Tag: christopher wray

Week 67 in Trump

Posted on May 7, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Here’s how fast things change from week to week. From Peter Baker of the New York Times:

“As of last week, the American public had been told that President Trump’s doctor had certified he would be the “the healthiest individual ever elected.” That the president was happy with his legal team and would not hire a new lawyer. That he did not know about the $130,000 payment to a former pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with him.

As of this week, it turns out that the statement about his health was not actually from the doctor but had been dictated by Mr. Trump himself. That the president has split with the leaders of his legal team and hired the same new lawyer he had denied recruiting. And that Mr. Trump himself financed the $130,000 payment intended to buy the silence of the actress known as Stormy Daniels.”

Also, ICYMI, you should change your Twitter password.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. The New York Time obtains a list of questions that Mueller supposedly wants to ask the president. The questions turn out to be written by Trump’s legal team (specifically Jay Sekulow) after Mueller gave them the topics he wants to talk about.
  2. But still, Trump tries to use the questions as proof that Mueller isn’t looking into collusion… even though several of the questions are about collusion.
  3. The leaked questions apparently came from the Trump team, who is blaming the leak on Mueller, which is unlikely because Mueller’s team has probably never seen this list.
  4. At any rate, the president’s team says this proves that Mueller has overreached the scope of his investigation even though they aren’t Mueller’s questions.
  5. Trump’s lead attorney John Dowd (now resigned) says that Mueller recently brought up the idea of subpoenaing Trump if he refuses to appear. In response, Trump says Mueller is trying to set him up and trap him.
  6. Ty Cobb announces his retirement as White House Counsel, and Emmet Flood will replace him. Flood was an impeachment lawyer for Bill Clinton in the 90s.
  7. No one in Trump’s current legal team has the security clearances needed to discuss sensitive issues should Trump meet with Mueller. John Dowd, who left in March, was the only one on the team who had the needed clearance.
  8. Cambridge Analytica closes its operations after losing clients and facing steep legal fees. The company is accused of misusing Facebook data to influence the 2016 elections in the U.S. and to influence the Brexit vote in the UK.
  9. But then we learn that Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer have already joined a new data company, Emerdata, as directors. The Mercers were the money behind Cambridge Analytica, and Emerdata is owned by Cambridge Analytica’s parent company. The CEO and other members of Cambridge Analytica have also moved over to Emerdata. It seems they’re just rebranding Cambridge Analytica as Emerdata.
  10. UK regulators order Cambridge Analytica to release the information they scraped about a U.S. voter along with details on how they obtained the data and what they did with it. The voter requested the information under UK laws, getting around the U.S. system that doesn’t provide the means to obtain this data. It’s possible we could all force Cambridge Analytica to give us this information about our own data.
  11. In a round of media interviews, Rudy Giuliani says:
    • Trump is immune from being subpoenaed in a criminal proceeding (something the Supreme Court has not yet supported—the court tends to reject efforts to protect the president this way).
    • Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein should redeem themselves by ending the special counsel’s investigation.
    • FBI agents are like Nazi stormtroopers.
  1. The judge in Paul Manafort’s trial questions why Mueller’s investigation into Manafort falls under his jurisdiction but the investigation into Michael Cohen doesn’t. He wonders if Mueller is just trying to squeeze Manafort for information about Trump.
  2. None of the above means the judge thinks Manafort isn’t guilty; he just raises the possibility of sending the case down to a state prosecutor.
  3. Mueller puts in a request for 70 blank subpoenas in the Manafort case.
  4. Mueller also requests a 60-day postponement in Michael Flynn’s sentencing.
  5. Devin Nunes didn’t bother to read a document turned over to him by the DOJ after Nunes threatened impeachment against Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The 2-page document contains the evidence used by the DOJ and FBI to open the Russia investigation (not the same as the Steele dossier, BTW).
  6. And now Nunes wants to hold Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress for not releasing classified documents to Nunes‘ committee, which is investigating FISA abuses.
  7. Rod Rosenstein responds to the articles of impeachment drawn up against him by the House Freedom Caucus by saying that the DOJ won’t be extorted and that threats won’t stop him from doing his job.
  8. We learn that after Trump agreed to sell the Ukraine missiles to help in their fight against Russia last year, the Ukraine stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation and they halted their own investigation into Paul Manafort.
  9. Demonstrators across Russia rally to protest Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. Nearly 1,600 protesters are arrested, including Putin’s most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny.

Courts/Justice:

Apparently the Justice Department has been too busy fighting congressional subpoenas to get anything done this week.

