Every week under this administration is a little weird, but this week was surreal. SharpieGate sucked up all the air in the room for nearly the entire freaking week. Any normal president would’ve just said ‘sorry, I made a mistake,’ thanked the weather service for the correction, and gotten on with the business of presidenting. But this isn’t a normal president, and so now we all know what a spaghetti graph is and why none of us can interpret one. We also know that our scientific federal agencies have now been compromised by politics and that we can’t rely on the president to give us truthful information during a disaster.

Here’s what else happened in politics for the week ending September 8…

Shootings This Week:

1. The week‘s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):

• • Two shooters injure four men in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood.
  • Four people are injured in a shooting in Jacksonville, FL. The details aren’t known.
  • A shooter kills two people and injures two more, including an infant (who DOES that?), in Greensboro, NC.
  • A fourteen-year-old shooter kills his entire family of five in Elkmont, AL. This shooting includes another infant.
  • Two shooters kill two people, including a 7-year-old girl, and injure two others in Marrero, LA.
  • Shooters kill a family of three, including a 5-year-old boy, and injure one other in Whiteville, NC.
  • A female shooter kills one person and injures three more after an ongoing altercation in Alexandria, LA. This is the first known female mass shooter since I’ve been recording shootings.
  • A gang-related shooting in Sumter, SC, leaves two people dead and three others wounded.
  • A shooter injures four people in Chicago, IL.

2. Walmart halts sales of all handgun ammunition, and while they don’t end their policy of allowing guns in the stores, they do request customers not openly carry weapons in Walmart and Sam’s Club stores.
3. A federal judge rules that victims can sue the government when shooters obtain guns through background check loopholes. The suit stems from the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where the shooter obtained a weapon despite a prior drug offense. This ruling could make the federal government responsible for such loopholes in the law.
4. In other background check loophole news, the Odessa, TX, shooter obtained his weapon from a private seller, which didn’t require a background check. The shooter had failed a previous background check for mental health issues. Close those damn loopholes, Congress!
5. We find out that Texas Attorney General received more than 100 pages of racist letters filled with violence, threatening to kill undocumented immigrants. The letters poured in over the past year, and the Attorney General didn’t do or say anything about it. In the same period, police responded to 911 calls about the man who sent them at least 35 times. They didn’t do anything about it either.

Russia:

1. A jury acquits former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig on charges of misleading the DOJ about the lobbying work he did for Ukraine. Craig is the only Democrat to be charged so far in Mueller’s investigation.
2. Russians vote in local elections following months of opposition protests, which led to the biggest crackdown on dissenters in the country in years. Before the elections, Putin’s party, United Russia, held 40 out of 45 seats on the Moscow city council. They lost 15 of those seats in the elections to hold on to 25. Center-left and far-left parties took the remaining seats.
3. Investigators in Congress find that Deutsche Bank had several points of failure in their money-laundering controls while handling financial dealings with Russian oligarchs.
4. We learn that in 2017, the CIA extracted one of their most valuable assets in the Kremlin over fears that media scrutiny would give the spy away. This person is how the CIA found out that Putin was directly involved in our 2016 election interference.

• • At first, some media outlets (I’m looking at you, CNN) report that the extraction was over fears that Trump’s carelessness would give the spy away, but that is corrected by later New York Times reporting (always read your news; don’t watch it!).

5. Michael Flynn refuses to cooperate with House Intelligence Committee subpoenas for testimony and documents. The committee gives him a deadline of September 25 for testimony and September 18 for documents.

Legal Fallout:

1. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating Trump’s involvement with the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. He’s already named as a co-conspirator in the legal case in which Michael Cohen pleaded guilty.
2. Mike Pence stays at Trump’s country club in Doonbeg, Ireland while attending meetings with Irish officials (including the Prime Minister). Pence flies back and forth an hour each way for the meetings instead of just staying closer to where the meetings are held.
3. It comes to light that in 2014, Trump entered a partnership with a struggling airport near his Turnberry golf course in Scotland. In 2015, when Trump was running for president, the Pentagon started using that airport for flight refueling, requiring flight crews to use local accommodations for overnight stays. This sometimes means that flight crews end up staying at Trump Turnberry.

