Category: Politics

Week 167 in Trump

Posted on April 30, 2020 in Politics, Trump

Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images

It’s April, and the Coronavirus didn’t magically go away as promised. And it turns out it isn’t like the flu, and no matter how well we prepare, probably 100,000 people will die. In fact, we just hit 1,000,000 confirmed cases worldwide, and experts suggest that the death rate for COVID-19 in the U.S. for April might be 2,000 people per day. In case anybody missed the point of staying home, it’s not just to save our own butts. We’re giving our healthcare workers a chance to fight this. They’re our first line of defense and if they crumble, we all go down.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending April 5…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were 9 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 8 people and injure 31 more. Who has time to go around shooting people when we’re on lockdown???

Russia:

  1. It turns out that errors on FISA warrants weren’t unique to the Russia investigation. Inspector General Michael Horowitz examined surveillance requests from 2015 to 2019 and found errors on all of them.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The DOJ opens an inquiry into stock trades made by Senators who were briefed on the coronavirus and then made trades, specifically Senator Richard Burr. Burr says he welcomes the investigation. The probe might also include Senator Kelly Loeffler.
  2. Despite Mitch McConnell defending the Trump administration’s slow response to the coronavirus pandemic by saying that they were so tied up by impeachment that they couldn’t do anything else, the Senate Homeland Security Committee is continuing with their probe into Hunter Biden.
  3. Trump fires Michael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community Inspector General who alerted Congress of the whistleblower account of Trump’s actions with regard to Ukraine last year. While his job technically ends in 30 days, he is placed on administrative leave immediately. The whistleblower complaint led to Trump’s impeachment in the House.

Healthcare:

  1. An appeals court rules that Texas can implement a temporary ban on abortion in almost all cases, overturning a federal judge’s previous ruling.
  2. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology issue a statement saying that abortions should not be required to be delayed because of the pandemic.

Coronavirus:

  1. Dr. Deborah Birx, a top official on the coronavirus task force, says they haven’t received about half of the data from the coronavirus tests conducted so far.
  2. Dr. Birx predicts that even if we do everything right, the U.S. could see 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 by August, with around 2,000 deaths per day in April. The latest modeling suggests around 85,000 deaths by August.
  3. Trump says coronavirus cases could peak around Easter, and defends his extension of the social distancing guidelines, saying it could save millions.
  4. The White House says that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from COVID-19, but the experts they cite don’t know where those numbers came from. Dr. Anthony Fauci says there are too many variables at play to make solid predictions.
  5. Dr. Fauci says that the coronavirus task force strongly advocated that Trump extend the social distancing measures for one more month. He says their data indicates that the spread of the virus isn’t slowing down yet.
    • Trump relents and announces an extension of the social distancing measures to the end of April. He had wanted to open things up for Easter Sunday.
  1. Even though we have Trump on video saying that he didn’t think governors needed the equipment they were requesting, he says he never said that. He also denies saying that if governors “don’t treat you right, I don’t call” at a press briefing, though that’s on video, too.
  2. After Trump tells Vice President Pence not to work with that “woman governor” of Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer (she has a name) and Pence have a call to discuss working with FEMA and the White House to get the personal protective equipment the state needs.
  3. The CDC is reviewing whether we should all be wearing masks when we go out in public after originally saying they weren’t helpful in preventing the wearer from catching the disease. It is helpful in preventing the wearer from spreading the disease, though.
    • While the CDC mulls it over, Mayors and counties start recommending people wear masks or face coverings while out in public—not necessarily medical-grade, just enough to prevent droplet spread.
    • By the end of the week, the federal government issues a recommendation that people wear masks in public.
  1. The Mayor of New Orleans says she would’ve canceled Mardi Gras in February if the federal government had raised any red flags about the coronavirus. Louisiana has one of the highest death rates per capita in the nation.
  2. Trump has said nobody could’ve predicted a pandemic like this, while at the same time maintaining that he always knew it was a pandemic.
  3. States that refused Medicaid expansion under the ACA are likely to have the biggest problems opening stores and bringing back workers. Putting a group of uninsured workers back in public before the virus is contained puts them at risk which puts more pressure on medical staff.
    • The Trump administration refuses to reopen the open enrollment period for the ACA, which would get more people insured during the pandemic.
    • Several states that run their own healthcare marketplaces have reopened enrollment for their residents.
  1. A few weeks ago, Trump said Google was helping with a website to help coordinate and direct coronavirus testing. It turns out that Oscar Health, co-founded by Jared Kushner’s brother, was working on it instead.
    • The website ended up getting scrapped.
    • Fewer than 1% of Americans have been tested so far.
    • In response to governors’ complaints about testing kits not being available, Trump says he hasn’t heard about it being a problem.
  1. Scientists in Germany got out way ahead of the curve, starting to develop coronavirus tests last December. They had a test by mid-January and used it liberally. While they have around 71,000 cases, their death rate is very low and they have empty hospital beds. They estimate they can do 1/2 million tests per week.
  2. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York starts testing an experimental treatment for coronavirus patients using the blood plasma of people who have antibodies against the virus. A consortium of 40 of our top medical organizations are looking into this.
  3. Johnson & Johnson joins with the federal government to pledge a $1 billion investment to find a potential vaccine for the coronavirus.
  4. The New York Post reports that New York has issued a statewide order not to resuscitate COVID-19 patients without a pulse, and for EMTs to not bring flatlined patients to hospitals. Medical workers deny this order exists, and the next day the New York Post says the orders are rescinded. Hmmm… At any rate, many healthcare workers are not performing manual chest compressions on patients because of the risk of infection, but they are employing other life-saving measures.
  5. U.S. intelligence says that China concealed the extent of the outbreak and is underreporting infections and deaths. China has reported around 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths. Even with China’s strict, authoritarian lockdown of the source of the infection, experts doubt it could’ve been that well contained.
    • China has adjusted the way they count cases and deaths a few times, adjusting the numbers accordingly.
    • Frankly, with the lack of extensive testing and awareness, the numbers being reported by most countries are probably inaccurate.
  1. Workers at Instacart, Whole Foods, and Amazon go on strike over concerns that the companies haven’t implemented sufficient safety measures to prevent coronavirus spread. They also want more pay, for what is now hazardous work.
  2. Nurses protest over a lack of personal protective equipment.
  3. Mike Pence freezes pandemic aid while the coronavirus task force reviews all USAID deliveries to countries requesting PPE. They also request that any equipment USAID is sending to other countries be redirected to the U.S. This change came from confusion over orders that were supposed to be coming to the U.S. that instead headed to China. There is still not any one point of contact to coordinate this.
  4. The government increases Dr. Fauci’s security after he receives threats to his personal safety. Americans are out of their minds.
  5. Mitch McConnell accidentally acknowledges that Trump wasn’t paying attention to the coronavirus in January when he excuses it by saying Trump was distracted by impeachment. Remember that Trump himself played no role in the impeachment process other than to criticize it. Senators urged Trump at the time for an increased mobilization against the virus.
    • McConnell himself didn’t speak about the virus until February 23, even though all Senators were briefed on it in January.
  1. The U.S. Coast Guard tells cruise ships with passengers who are infected with the coronavirus to stay away from U.S. ports. They say the ships have to care for their own patients or find other countries to help.
    • Cruise ships are still floating around in limbo, unable to dock anywhere because they have infected passengers and crew. At one point, there were 29 cruise ships hovering off Florida ports waiting for approval to dock. Some have only crew on board.

    • The Port of Miami no longer accepts MEDEVAC patients because they’re reaching hospital capacity.
    • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis allows Floridians aboard Holland America cruise ships to disembark.
  1. Speaker Nancy Pelosi forms a new select committee to oversee the government’s handling of the pandemic and the relief packages. Trump slams this as a partisan probe, but it’s their job.
  2. G20 leaders commit to a coordinated and robust response to the pandemic and to strengthening the WHO. Their joint statement is pretty mild in comparison to their response to the 2008 crisis and 2014 Ebola outbreak, showing what a difference it makes that the U.S. isn’t taking a leadership position anymore.
  3. During one of the White House’s daily coronavirus press briefings, Pence announces that Jared Kushner will oversee the distribution of medical supplies to the states, including those from the national stockpile. Kushner says that the supplies aren’t supposed to be state stockpiles, they’re supposed to be “our stockpiles” (meaning the federal government, I guess?). In reality, the mission of the stockpile is to “supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies.”
  4. After Kushner’s statement, someone updates the Strategic National Stockpile webpage so that it no longer states that it is, indeed, intended for state, local, and tribal needs.

Text as of March 30: “Strategic National Stockpile is the nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.”

Text today: “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.”

  1. At a time when statements from POTUS need to be clear, fact-based, and straightforward, his chaotic briefings confuse people over whether this pandemic is serious, whether we’re doing enough to slow it down, and how long it will last.
  2. Trump says there’s never been a crisis response as strong as his, but he also says he’s just playing backup to governors. Then he says governors are acting too slowly.
    • He says medical personnel and officials complain too much.
    • He says we’re winning the war against the virus as the number of both cases and deaths continue to rise.
    • He once compared the coronavirus to the flu, but now he says it’s nothing like the flu.
    • When asked, he takes no responsibility for the initial failures in testing.
  1. New York unites all hospitals under one statewide hospital system to plan and coordinate staff, medical supplies, ER and ICU beds, and the sharing of all these resources.
  2. Never one to give up, Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) says that it’s overkill to close schools for the rest of the year. He also promotes hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 though it is still unproven.
  3. The FDA does approve hydroxychloroquine as an emergency COVID-19 treatment despite the lack of promising studies.
  4. Dr. Fauci expresses frustration that not all states are abiding by federal guidance on social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
    • Fun Fact: In a speech at Georgetown University in 2017, Dr. Fauci warned that there would be a surprise outbreak during Trump’s time in office and that we needed to do more to prepare.
  1. New York hospitals are getting slammed with coronavirus patients, and the state is expecting 85,000 healthcare volunteers.
  2. An engineer deliberately derails a train while trying to crash into the USNS Mercy hospital ship, docked in the Port of Los Angeles to help with any overflow. The engineer thinks the ship is suspicious and that officials are lying about its reason for being there.
  3. In September 2017, Trump dismantled the PREDICT initiative, an early warning program that trained scientists in other countries, including China, to detect pandemics.
  4. Trump brags about how great the ratings are for the coronavirus briefings. Like this is reality TV.

Shortages:

  1. While Trump assures us that there are 10,000 ventilators in reserve, ready to be distributed, the remaining stockpile are unmaintained and unusable. The government let the maintenance contract lapse last summer and it didn’t resume until January.
  2. We learn that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requested $2 billion to replenish the stockpile as early as February 5. The White House cut that back to $500 million, but Congress provided $16 billion.
  3. The Pentagon has 2,000 ventilators waiting to be sent out, but they still haven’t been told where to send them.
  4. The USNS Comfort hospital ship arrives in New York harbor to help with hospital overflow. The ship has 1,000 beds, operating rooms, a lab, and a pharmacy. 
New York City is also building a field hospital in Central Park to create additional hospital beds.
  5. Canadian firm Prescientx starts selling machines that can disinfect up to 500 N95 medical masks per hour using ultraviolet light, which will help alleviate the mask shortage.
  6. Governors across the county plead for medical equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile. Florida receives 100% of its request. Oklahoma and Kentucky receive a large share of their requests. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maine receive much smaller shares of their request.
    • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo compares the process they’re going through right now to being on eBay. Just when you think you’ve secured an order, someone sweeps in and outbids you. And sometimes that someone is the federal government.
    • By the end of the week, Connecticut’s governor says that the stockpile is empty.
    • Trump claims he inherited an empty stockpile from the Obama administration. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the stockpile warehouses stored around $7 billion worth of supplies like vaccines, ventilators, PPE, and other medicines and equipment. However, Congress didn’t allocate any funds for Obama’s administration to replace everything used to fight the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 and 2010. I’m sure we all remember how the House that came into office in 2011 handled requests from Obama.
    • It turns out that not only is the U.S. government bidding against states for medical equipment, it’s also competing against other countries and causing tensions between us and our allies.
  1. Massachusetts designates the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center as a field hospital for homeless adults who test positive but don’t need full hospital care.
  2. New York City morgues are almost full, and the state requests 85 refrigerated trucks to help with the load.
  3. The Trump administration asks 3M to stop supplying N95 respirators to Canada. Tip: A human-defined border between countries can’t stop the spread of the virus.
  4. Trump blames medical facilities for the shortage in PPE and medical equipment, accusing them of hoarding them.
  5. The Pentagon is trying to secure 100,000 body bags in preparation for the coming wave of deaths.
  6. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker creates a backchannel to China in order to facilitate a shipment of 1.7 million masks. Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Patriots President Jonathan Kraft partner with Massachusetts to deliver 1.4 million of those masks to Massachusetts and another 300,000 to New York. They fly the PPE from China on the Patriots’ private plane.
  7. China and Oregon both donate ventilators to New York.
  8. Medical supply brokers say that millions of N95 masks have been available throughout the pandemic, but the high prices resulting from the bidding wars have overwhelmed buyers. Millions are being bought by buyers from other countries.
  9. At least 30 New York City hospitals are at or near capacity in their ICUs. Seven of those hospitals are near total capacity.

Exposures:

  1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu self-quarantines after being exposed to the coronavirus.
  2. You can’t even make this story up. More than 150 Navy personnel aboard the USS Teddy Roosevelt contract coronavirus infections. After bringing it up through the chain of command to no avail, the ship’s commander, Captain Brett Crozier, writes a letter to dozens of people at the Pentagon pleading for assistance.
    • So no surprise, the letter gets leaked to the press.
    • So far, they’ve been told they can dock at Guam but must stay on board the boat.
    • Some of the sickest sailors have been removed from the ship.
    • Crozier says the conditions on board are ripe for the spread of the virus and requests that 90% of the crew be removed and isolated. He says there’s no reason to put these sailors’ lives at risk when it’s not wartime.
    • Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly removes Crozier from his post, saying that he didn’t use the proper security protocols to send his letter. He also calls Crozier an incredible man but says he got overwhelmed by the situation.
    • Crozier’s crew is pissed, and they cheer him as he walks off the ship.
    • Modly receives an enormous backlash for the firing.
    • In a speech to the ship’s crew, Modly calls Crozier naive and stupid.
    • Navy officials say Crozier will be reassigned and not fired.
    • And then Crozier tests positive for the coronavirus and is symptomatic.
  1. The Governor of New Mexico requests federal assistance after cases of coronavirus spike in the Navajo Nation.
  2. Representative Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) is diagnosed with “presumed” coronavirus infection based on her reported symptoms.
  3. COVID-19 takes the lives of jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, singers and songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Joe Diffie, and Hilda Churchill, who’s not famous but should be. She lived through both World Wars and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. We’ve also lost doctors, nurses, first responders, diplomates, elected officials. There’s no position that guarantees you won’t get sick.

Closures:

  1. Surgeon General Jerome Adams asks governors who’ve held out on issuing stay-at-home orders to put them into place for at least a week. He says the coming week will be our hardest.
  2. Florida and Georgia finally issue stay at home orders, effective Friday. Georgia Government Brian Kemp says he just heard that people who are asymptomatic can spread the virus. He calls it a revelation and a game-changer. Where the fuck has he been for the past month? Florida’s order allows religious gatherings.
  3. Mississippi’s governor issues a stay at home order, also going into effect on Friday.
  4. Missouri finally puts a stay at home order in place, but it doesn’t go into effect until next week.
  5. Several counties in Pennsylvania were already under stay at home orders, and the governor expands it to the full state.
  6. Nevada issues a stay at home order and closes all non-essential businesses until the end of the month.
  7. Texas Governor Greg Abbott overrides city and county rules that would’ve prevented mass gatherings for religious services.
  8. Hobby Lobby re-opens stores in defiance of shutdown rules in several states. In some states, it prompts police action.
  9. The DNC delays its national presidential nominating convention from July to August.
  10. The Department of Defense isolates some of its senior military leaders and mission-critical personnel as a precautionary measure. They also warn of escalated military activity against Iran.
  11. The State Department urges all Americans traveling abroad to come home immediately because we don’t know how much longer flights will be available to bring them home.

Numbers:

  1. The world now has over 1,000,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
  2. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:
    • 312,237 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 8,501 deaths, up from 124,665 infections and 2,191 deaths as of last week.
    • 1,133,758 people worldwide have been infected, with 62,784 deaths, up from 691,867 infections and 32,988 deaths as of last week.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump sends 500 U.S. troops to the southern border to help stop people from crossing the border and potentially bringing in the coronavirus.
  2. The FBI warns of an uptick in violence and hate crimes against Asian Americans in the midst of the pandemic. Perhaps a little late, as attacks on Asian Americans surge to 100 per day.
  3. Farmworkers are designated as essential workers. They are largely undocumented immigrants.

Climate:

  1. The EPA releases new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks, watering down one of our most aggressive efforts to fight climate change. This reverses the changes made under Obama, and states are already planning legal challenges.
    • The new rule mandates a 1.5% increase in fuel efficiency annually and sets a goal of an average of 40 MPG by 2026. The old rule mandated a 5% annual increase in efficiency and an average of 54 MPG by 2025.
    • Scientists expect that an extra 900 million more tons of CO2 will be released if the rule is allowed to go into effect.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Despite the shortage of medical supplies, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro says we have to buy those supplies from American producers. He’s not ready to let up on the trade war in order for us to get the equipment we need. Chinese manufacturers make 120 million masks a day, while the U.S. government asks volunteers at home to sew masks.
  2. The Treasury reverses its previous stance and says that if you receive social security benefits, you don’t have to file a tax return to qualify for the $1,200 relief check.
  3. The number of filings for unemployment benefits jumped to 6.65 million last week, a much sharper increase than during the Great Recession.
  4. The unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 4.4% during March.
  5. The U.S. job market lost 701,000 jobs. The losses are largely in hospitality, entertainment, and manufacturing, none of which can be done remotely.
  6. The stock market continues to be volatile this week, but still improves a bit over last week.
  7. The Paycheck Protection Program, which offers almost $350 billion in loans to eligible businesses to retain staff and payroll, goes into effect. The loans will be 100% forgiven if businesses use the money according to the guidelines.

Elections:

  1. While Democrats push for countrywide vote-by-mail elections as a way to make sure everybody can vote safely, Trump says that if everyone were allowed to vote, a Republican would never win an election. Whoops! That guy’s always saying the quiet part out loud.
    • And Georgia’s House Speaker confirms it, saying that higher voter participation would “be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.”
  1. Several states postpone their Democratic primary elections until May or June.
  2. The Wisconsin Republican Party asks the Supreme Court to block extended voting for absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential primary next week. Some voters have still not received their ballots. A district court refused to allow the primary to be delayed but did extend absentee voting.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC) officially resigns from Congress to become Trump’s new chief of staff.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s rally-around-the-president bump in approval seems to have peaked. 47% of Americans approve of his handling of the pandemic while 52% disapprove.