Healthcare:

  1. Tom Price, former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, says that last year’s tax reform will raise health insurance costs because it repealed the individual mandate. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees, saying average premiums will increase by around 10% per year more than if the mandate remained in place. This will amount to about an 18% increase this year, according to the Urban Institute.
  2. Whoops! Tom Price later walks those statements back, saying repealing the mandate was absolutely the right thing to do.
  3. The Urban Institute also predicts that getting rid of the mandate, along with other changes like allowing substandard policies, will cost the federal government $33 billion per year MORE to insure 6.4 million FEWER people.
  4. Four million fewer people are already uninsured compared to this time in 2016.
  5. Iowa passes the “Fetal Heartbeat” bill, making most abortions illegal after about 6 weeks (or once a heartbeat is detected). Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at this point.
  6. Because it’s not enough that fentanyl added to heroine led to a massive increase in overdoses, dealers are also adding fentanyl to cocaine. Cocaine deaths have been rising as dealers target drug users who are trying to avoid opiates. Many states don’t keep record of this kind of drug combination, but in Connecticut where they do track it, cocaine+fentanyl deaths rose 420% over the past three years.
  7. Trump says he’ll appoint Dr. Mehmet Oz to the Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition council.

International:

  1. In a public presentation to the Israeli Defense Ministry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that Iran has lied about its nuclear weapons program. The information he presents is from 1999-2003, a time when we pretty much knew Iran was lying about their program, but the presentation seems aimed at making us think they’ve broken the Iran deal, which Netanyahu wants Trump to dump.
    My 2 cents? Leaving the agreement frees up Iran to develop whatever nuclear program they want, and we will have given them back $1.7 billion worth of previously frozen assets to do it. What kind of deal is that?
  2. We learn that Trump aides hired Israeli private investigators last year to find dirt on key members of the Obama administration who were responsible for negotiating the Iran deal, including national security advisors Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl. One thing they were trying to find is whether either Rhodes or Kahl had benefited personally or professionally from the deal (which IMO reveals more about Trump than it does about Rhodes or Kahl).
  3. Kahl reveals a mysterious attempt from a UK company last year to contact his wife about a school she volunteers with. The company’s website has since been taken down, and Kahl thinks it was part of the above investigation.
  4. The Israeli investigators hired by Trump’s aides were also hired by Harvey Weinstein to go after his accusers and stop the publicity around his sexual harassment and abuse.
  5. After Netanyahu’s presentation, the White House issues a statement that Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear program that it hides from the world and Iranian citizens. This alarms many people because of its similarities to the accusations that pushed us into the Iraq war. The White House later updates the statement to say Iran HAD not HAS such a program. They blame the error on a typo.
  6. John Kerry has been working behind the scenes to save the Iran deal, meeting with UN and foreign officials to find ways to keep the deal in place.
  7. Trumps says that withdrawing from the Iran deal sends North Korea the right message in the lead up to our negotiations with them. I guess that could be true if the right message is that we don’t hold up our agreements.
  8. If the U.S. pulls out of the Iran deal, it would leave the rest of the world to navigate a very complicated web of sanctions on international businesses.
  9. The Trump administration is working to get three U.S. hostages held in North Korea released. I wish him success, but two things: 1) Rudy Giuliani claims that their release has already been obtained (it hasn’t), and 2) Trump says that the past administration tried to get them released with no success (two of the three were imprisoned last year, so it’s highly doubtful Obama was involved).
  10. North Korea accuses Trump of provoking them with his tough talk on military might. They also warn us not to mistake their willingness to talk for weakness.
  11. Ahead of his meeting with North Korea, Trump orders the Pentagon to prepare for pulling troops out of South Korea.
  12. Trump freezes funding for Syria‘s main humanitarian group, the White Helmets. If you don’t know who they are, check out the short documentary about them.
  13. Suicide bombers in Kabul kill at least 31 people.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House chaplain, who Paul Ryan forced to resign last week, rescinds his resignation, forcing Ryan to either fire him or keep him on. Ryan decides to keep him, leaving us all wondering what the heck happened there.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Seven states, including Texas, file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to end DACA, even though Trump has already attempted to do this and the courts stopped him.
    • Here are the states involved in the suit, along with the number of people with DACA status: Texas (121,000), South Carolina (6,400), Arkansas (5,100), Alabama (4,300), Nebraska (3,400), Louisiana (2,000), and West Virginia (100).
    • Compare that to California (223,000), Illinois (42,000), New York (42,000), and Florida (33,000). It seems the states least affect by DACA (with the exception of Texas) are the ones that want to end it.