• • Trump tweets that he has nothing to do with the airport (which is demonstrably not true, but might not actually be relevant in this case).
  • This is a weird intersection of two separate things (Trump entering a partnership with the airport and the Pentagon entering a partnership with the airport). However, 180 Air Force planes stopped there in 2017, 257 stopped there in 2018, and 259 have already stopped there this year.

4. The House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee open investigations into the self-dealing around Trump’s properties, including things like Pence’s stay in Doonbeg, the airport deal, and Trump’s announcement that next year’s G-7 will be held at his Doral property (you know, the one with the bedbugs).
5. The House Judiciary Committee prepares a vote to define impeachment hearings.

International:

1. It’s U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

• • Parliament hands Johnson four straight defeats, opposing him on his first four votes as PM.
  • Johnson loses his first Brexit vote, despite his threats that if any of his Members of Parliament (MPs) oppose him, he’ll kick them out of the party. 20 of his MPs defy him. In fact, Parliament votes to seize control from Johnson in order to debate a bill that would prevent a no-deal Brexit (which the House of Commons later passes).
  • This means Johnson loses his majority in Parliament. Actually, he lost his majority when one of his MPs got up in the middle of his speech to cross over to the other side.
  • And then Parliament votes to scrap Johnson’s no-deal Brexit and to ask the EU for a delay, effectively rendering Johnson’s reasons for suspending Parliament moot.
  • Boris Johnson’s brother quits his positions as a Member of Parliament and Minister over his disagreements with his brother over Brexit.
  • Johnson calls for new elections, but it doesn’t pass the House of Commons with the two-thirds vote it needs. (It’s pretty inevitable that elections will happen, though; it’s just a matter of timing.)

2. Demonstrators across the U.K. gather to protest Brexit; counter-protestors come out to defend Brexit. Things get violent between the two, and 16 are arrested.
3. Pro-democracy protests pick back up again in Hong Kong this week, despite the withdrawal of the Chinese extradition bill they were protesting in the first place.
4. France proposes offering credit lines worth $15 billion to Iran if they’ll come back into compliance with the JCPOA (aka the Iran Deal). This relies on Trump not blocking it.
5. Conservatives defend Trump tweeting what appeared to be an image from a classified satellite of an explosion in Iran by saying he’s just showing them that we’re watching them closely. However, the satellite has been identified online, and now it’s possible that Iran can evade its surveillance.
6. The top U.S. negotiator with Afghanistan and the Taliban announces there’s a peace deal in principal between the parties.

• • But then Trump announces that he cancelled a secret meeting at Camp David with senior Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani because the Taliban took responsibility for an attack that killed a U.S. soldier.
  • Also, the week of 9/11 might not be the best week for a meeting at Camp David.
  • This pretty much puts an end to a year of peace negotiations, in which it was agreed that the U.S. would dramatically pull back on troops in Afghanistan.

7. Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s chief negotiator in the Mideast peace process, steps down, putting a damper on any prospects for a peace deal there. The deal stalled after Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2017, recognizing it as Israel’s legit capital. Palestinians walked away at that point, and haven’t been seriously negotiating since.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The Cherokee Nation names Kimberly Teehee as their first delegate to the House of Representatives, finally exercising their 200-year-old right. Their Representative doesn’t get a vote in Congress.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. Defense Secretary Mark Esper agrees to release $3.6 billion for Trump’s border wall, as requested in Trump’s emergency declaration. He’s defunding 127 military projects to do it.

• • The affected projects include new cyber ops facilities, training facilities, hazardous materials warehouses and cargo pads, new and expanded weapons ranges, munition storage facilities, aircraft maintenance hangars, schools, power substations, SATCOM facilities, NORTHCOM alert facilities, flight simulators, rescue stations, security improvements, housing maintenance, and more.
  • Funds will be diverted from over 125 military projects in three U.S. territories, 23 states, and 21 countries.