Week 166 in Trump

Posted on April 21, 2020 in Politics, Trump

Last week Trump said, “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” In January, Trump said there were no worries at all. It’s under control, and we have one person coming from China. A month later, he said we’re only at five people and that will drop to zero. It will disappear one day—like a miracle. It’ll be gone by April. Trump accused Democrats of being hysterical about the severity of the pandemic and mocked HHS Secretary Alex Azar for being alarmist. We’re in for a bumpy ride, my fellow Americans.

Here’s what happened in politics (which was mostly sucked up by COVID-19) for the week ending March 30…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were just 3 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 1 person and injure 11 more.

Healthcare/Coronavirus:

  1. I don’t remember hearing about it at the time, but the first recorded case of coronavirus in the US was January 21.
  2. Trump activates the National Guard in New York, California, and Washington State.
  3. The Justice Department brings a fraud case against a website that claims to be distributing vaccines for the coronavirus on the World Health Organization‘s behalf. A federal judge issues a restraining order blocking the site.
  4. The DOJ considers using anti-terrorism laws to prosecute people who threaten to spread the coronavirus on purpose.
  5. In July 2018, four months before we started hearing of a pandemic, the Trump administration eliminated the position for a U.S. epidemiologist in China. She trained Chinese epidemiologists who track, investigate, and contain outbreaks of disease.
  6. Over the past two years, the Trump administration cut CDC operations in China by two-thirds, with most of the cuts at the CDC’s Beijing office.
  7. Dr. Anthony Fauci says there’s only so much he can do to correct Trump’s misstatements during his coronavirus briefings. Fauci recently had to correct Trump on the use of an anti-malarial drug for COVID-19. Trump says it’s a game-changer, but Fauci says it’s all anecdotal so far.
  8. After Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, a man dies from eating a fish parasite treatment that contains chloroquine phosphate.
  9. A study in China finds that the drug is ineffective for treating COVID-19.
  10. Last week, Fauci went viral when he smirked and covered his face when Trump mentioned the “Deep State Department” during a press briefing.
  11. Fauci pushes for virtual news conferences so the members of the task force don’t all have to be so close together.
  12. New York begins testing trial drugs approved for other uses.
  13. States begin expanding drive-through testing.
  14. Mayor Bill de Blasio says that New York hospitals are already being deluged with coronavirus patients. Even so, playgrounds and parks are still open while Governor Cuomo works on plans to minimize crowds in public places.
  15. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gives a speech saying the country should end mass isolation and open schools. He calls COVID-19 a little flu or cold.
  16. Scientists say the coronavirus is not mutating quickly, which means that a vaccine could be very effective.
  17. Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio is very proactive about trying to flatten the curve, and says that’s the best way to bring the economy back.
  18. The U.K. puts out a call for 250,000 volunteers to help with things like driving patients to appointments, picking up medicines, and checking in on isolated people.
  19. The CDC hasn’t held a press briefing on the coronavirus in two weeks.
  20. Several news stations stop carrying Trump’s coronavirus briefings live because they are too full of misinformation and can’t be fact-checked in real-time.
  21. A study by UnitedHealth Group shows their self-administered coronavirus test is as effective as the current one administered by medical practitioners.
  22. The UN’s resolution on the pandemic stalls when the U.S. insists that it calls out China for being the origin of the virus.
  23. G20 leaders call an emergency meeting to develop a plan for the pandemic.
  24. A group of far-right news sites starts criticizing Dr. Fauci. Trump tries to downplay any tension between the two, but at the same time, he bristles against the medical consensus on the pandemic. Some groups are even calling Fauci an agent of the deep state.
  25. WHO officials praise both China’s and the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.
  26. The Trump administration maintains that there are plenty of ventilators and thus no need for the “do not resuscitate” conversations that we’re hearing about and no need for doctors to have to decide who to treat and who gets a ventilator.
  27. Scientists who model the spread of coronavirus have to update their models to account for the number of people who believe the virus is a hoax. This was not something they thought they’d have to include in the mix.
  28. Trump continues to try to shift the blame for the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. to our governors; specifically, he calls out Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
    • Whitmer has been critical of the federal response and the failure to deliver the supplies that Michigan needs. Michigan has one of the fastest-growing outbreaks in the U.S.
    • Whitmer says that vendors have been told not to send her state the supplies they order.
    • Trump accuses her of not doing anything.
    • Republicans in Michigan echo Whitmer’s criticisms and requests.
    • Whitmer praises Mike Pence, with whom she has a good working relationship.
  1. U.S. State Department documents show that on February 7, the U.S. provided 17.8 tons of respirators and other medical equipment to China to help with their response to the coronavirus.
    • We were likely sending help to the source of a pandemic to help stop the spread.
    • They seem to be returning the favor, though, because this week the U.S. receives 80 tons of medical equipment from China.
  1. According to Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), Senators offered the Trump administration congressional funding on February 5 to start getting ahead of the spread of coronavirus. At the time, officials said they didn’t need any emergency funding and could manage it with their existing funding. Here’s what Murphy tweeted at the time:

“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.”

    • This kind of goes against the argument that we couldn’t do anything about the coronavirus earlier because of the impeachment hearings.
  1. The former director of the CDC calls for an investigation into the testing failures that put us so far behind. State and local healthcare organizations abandon attempts to test and tell people with symptoms to self-quarantine at home.
  2. The Trump administration ignored the National Security Council’s 2016 pandemic playbook, which provided a color-coded, step-by-step plan for dealing with a crisis like this.
    • According to the playbook, the administration should’ve begun securing medical and protective equipment in January.
    • The playbook details the roles and responsibilities of each agency for each of four threat levels.
    • An NSC spokesman says the document is dated. How dated can it be?
  1. Disaster experts say that all the open positions in the federal government, along with the high turnover in this administration make it harder to handle the pandemic.
  2. Five government officials say that after weeks of downplaying the virus, the Trump administration is now trying to move quickly to catch up. Shifting responsibilities and Trump’s whims are slowing the process down, though. They say there’s no longterm strategy or focus. Up until now:
    • No one at the White House has devised a strategy to obtain medical supplies longterm.
    • The Trump administration is competing with states for medical supplies.
    • They’re still sorting out which teams are responsible for which parts of the response.
    • There’s still no strategy to make testing widely available.
  1. FEMA finally takes over the emergency responsibilities that Health and Human Services had been trying to handle.
  2. Trump continues to claim that the Obama administration acted very late during the H1N1 pandemic. If I haven’t already mentioned it, Obama declared a national health emergency 12 days after the first case was identified (and days before the first death). Test kits were approved and shipped out just two weeks after the virus was identified.
  3. Health experts are still predicting that COVID-19 could cause between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in the U.S.

Shortages:

  1. Trump says that nobody in their wildest dreams thought we’d ever run out of ventilators. Medical experts have been saying since at least 2011 that the U.S. didn’t have enough ventilators to see it through a pandemic.
  2. The Trump administration reaches out to other countries (including China) to see if they’ll sell us things like hand sanitizer, respirators, masks, gloves, gowns, biohazard bags, and inhalers.
  3. The White House cancels its announcement of a deal with GM and Ventec Life Systems to produce up to 80,000 ventilators. The deal was going to cost the government more than $1 billion.
  4. Authorities refuse to ship the nearly 1.5 million N95 respirators sitting in an Indiana warehouse because they’re expired.
  5. Tesla promises to donate hundreds of ventilators to New York. He’s purchased 1,255 of them so far. Not all of the ventilators were the kind we need right now, but hospitals were able to retrofit them.
  6. Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West finds 39 million N95 masks that they’ll give to state and local governments and to medical facilities.
  7. After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asks the federal government for thousands of ventilators, Trump says he doesn’t believe the state needs 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators. The projections say otherwise. New York is still two weeks out from expected peak usage.
  8. The Trump administration sends 170 ventilators to California, but they‘re all broken. The state is repairing the ventilators to distribute them to hospitals.
  9. At a press conference, Trump suggests that healthcare workers are stealing masks and selling them illegally.
  10. Some states ask retired medical personnel to return to work to help contain and treat patients during the pandemic. 40,000 volunteer to help New York.
  11. Ford, 3M, and General Electric team up to product respirators, face shields, and ventilators.
  12. Trump says that Ford, GM, and Tesla are already making ventilators, but they aren’t, and it will take several months to ramp that up.
  13. Companies and individuals are doing what they can to help:
    • Gap and Ralph Lauren repurpose factories to start producing medical masks and gowns.
    • Creative Americans are sewing face masks to help protect medical workers and laypeople.
    • Prisma Health develops a device that lets one ventilator support up to four patients.
    • Apple donates 10 million face masks.
    • Pornhub donates 50,000 surgical masks.
    • Crocs donates shoes to healthcare workers.
    • Dyson is building 15,000 ventilators.

Closures:

  1. The number of states implementing stay at home orders except for essential travel for things like food and medicine rises from four to 26 this week. The holdouts are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
  2. Trump says he wants the country opened up by Easter, and pushes his case for Americans to return to work. Experts say that opening up too early will defeat the purpose of staying at home in the first place. Trump says more people will die if the economy goes into a depression; health experts say more will die if we lift the restrictions too soon.
    • And thus starts the isolation wars between the right and the left. The truth is, there’s no easy answer for how to move back to what we consider normal.
    • Governors push back on the idea and are still asking for more federal assistance.
  1. The CDC issues travel advisories for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
  2. Franklin Graham reopens Liberty University.
  3. California suspends accepting inmates in state prisons for 30 days. Crowded conditions make prisons prime for outbreaks. Bill de Blasio releases 200 inmates who committed low-level offenses and have less than a year left to serve. He’s also working on releasing people in high-risk categories.
  4. While gun stores are closed in several areas, a loophole in Los Angeles County’s lockdown orders allows gun stores to stay open. Lines are around the block. Tip: You can’t kill a virus with a bullet.
  5. Communities near national parks and popular hiking areas ask visitors to stay away after too many people crowd into them. Leaders keep saying people can get out and walk and hike, so people flock to public hiking areas.
  6. Parts of California shut down their beaches after too many people come to hang out there.
  7. New York cancels all elective, non-critical surgeries to increase hospital bed capacity. Other states have already been doing this and using it as an excuse to stop abortions.
  8. The White House asks people who leave the New York area to self-isolate for 14 days, claiming that 60% of new cases in the U.S. are coming out of NY. In some states, police are enforcing it.
  9. Six of Trump’s top seven revenue-producing resorts and clubs shut down, putting him in the uncomfortable position of having to balance the interests of the American people with his own economic interests.
  10. The Israeli government approves emergency measures allowing them to track cellphone data for people who are infected. They’ll use this for contact tracing.
  11. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey says Alabama won’t order people to stay at home because “we’re not New York State” or “California.” Alabama has fewer cases of coronavirus, but their rate of increase is nearly that of New York.
  12. An epidemiologist in a small town in Oklahoma saw the pandemic threat months ago and started mobilizing his town in mid-February. In the absence of a statewide order, other cities and towns in Oklahoma took it upon themselves to prepare.
  13. The U.K. shuts down non-essential businesses and ends gatherings of more than two people for three weeks.

Exposures:

  1. Nearly 200 members of the NYPD test positive for the coronavirus.
  2. Representative Ben McAdams (D-UT) is in the hospital with low oxygen levels from COVID-19.
  3. Famed playwright Terrence McNally dies from complications of COVID-19.
  4. Amazon workers at six warehouses test positive for the coronavirus.
  5. A group of people in Kentucky throw a coronavirus party, presumably in order to contract the virus and become immune. At least many of the did contract it.
  6. An immigrant in ICE custody tests positive for the coronavirus.
  7. The president of Harvard University and his wife test positive for the coronavirus.
  8. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tests positive for the coronavirus. He’s working from home and says he has mild symptoms. His Health Minister also tests positive and his chief medical officer has symptoms.
  9. Dozens of nursing homes face coronavirus outbreaks.

Numbers:

  1. Deaths in Italy continue to climb, and Italian mayors crack down on people ignoring the stay at home orders.
  2. Germany’s fatality rate is 0.5%, the lowest in the world. Their health experts say it’s because of their thorough testing program. They’re testing early and often.
  3. The U.S. leads the world in the number of confirmed coronavirus infections. New York has around 5% of all coronavirus cases worldwide, and they’re doubling every three days.
  4. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:
    • 124,665 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 2,191 deaths, up from 26,747 infections and 340 deaths as of last week.
    • 691,867 people worldwide have been infected, with 32,988 deaths, up from 307,280 infections and 13,049 deaths as of last week.

International:

  1. The speaker of Israel’s Knesset resigns over backlash from his refusal to reopen parliament during a time when large gatherings are banned. Some people think the closure protects Netanyahu and the far right.
  2. The DOJ unseals criminal charges against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on drug trafficking charges.
  3. Homeland Security requests military forces to be deployed at the U.S.-Canada border. Canada says that would damage our relationship.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Protestors in Mexico briefly shut down a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border when they block traffic to try to stop people entering from the U.S. The protestors are afraid Americans will bring the virus with them.
  2. Unaccompanied migrant minors in U.S. custody test positive for coronavirus.
  3. Hate crimes against Asian Americans continue to rise, and many Asian Americans say they’re afraid to leave their homes.
    • For weeks, Trump has called the virus the Chinese virus. But then he switches his tune and says it’s not China’s fault and that he’ll no longer call the virus the Chinese or China virus.
    • Both he and his administration continue to blame China, though, and to call it the Chinese or Wuhan virus.
    • Trump pushes the G7 to call it the Wuhan virus in their official statement on the pandemic, causing the statement to stall.
    • So while other countries are focused on things like calling a temporary halt to all hostilities between nations, the U.S. is focused on making sure someone else gets the blame.
  1. Cramped and crowded conditions in refugee camps around the world create the perfect environment for coronavirus outbreaks.
  2. A pastor who leads a weekly bible study for Trump’s Cabinet members says in a blog post that gays and environmentalists, among others, have ignited God’s wrath, which is why we’re going through this pandemic.

Climate:

  1. A federal judge strikes down the permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline that were affirmed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The judge says the permits violate the National Environmental Policy Act.
  2. The oil and gas industry asks the Trump administration to ease some regulations to make the distribution of fuel easier. The requests cover regulations that mostly cover record-keeping and training, but the industry says they aren’t asking to ease safety regulations.
  3. The EPA suspends enforcement of environmental regulations for the indefinite future while we grapple with COVID-19, allowing power plants, factories, and other facilities to determine for themselves if they can meet legal requirements on reporting air and water pollution.

Budget/Economy:

  1. 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, the largest increase in new jobless claims in history. The unemployment rate increased two points from 3.5% to 5.5%.
  2. After economists and advisors say this for a week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell finally agrees that we might be in a recession.
  3. Behind the scenes, Democratic and Republican lawmakers are working together to hammer out an agreement on an enormous stimulus package. Both sides blame the other for blocking the package, when in reality, they’re negotiating for the best bill. I don’t know why they have to politicize it.
  4. The stock market continues to fall despite stimulus attempts by the Fed but then soars after Congress passes their $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, bringing the market out of the bear market it had fallen into.
  5. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) demands a last-minute recorded vote on the coronavirus relief package, forcing members of the House to get back on planes and travel to Washington D.C. at a time when states are restricting non-essential travel.
    • A recorded vote means that a majority need to be present to pass it.
    • Three Representatives have tested positive.
    • Massie receives backlash from members of both parties.
  1. No one gets everything they want in the stimulus bill, but Democrats get increased aid for small businesses and workers, as well as more oversight over spending, and Republicans get the aid they wanted for businesses. The bill includes:
    • $150 billion for states.
    • $130 billion for hospitals.
    • Expanded unemployment benefits, which are extended to self-employed workers.
    • Around $1,200 for every American making less than $75,000.
    • Homeowner and renter protections.
    • Small business loans.
    • Oversight for funds paid to businesses.
  1. Trump Organization businesses are banned from receiving funds from the stimulus package.
  2. Trump doesn’t invite Nancy Pelosi to the signing ceremony for the coronavirus relief bill, despite her role in the negotiations. Apparently, they aren’t speaking.
  3. The Trump administration halted the collection of defaulted student loan debt for the time being.
  4. Some states order a moratorium on evictions of rental tenants. California enters a deal with major banks to protect homeowners from foreclosure.

Elections:

  1. The stimulus bill passed by Congress includes $400 million to strengthen elections and promote vote-by-mail options. The original House bill called for ten times that,
  2. Trump’s re-election campaign sends cease and desist letters to TV stations that are airing an ad critical of his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
  3. A federal court of appeals overturns restrictions on accepting ballots in Arizona. Now voters who vote at the wrong precinct can still have their vote counted, and early voters can let someone else drop their ballots in the mail.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Not liking their coverage so far, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bans Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reporters from his press conference on the coronavirus response.
  2. PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in the 2018 Camp fire in Northern California.
  3. Trump appoints John Voight and Mike Huckabee, among others, to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees.
  4. Trump brags about the ratings of his coronavirus task force press briefings.

Polls:

  1. 72% of Americans think their governor is doing a good job of handling the pandemic. 50% think Trump is.
  2. 93% of Americans say they’re practicing social distancing measures.

Week 165 in Trump

Posted on April 17, 2020 in Politics, Trump

Here’s another catch-up recap. This is the week my family ends our Napa vacation early and chases the shutdowns from Northern California down to Los Angeles and Palm Springs and even out to Colorado. It‘s surreal listening to the news while motoring through California’s stunning landscape. It’s also the week Trump said he always viewed this as a pandemic, even long before it was ever called a pandemic. But he also says, “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.” In reality, Trump has been playing down the dangers of the virus while also taking some steps to mitigate the spread. So mixed messages.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending March 22…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were 5 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 1 people and injure 23 more.

Russia:

  1. In a continuation of reversing or lessening charges brought as a result of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the Department of Justice drops its case against Russian companies Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering.
    • The companies were charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government by meddling in the 2016 elections.
    • The case was set to go to trial in a few weeks.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Former Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) receives an 11-month sentence for stealing campaign funds.
    • Fun fact #1: Duncan Hunter was indicted on 60 counts in 2018, yet he was still re-elected to the House.
    • Fun fact #2: When I called into that district during the elections, people told me they’d rather vote for a criminal than a Democrat. Hunter was out of office within a year.
  1. After receiving a classified briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) warned some of his private wealthy donors about the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic but he didn’t publicly contradict Trump when he downplayed the pandemic.
    • And then Burr sold off up to $1.7 million in stocks. In the week after that sale, the market started to slump and has lost close to 30% since.
    • A week prior to the stock trades, Burr co-wrote a reassuring op-ed about the pandemic for Fox News.
    • Burr requests a Senate ethics investigation into his stock trades.
    • Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who is married to the CEO of the company that owns the New York stock exchange, also traded millions of dollars in stocks, selling shares in retail companies and purchasing stock in a company that makes medical protective gear.
    • Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) also had stock trades, but they do not seem suspicious at this time. Neither were at the classified briefing.
    • Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is also accused of selling off stock after the briefings, but his sales seem to be part of a two-year selloff of shares of his family’s company.
    • Caveat: When I say they traded stock, for the most part, somebody else made those trades as is customary for Members of Congress.