  1. An all-black, all-female team of three was named a finalist in NASA’s high school competition, but NASA had to end public voting early when racists on 4chan launched a racially-based social media campaign against them.
  2. Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary, ends temporary protected status for the Hondurans who came hear nearly two decades ago as refugees after Hurricane Mitch devastated their country. That’s nearly 86,000 people who have called the U.S. their home for 20 years.
  3. They may not call it a Muslim ban, but actions speak louder than words. So far this fiscal year, Christians refugees admitted into the U.S. outnumber Muslims by more almost four times. 1,800 Muslims have been allowed compared to 6,700 Christians, and the number of Muslims has shrunk by more than any other religious group, right in line with Trump having said he’ll prioritize Christian refugees.
  4. Several U.S. citizens get caught up each year in ICE detainments, some of whom have been detained for over three years. The average time U.S. citizens are detained is 180 days; that’s a half a year these people lose. Citizens have also been deported, and had to have an embassy intervene for their return.
    Side note: It’s illegal for ICE to detain U.S. citizens. Where’s the accountability here?
  5. About 250 members of the caravan of asylum seekers marching across Mexico reach the U.S. border, where most are turned away by border patrol. 49 have been admitted to the U.S. while the rest are living in a tent city south of the border.
  6. Mike Pence calls Joe Arpaio a tireless champion for the rule of law. In case you forgot, Arpaio’s lost countless civil suits for his treatment of prisoners and is also a convict himself, though he was pardoned by Trump.
  7. 2017 saw a 17% drop in international students coming to the U.S. Why is this important? Foreign students contribute about $37 billion to the U.S. economy each year.
  8. In 44 states, a majority of residents support the right for same-sex couples to marry. The states that don’t support it: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Alabama is the only state where a majority oppose that right.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Eighteen states, including California, sue the Trump administration over its attempts to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency goals.
  2. The sea ice cover in the Bering Sea this winter hit a record low, and a striking low at that. It was just half the cover of the previous record low.
  3. Scott Pruitt’s questionable foreign travel has been facilitated by lobbyists and wealthy donors, including Richard Smotkin, who arranged Pruitt’s trip to Morocco was later awarded a $40,000/month contract to lobby for the Moroccan government. Sheldon Adelson helped him with his trip to Israel. And former lobbyist Matthew Freedman worked to line up a trip to Australia.
  4. Three top-level officials part ways with the EPA after Pruitt testified to Congress the previous week. Pruitt blamed subordinates for his own ethical lapses.
  5. Under Ryan Zinke, the Fish and Wildlife Service removes Yellowstone grizzlies from the endangered species list. At the same time they’re working on solutions to diversify this small group of bears by importing bears from other areas. So they’ll take bears from areas where they’re still considered endangered, and move them to an area where they are not considered endangered?
  6. There are rumors of a power struggle between Pruitt and Zinke, which could be why so many negative stories about both of them are coming out.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The unemployment rate drops to 3.9%, and wages rise slightly, though not as much as economists expect in such a tight labor market. One reason could be increasing inflation or fears of it.
  2. California moves up to fifth in the world economies, behind the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. The state is 12% of the U.S. population (nearing 40 million) and provides 14.2% of the U.S. economy.
  3. Marco Rubio criticizes the GOP tax reform, saying, “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”
  4. Whoops again! He later walks that statement back (just like Tom Price did on healthcare).
  5. Arizona teachers end their walkout after getting most, but not all, of what they were protesting for.
  6. Here’s a new one for corporations. They’ve started creating response plans just in case Trump targets them or their industry in one of his Twitter rants.
  7. The Purdue University Ag Economy Barometer, which shot up on Trump’s election, falls for the second month in a row. The barometer is an indicator of how the agricultural industry is doing as a whole.

Elections:

  1. All four Federal Election Commission (FEC) commissioners have held their jobs well past their intended terms. They’ve stayed on 11, 9, 7, and 5 years past the end of their terms. Also, there are supposed to be six commissioners, not four. The Senate majority and minority leaders are supposed to recommend replacements, but they haven’t.
  2. The DOJ updates its policy manual, removing a reference to maintaining a free press and expanding their policy on whistleblowers.
  3. Paul Ryan warns that if Democrats win in the November midterms, they could make it impossible to get anything done and would be more aggressive in congressional oversight of the administration. Well if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black…
  4. Since not enough has been done to ensure the security of our midterm elections from foreign interference, Democrats in Congress pledge to NOT exploit any stolen materials in their campaigns. Republicans have so far refused to do the same, leaving us open to continued interference.
  5. Dianne Feinstein is the frontrunner in California’s senate race, but the second place runner is an anti-Semite running on the Republican ticket. The GOP just kicked him out of their convention and plan to vote to kick him out of the party. But how is this guy second?!