2. Several of these projects are modernization projects and future-looking technical projects, all being scuttled to go toward the wall, which is (IMO) a medieval solution.
3. The Pentagon says that if Congress re-funds those projects, they won’t be delayed or canceled. So they’re asking Congress to fund these projects twice. That sounds so blackmaily to me.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Trump says he’ll reconsider his administration’s rule that would deny life-saving healthcare visas to immigrants. He doesn’t fully reverse the decision, which has received strong criticism, and he doesn’t say whether we’ll continue to grant these visas. Meanwhile, people who are alive here today because they’re receiving these services have one more week to leave the country or become in violation of immigration law.
2. The State Department has dramatically reduced the number of foreign student visas issued each year. This year, 20 Chinese students returning to Arizona State University were denied entry into the U.S. They’re currently taking their classes online.
3. Following the Hurricane Dorian disaster in the Bahamas, Trump claims we can’t provide refuge for Bahamans because the islands are filled with “very bad gang members” and “very, very bad drug dealers.” He says they have “tremendous problems” with people who “weren’t supposed to be there.” What does that even mean?? 45 people have died, and the Abaco Islands are largely uninhabitable.
4. Meanwhile, politicians from both parties urge Trump to suspend visa requirements for Bahamans at this time to allow more refugees into the U.S.
5. While Charles Koch is trying to rehabilitate his reputation by supporting immigrants and criticizing the way Trump scapegoats immigrants, his network is also mining data to rile up conservatives with dehumanizing messages about immigrants. His data analytics company, i360, pushes the image of immigrants as invading criminals and terrorists.
6. A judge rules that the terrorist watch list violates our constitutional rights because the standards for inclusion are too vague. Being on the watchlist makes it harder to travel and puts you under extra police scrutiny, among other things.
7. Trump is considering two options to drastically reduce how many refugees fleeing war and violence the U.S. allows in. One option would cut the number by half—to 10,000 to 15,000 refugees per year. Another option reduces the number to ZERO, at the advice of a “top level official” (I wonder who that could be, Steven Miller). Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis was a huge proponent in the administration for allowing refugees (it actually does make the world a safer place), but Mike Esper, who took over from Mattis, isn’t as strong-willed.

Climate:

1. At least 45 are dead in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian stalled over the islands, decimating at least one of the islands. 70,000 people are homeless.
2. Cruise ships begin evacuating refugees.
3. Trump spends Labor Day fighting with meteorologists over the path of Dorian after several news outlets (and the National Weather Service) contradict his claim that Dorian would hit Alabama much harder than expected. And thus begins SharpieGate. Holy smokes.

• • The NWS was obligated to dispute Trump’s claim immediately in order to prevent panic in Alabama. At the time of Trump‘s claim, NWS forecast maps have Alabama at about a 5% chance of winds above 40 mph. The National Hurricane Center’s forecast at the same time show the path skimming the East Coast and missing Alabama completely.
  • Trump was looking at an outdated map of the hurricane (and it was also a spaghetti map, which show numerous possibilities and probabilities, and are notoriously impossible for laypeople to translate).
  • Trump can’t let it go, so he brings a Fox News correspondent into the Oval Office to vouch for him and holds up an official NOAA map that he had doctored by adding an extension to the hurricane path in black Sharpie to make it look like the official map includes Alabama.
  • And then, NOAA, damaging its own credibility, issues an unsigned statement that Trump was correct. The statement criticized the NWS (part of NOAA) for contradicting Trump. So we have NOAA contradicting its own scientific forecast which, by the way, was completely correct.
  • It just keeps getting worse… NOAA instructs its staff (including scientists and meteorologists) to not provide any opinion in response to Trump’s incorrect tweets about Alabama. So now we’re at a point where our scientific agencies would rather freak people out needlessly about a disaster that isn’t going to happen than contradict the president. This does not bode well if we can’t trust their forecasts.
  • And then, NOAA’s acting chief scientist says he’s investigating NOAA’s response and whether it’s in violation of NOAA policies and ethics. The Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General opens an investigation.
  • And then, NWS Director Louis Uccellini contradicts his bosses at NOAA and defends the his agency’s forecasters at a weather industry conference.
  • And then, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross threatens to fire the top employees responsible for the forecast that contradicted Trump’s claim EVEN THOUGH THEIR FORECAST WAS CORRECT. This would be comical at this point if it wasn’t actually so very serious.
  • Is SharpieGate over? I don’t know.