Courts/Justice:

  1. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Justice Department asks Congress to allow judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies. They also request authority to extend deadlines for prosecutions and the authority to pause at any point in the justice system (from pre-arrest to post-trial proceedings). That means you could be arrested and never see a judge until the emergency is over—and yes, you’d be in jail that whole time. They request a pause on the statute of limitations during an emergency.
  2. And while the DOJ is doing all that, law enforcement and attorneys are working on getting detainees released to reduce the chance of spreading the coronavirus in crowded prisons and jails.
  3. Mitch McConnell asks veteran federal judges to step down so that Trump can appoint and the Senate can confirm more young right-wing judges to the courts. A balanced court system will never be good enough for Mitch.
  4. The Supreme Court suspends arguments indefinitely, including some cases involving Trump.

Healthcare/Coronavirus:

  1. There is still no toilet paper or disinfectant to be had.
  2. Joe Biden urges Trump to exercise the Defense Production Act to order companies to mass-produce needed medical equipment like ventilators and masks.
  3. Mike Pence says the private sector is increasing products for the needed equipment.
  4. Trump does invoke the Defense Production Act but says he’ll only use it in a worst-case scenario. Two days later, he says he’s put it into high gear.
    • Some companies are already working to switch over to manufacturing medical equipment and protective gear, but the effort is piecemeal and uncoordinated.
    • The Defense Logistics Agency could coordinate all this by controlling inventory and allocating it based on need countrywide.
  1. The Department of Veterans Affairs changes its mission statement by removing its fourth mission — to back up our public health systems in times of crisis.
  2. New Rochelle, NY, develops as a hot spot for coronavirus infections. Governor Cuomo requests military assistance.
  3. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology urges its students studying abroad to return home, especially if they’re currently in a country with “poorly developed health services and infrastructure” like the U.S.
  4. Dr. Fauci says that we should plan to hunker down for a while to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. This is as much for us as it is to give our medical professionals time to ramp up and prepare.
    • Fauci has become the presence most Americans trust during the White House coronavirus briefings. He walks a very fine line, trying to contradict the president diplomatically during press briefings so as not to anger Trump while making sure Americans have the facts.
    • Fauci has been at the forefront of several epidemics, including HIV, West Nile Virus, H1N1, and Ebola.
    • A rift starts to develop between Dr. Fauci and Trump and between Dr. Fauci and some White House Advisors. They think Fauci corrects Trump too much. You’d think it’d be more important to keep us all informed of the facts.
  1. As with all previous travel bans, the ban on European travel causes chaos, confusion, and long waits at airports.
  2. Another cruise ship is sailing around in limbo, this one from Fort Lauderdale, FL, to the Mediterranean. One passenger has died from COVID-19 and five others, who have been removed from the ship, are infected or suspected to be. Antigua and Spain both turned the ship away, and it will dock in France and then in Italy.
  3. Hawaii turns away two cruise ships requesting to dock there but does allow them to refuel and stock up supplies.
  4. Trump now says the outbreak could last until July or August.
  5. The head of WHO says we need to be testing every suspected case. We aren’t doing that right now.
  6. U.S. officials say that U.S. intelligence agencies issued classified warnings in January and February about the pandemic and related dangers. At the same time, Trump and others were still downplaying the seriousness of the situation.
  7. Trump touts an untested drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat COVID-10, calling it a game-changer. He says this just a few minutes after Dr. Fauci says we should be careful about even calling the drug fairly effective because we just don’t know.
    • This drug is an anti-malaria drug and has other currently approved uses as well, like treating lupus and arthritis.
    • There was already a shortage of hydroxychloroquine, and this just makes it worse.
    • Later in the week at a coronavirus press briefing, Trump says the FDA approved treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine. The FDA Commissioner contradicts him at the briefing, saying we’d want to test that in a clinical trial setting first.
  1. Ohio’s attorney general orders a halt to any non-essential abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. This will hurt victims of domestic abuse the most, as well as people who are already financially strapped and are being hurt even worse by business closures. Other states clarify that their bans on non-essential procedures do not apply to abortions.
  2. Last year, Trump banned research on fetal tissue. This year, that’s blocking progress in coronavirus treatment and vaccine research.
  3. Trump activates the National Guard in California, New York, and Washington.
  4. The last remaining emergency hospital built to handle the coronavirus crisis in China’s Wuhan province closes down.
  5. The U.K. appeals to automobile manufacturers to switch to making ventilators.
  6. The CDC has not been present for the past week’s worth of coronavirus press briefings.
  7. Trump waives fees at U.S. national parks as a way to encourage people to get out into the fresh air during the stay at home orders (the orders allow people to be outside, just at a distance and not in large groups). But this backfires as parks become overcrowded over the weekend, as do U.S. beaches.
  8. The majority of people being killed by the coronavirus so far are men.
  9. Russia announces its first coronavirus death and then reverses it.
  10. Trump has tried to make China the enemy in this pandemic and accuses U.S. media of siding with state propaganda from China in their coverage. Whatever that means.
  11. People start tuning in to Governor Cuomo’s press briefings over the White House press briefings because Cuomo presents his information in a factual, no-nonsense manner that still comes across as empathetic.
  12. The former head of the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which Trump dismantled in 2018, says our response to the pandemic would’ve been more thorough and speedy if we still had this agency today. At the same time, he says we have capable and committed health organizations handling the situation.
  13. Several states that run their own ACA marketplaces reopen enrollment so people can get healthcare coverage during this crisis. The Trump administration has so far refused to open the federal marketplace for states that rely on it.
  14. California’s governor enlists tech companies to help develop more targeted testing.
  15. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says grandparents would be willing to die in order to keep the economy humming. So they’d be willing to die to save the planet for their grandchildren but not willing to switch over from fossil fuels to renewables. Weird.
  16. Coronavirus testing is more available to the wealthy, celebrities, and people who just happen to have the right doctor.
  17. Trump offers to help North Korea fight the coronavirus, even though they haven’t reported any cases yet.
  18. Jared Kushner is running his own team of government officials and representatives from private industry to combat the coronavirus. As of this week, he hasn’t attended any of the pandemic meetings. His focus is on drive-through testing sites, but he also says the virus isn’t a “health reality.”
    • Members of the real pandemic team are now unsure of the chain of command and of how to respond to emails from Kushner’s team.
  1. Not long after tweeting a picture of himself in a packed restaurant with his family, Oklahoma’s Republican governor is briefed on the tripling of cases in his state and does an abrupt about-face: “We need all Oklahomans to take this really, really seriously. If we take no actions at all, the cases will outstrip our capacity and our health-care system.”
  2. New York City asks the state to let them use the Javits Convention Center as a medical facility in case their hospitals get overrun. States begin setting up other public spaces as field hospitals, and Navy hospital ships are on the way to New York and Los Angeles.
  3. The U.S. military also plans to provide 2 million respiratory masks and 2,000 ventilators.
  4. The U.K. has had a very relaxed response to the pandemic and has not implemented any social distancing measures to slow the spread. Despite requests from hundreds of scientists to implement stricter measures, all they do is ask people over 70 to self-isolate. Their rate of infection is about the same as other European countries that have already implemented social distancing measures.
  5. The White House suspends all testimony before Congress from officials working on the pandemic response.
  6. Clinical trials for coronavirus vaccines start this week.

Shortages:

  1. The Strategic National Stockpile is already running out of the needed medical equipment, but it’s not being doled out by need. Florida received everything they asked for and New Jersey got less than 6% of what they asked for despite the greater number of cases in New Jersey.
  2. Testing has been slowed down by shortages of the following: masks to protect people who administer the tests, swabs to collect samples (Italy has the largest manufacturer), kits to pull the virus’s genetic material out of the samples, chemical reagents (we have three manufactures, all of whom failed to provide enough), and trained people.
  3. The U.S. military flies 500,000 test swabs from Italy to Tennessee.
  4. Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the top U.S. cancer hospitals has a week’s supply of protective gear and already has staff and patients testing positive for the coronavirus.
  5. California Governor Gavin Newsom issues an order allowing the state to take over hotels and medical facilities to treat coronavirus patients.
  6. Hospital workers start re-using PPE, including masks, gloves, and protective gowns. Most healthcare facilities report shortages.
  7. Hospitals in Italy and Spain are out of rooms and don’t have enough supplies. Doctors are forced to ration care to patients who have the greatest chance of survival. (The U.S. has fewer hospital beds than Italy, per capita).
  8. Without a single point of leadership from the federal government directing our overall response, states start competing with each other for resources and equipment. Hospitals still don’t have the protective equipment and ventilators they need, and states are getting mired in bidding wars trying to supply them.
    • Trump says governors shouldn’t blame the federal government for their own shortcomings.
    • And then the federal government outbids the states on supplies so states can’t get them. So instead of centralizing the acquisition process and making sure there’s no price gouging, the federal government helps to drive up the cost of supplies through bidding wars.

Exposures:

  1. Two Representatives announce that they tested positive for coronavirus, causing several of their colleagues to self-quarantine as a precaution. Congressional staffers are also testing positive.
  2. A sailor aboard the USS Boxer tests presumptively positive.
  3. Two emergency room doctors are now in critical condition with the disease.
  4. Italy is the hardest-hit country outside of China, with nearly 25,000 cases and 1,809 deaths. By the end of the week, the number of deaths in Italy passes the number reported in China. Spain and France are the hardest-hit countries after Italy.
  5. House Intelligence Committee investigator Daniel Goldman tests positive (and looks like shit, I might add).
  6. The White House gets its first confirmed case of COVID-19 when a member of Mike Pence’s staff tests positive. Pence says he has not been tested.
  7. Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Ben McAdams (D-UT) test positive, increasing concerns among Members of Congress that they should not be holding in-person sessions.
  8. Senator Rand Paul (R-TN) tests positive for the coronavirus. During the five days he was waiting for his results, he worked as usual and went to the Senate gym. This causes his colleagues Mitt Romney and Mike Lee to self-quarantine as they had spent time with Paul during those days.
  9. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under quarantine after a doctor who gave her a vaccine tested positive (not a coronavirus vaccine, in case you were wondering).
  10. More NBA players test positive this week. The total for the league is now at 14.
  11. Prince Albert II tests positive for the virus, as does the EU’s Brexit negotiator.
  12. Prisoners start to test positive or show symptoms, including at Rikers Island in New York.
  13. People generally think that people under 55 aren’t at as much risk for the virus, but they make up nearly 40% of hospitalizations for COVID-19.
  14. New York City reports positive coronavirus tests among its homeless population.
  15. Dozens of healthcare workers are sick with COVID-19, and several are hospitalized.

Closures:

  1. The Peace Corps suspends all operations and brings all volunteers home.
  2. The International Olympic Committee pushes this year’s summer Olympics back to 2021.
  3. San Francisco issues a stay at home order for three weeks, which extends to all six Bay area counties. Other cities and counties follow suit. Some states merely issue curfews.
  4. San Francisco allows people to shop for necessities, but being out for any other reason is a misdemeanor.
  5. By the end of the week, all of California is under a stay at home order. Governor Newsom warns that 56% of Californians could be infected if we don’t stay at home with the exception of essential trips for things like food and medicine.
  6. The CDC recommends that no gatherings of 50 people or more be held anywhere in the U.S. for the next eight weeks. Researchers say we need three months of social distancing.
  7. New York City closes all public schools, libraries, restaurants, and bars. Restaurants can stay open for take-out only.
  8. By the end of the week, public and private schools are closed for more than half of U.S. children.
  9. Massachusetts, Washington, Louisiana, and Ohio close bars and restaurants, allowing take-out only.
  10. Meanwhile, Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) urges people to go out and eat in a restaurant, and the governor of Oklahoma takes a selfie of him and his family enjoying a meal at a packed restaurant.
  11. California asks all people 65 and older to stay at home for now. This also includes people with compromised immunity.
  12. Germany and Argentina close their borders. France closes all non-essential businesses and orders people not to leave their homes. The EU restricts all non-essential travel. Dozens of other countries implement partial or full lockdowns on their people or borders.
  13. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi issues a total lockdown of 1.3 billion people for three weeks.
  14. The Vatican closes its traditional Easter celebrations to the public.
  15. Trump cancels the G-7 Summit scheduled for June.
  16. With all that, NATO is still holding in-person meetings.
  17. The Trump administration advises against all non-essential travel and to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. The State Department issues a travel warning against traveling abroad.
  18. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau closes the border between U.S. and Canada, setting off a flurry of travel between the countries as snowbirds head home to Canada and students head home to the states. The U.S. and Mexico agree to stop non-essential travel between the two countries.

Numbers:

  1. Coronavirus deaths in Italy outnumber those reported inside China for the first time. New infections in China and South Korea, two of the first epicenters, start to decline. Morgues in Italy are at capacity, and the government sends military trucks to offload the coffins.
  2. Iran, another epicenter for the coronavirus, now has nearly 1,300 dead.
  3. New York’s death toll passes Washington’s and is the highest in the U.S.
  4. The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. doubles within two days.
  5. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:
    • 26,747 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 340 deaths.
    • 307,280 people worldwide have been infected, with 13,049 deaths.
    • There are cases of coronavirus infection in every state.

International:

  1. The new acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, fires the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, which was put in place after 9/11 to protect from further attacks against the U.S.

Ban:

  1. We catch a glimpse of Trump’s briefing notes, where it’s clearly visible that he crossed out the “Corona” in Coronavirus and replaced it with “China.” He’s been catching flack recently for insisting on calling it the China or Chinese virus despite the fact that hate crimes against Asians are on the rise right now. And it’s all Asians, not just Chinese, because haters don’t bother to try to tell different ethnic groups apart. Trump and other Republicans push and defend calling it the “China virus.”
    • Global health organizations warn against using a regional name to refer to a disease for this very reason.
    • Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) also defends the term, saying that the virus is China’s fault because they “eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.” It’s super convenient to forget that the Swine Flu started in the U.S.
  1. Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) votes against the coronavirus relief package because it provides aid to people in domestic partnerships, including gay people.
  2. Advocacy groups sue the Department of Health and Human Services over their proposal to stop enforcing nondiscrimination protections for a variety of services, including foster care, adoptions, homeless shelters, and elder care, among other services.
  3. Racist groups and neo-Nazis urge their members who test positive for the coronavirus to spread contagion to the police and Jews.
  4. Citizenship and Immigration Services temporarily suspends all in-person services, including asylum offices and support centers. They’re providing what services they can without being face-to-face.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Dow Jones drops 3,000 points in one day despite the Feds’ attempts to calm the market. The Dow dips below 20,000 for the first time in three years, wiping out all the gains under this administration.
  2. Lenders start to offer deferred payments on mortgages. Now isn’t the time to be proud. If you think you might have trouble with your payments, call your lender NOW.
  3. Senate Republicans introduce a $1 trillion relief package that would send direct cash payments to many Americans and would provide tax relief to businesses, loans to small businesses, and financial bailouts to hard-hit industries.
    • Remember when they thought bail-outs were a bad thing? Different president, different rules, I guess.
    • Steve Mnuchin predicts that without this package, unemployment will reach 20%.
  1. Senate Democrats want some student loan forgiveness built into the relief package. House Democrats want provisions that protect workers, like expanding sick leave and banning companies that receive aide from using it to buy back stock or reward executives instead of taking care of workers.
  2. The Trump administration asks state officials to hold off on releasing unemployment numbers for fear they will spook the stock market.
  3. By the end of the week, 80 million Americans are under stay at home orders and the economy is slowing down much faster than expected.
  4. Millions of Americans apply for unemployment benefits this week, with nearly 3 million expected first-time claims.
  5. Amazon suspends non-essential shipments to warehouses, restricting the types of things we can order and increasing shipping times for non-essential items. Of course, they are also out of toilet paper, disinfectant, and protective gloves.
  6. The Trump administration delays tax day until July.

Elections:

  1. And then there were two… with only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders left in the Democratic presidential primary, this week’s debate is more focused. And more white. And more masculine.
  2. Connecticut, Ohio, and Georgia push back their presidential primary elections.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Sean Hannity denies he ever called the coronavirus a hoax. He called it hoax just last week. Several Fox News personalities are pivoting from downplaying the pandemic to warning about the dangers of the virus.
  2. A reporter shoots Trump a softball, asking what he’d say to people who are frightened by the pandemic. Trump responds by calling him a terrible reporter and saying that was a nasty question.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s aggregate approval rises to 43.7%. That’s pretty high for him, and pretty surprising given the nature of his press briefings.

Week 164 in Trump

Posted on April 10, 2020 in Politics, Trump

This is the week things get serious with the coronavirus. The WHO calls it a pandemic, states start shutting down schools and other gathering places and tell people to restrict their social activities. Trump stops holding rallies, but not to worry—he finds an outlet by making his pandemic briefings into a new version of political rally.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending March 15…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were 7 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 17 people and injure 18 more.

Russia:

  1. Following a federal judge’s criticism last week of Attorney General William Barr’s handling of the Mueller report, a federal appeals court rules that the House Judiciary Committee is entitled to see grand jury testimony from Robert Mueller’s investigation.
  2. Putin is working to implement changes to Russia’s constitution to allow him to remain in office past his term limit, which is up in 2024. The new rules would let him run for two additional six-year terms.
  3. The Russian parliament approves the bill to allow Putin to stay in power the extra 12 years.
  4. Russia starts prodding hate groups to spread and amplify racist messages while also pushing Black extremist groups to commit violence ahead of our elections.
  5. Trump’s new acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, declines to meet with Congress about Russia’s interference in our elections because he doesn’t know enough about it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) drops his efforts to subpoena Andriy Telizhenko, a former official of the Ukrainian Embassy, in the Homeland Security Committee’s investigation into Hunter Biden. He wants to investigate more first.
  2. Two New York City employees say they accepted bribes from the Trump Organization in return for lowering their assessments of Trump properties for property tax purposes.

Healthcare/Coronavirus:

Healthcare:

  1. The Kentucky House passes a bill that would amend its constitution to explicitly state that women don’t have a legal right to an abortion. Kentucky voters would have to pass a referendum in order for the change to be made.
  2. A handful of states, including Ohio and Texas, take advantage of the pandemic to include abortion as non-essential services that can’t be performed at this time, with certain exceptions for life-threatening circumstances.
  3. When Trump is asked to reconcile White House efforts to kill the ACA with trying to guarantee coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, Trump can’t come up with an answer.
  4. A few weeks ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said they’d come up with a healthcare plan after the Supreme Court makes the final judgment on the ACA. The White House budget director said they just weren’t ready to reveal their plan. This, after 10 years of trying to kill the ACA and having time for the GOP to come up with their own plan.