Miscellaneous:

  1. Thousands of demonstrators in Puerto Rico protest over austerity measures, which come at a horrible time as they try to rebuild. Police shut the protests down using tear gas.
  2. The Department of Education is sending $600 million in disaster assistance to Puerto Rico.
  3. Trump’s previous personal physician, Harold Bornstein, who before the 2016 election purportedly wrote a glowing letter about Trump’s health in hyperbolic terms, now says that Trump dictated that letter. You’re shocked, I know. I was shocked too.
  4. Bornstein also says that Trump aides, including his personal bodyguard, raided Bornstein’s office and took all of Trump’s medical records. The White House says that was just part of the transition into office.
  5. With both Trump and Pence slated to speak at the NRA convention, parts of the convention have ironically been designated gun-free zones. Good thing the bad guy with a gun didn’t find out there were no good guys with a gun there.
  6. During his NRA speech (and also full of irony), Trump reads an article from “fake news” CNN as proof that Mueller overreached in his investigation (though the article didn’t really say that).
  7. Also in his speech, Trump criticized both France’s and the UK’s gun laws, saying those laws failed to prevent the 2015 terrorist attack in France and the knife violence in the UK. To bring his point home, Trump mimed shooting a gun at one victim at a time in reference to the Paris attacks. France and the UK are both pretty pissed.
  8. At the NRA convention, you can buy pistols that look like cell phones. This come just one month after Sacramento police killed an unarmed man because they mistook his cell phone for a gun.
  9. Rudy Giuliani tries to clear Trump of one crime by insinuating he committed another—and on a Hannity interview no less. He says Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment, inferring that Trump knew about the hush money despite his claims otherwise.
  10. Giuliani also says it’s possible Trump paid hush money to additional women, but later walks that back.
  11. Trump, or more likely someone more speaking for Trump, tweets an explanation for what Giuliani said, but basically confirms that he reimbursed Cohen.
  12. Trump himself excuses Giuliani saying that he’s the new guy and he’ll get his facts straight. Well then what was he doing touring national TV talk shows?
  13. In another less than helpful moment, Giuliani says it would be OK if Mueller went after Jared Kushner, but not Ivanka. Apparently Kushner is disposable.
  14. Giuliani later says that Trump didn’t realize until just last week that his payments to Michael Cohen were to cover the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels.
  15. Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, tweets the relevant FEC rules, which suggest that no matter how the payment went down, election rules were violated.
  16. Trump signs an executive order to expand grants and partnerships with faith-based groups in an effort to reduce separation of church and state. Every agency is ordered to work on faith-based partnerships.
  17. Even the Nobel prize runs up against #MeToo. There will be no prize in literature awarded this year because of a sex scandal. They’ll name two winners next year instead.
  18. And speaking of the Nobel prize, several House Republicans nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for the work he’s doing with North Korea.
  19. In John McCain’s new book, he says he regrets not picking Joe Lieberman as his 2008 running mate instead of Sarah Palin. Even if they still wouldn’t have been elected, I would argue that picking Lieberman would’ve drastically changed our current political climate.
  20. Gina Haspel offers to withdraw her name from the nomination for CIA director, but the White House says they’ll continue to back her.
  21. Rick Perry supports ending the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) because he thinks applied research belongs in the private sector (I guess so someone can profit off it). ARPA-E advances innovative energy research, often resuscitating research that stalled in the private sector. George W. Bush created ARPA-E, but it was first funded by Obama, so that could be why Trump wants to kill it.
  22. You remember that lobbyist’s condo that Scott Pruitt was paying submarket rents for? Well it turns out that Mike Crapo (R-ID), the Senate Banking Committee chair, held 78 campaign events there.
  23. NASA launches a new mission to Mars. The InSight robotic lander will send a probe into the layers of Mars’ surface and study the structure. It’s scheduled to land on Mars on November 26.
  24. And in nonpolitical news, Mt. Kilauea erupts on Hawaii’s big island, opening multiple fissures in Leilani Estates, causing evacuations, and destroying homes, cars, and structures. The eruption caused several earthquakes, including one 6.9 in magnitude. The smaller island of Kauai had it’s own national disaster a few weeks ago, with severe flooding on the north side after receiving 50 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Week 65 in Trump

Posted on April 24, 2018 in Politics, Trump

DRAKETOWN, GA - APRIL 21: Members of the National Socialist Party burn a Swastika (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

To me, the biggest news this week is that after decades of rule – longer than my entire lifetime – the Castro family is ceding leadership of Cuba. However, the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, is Raúl Castro’s handpicked successor and Castro will remain party leader until 2021. I wouldn’t expect much to change, at least not any time soon. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. April 10th was Equal Pay Day. That’s how far into this year white women had to work to make as much as their male counterparts did last year. For African-American women, this day doesn’t come until August 7th; for Native American women, it comes on September 7th; and for Latina women, it comes on November 1st. It’s a good time to remember that the administration stopped forcing companies to provide data on wages by race and gender, making it harder to close this wage gap.