4. It might be important to note that altering a weather map is illegal.
5. Trump plans to weaken George Bush’s light bulb efficiency rules, which would’ve forced us to use more efficient bulbs. They’re also more expensive but they last a ton longer.

• • The rules would save the equivalent of the energy output of 25 large power plants.
  • My guess is that Trump thinks he’s reversing an Obama rule, since Obama gets blamed for this one all the time.

6. Joe Balash leaves his job at the Department of the Interior to join a foreign oil company that’s expanding their drilling operations in Alaska. As assistant secretary, Balash oversaw drilling on federal lands.

• • Balash is at least the third high-level administration official to join up with a fossil fuel company after leaving (the other two are Scott Pruitt of the EPA and Vincent DeVito of the Interior).

7. The DOJ opens an antitrust investigation into four of the automakers that joined with California to keep Obama’s emissions standards in place. They say Ford, Honda, VW, and BMW broke federal competition laws.

Budget/Economy:

1. The president of the AFL-CIO workers union says that Trump has done more to hurt workers than to help them. He cites rising healthcare costs, rising housing costs, and the trade war, as well as GOP opposition to raising the minimum wage.
2. The five U.S. industries expected to be hit hardest by the latest round of tariffs include: Food and agribusiness, retail, manufacturers and supplies, tech and telecom, and clothing and footwear. That doesn’t leave much out.
3. Even though Congress expanded the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program last year, around 99% of applications for forgiveness are still denied. The program is designed for people who are employed by government or certain non-profit organizations providing a public service.
4. The Trump administration releases a proposed overhaul of the U.S. housing market that would end government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two companies back half of all our nation’s mortgages.

• • Fannie and Freddie have been under federal control since the housing market collapse, and they’re the last loose string left from the Great Recession.

5. Trump touts job numbers before they’re officially released (again). Despite lower-than-expected job growth numbers for August, we hit another record number of people employed (157,878,000). Of course, our population is also at a record high, so the unemployment rate is still unchanged.

• • The rise in government employment came largely from temporary workers hired to help out with the 2020 Census.
  • Employment growth is slowing down from a high of 250,000 jobs added per month in 2015 to 143,000 so far in 2019 (there were 187,000 new jobs per month in 2016, 182,000 in 2017, and 192,000 in 2018).

6. Analysts think that tariffs will cost American households an average of $2,031 per year starting in 2020, erasing any economic gains brought by deregulation efforts.

Elections:

1. A court rules that North Carolina must redraw their gerrymandered districting laws in time for the 2020 elections, and Republicans (finally) say they won’t appeal the ruling. This has been in the courts for ages, with one judge accusing them of drawing the lines to discriminate with surgical precision.

• • Curious about the inner workings of GOP gerrymandering? Check this out. (Note: I in no way believe that this only happens on the right; they‘ve just mastered the art since 2010.)

2. Another Texas GOP Congressman announces he’ll retire. Bill Flores becomes the fifth Texas GOP Representative to retire.
3. Four states plan to cancel their GOP presidential primaries, which isn’t unheard of when an incumbent president is running. But usually they wait to see how successful the challengers are before scrapping the primaries.

Miscellaneous:

1. Trump says that we should have a state-run news outlet to counter CNN’s “fake news.” You know who else has state-run news agencies? Russia, China, Iran, petty dictators…