Coronavirus:

  1. Starting in mid-January, the Trump administration ordered all coronavirus discussions to be classified. This prevented people who should’ve been informed from taking part, slowing down the response.
  2. The New York attorney general’s office orders televangelist Jim Bakker to stop selling a fake cure for the coronavirus, threatening legal action. He sells his snake oil for $125 a bottle.
  3. The Grand Princess cruise ship is finally allowed to dock in Oakland, CA, but the passengers remain quarantined aboard. Twenty-one passengers have tested positive so far.
    • The DoD provides four quarantine facilities for the passengers.
    • Remember that last week Trump didn’t want to let the ship dock saying, “They would like to have the people come off. I’d rather have the people stay… because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
    • Health officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, urge the administration to shut down the cruise ship industry, but some White House officials argue that they don’t want to hurt Florida’s economy this close to the election.
    • The four biggest cruise lines in the world suspend their excursions that originate in the U.S. Trump says he requested this. Princess Cruises had previously suspended all trips for 60 days.
  1. Administration officials start blaming each other for the lack of planning and subsequent scattershot response to the coronavirus.
  2. The World Health Organization designates the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic due to its rapid spread in multiple countries and the exponential growth of new cases.
  3. Satellite images show new football-sized sections of graveyards in Iran dug out to handle the vast number of deaths from COVID-19.
  4. Trump calls Washington Governor Jay Inslee a snake while talking about how beautiful the coronavirus tests are and about that “monster” ship sailing around off the West coast with infected passengers. Washington is the first state with reported cases and deaths from COVID-19.
  5. After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declares a state of emergency in New York, Trump accuses him of politicizing the pandemic.
  6. Last week while trying to compare COVID-19 with the flu, Trump expressed shock at how many people die from the flu and said he didn’t know people died from the flu.
    • Trump’s grandfather died from the flu.
  1. Trump comes under fire for disbanding the pandemic team that Obama put in place following the Ebola epidemic. Word from the White House is that the team was part of a reorganization that included a merger of three different groups.
    • Trump indicates that he thought he could reassemble the team “very quickly.”
    • There’s been some disagreement over whether it’s correct to say that he disbanded the team when some team members were merged into other national security positions. But the facts are that the office was disbanded, some team members were let go, and the office no longer exists.
    • As Anthony Fauci diplomatically describes the change, “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake. I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there.”
  1. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) delays the annual threat assessment report, which warns that the U.S. isn’t prepared for a pandemic. The details of the report aren’t public yet.
  2. While health experts say testing is one of the most important things for slowing down the spread of the virus, there’s still a shortage of tests available in the U.S. Doctors are meeting with resistance from health departments over whether patients should be tested.
  3. Private labs don’t have to report their numbers to the government, so we don’t really know how many people have been tested.
  4. Insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid agree to cover the full cost of coronavirus testing.
  5. Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) gets CDC director Redfield to commit to free coronavirus testing for everybody. She had to break down the full out-of-pocket cost to the consumer for testing.
  6. While the average citizen with COVID-19 symptoms is still having a hard time getting tested for the virus, it’s a different story for professional athletes, celebrities, and elected officials.
  7. Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) and dozens of members of the House urge the Trump administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to mobilize businesses to produce testing kits, gowns, masks, ventilators, and other equipment needed by our medical workers to handle this pandemic.
  8. Healthcare providers across the country start asking how they can access the critical equipment stored in the Strategic National Stockpile for emergencies such as this.
  9. After resisting pleas from Democrats to declare a national emergency, Trump finally issues an emergency declaration.
    • This could allow states to use Medicaid funding to respond to the pandemic, something states have been begging for. States still have to negotiate the details, though, which will take time we don’t have.
    • It makes the national stockpile available and provides disaster-level assistance to states.
    • It allows FEMA to provide and coordinate assistance to individual states and their efforts.
    • States can start applying for federal assistance.
    Mixed Messages:
  1. The Trump administration says that every American can get a test for the virus if a doctor deems it necessary. Trump himself says anyone who wants a test can get one. It’s uncertain whether there are enough tests for that. He later says we don’t want to test everyone.
    • Trump says we’re getting millions of test kits, and that they’re perfect just like his call with the Ukraine president was perfect (forgive me if that doesn’t make me feel more confident). He says we’ll have 5 million test kits within a month but that we probably won’t need that many.
    • Last week, Mike Pence said we wouldn’t have enough test kits to meet the demand.
  1. Doctors and patients complain that the tests aren’t available to them. The CDC revises its guidelines so that more people can qualify to be tested.
  2. A shortage of test kits hampers our ability to trace infections, which would help slow down the spread of the virus.
  3. Trump goes from playing down the effects of the virus to suddenly taking it very seriously for some reason. He gives an Oval Office address to explain what’s going on.
    • Trump says that health insurance providers will waive all co-payments for treatments for COVID-19. Health insurers have to clarify that, no, they’ll fully cover testing, not treatment.
    • He says he’s suspending all travel between the U.S. and Europe (except the U.K.) for 30 days, including trade and cargo.
      • His administration later clarifies that trade and cargo are not currently suspended and that the restrictions only apply to foreign nationals who’ve been to the Schengen area. It doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens nor their immediate families.
      • His exception of the U.K. means that people can still travel to his resorts. Also, the U.K. is looking to be one of the worst-hit.
    • He literally read the speech directly off the teleprompter and still, he could not get it right.
  1. Trump begins a series of press conferences, no doubt meant to inform and calm the masses. But he makes so many misstatements and spends so much time boasting about his presidency that the masses are more confused than ever. He even brings up Fox News ratings, because that’s super important when we’re dealing with a pandemic.
    • The administration continues to send out mixed messages, even within the press briefings, as health officials and experts contradict Trump frequently in the middle of the briefings.
    • Health officials and experts intermingle compliments for the administration’s response to soften their corrections of Trump. After all, they don’t want to piss him off.
  1. Democratic Senators send Mike Pence a letter asking for clarification of Trump’s comments from the briefings.
  2. Trump accuses Democrats of inflaming the coronavirus situation and says the risk to the average American is very, very low. At the same time, Mike Pence says people are irresponsibly downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic.
  3. While expressing understanding for the severity of the pandemic, Trump also downplays it by tweeting, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
  4. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt sends out a memo giving Interior officials talking points to downplay the seriousness of the coronavirus. Two days later, Bernhardt praises Trump for taking decisive and unprecedented measures to protect the American people from the coronavirus.
   Exposures:
  1. Two-thirds of U.S. Senators are over 60, putting them in the high-risk group for contracting the virus.
  2. Even though Members of Congress are anxious about going into work, and some have already started self-isolating, it’s business as usual, with members coming in to work.
    • Senator Ted Cruz and Representatives Mark Meadows, Paul Gosar, Doug Collins, and Matt Gaetz self-isolate after coming into contact with someone infected with the coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
    • When Gaetz was alerted about it, he was on Air Force One with Trump.
    • It turns out that the infected person at CPAC met with high-profile speakers at the conference, took photos with several of them, and hung out in the green room for the event.
  1. Trump hosts a gathering where some guests later test positive for the coronavirus. He refuses to be tested or to self-isolate. Eventually, he relents and tests negative, according to his doctor.
    • Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) self-isolate after they interact with Trump.
  1. Days after meeting with Bill Barr, Ivanka Trump, and Kellyanne Conway, the Australian minister for home affairs tests positive for the coronavirus.
  2. Two Mar-a-Lago guests test positive.
  3. Last week, nine cases of COVID-19 were linked to attendees of a Biogen conference in Boston. Now two major Boston hospitals have set up temporary testing facilities to test all attendees.
  4. A physician in Washington State tests positive for COVID-19 and is in critical condition.
   Closures:
  1. Colleges and universities move their classes online to protect students from the coronavirus.
  2. With no clear guidance from the Trump administration, mayors and governors in Washington, California, and New York start to issue recommendations about cutting down mass gatherings—first recommending we stay away from gatherings of more than 250 people and then lowering that to 50 people.
  3. States start closing schools, including the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second largest district in the U.S.
  4. States restrict visiting senior homes and nursing homes.
  5. States start extending the tax deadline past April 15.
  6. All large venues, including Broadway theaters, amusement parks, casinos, and sports arenas, close down.
  7. The Council on Foreign Relations cancels their coronavirus conference because of coronavirus.
  8. Italy locks down the entire country for the next month to curb the spread of the virus. The EU questions whether they can even do that, but Spain follows suit and France shuts down nonessential businesses.
  9. The NBA suspends its games until further notice after a player for the Utah Jazz tests positive for COVID-19. The NCAA cancels March Madness; the NHL, MLS, and MLB suspend their seasons; the Indian Wells tennis tournament cancels; and the PGA will not allow fans to come watch.
  10. St. Patrick’s day celebrations and parades are canceled in Ireland and cities worldwide.
  11. Melania cancels a fundraiser in California and Trump cancels all of his political rallies. This is how we know things are serious.
  12. China begins to allow factories and other businesses to reopen in Wuhan province. Closing down businesses has been a blow to their economy.
   The Numbers:
  1. The CDC says that the worst-case scenario is that 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the U.S. could die from the pandemic. Those projections do not take into account the mitigation enacted in multiple states so far, which should bring those numbers down.
  2. Trump says the pandemic will go away, and that it’s about 600 cases and 26 deaths in the U.S. He says the risk to Americans is very, very low. Here are the numbers by the end of the week :
    • 1,678 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 41 deaths. Tests are ramping up, but still number only in the thousands.
    • 153,517 people worldwide have been infected, with 5,735 deaths.
  1. More than 3 dozen states report cases of coronavirus infection.

International:

  1. Trump receives strong condemnation from European officials after he announces a ban on travel between the U.S. and Europe with the exception of Great Britain. Trump didn’t give them any warning, and Great Britain is having problems with COVID-19 as well.
    • The surprise announcement causes Americans abroad to panic and scramble to get flights home.
  1. I have no problem with the ban, other than that it excludes the U.K for no good reason. But the WHO calls the move “entirely unwise” and says there’s no evidence that it will reduce transmission since it’s already a pandemic.
  2. In the midst of a pandemic, the U.S. military finds time to carry out airstrikes against militia sites in Iraq that are backed by Iran in retribution for an attack that killed two U.S. troops and one British troop.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Trump says that building a wall will contain the coronavirus. The director of the CDC says it won’t.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Supreme Court allows Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy to stay in place while the court considers whether or not to hear the case against it. A federal judge previously found the policy illegal. Human rights groups argue that this places asylum seekers in even greater danger with the spread of COVID-19.
  2. ICE scales back their operations, only making arrests that are critical to national security.
  3. For the second straight year, white terror suspects outnumber terrorists of any other ethnic group in the U.K.

Climate:

  1. The Trump administration formally restricts the type of research that can be used as the basis for environmental and public health regulations. The restrictions prevent agencies from using studies that use certain personally identifying or confidential information, like that on which a great deal of medical science is based.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Markets take a dive around the world, including a 2,000-point drop in the Dow Jones in just one day. Trump gives a speech meant to calm the market, but it drops another 1,700 the following day.
    • The low for the Dow Jones this week is close to 21,000—down nearly 8,000 points from the peak. So far the Dow Jones has fallen 20% from its height.
    • U.S. markets slide so hard that we’re now in a bear market, putting an end to the 11-year bull market run.
    • Trump administration implements emergency financial measures after his announcement of a ban on travel from Europe contributes to one of the stock market drops. The markets rally a bit after Trump’s declaration.
  1. Trump considers a stimulus package to help businesses and workers that will be hit in the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
  2. Democrats try to pass emergency paid sick leave legislation, but Republicans in the Senate block it because they don’t think either the federal government or businesses should have to pay for it.
  3. The White House and Congress start talks about ways to provide a relief package to rescue the U.S. economy even as health officials debate which parts of the economy should shut down to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.
    • They’ll look at cutting payroll taxes, providing loans to small businesses, and providing paid leave for workers.
    • At this point, Trump is willing to dive into relief measures, but top Republicans say it’s too soon.
  1. In the end, Democrats and the White House reach a deal on an economic relief bill, which includes tens of billions of dollars in funding for things like paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, and coronavirus testing, as well as relief for businesses.
  2. Russia and Saudi Arabia continue their oil war, glutting the market and causing oil prices to plunge 25%. If they drive the prices low enough, it will affect U.S. shale oil producers.
  3. White House officials block former national security advisor Tom Bossert from reaching Trump to warn him about how dire the economic picture is in light of the pandemic. Several of Trump’s other advisers, including Jared Kushner, think the problem is more about public psychology that health.
  4. Companies begin their first round of layoffs in the U.S. over coronavirus pandemic concerns.
  5. The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to zero and announces a buyback of at least $700 billion in government and mortgage bonds. They also provide an additional, temporary $1.5 trillion for the repo market.
  6. The GOP-led Senate passes a rebuke of Betsy DeVos over her refusal to provide the required student loan forgiveness for victims of fraud by for-profit colleges.

Elections:

  1. Louisiana and Georgia postpone their upcoming presidential primaries over coronavirus fears.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump said would go through some very bad things, receives yet another award for her service. This one is from Indiana University.
  2. Less than nine hours after Trump asks Congress to stop the bipartisanship and come together, he tweets out attacks against Schumer and Pelosi.

Week 163 in Trump

Posted on April 1, 2020 in Politics, Trump

So far in my recaps, I’ve neglected to mention that there’s been a run on toilet paper, water, and disinfectants for about a month as rumors and uncertainty about the coronavirus take hold. And as of this week, both brick-and-mortar and online stores can’t keep toilet paper, Purell, and disinfectants in stock. How much toilet paper does any single household need? Save some for the rest of us poor catastrophe planners!

Anyway, here’s what happened in politics for the week ending March 8…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. In early February, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. would send $100 million in aid to countries impacted by the coronavirus. That included the personal protective equipment that we’re running short of in the U.S. right now. The idea was that countries like China would be ahead of the virus by the time it hit the U.S. and would be able to return the favor.

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were 8 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 4 people and injure 52 more. There are so many injured because shooting broke out at a motorcycle club, injuring 17 people.

Russia:

  1. Newly released documents relating to Mueller’s interview with Rick Gates indicate that Sean Hannity tailored his show to the suggestions of Paul Manafort in 2016. Previously released documents already showed that Hannity was a contact person for Trump and his associates who were under investigation.
  2. A federal judge criticizes the way Attorney General William Barr handled the release of the Mueller report, saying Barr distorted the report and mislead the public about its findings. The judge also says Barr lacks credibility on the topic, pointing out discrepancies between Barr’s representation of the report and the actual contents. The judge is reviewing the full report in order to decide whether to release more of it to the public.
  3. At an election security conference, an FBI official warns that Russia wants to see us tear ourselves apart in the run-up to the 2020 elections. I’d say we’re giving them what they want.
  4. Russia takes advantage of the spreading anxiety over the coronavirus and trolls take to social media again to spread disinformation, this time about coronavirus conspiracy theories. And this is why we should get our news from reliable media outlets. I know; I’m a broken record here.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A federal judge orders Hillary Clinton to sit for a sworn deposition in connection with the 2016 investigation into her emails. The judge says her written answers are inadequate, and all of the investigations into the matter failed to put the issue to rest.
  2. Mitt Romney suggests he’ll block the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s efforts to subpoena Hunter Biden.
  3. House Democrats ask an appeals court to rehear the case over whether Don McGahn must testify before Congress. An earlier ruling says the courts can’t force it, leaving Congress with only one way to respond—having the sergeant at arms arrest people who refuse to comply.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court hears a case that could weaken the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). The bureau was put in place to protect consumers from deceptive practices by lenders and financial institutions. The head of the CFPB serves for five years and cannot be fired by the president as a way to maintain the bureau’s independence.
    • The Seila Law firm is suing because they say that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, the CFPB is investigating Seila.
    • This is a big deal because the Social Security Administration has the same structure so the court’s ruling could affect a century of policy.
  1. The Supreme Court leaves a lower court’s decision in place upholding the Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks.

Healthcare/Coronavirus:

Healthcare:

  1. The Supreme Court announces they’ll hear two cases brought by Texas and a coalition of Republican-governed states. The cases center on whether the entire ACA must be struck down since the individual mandate has been removed. Even though legal experts widely regard this argument as ridiculous, our greatest court will hear the case.

Coronavirus:

  1. By the beginning of the week, six people in Washington have died from coronavirus infections. Four were residents at a nursing facility.
  2. The CDC’s initial test kits for coronavirus didn’t work as designed. Independent labs tried to take up the slack, but have been delayed by red tape.
    • Experts on infectious diseases say none of their simulations considered a failure in testing when predicting spread, because it didn’t occur to them this would happen.
    • An FDA official who was deployed to help at the CDC says he found contamination in the lab for one of the test components.
    • There’s a rumor circulating that the Trump administration rejected the WHO’s offer for test kits early on. This is not actually true. The WHO offered kits to countries hit earlier and without the resources to deal with it. We could’ve used a protocol created by another country, but decided to create our own. Germany’s was available 11 days before ours, and they seem to be very successful with it so far.
  1. Healthcare facilities begin running low on protective equipment and will soon run out of the ventilators and respirators required to treat the most severe patients. Hospitals start rationing protective wear, and doctors and nurses start re-using their protective equipment.
  2. Trump hesitates to invoke the Defense Production Act to stop competition between states over supplies and to force manufacturers to switch over to producing medical equipment.
  3. Donald Trump Jr. claims that Democrats want the coronavirus to kill millions of people in order to bring down Trump. Mike Pence defends the statement. At any rate, Democratic voices urging action are louder right now than GOP voices, so it seems Jr. is wrong again.
  4. Trump claims that Democrats’ policy of open borders is a threat to our health and wellbeing. But Democrats, in general, are not for open borders. But I repeat myself.
  5. Trump incorrectly blames a decision made by the Obama administration for the slow rollout of coronavirus test kits. What really happened is that the lack of oversight for medical testing during Obama’s terms so concerned the FDA that they proposed heavier oversight, with bipartisan approval in Congress. But the proposal never became a regulation, and the Obama administration ultimately left the decision to the Trump administration. The head of the CDC backs up Trump’s claim, and the CDC doesn’t respond to queries about it.
  6. Italy orders all sporting events to be held with no spectators until April 3.
  7. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warns commanders not to surprise Trump with coronavirus information. He doesn’t want them to contradict White House talking points and wants them to clear decisions through him. Defense officials push back, saying at times they’ll need to make urgent healthcare decisions to keep troops abroad safe and healthy.
  8. During a meeting with health officials, Trump asks if we’ll have a vaccine over the next few months. Alex Azar says maybe one for testing will be ready, but there won’t be a vaccine in the next few months. Another health official says it won’t be ready for a year to a year and a half.
  9. Trump befuddles those officials by asking if a flu vaccine would work.
  10. Trump says that the WHO’s assessment of a 3.4% death rate for the virus is a false number based on a hunch.
  11. Officials worry that Trump’s messaging that a cure or vaccine is around the corner will lull people into a false sense of security, which could help spread the virus.
  12. Trump is aggressively pushing the NIH and CDC to get the vaccine done quickly.
  13. The Senate passes an $8.3 billion measure to provide funds to federal health agencies for vaccines, tests, and potential treatments. It also provides assistance to state and local governments. Senator Rand Paul is the only legislator to vote against it. Trump had only requested $2.5 billion.
  14. Trump gives a briefing with the CDC and instead of talking about what’s being done to respond to the pandemic, he defends his administration’s handling of it. He calls Washington Governor Jay Inslee a snake (Inslee is dealing with the first crisis in the U.S. over this).
  15. The Grand Princess cruise ship has been floating around waiting for permission to dock in the U.S. because its passengers have been exposed to the coronavirus. Trump wants to leave them on the ship because letting infected U.S. citizens into the U.S. will make it look like more U.S. citizens are infected.
  16. HUD Secretary Ben Carson declines to review the administration’s plans for allowing the cruise ship to dock. He says Pence will implement a plan within three days, but the cruise ship is scheduled to dock the next day.
  17. Trump says that anyone who wants a test can get one, though that is demonstrably false.
  18. Following China’s lead, Italy, currently the second hardest-hit country, implements a quarantine on about a quarter of its citizens until April 3. They’re trying to limit the spread in the areas with the most cases, especially in the north.
  19. The CDC says we might have to stay at home, possibly close schools, and limit travel. That’s fine if you can work from home, but a large sector of our population have jobs that cannot be done remotely, and they will be hit hardest if we have to stay home.
  20. States begin declaring a state of emergency to prepare for the coming pandemic. By the end of the week, 13 states have made the declaration.
  21. The Trump administration might use the National Disaster Medical System to reimburse medical facilities for treating uninsured patients who have coronavirus infections.
  22. Trump says we’re ready to produce 1 million coronavirus test kits by the end of the week. The labs doing the work say they aren’t even close. The FDA, Health and Human Services Department, and coronavirus response team leader Mike Pence back up that misleading number.
  23. A federal official says that the CDC wanted to advise seniors and at-risk people not to fly on commercial airlines, but the White House didn’t want to. The administration has now made milder recommendations about avoiding flights.
  24. Health experts say we need clearer guidance from the government.
  25. The CDC posts recommendations on its website for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions to stay home as much as possible and avoid crowds.
  26. Trump schedules a trip to the CDC and then cancels it due to a possible coronavirus case at the CDC. The case turns out to be negative, and Trump reschedules. But CDC staff only find out about the suspected case because Trump mentions it to reporters.
  27. Near the end of the week, the Trump administration claims the coronavirus outbreak is contained.
  28. 541 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 22 deaths. Tests are ramping up, but still number only in the thousands.
  29. 100,000 people worldwide have been infected.
  30. Twenty states report people infected with the virus: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