Russia:

  1. So far this year, Trump’s reelection campaign has spent over $1 out of every $5 on legal fees.
  2. A judge rejects Trump’s request to review material seized from Michael Cohen before it can be allowed as evidence.
  3. We learn that Trump was surprised when he found out that the U.S. had expelled far more diplomats than our ally countries, and he was pretty pissed off about that.
  4. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says new sanctions will be coming down on Russia. Trump says nope, not happening. And then, instead of the White House taking responsibility, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow says Haley must’ve been confused. And Haley says “I don’t get confused.” Kudlow says maybe he was the one who got confused. Haley, who was was repeating official White House talking points, wins the round but Trump still overrides her.
  5. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, is recused from the Michael Cohen case due to potential conflicts. He’s a temporary appointee and Trump could nominate him to a permanent position or not.
  6. Trump contradicts himself again on why he fired Comey, saying it wasn’t because of Russia. Last year, he said he was thinking about the Russia thing when he decided to fire Comey.
  7. Rudy Giuliani joins Trump’s legal team, saying he’ll get this Mueller thing wrapped up in two weeks.
  8. The DNC files a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the GRU, several members of the Trump campaign, Russian nationals, and Wikileaks. The suit alleges a conspiracy to disrupt our presidential elections, and to favor Trump and harm Clinton in the election.
    • Defendants in the suit also include Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Julian Assange, George Papadopoulos, Josef Mifsud (who leaked the email information to Papadopoulos), Aras and Emin Agalarov (Russian oligarchs who hosted the Miss Universe Pageant), the GRU, Russian hackers, and the Russian known as Guccifer 2.0.
    • The suit says that due to the nature of the crimes, Russia isn’t entitled to sovereign immunity.
    • The suit gives us some previously unknown dates. Russians first breached the DNC computer system on July 27, 2015. They breached it again on April 18, 2016, and began downloading documents on April 22. Four days later, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Russians had emails that could harm Hillary’s campaign.
    • Analysts say the primary purpose of this suit is for the evidentiary discovery it will prompt.
  1. The DOJ finally releases Comey’s redacted memos to the House Republicans who then immediately turn around and release them to the public. House GOP had been threatening to hold DOJ officials in contempt if they didn’t turn the memos over, though it isn’t typical for the DOJ to release evidence relevant to an ongoing investigation.
  2. I haven’t read a lot that’s news in the memos, except maybe that:
    • Trump lied about whether he stayed overnight in Moscow, which his bodyguard already said he did. (Also, new news is that flight records confirm he stayed there.)
    • The administration (including Trump) had their doubts about Michael Flynn, which seem for Trump to stem from Flynn not telling him about a call from Vladimir Putin.
    • Trump wondered if Andrew McCabe had it in for him from the start.
    • Trump refused to criticize Putin even in private.
  1. We learn that House Republicans threatened Rosenstein with impeachment if he didn’t release information about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Russia meddling. Sources say they’re trying to build a case against Rosenstein.
  2. We also learn that Trump pushed Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray to investigate Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two investigators removed from the Russia case. He doesn’t understand why they still have jobs at the FBI, and wants Sessions and Wray to find information to discredit them.
  3. Rod Rosenstein tells Trump he’s not the target of an investigation, which seems to give Mueller a little breathing room and lifts the threat of being fired.
  4. We learn that Sessions told White House Counsel that if Trump fires Rod Rosenstein, Sessions might quit in protest. Not that there seems to be much love lost between Trump and Sessions, but an attorney general resigning could lead to a string of resignations.

