to not be counted (that includes people here legally and not). That equates to a loss of around seven to ten House seats and an unknown number of state seats. It also means those same areas will see a loss of government programs and assistance.
  1. The court agrees to hear arguments about DACA and whether Trump acted illegally in trying to end it.
  2. The court refuses to hear Alabama’s appeal for their stringent abortion law, keeping in place a lower court’s ruling that the law places an undue burden on women.

Healthcare:

  1. The U.S. hits 1,077 measles cases so far this year, making it already the worst year since 1992. If only we had a way to prevent the measles… if only.

International:

  1. Trump signs an executive order to place new “hard-hitting” sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader and eight military commanders. The largely symbolic sanctions stem from Iran downing a U.S. drone last week.
  2. Iran’s foreign ministry says the executive orders have closed the door to diplomacy and that they won’t be intimidated. Iran also says they’ll start reducing their commitments to the JCPOA.
  3. Trump threatens to obliterate Iran if they attack. He implies that Kerry and Obama were soft on Iran, even though Iran has followed the guidelines of the JCPOA up until now.
  4. It turns out that when Trump backed down from an actual air attack last week, he also approved a cyberattack, which disabled the computer systems Iran uses to control rocket and missile launches. These attacks were in the works for months.
  5. Trump says he doesn’t need congressional approval to launch a military strike against Iran. He does need their approval, though, unless Pompeo can find evidence to support his assertion that Iran is involved with Al Qaeda.
  6. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) says Trump can launch a strike because we’re already at war with them. Is he talking metaphorically? Because AFAIK, we aren’t at war with Iran.
  7. Trump considers withdrawing from another defense treaty, this time with Japan. Fitting his constant narrative of how everyone’s against us and taking advantage of us, he says the agreement is one-sided. The agreement has been the foundation of a post-war alliance since WWII.
  8. Sean Lawler, Trump’s diplomatic protocol chief, is suspended just before the G20 Summit. Talk about bad timing. He’s under investigation over workplace accusations of intimidation, including carrying a whip around the office.
  9. Trump insults Japan upon arriving in the country for the G20 Summit. He says that if we were attacked, they’d just sit and watch it on TV. He goes on to insult Germany, Britain, and India, and repeats his previous misinformation about NATO. He has nothing bad to say about Putin or Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, though.
  10. At the G20, Trump demands that India pull their latest tariffs on U.S. products.
  11. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gives Trump a colorful diagram to illustrate Japanese investments in the U.S. Abe has him figured out.
  12. Also, what the heck was Ivanka doing a) at the summit and b) getting a front-row seat? Video shows world leaders not very interested in what she has to say, to the point of being dismissive.
  13. Trump pays a surprise visit to North Korea where he meets with Kim Jong Un and becomes the first sitting president to set foot in the country, albeit briefly and at the border with South Korea.
    • The two agree to continue talks.
  1. Trump reverses his ban on U.S. companies supplying software and hardware to Chinese company Huawei. It’s part of an agreement to restart trade negotiations. I’m not sure what this means for the lawsuits against Huawei and its executives.
    • Side note: The restrictions against Huawei were based on national security risks of spying.
  1. Protests in HongKong against an extradition law with mainland China continue, now growing violent as protestor storm the parliament chamber. The mostly peaceful protests have been ongoing for two months.
  2. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes how Jared Kushner would bypass the State Department and meet with foreign officials on his own.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Republicans block a proposal that would’ve restricted Trump’s ability to go to war with Iran without congressional approval. The proposal required congressional approval for funding.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. A district court judge permanently blocks Trump from using the billions of dollars in military funds that he had tapped to build his wall.

Family Separation:

  1. House Democrats cave in and pass the GOP-led Senate version of a bill to provide emergency humanitarian aid at the border. The House had previously passed their own version, which included provisions for improving the condition of detention centers and regulating how migrants can be held in custody. The Senate version includes additional funding for DHS with no strings attached.
  2. McConnell says that no one doubts anymore that this is a humanitarian crisis. Congratulations, GOP, for creating this crisis; not quite the one that you said was there all along, but a crisis nonetheless.
  3. Following last week’s reports from immigration lawyers about squalid conditions in child detention camps, CBP invites journalists to come take a look at those facilities. The conditions seem to rebut the lawyer’s claims of lack of hygiene, food, and supplies, but reporters aren’t allowed to talk to detainees.
  4. A federal judge orders that health experts be allowed to examine migrant children and to inspect their living quarters.
  5. The Department of Health and Human Services is running out of money to provide shelter for migrant children. They expect funds to run out in July, and say they don’t have room for any more. To which I say, then release these kids to their families and stop pretending you aren’t part of the problem.
  6. CBP rejects donations for the children held in their overcrowded detention centers. People are sending toys, soap, toothbrushes, diapers, and medicine, but the law prevents Border Patrol from accepting it. So maybe they shouldn’t be holding on to these kids.
  7. Bank of America announces it’ll end its relationships with companies that run the detention centers.
  8. Illinois bans privately run detention centers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Ravelry.com, a social site for knitters and crocheters, bans any talk of Trump and his administration. They want to keep the site free from hateful expression, and view support for Trump as support for white supremacy.
  2. The acting Commissioner of CBP, John Sanders, resigns following the release of information about the conditions of border detention centers. It’s not clear the two are related.
  3. Trump picks Mark Morgan to replace Sanders. Trump made Morgan acting director of ICE earlier this month. Morgan was the head of Border Patrol under Obama.
  4. In a move that is predicted to create chaos in the military, Trump moves to remove protections for undocumented family members of active-duty troops. A few things outside of the news here:
    • First, we must treat our military with respect.
    • Second, our troops need to concentrate on their work. I mean they really need to concentrate. It’s an enormous distraction to be scared that your family might be deported while you’re deployed. Is that what we want them thinking about?
    • Third, our troops, documented or not, are out there defending our country. THIS country. If they can’t count on us to treat them humanely, why would they continue to defend this country?
  1. James Fields Jr., the Neo-Nazi who killed protestor Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017, gets life without parole.
  2. Far right hate groups have been planning violence at Drag Queen Story Hours. Just like it sounds, drag queens read children’s books to children. One of the first story hour events had to be protected by a SWAT team, 40 officers, and a marksman. WTF people? This is not OK. There is nothing scare about a drag queen!
  3. The inspector general for the Treasury Department announces an investigation into why Steve Mnuchin really delayed the Harriet Tubman $20 bill. The Trump administration denies they delayed it.
  4. DHS says they think arrests on our southern border will fall by 25% this month for two main reasons:
    • Mexico is cracking down on Central American migrants.
    • Trump is expanding the program for keeping asylum seekers in Mexico while they await their asylum hearings. In case you didn’t know, Mexico isn’t necessarily safe for all asylum seekers because the people they are fleeing from can get to Mexico.
  1. Hours after the Democratic-led House passes the package for humanitarian aid and increased security at the border, Trump complains that Democrats in the House won’t do anything about border security.
  2. Trump wants to delay the Census so he can get his citizenship question on it, “no matter how long” it takes.
  3. The far-right Proud Boys and far-left Antifa clash at rallies over the weekend in Portland. Violence and arrests ensue. The Proud Boys are a white supremacist group. Antifa is a far-left group against far-right hate groups.

Climate:

  1. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue says that climate change is just the weather changing. It’s raining today, it’s sunny tomorrow; that’s just climate change, which goes in long and short increments. Lemme help Sonny out with that:
    • Climate: the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.
    • Global: relating to the whole world.
  1. Bill Wehrum resigns as EPA air chief over allegations of ethics violations (shocking for this administration, I know). Wehrum worked to reverse Obama regulations for cutting pollution even before he joined Trump’s administration.

Budget/Economy:

  1. For 2018, farm income ended up half as high as the all-time high in 2013 and the debt held by farmers has increased to almost $427 billion. In the first calendar-year quarter of 2019, the default rate hit its highest level in seven years. Farm income is projected to go up slightly in 2019.
    • Trump blames Obama and says he’s turned it around, but the slight increase in 2019 barely makes a dent in the 2018 decrease.
  1. With no changes to policy, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the national debt will rise from 78% of GDP now to 92% in 2029 and then to 144% in 2049. Spending is outpacing tax collections (surprise, surprise).
  2. Mnuchin says we’re close to a trade deal with China, about 90% of the way. Trump, meanwhile, threatens to raise tariffs on the remaining Chinese imports if things don’t work out at the G20 summit.
  3. The White House is working on a plan to bypass Congress and cut taxes on capital gains by indexing capital gains to inflation. The top 1% of earners would receive 86% of the benefit of this plan. Just a reminder that capital gains are money we earn by doing absolutely nothing but watching our money grow. We don’t work for capital gains—we can earn them in our sleep.

Elections:

  1. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill forcing felons who’ve served their sentences to pay any fines before they can register to vote. An overwhelming majority of voters voted to give ex-felons the right to vote, and the GOP state legislature and governor are overriding the will of the people. Lawsuits to block the law are already filed.
  2. The Democratic Presidential candidates participate in their first round of debates. I won’t say much about them, since it’s pretty subjective. But here are a few fact-checks:

Miscellaneous:

  1. Fake news? An advisor for the New York Post orders a story about Trump raping writer E. Jean Carroll to be scrubbed from the website. He apparently forgot that you can’t really delete anything from the web. The advisor, Col Allan, was once an editor at the paper and was brought back earlier this year to make the paper more Trump-friendly.
  2. Two women step forward to corroborate E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her (interestingly, Carroll refuses to call it a rape, even though she says Trump forced himself on her and there was penetration). Both women advised Carroll on what to do when it happened.
  3. Trump names Melania’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, to be the next communications director and press secretary. Grisham replaces outgoing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former communications director Bill Shine, who left in March.

Polls:

  1. 65% of voters approve Trump’s decision to rescind the orders to attack Iran.