International:

  1. Days after signing a peace plan with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan war and hours after a phone call between Trump and Taliban negotiators, Taliban fighters attack an Afghan government checkpoint. The U.S. responds with a drone strike.
  2. Belatedly, U.S. intelligence says they have information indicating that the Taliban doesn’t intend to honor the promises they made for the peace plan.
  3. The International Criminal Court (ICC) authorizes an investigation into potential war crimes by the U.S. in Afghanistan. Allegations include “acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape, and sexual violence.”

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Nineteen states sue Trump over diverting $3.8 billion in military funding to build his border wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The UN publishes the first global gender social norm index, which shows that around 50% of people still think men make better leaders than women, more than 40% think men are better business leaders, and around 30% (of men and women) think it’s OK for a man to beat his wife. There are only six countries surveyed in which the majority held no bias against women.
  2. The Trump administration plans to start collecting DNA samples from immigrant detainees starting in April.

Climate:

  1. A new study concludes that trees in the Congo are losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, the first indication that tropical rainforests could be losing their ability to combat climate change.
  2. Not only is the Trump administration removing mention of climate change from government documents, but now an official at the Interior Department is embedding misleading language about climate change from climate change denial sites. This is so widely known inside the department that the language has its own nickname — Gok’s uncertainty language, named after Indur Goklany, who’s been inserted the wording.
  3. A federal judge says the Trump administration illegally cut off public comments on a proposal to open public lands to gas and oil exploration. As a result, the judge cancels more than $125 million in gas and oil leases.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The market gains back over a third of last week’s losses on Monday, but then on Tuesday, the Fed seeks to calm the markets by cutting the interest rate by a half-percentage-point. But the size of the cut coupled with the decision to do this outside of their regular meeting spooks investors a bit. The markets get a bump after the announcement, which evaporates after about 15 minutes.
    • The market proceeds to have a crazy and volatile week, mostly continuing to drop but ending the week with a little boost to cut our losses.
    • The 10-year Treasury yield drops to below 1%.
  1. Trump implies that the decrease in international flights will actually be good for the U.S. economy because it will increase domestic tourism. He says “maybe that’s one of the reasons the job numbers are so good.”
  2. For the first time in a century, the 400 richest U.S. families pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. All thanks to the tax reform enacted by the GOP in 2017.
  3. The economy added 273,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate remained at a low 3.5%.
  4. Manufacturing dropped to a record low in China due to the coronavirus closing several factories.
    • This economic impact is likely to spread globally as the virus spreads. Both European and U.S. manufacturers are already feeling it.
    • China’s factories also supply businesses and manufacturers around the world, producing about 65% of technology components and 80% of electronics.
    • The good news is, China’s workers are starting to go back to work.
  1. While saying the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound, the Trump administration is looking at relief packages for workers and businesses.

Elections:

  1. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar drop out of the Democratic presidential primary and throw their backing behind Joe Biden. Trump says they should be impeached for their “quid pro quo” (making an unspecified deal with Joe Biden is what I think he means).
  2. Trump mocks Mike Bloomberg for ending his presidential bid saying, “he didn’t have what it takes.”
  3. Since 2012, Texas has closed 750 polling places, with some counties falling below the state-mandated minimum. Texas already has very low voter turnout, and these closures disproportionately hit Black and Latino communities.
  4. Trump goes after Jeff Sessions, who is headed to a runoff for the Republican primary for Alabama’s open Senate seat instead of having won the primary outright. Trump tweets, “this is what happens to someone” who “doesn’t have the wisdom or courage to stare down & end the phony Russia Witch Hunt.”
  5. Facebook removes Trump ads that ask users to fill out an “Official 2020 Congressional District Census” because it could confuse users into thinking they’ve filled out the actual official census. I don’t know why they’d want to fool their own base that way, because then they’re less likely to be counted. The Republican Party sent out similar mailers last October that were also designed to look like the census.
  6. Erik Prince, who you might remember from the Russia investigation, has been recruiting former spies from Project Veritas to infiltrate liberal groups. He’s also recruited real U.S. and British spies to infiltrate Democratic candidate campaigns and other liberal and progressive organizations.
  7. Hot on the heels of suing the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Trump re-election campaign sues CNN for publishing “false and defamatory” statements about the campaign looking for help from Russia in the 2020 election.
    • I’m no lawyer, but when your candidate asks Russia to look into his opponent‘s emails on national TV, you’ll probably have a hard time proving he didn’t.
  1. Trump’s re-election campaign cancels its bus tour over coronavirus concerns.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The White House has started sending out questionnaires to possible political appointees with the purpose of showing how loyal each applicant is to Trump. In case you were wondering, this type of question was not asked under Obama.
  2. Trump withdraws his nomination of Elaine McCusker for Pentagon comptroller. McCusker fought to release the aid to Ukraine that Trump held up last year over investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 elections.
  3. Unsurprisingly, Mick Mulvaney is out as acting chief of staff and will become the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland. Representative Mark Meadows, who like Mulvaney was once a member of the House Freedom Caucus, will take his place.

Week 162 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2020 in Politics, Trump

This is the first in a series of catch-up blogs over the previous month. It’s the week that the administration finally seems to be taking the coronavirus really seriously, and the onslaught of news ever since has been daunting, to say the least. Trump gives a press conference on the coronavirus this week and says coronavirus is more like the flu than like Ebola. In his words:

Well, because this is a much different problem than Ebola. Ebola, you disintegrated, especially at the beginning. They’ve made a lot of progress now on Ebola. But with Ebola — we were talking about it before — you disintegrated.

Here’s hoping none of us disintegrate, and here’s what happened in politics for the week ending March 1…

Shootings This Week:

I’m reducing this section to a summary until we are past the coronavirus crisis, which I hope is soon. There were 4 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 8 people and injure 13 more.

Russia:

  1. Trump’s re-election campaign files a lawsuit against the New York Times for its coverage of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The campaign claims the NYT falsely accused Trump of making a deal with Putin’s allies to exchange help with his campaign for policies favorable to Russia.
  2. Trump’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien contradicts our intelligence agencies, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee, saying that there’s “no intelligence behind” claims of Russian interference in the 2020 elections and that Russia prefers Trump to the other candidates. He did agree, however, that Russia is meddling to help Bernie Sanders.
  3. The House Judiciary Committee wants to interview the four lawyers who resigned from Roger Stone’s case when their sentencing recommendation was reversed by the DOJ.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A federal appeals court reverses an earlier court decision and rules that Congress can’t sue in court to enforce its subpoenas of officials in the executive branch. The judges characterize the situation in the case as a political dispute (it was about subpoenaing Don McGahn to testify about some of Mueller’s findings).
  2. Trump tells aides his administration is filled with snakes and bad people. He’s had people compiling lists for the past year and a half of people they don’t think are loyal.
  3. It’s no secret that Trump has had and continues to have angry reactions to advisors who brief him on inconvenient truths, including firing those advisors. Now current and former officials say that this has caused them to withhold or couch the information they give him. This means that our Commander in Chief is not making decisions based on complete and factual information because it makes him angry.
  4. Protestors gather in London ahead of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing to demand that Assange be released. Who still supports this guy? He is a bad actor.
  5. Trump accuses Adam Schiff of leaking classified information about Russia’s meddling in our 2020 elections, and he issues a threat that Schiff will be having a very unpleasant experience. Whatever that means.

Impeachment:

  1. Trump calls John Bolton a traitor. The White House is working to block publication of Bolton’s book, at least until after the November election.

Courts/Justice:

  1. While in India, Trump demands that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor recuse themselves from any cases involving Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t address the statement.
  2. The DOJ has a network of U.S. attorneys who are responsible for receiving, processing, and analyzing unsolicited information about Ukraine, including that from Rudy Giuliani. U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue (EDNY) is coordinating this effort.
  3. At the 2020 National Religious Broadcasters Convention, Attorney General William Barr says, “Men are far likelier to obey rules that come from god than to abide by the abstract outcome of an ad hoc, utilitarian calculus.” Part of Barr’s job is to ensure religious freedom (including the freedom to be non-religious) and to uphold the separation of church and state.
  4. A federal judge rules that Ken Cuccinelli’s appointment to the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was a violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act because he never did and never will serve as a subordinate to a USCIS official. This means all policies put in place under him are technically void.

Healthcare:

  1. According to a whistleblower complaint, the Department of Health and Human Services didn’t train workers for infection control or provide them with adequate gear before sending them to receive evacuees from Wuhan, China. The whistleblower was reassigned after she raised concerns about this.
  2. Trump says the coronavirus is “very well under control” in the U.S., and Larry Kudlow says we have it contained (I’m not sure what an economic advisor knows about pandemics, but whatever).
  3. The mortality rate for people who are infected with coronavirus is thought to be around 2%, much higher than the flu.
  4. Rush Limbaugh says the coronavirus is a bioweapon created by China for the purpose of bringing down Trump.
  5. Conservative news outlets and politicians continue to call it “the Chinese coronavirus” or “the China virus” despite the fear and hatred it stokes against all Asians.
  6. The CDC says that it’s inevitable that coronavirus will spread in the U.S. Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, says that coronavirus is unprecedented and could be severe. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the world is not ready to combat this.
  7. Trump requests Congressional approval for $2.5 billion in emergency funds to combat the virus. Chuck Schumer calls for $8.5 billion instead. To compare, Congress appropriated $5.4 billion for Ebola and $7 billion for H1N1.
  8. Trump appoints Mike Pence to lead the administration’s response to coronavirus. And now Azar says that our containment strategy is working.
  9. Trump says the U.S. is developing a vaccine rapidly, but the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says it won’t be available for over a year.
  10. The U.S. has its first case of community spread coronavirus infection, meaning that person wasn’t in a high-risk group who traveled to a foreign country or had contact with someone known to be infected with it.
  11. The White House tells government health experts to get approval from Pence before talking in public about coronavirus. Subsequently, health officials cancel their appearances on Sunday shows.
  12. Just in case I haven’t reminded you before, Trump eliminated the pandemic response team set up by Obama’s administration after the Ebola outbreak, merging the responsibilities of three different agencies into one.
  13. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says that coronavirus will likely disrupt our everyday life, but that we should ignore the media’s coverage of the outbreak. He says the media ignored the administration’s initial response because they thought impeachment would bring down Trump, but now they’re all over it because they think coronavirus will bring down Trump. (We’ve been hearing about the administration’s response since January; I’m not sure what the media ignored.)
  14. House Republicans walk out of a private briefing on the coronavirus after Democrats criticize the administration’s response to it.
  15. Trump says the coronavirus is the Democrats’ new hoax.
  16. The death toll in Washington State rises to six, four of whom were residents at the same nursing center. Genetic testing indicates that coronavirus might have been spreading in the U.S. undetected for six weeks.
  17. Washington state declares a state of emergency so they can get the assistance they need to handle coronavirus more effectively and quickly.
  18. The coronavirus test kits initially sent out by the CDC included a faulty component, so tests have not been accurate. Some experts think the reason our number of confirmed cases isn’t higher is that not enough test kits are available and the government is limiting the testing to people who already have respiratory symptoms and who’ve traveled to certain places or have been in contact with someone who has.
  19. Now might be a good time to mention that the CDC has nearly 700 vacant positions due to Trump’s hiring freeze.
  20. A U.S. soldier in South Korea tests positive for coronavirus. South Korea has the second-highest number of confirmed cases.
  21. China orders a lockdown of the 60 million people in Wuhan province, ordering people to stay at home, and closing down public transportation and entertainment venues across the country.
  22. Trump says there’s no reason to panic about the pandemic.
  23. Trump bans travel to Iran, a major hotspot for infections, and warns Americans away from traveling to South Korea and Italy.
  24. Trump says they’re using “a lot of different elements of medical” to fight coronavirus.
  25. The Trump administration bans travel to Iran because of the size of the coronavirus outbreak there. They elevate travel warnings to Italy and South Korea.
  26. Trump says the virus is “very much under control.” He says the number of people infected with the virus is “going very substantially down, not up.” He later says that the total number of coronavirus cases will be “close to zero.”
  27. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a block on Trump’s “gag rule,” which prevents family planning agencies that receive federal funding from performing abortions or even referring patients for an abortion. The ruling says the HHS rule was not arbitrary and capricious.

International:

  1. Trump travels to India and holds a rally at a very large cricket stadium. He announces a weapons deal worth $3 billion but doesn’t mention two controversial moves by India’s President Modi—revoking Kashmir’s statehood and changing the citizenship laws. Both of these discriminate against Muslims.
  2. Three days of violence erupt in New Delhi during Trump’s visit, resulting in the death of 20 people with at least 190 more injured.
    • Hindu rioters attack and terrorize Muslims who are protesting a discriminatory new citizenship law. They even break into Muslims’ homes and assault them in their own homes.
    • Hindu rioters damage mosques and set Muslim-owned shops on fire.
    • Muslims huddle in mosques for safety.
    • Trump refuses to discuss the violence with Modi, from one nationalist to another.
  1. Violent protests break out in Hong Kong again, resulting in the arrest of 115 people. The threat of the coronavirus had tamped down protests in recent weeks.
  2. In Greece, protests intensify over plans to build migrant camps on Lesbos.
  3. On Dominican Independence Day, protests arise over the suspension of municipal elections, which officials say was done because of voting system malfunctions.
  4. Anti-government protests continue in Chile, France, Lebanon, and Iraq. It’s an angry world out there right now.
  5. Trump nominates Rep. John Ratcliffe to be Director of National Intelligence. This is Ratcliffe’s second go at being confirmed by Congress. Last year he withdrew because of resistance from Congress. But this resets the clock for acting DNI Richard Grenell, who can now stay in that position several months longer.
  6. The U.S. and the Taliban come to a peace agreement to end the war in Afghanistan. As part of the deal, the US will withdraw all troops within 14 months and the Taliban will not allow terrorists to use Afghan soil to plan attacks against the U.S. and its allies (though they refuse to use the word “terrorist”).
    • The Taliban previously banned girls from attending school and women from public life in general. There are no requirements in the deal to protect their new-found rights.
    • The Taliban has effectively blocked the Afghani government from participating in the peace talks.
    • John Bolton warns about legitimizing the Taliban.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Greyhound agrees to stop letting Border Patrol board their buses indiscriminately in order to search passengers for undocumented immigrants. The problem with allowing them to board is that it infringes on the rights of American citizens who simply don’t carry around their “papers” every day.
  2. A federal appeals court rules that Trump can punish sanctuary cities by withholding grant money for law enforcement agencies who refuse to cooperate with ICE.
  3. On the other hand, a federal appeals court blocks Trump’s policy forcing asylum seekers crossing the southern border to remain in Mexico while they await their court hearings. The same court upheld a lower court decision that Trump can’t deny asylum to people who cross the border illegally.
  4. Both Republican and Democratic legislators criticize the Pentagon for diverting billions of dollars in defense funding to Trump’s border wall. They say it undermines the arguments for increasing military spending if they don’t need the money that was already appropriated.
  5. The Supreme Court rules that the family of a Mexican boy killed by U.S. border patrol while the boy was on the Mexican side of the border cannot sue. The border patrol agent was on U.S. soil when it occurred.
  6. The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case about whether a city (Philadelphia) can cancel a contract with an adoption agency that refuses to allow gay couples to take in foster children. Philadelphia says the agencies go against their anti-discrimination policies, but the adoption agency says the city is infringing on their religious beliefs.
  7. Trump’s administration finalizes a rule making it harder for non-English speakers to qualify for Social Security disability benefits.
  8. The DOJ creates a new office, the Denaturalization Section, tasked with stripping naturalized citizens of their rights. Their initial focus is on people who are believed to obtained their citizenship fraudulently.
  9. The DOJ files a statement of interest supporting a photographer who’s suing Louisville, KY, over a city ordinance preventing local businesses from discriminating against gay customers. Because it’s not the job of the DOJ to make sure justice is applied fairly, right?
  10. Trump is looking at closing the southern border to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He does also say that the southern border doesn’t seem like much of a problem at this point, so there’s only one reason I can think he’d want to close down that border.
  11. A group of 11 Republicans wants the border closed because they think an outbreak in Central America would cause a rush to our border.
  12. In a nearly unanimous vote, the House passes a bill making lynching a federal hate crime. It’s hard to believe they have to pass a bill like this.