Courts/Justice:

  1. While Trump’s been suggesting he might fire Mueller, the Supreme Court is set to hear a case on how SEC judges are appointed. Trump’s Solicitor General is urging the courts to make this case about the president’s power to fire all “officers of the United States” who “exercise significant authority” instead of limiting the scope to firing SEC judges.
  2. With Neil Gorsuch siding with the liberal judges, the Supreme Court invalidates part of a federal law that mandates deportation of immigrants convicted of certain “crimes of violence.” They say the law is too vague.
  3. Parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims finally bring Alex Jones to court for his repeated lies and conspiracy theories intended to convince the public that the parents are crisis actors and it was a “false flag” operation.
    • At least three lawsuits have been filed against him recently for defamation.
    • The parents have been receiving death threats from people who believe Alex Jones’ dangerous lies.
  1. A court holds Kris Kobach in contempt. Kobach led Trump’s voter fraud commission, and has been tied up in courts over his voter suppression efforts as Secretary of State in Kansas. The judge says Kobach disobeyed orders to let thousands of disenfranchised voters in Kansas know that they actually were registered to vote in 2016.
  2. Three federal judges rule that the Trump administration cannot withhold funds from so-called sanctuary cities, a decision roundly criticized by the DOJ. In case you think the judges are activist judges, they were appointed by Reagan, Bush Sr., and Ford.
  3. In response, Trump tweets that sanctuary cities released 142 gang members back into the streets in 2017. In reality, 142 detainer requests for suspected gang members failed for various reasons and not all in sanctuary areas. Reasons include administrative errors, ICE issuing the detainer request too late, ICE being unable to arrange custody transfer, and, yes, non-cooperation by local officials. (You can see the report here). 


Healthcare:

  1. Attorneys general in sixteen states file a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by several red states to overturn the ACA.
  2. Anti-abortion laws are on the rise. In 2017, 19 states passed 63 laws restricting abortions, some even trying to ban all abortions without regard for the mother’s life. Thirty-three states have placed restrictions on abortions since 2011.
  3. The ACLU and Education Law Center win a lawsuit requiring that kids in Flint, MI, get health checks to make sure they haven’t been harmed by the lead in their water supply. They’ll also get special health or education services if needed.
  4. A federal judge rules that the Trump administration can’t cut funding to the successful Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. The administration was trying to cut the program’s five-year grants down to three years.

International:

  1. Trump gives North and South Korea his blessing to talk about formally ending the Korean War. North Korea also drops it’s decades-long requirement that U.S. troops leave South Korea in order for North Korea to denuclearize.
  2. Ahead of the planned meeting with Trump, North Korea says it will suspend their nuclear tests and shut down a test site. Likely, the test site is degraded—nuclear test sites can only be used for so long. Kim Jong Un says there’s no more need for the sites, but it’s not clear if that’s because the country has advanced their weaponry as far as they need to or because they’re focused on peace.
  3. Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again at Mar-a-Lago, nearly a year from their first visit there. Both leaders are under investigation this time around.
  4. The White House says that Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jung Un over Easter weekend. We only learn about it now because Trump thinks it will help Pompeo get confirmed as Secretary of State.
  5. We learn that Jim Mattis pushed Trump to obtain congressional support before launching an attack on Syria. He was overruled, obviously.
  6. Anti-government protests break out across Nicaragua, spurred by changes to their social security system (but discontent against the Ortega government has been simmering for a while). After days of violence and at least 10 deaths, Ortega agrees to reverse the changes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate Judiciary Committee finally considers bipartisan legislation to prevent Trump from firing Mueller. Mitch McConnell says that even if the committee passes the legislation, he won’t bring it to a floor vote in the Senate. The committee says they’ll vote on it anyway
  2. A group of House Republicans ask the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Dana Boente, Loretta Lynch, and other perceived enemies, largely for activities surrounding the Steele dossier.
  3. Trump recently signed a law to protect victims of online sex trafficking, but it could have some unintended consequences. The way the new law is written, entities that host a website could now be held responsible for content that other people put on the site. Some sites are already doing damage control by closing down sections like personal ads and by rewriting the terms of service.
  4. Chuck Schumer introduces a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. This comes not long after we learn that John Boehner will be lobbying for the marijuana industry.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A Starbucks manager calls the police on two black men who ask to use the facilities while waiting for someone to join them and before they order coffee. The men decide to wait for their friend instead of ordering, and the police arrest them and detain them for 8 hours.
  2. The manager no longer works for the company, and Starbucks will close all stores on May 29 in order to train staff on racial bias.
  3. Trump says sanctuary cities are places where undocumented immigrants “breed.” I’m not sure what he means by that, but it’s dog-whistle language that plays on people’s fears of immigrants while at the same time dehumanizing them.
  4. Trump tweets that he won’t fund California’s national guard at the border after Governor Brown says they can only be used to fight drug smuggling and other illegal activities (and that they can’t be used for immigration enforcement).
  5. A jury convicts three men in Kansas of plotting to bomb an apartment complex largely populated by Somali immigrants. The men, part of a militia group called the Kansas Security Force, said their attack would wake people up. This is a good example of why anti-Muslim sentiment is so dangerous.
  6. GOP members of the Senate whip out their new favorite weapon, the Congressional Review Act, to overturn rules laid out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that mandate fairness in auto loans. Studies find that lenders charges minorities more for auto loans than whites, so the CFPB was trying to level the playing field.
  7. Instead of dealing with actual problems facing Tennesseans, the Tennessee House of Representatives has been working on bills to punish Memphis for removing confederate statues. Nothing has passed, but now they voted to strip $250,000 from the city in next year’s budget. The money was for the city’s bicentennial event.
  8. Six children in California’s central valley are orphans after an ICE chase results in a car crash that leaves their parents dead. The people in the car weren’t even ICE targets. People in the area blame ICE and Trump’s immigration policies; ICE blames California’s sanctuary policies.
  9. The city councils in several Orange County cities have voted to fight California’s sanctuary policies against the wishes of many of their constituents. Now they’re starting to get sued over those decisions.
  10. While women and Democratic men in the Senate have signed on to a letter pushing an overhaul of their harassment rules, not one Republican man has signed on to it yet.
  11. Dozens of demonstrators surround a school in Michigan with pickups flying the confederate flag, which eventually forces the school to cancel classes. Despite racial bullying that accompanies the demonstration, the mayor says “people in this country have to start realizing we have to tolerate all peoples’ views.” Um no, sorry. #NoH8
  12. ICE has reportedly been targeting immigration activists, and this week a judge rules that activist Alejandra Pablos be released.
  13. Neo-nazis take to the streets in Newnan, Georgia, to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. Counter-protestors wrote messages of peace and love in chalk on the sidewalks, while Antifa protestors were a little less touchy-feely.
    • Speeches were largely about white power and taking our country back from “illegal immigrants.”
    • Here’s a telling quote: “We need to round them up and put them in camps if need be, like we did the Italians, Germans and Japanese. We are at war with the illegals.”
    • It was mostly non-violent, and the only arrests were for counter-protestors wearing masks.
    • Supporters later gather further away from Newnan to burn a swastika and othala rune.

Climate/EPA:

  1. New information about Scott Pruitt’s paranoia and overspending keeps popping up. It turns out he upgraded his official car to a larger SUV with bullet-resistant seat covers.
  2. 170 Members of Congress sign on to a resolution requesting Pruitt’s immediate resignation from the EPA. They say they have no confidence in his ability to run the agency.
  3. GOP Representative Jim Bridenstein is just barely confirmed as administrator of NASA in a vote along party lines. Jeff Flake was a holdout until he got concessions on an unrelated issue. Bridenstein is not a scientist, lacks aeronautical expertise, and denies climate change.
  4. Just a note on Earth Day. The environmental movement started nearly 50 years ago because of real disasters like burning rivers, thick smog, oil spills, toxic waste leaching into neighborhoods, and poisoned lakes. The movement led to Earth Day and these disasters led to the creation of the EPA and the regulations that helped us clean up the mess we made. And now Scott Pruitt’s EPA, along with the Republican-led Congress, is working to remove the protections that gave us clean air and water and that stopped businesses from dumping toxic wastes. Fortunately, the courts are ruling against most of these changes.
  5. Trump marks Earth Day by promising to reverse even more regulations. He says that a market-driven economy is what will protect the environment and give us clean air, land, and water. (See above explanation of Earth Day.)
  6. Just like the previous few years, this year is predicted to be the worst so far for allergies. Why? Blame climate change for higher concentrations of pollen for longer periods of time.

Budget/Economy:

  1. On tax day, the IRS’s online system for filing taxes failed. They gave everyone an extra day to file their taxes.
  2. Crude oil prices are on the rise again, with our stockpile shrinking and OPEC keeping their supply tight.
  3. Trump criticizes OPEC for rising gas prices. So I see how this works. Now high oil prices AREN’T the president’s fault? (For the record, they aren’t, and they weren’t under Obama either.)
  4. Trump tweets that Japan and South Korea want us to get back in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but South Korea was never part of it.
  5. Marijuana is a big money-maker in states where it’s now legal, but sellers generally deal in cash because banks can’t get around federal law. California legislators are pushing a bill to let the state license banks especially to handle money generated by marijuana sales.
  6. Paul Ryan wants to pass another major tax cut this year. Republicans hope it will generate some enthusiasm with their GOP base and help out in the midterms.
  7. While some are benefiting from the new tariffs, they’re pushing up the cost of newsprint. The Tampa Bay Times announces dozens of job cuts.
  8. Arizona’s teachers vote to strike, even though their governor promised a phased in 20% raise by 2020. Teachers say the money to fund the raises will come out of necessary programs, and the raises don’t apply to support staff.
  9. It’s spreading like a virus. Teachers in Colorado march on the statehouse for higher salaries and retirement fund guarantees, causing school closures in the state.
  10. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to fine Wells Fargo $1 billion over lending abuses. The bank is still struggling to recover from last year’s scandal where account reps signed up customers for fake accounts.
  11. Trump’s tax cuts pay big dividends for our six largest banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and so on). They made $3.6 billion off the tax cuts in just three months this year.