Climate:

  1. The Fifth District Court of Appeals throws out a Kern County, CA, law that would allow oil producers to use a blanket environmental approval for 72,000 new oil wells. The court says Kern County officials ignored threats to public health and impacts on municipal and agricultural water supplies. If you think there aren’t enough oil wells in Kern…

    Oil fields in Kern County.
  2. Trump’s administration suddenly halts a program to protect New York City and surrounding areas from flooding. The proposal was a giant sea wall, similar to the one that appears to be going ahead in the Gulf of Mexico to protect oil refineries in Texas from the effects of climate change.
  3. A peach farmer in Missouri is awarded over $250 million in damages in a court case accusing Monsanto and BASF of pesticide damage that wiped out orchards, gardens, and organic farm fields. The jury found the chemical companies conspired to create an ecological disaster.
  4. JPMorgan Chase announces it will discontinue the financing of several coal-related projects and will not fund oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.
  5. Solar tariffs are projected to result in 62,000 lost jobs in the U.S. solar industry by 2021.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Dow Jones drops around 1,000 points 3 different days this week, largely over coronavirus anxieties. The S&P and Nasdaq fall similarly. Trading is volatile, and these are some of the biggest single-day losses in the Dow’s history. It’s the worst decline in one week since the 2008 crisis.
    • Trump blames Tuesday’s drop on the Democratic debate… which happened Tuesday night.
  1. Trump warns aides not to talk about the negative impacts of the virus for fear the stock market will continue to slide. He also accuses news agencies of panicking the markets.
  2. Larry Kudlow says we should take advantage of these stock market dips by buying in. Because everyone can afford to do that, right?
  3. The Trump administration is looking at tax cuts among other things to mitigate the economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Trump also pushes the Fed to get involved, indicating he wants another rate cut.
  4. Due to the slowdown in manufacturing in China from the outbreak, the FDA is looking for alternative sources for medical devices and drugs.

Elections:

  1. A journalist created an online persona to like and follow MAGA-related pages, join groups, and receive messages from Trump supporters.
    • He found that there’s a massive disinformation campaign being disseminated from the campaign to re-elect Trump, partisan media organizations, and pro-Trump political operatives.
    • They work together to spread conspiracy theories, false narratives, and to sow confusion.
    • So please don’t believe what you read on Facebook unless it comes from a trusted source. And no, Tom who lives down the street from you is not a trusted source, and Mary who was your BFF in high school isn’t either.
  1. Joe Biden wins most of the delegates in South Carolina’s primaries, and even though Tom Steyer comes in third he drops out of the presidential race.
  2. Trump blames the falling stock market on Bernie Sanders because investors are worried he’ll win. He says if he doesn’t win, “you’re going to see a crash like you’ve never seen before.”
  3. Trump worries that the coronavirus outbreak could hurt his re-election campaign.

Week 161 in Trump

Posted on February 28, 2020 in Politics, Trump

Guilty little witches.

There’s a perfect storm brewing. Russia is interfering in our primaries and in our general election this year, and the Senate keeps ejecting any attempts to secure our elections. Even though Attorney General Bill Barr told Trump to stop talking about his investigations, Trump continues to tweet and talk about Roger Stone, Bob Mueller, and Russia (he just can’t help himself), and he continues to remove appointees he thinks aren’t loyal enough to him. Finally, Barr has farmed out investigations into Trump’s perceived opponents to state attorneys. What could go wrong?

Here’s that and what else happened in politics for the week ending February 23…

Shootings This Week:

There were FIVE mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 7 people and injure 17 more.

  1. Students from Alcorn State University in Port Gibson, MS, are involved in a shooting that leaves 2 people dead and 2 more injured.
  2. A shooter injures 4 people on a busy street in Greensboro, NC.
  3. A shooter kills 2 people and injures 3 more in a murder-suicide at a senior living complex in Caldwell, ID.
  4. A shooter kills 3 people and injures 1 more at a private home in Clarkton, NC.
  5. A shooter injures 7 people at a family-friendly dance in Houston, TX.

Russia:

  1. Trump ignores Barr’s public advice to stop saying the quiet parts out loud, urging the judge in Stone’s case to grant him a new trial. Trump also says he’ll intervene if the courts don’t overturn Stone’s conviction.
    • The judge refuses to delay Stone’s sentencing and gives him a prison sentence of three years and four months, less than half of what DOJ prosecutors recommended before Barr stepped in and revoked their recommendation. It’s still commensurate though, and the judge delivers a blistering opinion on Stone’s behavior.
  1. Trump tweets that the whole Mueller investigation was illegal and based on phony evidence. He says that everything having to do with the investigation should be thrown out even though eight Trump associates either pleaded guilty or were convicted by a jury. And then he suggests he might sue over it.
  2. U.S. officials tell Bernie Sanders that Russia is trying to interfere in the Democratic primaries by assisting his campaign. Sanders’ response is unequivocal: “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.”
  3. Intelligence officials also briefed the House last week that Russia is meddling again in the 2020 elections to sow discord and promote Trump, which pissed off both Republicans in the House and Trump.
    • Trump thought that only Adam Schiff was briefed about it, and then accuses Schiff of leaking it to the media (with no evidence). Paranoid much?
    • But then, higher-level officials say the briefing was an over-reaction and that there’s no evidence that Russia is helping Trump (though Trump does say they’re helping Sanders).
    • According to news sources, “some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying the conclusions could have been delivered in a less pointed manner or left out entirely to avoid angering Republicans.” So we shouldn’t learn the truth if it makes some people mad?
  1. A lawyer in Julian Assange’s trial says that in 2017, then-Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) traveled to London to offer Assange a pardon. The pardon was conditioned on Assange agreeing to say that Russia didn’t have anything to do with the leaking of the DNC emails and documents.
    • Dana Rohrabacher corroborates the story. He was following up on his conspiracy theory that Russia didn’t hack the DNC. Dana thinks climate change is caused by dinosaur farts. I doubt he knows better than our intelligence agencies.
    • Trump’s press secretary says Trump barely knows Rohrabacher and that this is probably just a “total lie from the DNC, but here’s what Trump had to say about him in 2018: “Dana Rohrabacher has been a great Congressman for his District and for the people of Cal. He works hard and is respected by all – he produces! Dems are desperate to replace Dana by spending vast sums to elect a super liberal who is weak on Crime and bad for our Military & Vets!”
  1. Trump decides not to nominate Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire to a permanent cabinet post after a member of McGuire’s staff briefed lawmakers about Russian interference in our 2020 elections. Trump blew up at him a few days before the announcement because of the briefing.
  2. Trump replaces McGuire with Richard Grenell, who is currently the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Grenell doesn’t have an intelligence or security background, but this move does two things:
    • It puts a Trump loyalist in the position of overseeing and coordinating our intelligence agencies.
    • It puts the first openly gay man in a Cabinet secretary position.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Trump administration reassigns deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates following rumors that she’s the “Anonymous” author of an op-ed about the administration in the New York Times who later published a book about it.
    • A literary agent involved with the book releases a statement saying Coates is not Anonymous.
    • Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor has been comparing different people’s writings to see if they match the style of Anonymous.
  1. The Department of Defense says its computer systems were hacked and personal information for around 200,000 people got exposed.

Impeachment:

  1. Remember Devin Nunes’ former aide Kash Patel who Trump thought was his Ukraine expert when his Ukraine expert was actually Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman? Well, he’s now a senior adviser for the new Acting DNI, Richard Grenell.
  2. Former national security adviser Susan Rice tells John Bolton that it’s inconceivable to her that she would withhold testimony if she had firsthand knowledge of abuse of presidential power, with or without a subpoena.
  3. Post-impeachment, Trump instructs the White House to find and force out anyone who isn’t deemed to be loyal enough to Trump. Trump says he wants “bad people” out of his government. Most presidents fill their staff with people who both agree and disagree with them because that’s good for governance.
    • Trump asks Under Secretary of Defense John Rood to resign. Rood certified Ukraine’s compliance with our anti-corruption requirements and warned Defense Secretary Mark Esper against withholding Ukraine’s aid. Rood agrees to step down.
    • Trump has a 29-year-old campaign aide working on this project.
    • In a surreal twist, the wife of a Supreme Court Justice has been suggesting who the White House should hire and fire. Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas’s wife, has been at it for a year and a half. Other conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, have been doing the same.
  1. The general counsel for the DNI resigns. He’s the guy who initially blocked the whistleblower’s report from getting to Congress.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Federal Judges Association calls an emergency meeting to discuss interference in politically sensitive cases by the DOJ and by Trump.
  2. GOP lawmakers Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy issue a statement supporting Barr after more than 2,000 former DOJ officials called for Barr to resign.
  3. Trump issues pardons and commutes sentencing for a group of white-collar criminals who are guilty of crimes like fraud, corruption, and racketeering. Great job draining the swamp, though!
    • He commutes Rod Blagojevich’s prison sentence. Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in 2011 for an attempted quid pro quo. He wanted to trade an appointment to Obama’s vacant Senate seat in return for campaign contributions. The Illinois GOP asked Trump not to do this because it sends a “damaging message” about efforts to “root out public corruption in our government.”
    • He pardons Edward DeBartolo Jr, owner of the San Francisco 49ers, who was convicted of gambling fraud.
    • He pardons Former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud after accepting a $250,000 “loan” from an Israeli billionaire.
    • He pardons financier Michael Milken, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and insider trading. He was fined $600 million, if that gives you an idea of the extent of his fraud.
  1. Trump also pardons:
    • Paul Pogue, a construction consultant who pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
    • Ariel Friedler, a software CEO who hacked into competing companies’ software systems.
    • David Safavian, who was convicted of perjury in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
    • Angela Stanton, a teacher who pleaded guilty to charges of inappropriate sexual activities with teenage boys.
  1. Trump commutes the sentences for:
    • Tynice Nichole Hall, who was convicted for multiple drug and firearm offenses including selling crack cocaine.
    • Crystal Munoz, who was convicted for her role in helping marijuana distributors get around a drug checkpoint. She got 18 years for drawing them a rough map.
    • Judith Negron, who was found guilty in a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Health/Healthcare:

  1. The State Department and a top Trump health official go against the CDC’s advice and fly home 14 passengers infected with the coronavirus along with passengers who were not infected.
  2. As the coronavirus spreads globally, Trump’s ability to respond is hampered in part because he fired the entire pandemic response chain of command in 2018. Just another Obama creation that Trump felt compelled to dismantle. He also cut funding to programs designed to fight the spread of these infectious diseases.
  3. In response to bills in Alabama that severely restrict abortion access in the state, Democratic Representative Rolanda Hollis introduces a bill to force men to have vasectomies after they have three children or reach the age of 50. Hollis says both men and women should take responsibility for family planning.
    • It turns out that Ted Cruz isn’t a fan of government controlling your body after all. He tweets, “Yikes! A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything…literally!” Sigh. Welcome to the world of being a woman in Alabama and Texas, Mr. Cruz.
  1. Florida passes a bill requiring parental consent for women under 18 to obtain an abortion. At least the bill has a waiver process for cases of abuse and incest or when the parent would cause more harm. This still lets other people force a young woman to have a baby.
  2. A panel of federal judges strikes down Mississippi’s “fetal heartbeat” bill, which would’ve banned abortions after six weeks of gestation.

International:

  1. Protests continue in Canada against the development of a natural gas pipeline.
  2. As Trump prepares for his visit to India, protests there continue against discriminatory changes to India’s citizenship laws.
  3. A hoax email about the coronavirus in Ukraine sparks violent protests and police standoffs, and protestors block the arrival of evacuees from China.
  4. Police use water cannons and tear gas against protestors in Chile.
  5. An Iraqi cleric works to quash the ongoing protests in Iraq by sending in counter-protestors.
  6. Sudanese security forces use tear gas against demonstrators protesting the dismissal of officers and soldiers who supported the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir last year.
  7. Gunfire breaks out when police officers in Haiti protest for fair pay.
  8. Protests continue in Algeria (for a year now) and Lebanon ( for five months so far)

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Department of Homeland Security wavies 10 contracting laws to speed up approvals for Trump’s border wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Following up on Trump’s decision to send Customs and Border Protection’s SWAT team to sanctuary cities, ICE starts arresting people in safe havens, like courthouses and churches, in California. These communities have worked to make sure immigrants feel safe reporting and testifying about crimes. If they’re afraid to go to courthouses, they’ll let the crimes go unpunished.
  2. New Jersey raises its threat level for white supremacist violence higher than the level for ISIS and Al Qaeda.
  3. The Republican attorneys general of five states—Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, and South Dakota—file a motion to block the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Democratic AGs, on the other hand, sue to have it ratified.
  4. South Dakota is looking at a slew of discriminatory bills that would ban certain medical treatment for transgender youth, stop enforcing policies on same-sex marriage, and allow medical personnel to refuse to provide care based on religious or moral grounds.
  5. In 2018, Trump ordered that the environmental impact studies that were blocking water diversion plans be re-evaluated.

Climate:

  1. While California has been working on solutions for distributing its water supply between urban and rural areas, Trump signs an order to re-engineer the state’s water plans.
    • Trump also says California doesn’t have a drought and has tremendous amounts of water. Except that we don’t. This has been a very dry year.
  1. The (Republican-run) USDA lays out goals to cut agriculture’s carbon footprint in half by 2050 while still increasing production.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The U.S. has seen a record 10 straight years of growth, seven years under Obama and three years under Trump.
  2. Mick Mulvaney of all people criticizes the GOP for being “a lot less interested” in deficits under Trump than they were under Obama. He says neither party cares about the deficit anymore and that the GOP is “evolving” on the issue.
  3. Mulvaney also says the U.S. is desperate for more people to fill jobs because of the tight job market and the administration’s clamping down on legal immigration.
  4. Trump promises more bailouts for farmers if the promised foreign purchases don’t kick in. He also says that it’ll be paid for out of the “massive tariff money coming into” the U.S., showing once again that he doesn’t understand how tariffs work. We consumers pay for them.

Elections:

  1. An appeals court in Florida upholds a lower court decision that the state can’t deny ex-felons the right to vote because of outstanding court fines, fees, and restitution.
  2. Elections are coming up and Russians are still meddling in them. Just thought you should know, in case you didn’t know.
  3. A Democratic Super PAC has filed several lawsuits against states the PAC claims are suppressing voter turnout. Trump’s re-election campaign and the RNC plan to spend over $10 million defending those states.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Boy Scouts of America files bankruptcy, likely to protect their assets from an onslaught of sexual abuse allegations.

Week 160 in Trump

Posted on February 20, 2020 in Politics, Trump

>This was a big week. Andrew McCabe’s case is resolved, a Senate committee issues a new report on Russian interference, the DOJ (and maybe Trump) interferes in Roger Stone’s sentencing and in other cases, John Kelly spills some tea, the firings continue, Trump rolls out his budget, the House paves the way for the ERA to move ahead, and voting begins in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. All that, and so much more.

>Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending February 10…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There are SIX mass shootings this week (defined as killing or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 3 people and injure 30 more.
    • A shooting in Dover, DE, leaves 1 person dead and 4 people injured.
    • A shooting at a gathering in an apartment in Chicago, IL, leaves 6 people injured.
    • A shooter in New Orleans, LA, injures 4 people during Mardi Gras celebrations.
    • Shooters in Memphis, TN, injure 7 people during a fight that broke out during a street race.
    • A shooter (or shooters) in Hartford, CT, kill 1 person and injures 5 more at a bar and lounge.
    • A drive-by shooting in Pensacola, FL, leaves 1 person dead and 4 people injured.
  1. Teachers unions and activist groups call for an end to active-shooter lockdown drills, saying they’re too traumatic for students.

Russia:

  1. Federal prosecutors decline to charge Andrew McCabe and officially close the investigation into whether he lied about leaking information to a journalist.
  2. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee releases a report on the government’s response to Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
    • The report says the Obama administration delayed their response, but also says the politicized environment prevented a more forceful response.
    • The report also places some of the blame on Mitch McConnell for being too skeptical and for resisting the administration’s request for a bipartisan statement.
    • Congressional leaders finally released a bipartisan statement in late September 2016, after much of the damage was done.
    • Obama’s administration directly warned Russia about the consequences of meddling five times, but the warnings weren’t effective.
  1. Federal prosecutors issue a sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years for Roger Stone. He was convicted of lying, witness tampering, and obstruction, and the recommendation is within the sentencing guidelines.
    • Trump tweets that this is horrible, unfair, and a miscarriage of justice.
    • But then, in an extremely rare move, the DOJ overrules the prosecutors‘ recommendation and asks for a more lenient sentence. The DOJ calls their own prosecutors’ recommendation grossly disproportionate.
    • So then, all four federal prosecutors working the case withdraw from the case and two of them resign from the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C.
    • The DOJ claims to have decided to overrule the sentencing recommendation before Trump tweeted about it.
    • But then, Trump congratulates Barr on Twitter for “taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.”
    • The top prosecutor who signed off on the original recommendation is Timothy Shea, who was handpicked by Barr to replace outgoing U.S. attorney Jessie Liu, who is supposed to move to the Treasury Department. But the same day as the DOJ overrules the sentencing recommendation, Trump withdraws Liu’s nomination to a top Treasury position. Liu oversaw the investigation into Andrew McCabe, where they were unable to obtain criminal charges. Liu ends up resigning from the administration.
    • Anyhoo, this sets off a shit storm in the media and in the minds of thinking people who love their democratic institutions.
  1. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asks the DOJ’s inspector general to investigate the decision to change Stone’s sentencing recommendations. The Senate Judiciary Committee won’t call Barr in to testify about the situation, but the House Judiciary Committee does. Barr will testify at the end of March.
    • The House wants to hear about the decision to overrule prosecutors in Stone’s case, the removal of Jessie Liu as U.S. attorney, and what Barr calls an “intake process” for processing information from Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine.
  1. Trump criticizes the judge in Stone’s case for revoking Paul Manafort’s bail and for not treating Hillary Clinton harshly enough. AFAIK, Hillary has never appeared in this judge’s court.
  2. 
In an interview with ABC News, Barr says Trump’s tweets make it impossible to do his job and that Trump shouldn’t tweet about DOJ investigations. IMO, Trump’s just saying the quiet part out loud.
  3. Barr also says that Trump never asked him to do anything in a criminal case. So Trump tweets that he does have the legal right to influence the attorney general in a case.
  4. After Trump tweets that the foreperson in Stone’s trial had significant bias, Stone’s lawyers request a new trial, which the judge denies. This happens after the foreperson speaks out in defense of the prosecutors who quit.
    • Stone also says that a person in the jury was biased against him because they work for the IRS on criminal tax cases and that the court should’ve removed that juror. FWIW, the lawyers from both sides determine the jury, not the court. Plus, a D.C. jury is likely to have a higher than normal number of government employees.
    • The blowback from the right against the jury spurs one of them to write an op-ed defending their decision. The juror says the evidence was substantial and uncontested.
  1. Trump says that Mueller lied to Congress but doesn’t give any evidence to back it up.
  2. The New York City bar association sends a letter about Barr to the DOJ’s inspector general and the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. They call for investigations into the DOJ’s actions around Stone’s sentencing, and they say recent events give the appearance of Trump and Barr acting together to prevent Stone from being punished.
  3. It comes out that this isn’t the first time Barr has interfered in investigations into Trump’s associates.
    • DOJ officials intervened in Michael Flynn’s case to change his sentencing recommendations. And now Barr has appointed an outside prosecutor to review the Flynn case.
    • Barr appointed outside attorneys to review other politically sensitive cases, and they’ve already been interviewing prosecutors about them.
  1. More than 2,000 former DOJ lawyers and employees sign an open letter condemning the actions of Trump and Barr in the Stone case and pushing for Barr to step down. The lawyers come from across the political spectrum.
  2. Facebook removes the “Being Patriotic” page after finding out that it’s run by a group from Ukraine that spreads content used by Russia’s Internet Research Agency (the troll farm responsible for the social media disinformation campaign in 2016).

Legal Fallout:

  1. A conservative federal judge rebukes Barr for saying that a court’s decision in an immigration case was incorrect. The Board of Immigration Appeals used Barr’s statements as justification to deport someone against the court’s ruling.
  2. Amazon wants Trump and Defense Secretary Mike Esper to be deposed in a lawsuit over whether there were corruption and presidential interference in awarding a contract for cloud computing to Microsoft instead of Amazon. Amazon claims that Trump’s desire to punish founder Jeff Bezos influenced the contract,
  3. Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is convicted on charges that he tried to extort up to $25 million from Nike. He has two more trials coming up on charges of financial malfeasance.

Impeachment:

  1. Trump suggests the military should look into disciplining Lt. Col. Vindman. The Pentagon says no, they won’t be doing that.
  2. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says he tried to stop Trump from firing Gordon Sondland.
  3. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) says she regrets saying that she thought Trump had learned a lesson from the impeachment trial.
  4. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) says there are no signs that Trump learned anything from being impeached.
  5. Contradicting his previous denials, Trump says he did send Giuliani to Ukraine to find damaging information about political opponents.
  6. Continuing on last week’s firings of witnesses, Trump withdraws Elaine McCusker’s nomination to be the Pentagon’s comptroller and CFO. McCusker advised Office of Management and Budget Officials on the legalities of withholding aid to Ukraine, and her advice tried to help the White House set policy while staying within the law. It’s not her fault it was outside the law.
  7. Chuck Schumer asks all 74 inspectors general to investigate retaliation against whistleblowers who report misconduct.
  8. Former chief of staff John Kelly speaks freely about his misgivings about Trump. Kelly says:
    • Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is blameless and was just following his training.
    • Trump’s actions with Ukraine upended long-standing U.S. policy, and Trump did condition the aid upon investigations into the Bidens, which was “tantamount to an illegal order.”
    • Trump’s efforts with North Korea, including his two summits with Kim Jong Un, are futile.
    • The press isn’t the enemy of the people.
    • Migrants are overwhelmingly good people.
    • Trump shouldn’t have interfered in the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was convicted of war crimes.

Courts/Justice:

  1. White-collar crime prosecutions are at their lowest level since 1998 when researchers began tracking them. And it’s not because fewer white-collar crimes are being committed, they’re just getting away with it more often.

Health/Healthcare:

  1. There was a rumor a while back that Trump told his aides that gutting medicare would be a fun second-term project. I didn’t report it then because it seemed like just a rumor, but his latest budget cuts spending for Medicaid and ACA subsidies by $1 trillion over ten years.
  2. China has confirmed nearly 60,000 cases of coronavirus infection.
  3. Trump says the coronavirus will miraculously go away when it gets a little warmer. While heat and humidity usually help crush the flu season, scientists don’t know if it will have the same effect on this virus.
  4. Mitch McConnell schedules two votes on anti-abortion bills, both of which will likely fail. This is seen as a move to rally the base. Democrats say the “Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” is redundant because infanticide is already a crime everywhere in the U.S.
  5. Corteva, the largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, announces it’ll stop producing the pesticide by the end of the year despite the Trump administration loosening regulations. Chlorpyrifos is known to cause health issues and brain damage, especially in children.
  6. Utah’s public insurer sends patients to Mexico to buy medications. Even with the cost of the flight, it’s cheaper than getting those drugs in the U.S.

International:

  1. The Senate finally passes its resolution to limit Trump’s power to order military strikes against Iran without congressional approval. The House is likely to pass it (they’ve already passed a version) and Trump is likely to veto it.
  2. The number of troops with concussive and traumatic brain injuries following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on bases housing U.S. troops increases to 109. Trump says he won’t be changing his mind that these injuries are “not very serious.”
  3. The White House sends a memo to Congress that implicitly confirms there was no imminent threat involved in the decision to strike Iranian General Soleimani, contradicting Trump’s earlier assertions about the attack.
  4. Iowa isn’t the only place having trouble with their election app. A glitch in a voter outreach app used by Israel’s far-right Likud party leaks the personal information of around 6.5 million Israelis—every eligible voter in Israel. Israel’s third election in less than a year is on March 2.
  5. The U.S. and the Taliban reach a tentative agreement on ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan.
  6. Trump doesn’t want to hold another summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un until after our November election. In the meantime, though, North Korea resumes its tests of ballistic missiles.
  7. Mike Pompeo meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Munich, though the State Department hasn’t mentioned the meeting and has offered no readout.
  8. Protestors in Ontario, Canada block a railroad track, disrupting service between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. They’re protesting pipeline construction in British Columbia.
  9. Students continue their anti-government sit-in in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. The protests forced out the Iraqi prime minister in December.
  10. Iraqi feminists march for women’s rights in nationwide rallies. Opponents criticize them, saying it’s unethical and immoral for women to protest.
  11. Hundreds of women protest in Mexico City over the brutal murder of a young woman by her boyfriend. Pictures of her mutilated corpse were leaked and posted by local media.
  12. Protests against social inequality in Chile continue.
  13. Hong Kong protests subside over worries about the coronavirus until the end of the week when people protest the quarantine locations.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. In a TV interview, Mitch McConnell says that, why yes, there are 395 bills awaiting passage in the Senate that are never going to be passed, including several bipartisan bills. So rather than working on amending bills on things like infrastructure, the Senate will be voting on anti-abortion bills.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Customs and Border Protection admits that “overzealous” agents detained hundreds of Iranians and Iranian-Americans for up to 10 hours at the Canadian border following the attack on Iranian General Soleimani.
    • They say it was an isolated incident at one location, but students from the Mideast have been detained and deported all cross the U.S.
    • CBP isn’t supposed to select travelers for further questioning based on their national origin.
    • Last month, CBP denied that Iran was the reason for the detentions, but an internal memo directed officers in that office to target travelers with links to Iran or Lebanon for “specialized vetting procedures.”
  1. Jared Kushner is trying to re-open discussions to reform our immigration system. I’m sure he’ll be just as fair as he was with the Mideast peace plan.
  2. The Trump administration has been rejecting valid asylum and U-visa applications if there are any missing fields on the application (U-visas protect victims of crimes who cooperate with law enforcement). For example, if you don’t have a middle name and you leave that field blank, they’ll deny it. The policy was announced last fall and originally affected only asylum applicants.
  3. A judge blocks Trump’s new policy that would change how immigration officials calculate visa overstays. The judge says it conflicts with immigration law.
  4. New York sues Trump over what they call a punitive ban on approving people for traveler programs.
  5. Border Patrol plans to deploy tactical agents to so-called sanctuary cities. The agents come from teams that normally fight smuggling at the border.
    • This includes members of BORTAC, the SWAT team of Border Patrol. They use things like stun grenades and snipers, and typically target violent criminals. But in sanctuary cities, they’ll be helping with run-of-the-mill immigration arrests. What could go wrong?
  1. The House votes to remove a 1982 deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Virginia just became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, finally reaching the requirement to ratify. On the other hand, five states have tried to rescind their ratification, but it doesn’t seem like they can.
    • Republican lawmakers argue that passing the ERA would mean abortion could not be restricted. Not the best argument, IMO, because it shows they know that restricting abortion treats women unequally.
    • The ERA was first proposed in Congress in 1923 and was reintroduced every single year until 1972, when it passed.
    • It’s tied up in a few court battles already.
    • Enshrining the ERA in the constitution would mean that the rights of all genders would no longer be subject to the political whims of Congress or the president. Here’s the full text of the amendment:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Climate:

  1. A new study finds that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was much worse than previously thought. The oil spread out over an area 30% greater than the original estimate of 92,500 miles, and it was more toxic to marine life than estimated as well. The Trump administration has pushed to expand permits for deep-sea drilling (it’s stalled in the courts right now) and has rolled back safety regulations for oil platforms.
  2. A court rules that the EPA can’t exclude scientists from EPA advisory panels just because they’ve received EPA research grants and are associated with universities. The case comes from changes made by former EPA head Scott Pruitt, who tried to exclude scientists with university ties but not those with ties to chemical or fossil fuel companies.
  3. House Republicans release a bill to address climate change, including things like reforestation and carbon capture technologies, but it doesn’t address the issue of curbing carbon emissions. However, it’s a start that they’re acknowledging we need to act.

Budget/Economy:

  1. With the current administration curbing the power of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, California’s governor proposes a new statewide Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to solidify consumer protections for the state.
  2. Trump brags a lot about the state of the U.S. economy, but he recently cut a scheduled pay raise for federal employees because of “serious economic conditions.”
  3. The Trump administration rolls out its new $4.8 trillion budget. It includes cuts to social safety programs and boosts defense spending.
    • The budget reduces access to SNAP, imposes new work requirements on Medicaid benefits, and makes it harder to access federal disability benefits. It caps increases on Medicaid spending at 3% (this ties in with his plan to implement Medicaid block grants).
    • Under the new budget, federal employees would have to pay more for retirement benefits, but those benefits would also be reduced.
    • The budget cuts spending on foreign aid by 21%, which could hurt our diplomatic efforts around the world.
    • It cuts the EPA’s budget by 26% and cuts research and development spending by nearly 50%.
    • The budget adds $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next four years. What kind of genius can’t figure out how to save more money during an economic boom? Even Obama managed to bring the annual deficit down to less than half of this budget’s projected deficit.
    • It targets a balanced budget by 2035, but that doesn’t match federal projections. The annual deficit has nearly doubled under Trump, even though he said he’d get rid of it.
    • The budget recommends eliminating subsidized federal student loans and ending the loan program completely.
    • Trump’s budget completely cuts funds for the Stevens Initiative, an organization dedicated to cultivating international exchange as a way to honor Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the Benghazi attacks. Trump has removed it three years in a row, but Congress restores it each year.
  1. 2019 lost the largest number of work days in the U.S. to labor strikes in more than 15 years. There were 25 labor disputes, and 425,500 workers joined in work stoppages.
  2. OPEC reduces its projected growth in global oil demand by about 20%, largely due to the coronavirus outbreak.
  3. At a rally, Trump brags about his economy but neglects to mention that 1.5 million fewer jobs were created under him from 2017-2020 than were created under Obama in the three years prior (2014-2017).
    • That’s a decline of 19%, but it’s understandable given that the unemployment rate was already pretty low when Trump took office.
    • The Labor Department reports the lowest number of job openings in two years, with November and December seeing the largest two-month decrease on record. 2019 was the first calendar year that job openings declined since the recession in 2009.

Elections:

  1. Three more Democratic presidential candidates drop out of the race after the New Hampshire polls close—Andrew Yang, Senator Michael Bennet, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.
  2. Bernie Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary with 25.7% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg comes in second with 24.4%, and Amy Klobuchar has a surprise surge to end in third with 19.8%. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer trail with single-digit support.
  3. Senate Republicans block three bills related to election security. The bills would require campaigns to alert the FBI and FEC about foreign offers of assistance, increase election funding, and prevent voting machines from being connected to the internet. Ten bills related to election security are currently stalled in the Republican Senate.
  4. Virginia is on track to get rid of a holiday celebrating confederate generals and replace it by giving people a day off to vote.
  5. Sheldon Adelson plans to donate $100 million to Trump’s re-election and GOP congressional races. Meanwhile, the Koch network of political organizations is now as large as the RNC.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Former Trump aide Hope Hicks is returning to the White House, this time to work for Jared Kushner.
  2. The administration also brings back Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus. They’ll be part of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
  3. A Tennessee Republican lawmaker introduces an amendment to recognize CNN and the Washington Post as fake news, saying they’re “part of the media wing of the Democratic party.” The irony is rich.
  4. The Pentagon cuts all federal funding for the military publication Stars and Stripes, which is distributed to troops deployed around the world.

Polls:

  1. It’s way too early to trust the polling, but here are the results of Quinnipiac’s recent polls of head-to-head competitions between Trump and Democratic presidential candidates:
    • Bloomberg beats Trump 51 – 42%
    • Sanders beats Trump 51 – 43%
    • Biden beats Trump 50 – 43%
    • Klobuchar beats Trump 49 – 43%
    • Warren beats Trump 48 – 44%
    • Buttigieg beats Trump 47 – 43%

Week 159 in Trump

Posted on February 13, 2020 in Politics, Trump

What a tense week with the State of the Union address falling right in the middle of impeachment hearings. But we all knew the Senate wouldn’t remove him, so there was no real suspense over that. But then the firings start, and that gets a little tense. Both Lt. Col. Vindmand and his brother are removed, and Gordon Sondland is fired. So far, that’s it, but I’m pretty sure there will be more.

Here’s that and what else happened in politics for the week ending February 9…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were SEVEN mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). This week, mass shooters kill 13 people and injure 14 more.
    • A shooter in Machias, ME, kills 3 people and injures 1 other. He knew all the people though he killed them in separate homes.
    • A shooter opens fire in a Greyhound bus in Lebec, CA, killing 1 person and injuring 5. The bus pulls over and lets the shooter out on his request. He leaves the gun behind.
    • A shooter in Indianapolis, IN, kills 4 young adults, aged just 19, 20, and 21.
    • A shooter in Waco, TX, kills 1 person and injures 3 more. Police think it’s a drug deal gone wrong.
    • A shooter in Houston, TX, kills 1 person and injures 3 others. Police think it might be gang-related.
    • A shooter in Youngstown, OH, kills 3 people and injures 2 more.

Russia:

  1. FBI Director Chris Wray tells the House Judiciary Committee that Russia is already engaged in information warfare for the 2020 elections, just like they were in 2016.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A federal appeals court throws out the weakest of the three emoluments lawsuits against Trump. The lawsuit was brought by Democratic members of Congress, and the court didn’t rule that they were wrong; just that they didn’t have enough plaintiffs to represent either chamber of Congress.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Attorney General William Barr issues new rules for politically sensitive investigations. He himself must approve any inquiry into a presidential candidate or campaign. He also must approve investigations into illegal contributions and donations by foreign nationals to presidential and congressional campaigns.
  2. Barr confirms that the DOJ created a special process for evaluating information that Rudy Giuliani obtained from Ukraine sources about the Bidens.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump claims that he saved coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, even though this was required coverage under the very ACA that Trump is trying to gut. In fact, Trump’s DOJ is in court right now trying to end the ACA.

International:

  1. Boris Johnson and Trump have a contentious phone call that ends with Trump slamming the phone down.
    • Trump has been threatening to withdraw from certain agreements if Johnson doesn’t do as Trump wants.
    • Johnson and other U.K politicians have been criticizing Trump lately, with Johnson saying that Trump is “failing to lead” and that he’s “letting the air out of the tires of the world economy.”
    • Johnson pushes his planned trip to Washington back to March.
  1. Trump lifts Obama’s ban on our military‘s use of land mines in places other than the Korean Peninsula. More than 160 countries prohibit land mines, and several condemn Trump’s decision. Land mines kill and injure thousands each year, mostly civilians.
  2. A shooter wearing an Afghan uniform and carrying a machine gun kills two U.S. troops in Afghanistan during a joint operation between U.S. and Afghan forces. The shooter injures six others.
  3. Protests in Hong Kong quiet down after a series of arrests and injuries (and possibly due to fears of the spreading coronavirus).
  4. How’d I miss this? Protests have been going on in Algeria for just shy of a year. They want the president, who was just elected to a fifth term, to resign.
  5. A U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi last week in Yemen.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice scores the Senate and House each year on legislation passed that advances social or economic justice. This year is the first time in 47 years that the group is unable to create its annual scorecard for the Senate because Mitch McConnell has obstructed every single vote. There were no voting records to compile.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Construction crews in Arizona bulldoze and blast hills at the border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in preparation for new border wall sections. The monument is a UN-designated International Biosphere Reserve and is part of our national parks system.
    • Most of the work is being done in the Roosevelt Reservation, an area designated by Teddy Roosevelt to remain free of obstruction.
    • Some of the work is disturbing Native American burial grounds.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Human Rights Watch releases a report on what happens to El Salvadorans to whom we deny asylum. At least 138 were killed and at least 70 disappeared or suffered sexual violence or torture after their return. The study includes asylum seekers who were deported under Trump and under Obama.
  2. The FBI finally raises racially motivated violent extremism (for example, white nationalists and neo-Nazis) to the same threat level as ISIS. These groups are a threat here and abroad.
    • Two weeks ago, the FBI arrested eight members of the neo-Nazi group The Base. FBI Director Chris Wray says there are more arrests in the pipeline.
  1. White nationalist members of the Patriot Front march through the National Mall in Washington D.C. wearing white masks. They get a police escort.
  2. California Governor Gavin Newsom issues a posthumous pardon for Bayard Rustin, a civil rights leader who was imprisoned and forced to register as a sex offender for having sex with another man. Rustin was one of the organizers of the historic March on Washington in 1963. Newsom plans to pardon others who were convicted for similar reasons.
  3. The Department of Health and Human Services issues a waiver to allow religious foster care agencies in South Caroline to deny services to LGBTQ and non-Christian couples. These agencies are federally funded, which means they are supposed to adhere to the federal government’s non-discrimination policies.
  4. Witnesses testify to the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship that political interference in immigration courts has eroded due process. The Executive Office for Immigration Review has also been hiring judges with no immigration law background; it’s not even in the job description.
  5. In retaliation for New York State’s law that limits ICE agents’ access to drivers license information, the Department of Homeland Security temporarily blocks all residents of the state from enrolling in Trusted Traveler Programs. The administration threatens to kick 175,000 New York residents out of the program by the end of the year and threatens to retaliate similarly against other states.