Elections:

  1. Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) announces he’ll resign in the coming weeks, opening another GOP seat in Congress.
  2. The White House legislative director says that Mitch McConnell plans to make the Senate workweek longer to hurt vulnerable Democrats. By making them work longer hours, they have less time to campaign.
  3. Oh man… this is just wrong. Luke Messer is a Republican candidate for the Indiana state legislature where he’s running to fill a seat previously filled by someone who was killed by a drunk driver. Messer chose not to tell party leaders that he had two DUI convictions.

Miscellaneous:

  1. It turns out that Cohen’s mystery third client is none other than Sean Hannity. Hannity’s been reporting on Trump and Cohen, even interviewing Cohen, without giving us any disclosure. He also fought to have the courts keep his name out of it.
  2. Hannity shares the services of other Trump lawyers too, including Jay Sekulow and Victoria Toensing.
  3. Hannity owns several real estate properties under shell companies, some of which he purchased with the assistance of HUD. He also purchased some of those properties through Jeff Brock, who plead guilty to rigging foreclosure auctions from 2007 to 2012.
  4. Cohen requests a 90-day delay in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit, but the judge says he would have to plead the 5th to get that.
  5. Now that Michael Cohen is under criminal investigation, the White House says Cohen is just one of the several lawyers Trump has on retainer.
  6. Amid his fight to keep seized documents secret, Cohen drops his libel suits against BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS. He was suing over allegations in the Steele dossier, and likely wants to avoid being questioned by Fusion GPS lawyers or being forced to present evidence.
  7. Karen McDougall reaches a settlement with the parent company of the National Enquirer, freeing her to talk about her alleged affair with Trump.
  8. Students across the country stage another walkout, this time to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, to protest gun violence, and to push for gun law reform.
  9. Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (R) faces a new scandal and is charged with a felony for misusing a charity donor list. He’s the same guy facing felony charges from taking a nonconsensual sexual picture of his mistress and then blackmailing her with it.
  10. Barbara Bush passes away at 92. While members of both parties praise her, Roger Stone calls her a “vindictive drunk” and we find out where the GOP draws the line at supporting Trump’s friends.
  11. The Washington post wins a Pulitzer for reporting on the Alabama Senate race (specifically the Roy Moore scandal). The New York Times in conjunction with the New Yorker, wins a Pulitzer, for work on breaking the Harvey Weinstein sex-abuse story. Both the Washington Post and New York Times win Pulitzers for their work on Russian interference in our elections.
  12. Electricity goes out across Puerto Rico, which still hadn’t restored electricity to all residents.
  13. A Southwest jet blows an engine, killing one passenger who was partially sucked out and apparently hit by shrapnel. The pilot shows nerves of steel, and turns out to be one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots.
  14. The DOJ’s inspector general referred his findings on Andrew McCabe to the top federal prosecutor, who could file charges against McCabe.
  15. McCabe’s lawyers say that McCabe will sue Trump for defamation.
  16. A man shoots up a Waffle House in Tennessee, killing four people. Authorities had revoked his firearms license and seized his weapons last year, giving the weapons to the shooter’s father who then turned around and gave the guns back. The big hero of the day is James Shaw Jr., who charged the shooter, grabbed the weapon, and threw it to the other side of the counter.
  17. Ugh. Another data breach. SunTrust Banks announces that one of their employees might have stolen the personal data of 1.5 million customers. Not only that, but the employee likely gave that info to a “criminal third party.”
  18. After years of calling the parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims “crisis actors” in a false flag shooting, Alex Jones now says he believes the shooting really did happen. I’m guessing that’s because some of the parents are suing him for defamation. Of note, Alex Jones also recently lost custody of his children. His defense during that trial was that his decades of spreading conspiracy theories and lies is “performance art.”

Polls:

  1. Mueller’s favorability drops 11 points over the past month, likely a result of the Trump and GOP campaigns to attack his credibility. 32% see him favorably, 30% unfavorably, and 38% have no opinion.
  2. Mueller has a 19% unfavorability rating with Democrats, but almost half of Republicans view him unfavorably (up nearly 20 points from last month).
  3. Trump’s approval rating with white Evangelical Protestants hits a new high, reaching 75%. I wonder what he’s done that’s made them think more highly of him.