Climate:

  1. January 2020 is the warmest January on record, and Antarctica hit a record high temperature of 65 degrees. Not just its warmest January temperature, but its warmest temperature ever recorded.
  2. Swarms of young locusts in southern Somalia lead experts to predict one of the worst “plagues of locusts” in recent history.
  3. The Interior Department completes its plan to open up areas of southern Utah to drilling, mining, and grazing. These areas were once protected as national monuments. I wonder if this would be happening if the monuments were designated by Republican presidents.
  4. Extreme temperatures are causing a decline in the bumblebee population in North and Central America and in Europe.
  5. The Department of Energy had $823 billion to spend on clean and renewable energy development last year, but it hasn’t spent any of it yet. The DOE canceled another $46 million designated for solar research and development.
  6. Britain is phasing out cars running on fossil fuels, and by 2035, will only allow sales of electric and hydrogen cars.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China takes a page out of our playbook and injects 1.2 trillion yuan into its markets to ensure liquidity. That’s about $174 billion. Similar actions by our own Fed have bolstered the stock market for several months now.
  2. The number of farms going bankrupt increased by 20% in 2019. It’s the fifth consecutive year of increasing bankruptcies.
  3. 1.5 million public school students experienced homelessness during the 2017-2018 school year. That’s the highest number since they started recording it in 2004. This doesn’t mean they’re living on the streets—some are in shelters, some are staying with friends or relatives, and some are waiting for foster care.
  4. Trump threatens to veto a $4.7 billion emergency aid package for Puerto Rico passed by the House. Puerto Rico experienced a series of damaging earthquakes in December with aftershocks continuing even now.
  5. The U.S. added 225,000 jobs in January, bringing the unemployment rate up a tick to 3.6%.

Elections:

  1. The Democratic presidential primaries begin with a slow-moving car crash. The Iowa Democratic Party contracted to use a new app to tally vote totals but failed to train volunteers on it and apparently failed to test it.
    • The app crashes, so precinct captains use the backup plan and phone in the results. Apparently one of the issues is that the app is unable to report a three-way tie, which some precincts had.
    • But the phone lines are jammed for hours at a time, so we don’t have any results until a few days after the caucus.
    • But it turns out the backup on the phone lines wasn’t all their fault. A far-right group trolled the phone lines to deliberately disrupt the caucus counts. Good job and well done for Democracy, you morons.
    • In the end, Bernie Sanders has a slight popular vote lead and Pete Buttigieg has a slight delegate lead. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden follow in third and fourth place, respectively.
    • The Nevada caucuses were contracted to use the same app, but they scrap those plans.
    • Trump and his grown sons suggest that the system is rigged. Same old 2016 tricks.
  1. Republican Joe Walsh drops out of his race to challenge Trump and asks fellow Republicans to support Democrats. Walsh says he was “booed off the stage by primary voters when I said we should expect decency and honesty from our President.”
  2. A federal judge rules against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in a voter restrictions lawsuit. The judge rules that Georgia’s voting procedures in the 2018 election, specifically the restrictive “exact match” law for voter names, violate voting rights for a large group of people who are predominantly minorities.
    • If you remember, Kemp was the Secretary of State who oversaw voting procedures for his own race for governor.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration fires Veterans Affairs deputy secretary James Byrne because VA Secretary Robert Wilkie had lost confidence in his ability to carry out his duties. The VA has been in a bit of disarray since a staff member said she was sexually assaulted at a VA hospital.
  2. The former welfare director for Mississippi, four of his colleagues, and a former pro wrestler are all charged with fraud and embezzlement in a scheme that siphoned millions of dollars of public money from needy families.
  3. After Trump’s acquittal, thousands of people take to the streets at more than 200 ”Reject the Cover-Up” protests across the country.
  4. Trump complains that Hillary Clinton was never prosecuted, and he then refers to former members of the FBI as scum.

State of the Union:

  1. I’m not sure where to start here. As is usual for most of Trump’s appearances, his State of the Union address is part campaign rally, with Republican members of Congress chanting “Four more years!” Here’s an in-depth annotated version of the speech, if you’re interested.
  2. The night gets off to a rocky start when Trump ignores Pelosi’s outstretched hand to shake it. He doesn’t shake Mike Pence’s hand either.
    • Trump and Pelosi haven’t been face-to-face since their altercation at a White House meeting in October.
  1. The speech includes quite a few falsehoods, half-truths, and exaggerations. I won’t go into all of them here.
  2. Trump says he turned the economy around. Here’s the actual GDP chart for the past 12 years. I’m not denying that the economy is doing well under this administration, but no one should deny the growth that occurred under the previous administration.

  3. He touts the low unemployment rate and says if he hadn’t reversed the failed economic policies of Obama, we wouldn’t be seeing this success. Here’s the actual unemployment trend for the past 12 years.

  4. Interestingly, even though he’s right that the participation rate in the workforce increased under him (by 1 percentage point), we still have a lower rate than we did in the 1990s and lower than most other developed nations.
  5. He takes credit for rising wages for lower-income workers, but that’s partly attributable to states raising their minimum wages dramatically.
  6. Trump speaks about a young girl in Philadelphia who’s trapped in a failing public school and awards her an opportunity scholarship on the spot. Except that she actually attends a highly competitive charter school that does not charge tuition.
    • This is what Trump said, “For too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.” It sounds like he doesn’t want us to have any public schools.
  1. In the middle of the speech, Trump awards the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, who does a terrific job of acting surprised. Limbaugh has been fighting lung cancer. If you’re wondering why people are appalled by this, here’s a taste of the bigotry Rush has let fly over the past 30 years.
  2. Trump says he’s working to end our wars in the Middle East and bring home troops, but in reality, he’s been sending thousands of troops there in recent months. However, he does bring home one U.S. soldier and orchestrates a reunion with his family in the middle of the speech.
  3. Trump invites Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as his guest. Guaidó has bipartisan support from Congress. So after a unifying and bipartisan standing ovation for Guaidó, Trump calls out Socialism, something he continually accuses Democrats of embracing.
  4. Trump says he’s increased the border wall by 100 miles. He’s increased it by 1 mile and replaced 99 miles.
  5. Trump points out that he released a groundbreaking Mideast peace plan last week, but Palestinians weren’t involved at all and they’ve rejected the plan outright.
  6. Trump repeats his laundry list of violent crimes allegedly committed by immigrants. It would take him much longer to list the crimes committed by native-born Americans.
  7. To his credit, Trump doesn’t mention the impeachment proceedings.
  8. When Trump speaks about protecting the Second Amendment, the father of a Parkland shooting victim yells, “What about my daughter?” Security removes him from the chambers. I wonder why Joe Walsh didn’t get removed for yelling “You lie!” during Obama’s SOTU?
  9. And then at the end of the speech, Nancy Pelosi deliberately rips up her copy of the speech, and later calls it a manifesto of mistruths.
    • House GOP members introduce a resolution to condemn Pelosi’s actions.
    • And after the speech, more people are talking about Pelosi than about Trump. That’s a first.

Week 158 in Trump

Posted on February 6, 2020 in Politics, Trump

Before the U.S. attack on Iran’s General Soleimani, Saudi Arabia and Iran were working on diplomatic solutions to ease Middle East tensions. They took a step back after the attack. For years Trump has called the JCPOA (Iran deal) the worst deal ever made. Conservatives criticized the deal because it didn’t address state-sponsored terrorism, just nuclear weapons. But now, Trump is following Obama’s playbook exactly—imposing harsh sanctions to pressure Iran into a new nuclear deal (again, without addressing state-sponsored terrorism). It’s dangerous when someone who doesn’t understand policy rips up policies and agreements just because he doesn’t like the person who approved them. It puts our international relationships in peril, our national security in peril, and our global climate in peril.

That’s my rant for the week, and here’s what happened in politics for the week ending February 2…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were SIX mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 2 people and injure 23 more.
    • A drive-by shooting near a Bridgeport, CN, courthouse leaves 4 people injured.
    • A shooter in Merced, CA, injures 4 people.
    • A shooter in Shreveport, LA, injures 4 teenagers who were walking down the street.
    • A shooter in Boynton Beach, FL, kills 1 person and injures 3 others.
    • A shooter in Delano, CA, kills 1 person and injures 4 others.
    • A shooter in Philadelphia, MS, injures 4 people.
  1. Following Virginia’s pro-gun rally and Virginia’s State legislature passing gun reform bills, armed gun owners rally at the Kentucky Capitol. Protestors can’t enter the capitol with umbrellas or sticks to hold protest signs, but they can bring in guns and rifles.

Russia:

  1. Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page files a lawsuit against the DNC for allegedly bankrolling the Steele dossier, which he claims led to the FISA warrant on him.
    • We now know that the FISA warrant wasn’t based on the dossier.
    • Republican groups first commissioned Fusion GPS to do opposition research on Trump. It was later picked up by Democratic groups after the Republican convention.
    • Weirdly, the same lawyer who represents Page also represents Tulsi Gabbard in her lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
    • Page recently had a defamation lawsuit against media outlets thrown out by the courts. He also sued the DOJ to be allowed to review the inspector general’s report on the FISA warrants before it was made public. And then when he didn’t get that, he sued the DOJ for overreach. Then he says he’ll file a lawsuit against the FBI.
    • He also claims to have been a CIA asset.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump pushes forward with a plan to let states convert some of their Medicaid funds to block grants. The plan is intended to curb spending and it places caps on spending.
  2. The day before rolling out the plan, Seema Verma says that the administration isn’t trying to undermine the ACA, even though Trump supports a lawsuit that could end the ACA.
  3. Around 200 Americans who evacuated from Wuhan, China, land at March Air Reserve Base in California. They’ll stay there until health officials can screen and clear them all.
  4. The World Health Organization declares a global emergency over the coronavirus, and the State Department issues travel warnings for China.
  5. The virus has infected around 10,000 people and killed at least 213. The most at risk are infants, seniors, and folks with impaired immune systems.
  6. The State Department authorizes diplomatic staff in China to evacuate.
  7. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross says that the coronavirus will help speed up the return of jobs to the U.S. from China. When life hands you lemons… amiright?
  8. The CDC confirms the first person-to-person transmission of the virus.
  9. Four years ago, the CDC was committed to fighting infectious diseases like Ebola. This year, they’re cutting their programs for preventing epidemics in 39 of 49 countries because funds are drying up.
  10. Insurance companies are taking advantage of Trump’s changes to the ACA that allows them to sell cheap insurance policies that offer insufficient coverage. Already people are being caught off-guard with unexpected healthcare bills.

International:

  1. Israel’s attorney general formally indicts Benjamin Netanyahu in three separate corruption cases. He’s charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The charges come just hours before Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump for the announcement of Jared Kushner’s peace plan. The impeached president and the indicted prime minister.
  2. Netanyahu and Benny Gantz meet with Trump together.
  3. Jared reveals his long-awaited plan. Here are the highlights:
    • Israel has to give up some land in a land swap to make the size of the Palestinian state comparable to what it was before Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza. The map shows patchwork, noncontiguous enclaves that Kushner says will be connected by bridges and tunnels. Several Palestinian sections are completely surrounded by Israeli sections.
    • Jerusalem stays under Israeli control, and Palestine can establish a capital outside the city border.
    • Israel can immediately annex its West Bank settlements.
    • Palestine must be fully demilitarized and Israel will take care of security for both Israel and Palestine. Palestine can have its own internal security forces, but Hamas and other militant groups must disarm.
    • Israel will control all borders and monitor all crossings.
    • Palestinian refugees who were forced out in 1948 want the right of return, but Israel has always said no to that because it would destroy Israel’s Jewish character. The peace plan says Palestinian refugees cannot return.
    • The plan places extensive conditions on the Palestinians getting a state, and then limits how much they’ll be able to govern themselves if they do get a state.
    • Foreign governments’ response has mostly been muted, but I’m reading a lot of false claims of support.
    • U.S. officials in charge of negotiating the peace plan have actively supported Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, and they don’t believe the West Bank is occupied.
    • Kushner doesn’t want anyone talking about a two-state solution, but Trump lauds the agreement as a “historic opportunity for the Palestinians to finally achieve an independent state of their very own.”
    • No Palestinian representatives were consulted in the process. They reject the plan outright, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he’s cutting all ties with Israel and the U.S.
    • In an interview, Jared says this (emphasis mine): “If they screw up this opportunity—which, again, they have a perfect track record of missing opportunities—if they screw this up, I think that they will have a very hard time looking the international community in the face, saying they are victims, saying they have rights.”
    • He also says this: “The Palestinian leadership have to ask themselves a question: Do they want to have a state? Do they want to have a better life? If they do, we have created a framework for them to have it, and we’re going to treat them in a very respectful manner. If they don’t, then they’re going to screw up another opportunity like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.”
    • Trump warns Palestinians that this might be the last chance they ever have.
    • Trump has also proposed a new $50 billion economic investment plan as part of the peace plan, which he says will create one million new jobs over a decade.
  1. Following his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu travels to Russia to update Putin on the peace plan.
  2. Brexit becomes official. The U.K. is no longer part of the European Union and the 11-month transition period begins.
    • For now, Britain stays in the UE’s customs union and single market and must follow the same trade and travel rules.
    • Britain no longer has a voice in how decisions are made in the EU.
    • Immigration and trade rules will change at the beginning of next year. There are currently 3.5 million EU nationals in Britain and 1.3 million U.K. citizens in Europe. They’ll all likely have to adjust their status by the end of the year.
    • Britain owes the EU just over $50 million.
    • It’s been 3 1/2 years since British voters passed the Brexit referendum.
  1. After an aide to Boris Johnson banned certain reporters from a briefing, all the remaining journalists walked out with them. I wish all journalists would make overt stands like this.
  2. The Trump administration wants to let the U.S. military use landmines, which have been banned by more than 160 countries. Trump wants to allow self-destructing landmines.

Iran:

  1. Last week, the number of troops diagnosed with brain injuries in Iran’s retaliatory strikes against U.S. troops was at 34. This week it bumped up to 50 and then 64 by the end of the week.
  2. The Veterans of Foreign Wars group demands an apology from Trump for saying that these brain injuries aren’t anything serious.
  3. The State Department briefs senators on Iran in a closed-door session. Senators say afterward that there was nothing classified, so there was no reason to do it in private. It’s the second contentious briefing, and both the House and Senate are looking at resolutions to limit Trump’s war powers with regard to Iran. While the Senate has yet to pass anything, the House passes two measures this week, including a repeal of a 2002 military authorization passed after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Strong winds blow over newly installed panels at the border fence near Calexico, CA. The panels land on the Mexican side of the border. This is part of an improvement project and not new construction.
  2. The current border fence has floodgates that Border Patrol agents manually raise each year to avoid flash floods. The gates stay open during flood season. Due to the design of Trump’s planned wall, it would likely need to include such floodgates as well. Its current design would catch all the detritus from the flood water and wouldn’t be able to withstand the force of the water.
  3. Federal agents discover the longest known drug-smuggling tunnel along the southern border. It stretches 4,309 feet, starting in Tijuana, MX, and running to San Diego County, CA. The tunnel has ventilation, electricity, a rail and cart system, and elevators. It’s 70 feet under the ground.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. From October 2014 to July 2018, migrant children reported 4,556 complaints of sexual abuse while in U.S. custody. The reports were made to and documented by to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
  2. Republican legislators in Iowa introduce a bill to remove civil rights protections from transgender people.
  3. The Supreme Court lets the Trump administration proceed with its “public charge” migration rule, which is basically a wealth test for immigrants. This temporarily lifts a nationwide injunction put in place by a lower court while legal challenges play out in the lower courts.
  4. HUD Secretary Ben Carson plans to get rid of a policy that withholds funds from cities that don’t address segregation. On top of that, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposes reducing the data collected on home lending discrimination (black Americans are denied loans at a much higher rate than white Americans, and minorities are charged higher interest rates in general).
  5. Trump acts on his threat to add these countries to his Muslim ban: Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. The original ban includes Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, North Korea, Yemen, and Somalia. At least those are the countries the administration included in the ban after the Supreme Court told Trump how he could implement the ban without violating the law.
  6. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that you can refuse to hire someone because they have dreadlocks.
  7. Three venues in Britain cancel Franklin Graham’s appearances there because of what they perceive as hate speech, specifically against the LGBTQ community.
  8. Colin Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job with the NFL, but they just aired an ad to bring attention to his social justice message. Anquan Boldin’s cousin was shot and killed by an undercover police officer in 2015. His car broke down and he was unarmed. The ad highlights his story.
  9. Virginia’s House of Delegates repeals a ban on same-sex marriage.
  10. Florida’s private school voucher program was found to discriminate against LGBTQ students, so two of the largest banks in the U.S.—Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bank—say they’ll stop donating millions to the program.

Climate:

  1. A group of U.S. institutional investors urges timber, energy, and mining companies not to take advantage of Trump’s environmental regulation rollbacks. They argue that abusing those rollbacks could put investors at risk of “stranded assets” should the changes be overturned by the courts.
  2. The Trump administration plans to drop punishments against gas and oil companies that kill birds “incidentally.” If you support this, I don’t want to hear any more arguments about how wind turbines kill birds.
  3. For the second year in a row, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg gets nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
  4. The Department of Energy announces nearly $300 million in research and development funds to go toward sustainable transportation, like electric, hydrogen fuel, and biofuel.
  5. Scientists in Antarctica record a glacier melting from the bottom. The water under the glacier is unusually warm. It’s part of a system of glaciers that holds back the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which, if melted, would raise the oceans by about four feet.
  6. The Pacific Ocean has become so acidic it’s dissolving the shells of some species of crab.
  7. There are only 29,000 western monarch butterflies remaining in California, down from millions. But please, let’s build that wall right through a butterfly sanctuary.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump signs the updated NAFTA deal, which he calls the USMCA.
  2. The economy misses Trump’s projected 3% growth target for a second straight year. 2019 posted the slowest annual growth during his term. Yay for tax reform?
  3. Despite the $28 billion aid program for farmers, bankruptcies rose 20% in 2019, hitting an eight-year high.
  4. The Trump administration proposes cutting Social Security disability benefits by $2.6 billion over the next decade. Millions of recipients would need to file the paperwork to prove their disabilities all over again.
  5. Economists predict the U.S. budget deficit will be well over $1 trillion in 2020.

Elections:

  1. John Delaney drops out of the Democratic presidential race. He was the first candidate to announce. Now there are 11 left.

Miscellaneous:

  1. After last week’s spat between Mike Pompeo and NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, the State Department drops NPR from Pompeo’s upcoming trip to Britain, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Ironically, the journalist they dropped was Michele Kelemen, not Kelly.
    • In response, NPR requests clarification from the State Department on whether they actually did ban Keleman from Pompeo’s trip and if so, why.
    • Also, NPR saw a dramatic increase in donations following the spat.
  1. The Navy SEAL whom Trump pardoned against Navy officials‘ advice takes his revenge on his SEAL teammates who testified against him. In a video, he includes their names and pictures, duty status, and current units (for those on active duty). He calls them cowards. As a matter of policy, the Navy doesn’t identify active-duty SEALs.
  2. Trump hires Eric Trump’s brother-in-law as chief of staff in the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis. This office used to oversee efforts to fight climate change.
  3. E. Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s requests DNA sampling on the dress she was wearing during the alleged assault.

Polls:

  1. The University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy runs an annual poll on global attitudes toward democracy, interviewing four million people across the world. They find that dissatisfaction with democracy in developed countries is at its highest level in 25 years, with the U.S. and Britain specifically showing high levels of dissatisfaction.
    • The trend of the annual study suggests that possible causes might be the economic shock of the recession and the global refugee crisis.
  1. Impeachment seems to be giving Trump a little popularity boost. It hit an aggregate of 43.4% this week.