Tag: climate

Week 60 in Trump

Posted on March 20, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week, students at over 3,000 schools across the country protest gun violence and honor the Parkland victims in staged walkouts. Each walkout starts at 10 AM local time, and students stay out for 17 minutes in tribute to the 17 lost lives in Parkland. Students also march on Washington and the walkouts extend across the globe. Here’s what they want. It’s pretty simple, so accusing them of not knowing what they’re doing is pretty disingenuous:

  • Ban assault weapons
  • Universal background checks for all gun sales
  • Pass a gun violence restraining order law (so courts can disarm people who display warning signs)

Some schools punish students by giving them unexcused absences or suspensions—some even suspend students for five days (I’m looking at you Cobb County, Georgia). Others put their schools on lockdown so students can’t go out; students take a knee instead. Social media is awash with “grownups” saying students don’t know what they’re protesting, that students are forced into this, and that they couldn’t organize this movement on their own. It’s the 60s all over again.

And also, 7,000 pairs of shoes are laid out on the grounds in front of the U.S. Capitol, representing every child killed by a gun since Sandy Hook in 2012.


Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee effectively close their Russia case, just as Robert Mueller is expanding his investigation into Trump associates, Trump Organization, and a secret meeting between Erik Prince, George Nader, and a UAE official. They release a report saying they’ve seen no evidence that there was collusion or that Russia was trying to tip the scales toward Trump. Investigations continue in other congressional committees.
  2. And who’s been feeding this guy truth serum? Republican Trey Goody, who actually read the underlying legal documents, disputes some of the report’s findings. Our intelligence community disputes even more of them.
  3. Representative Mike Conaway (R-Texas) says that it wasn’t part of the House Intelligence Committee’s mission to investigate collusion between Russia and Trump associates. So basically they said they didn’t find the collusion that they weren’t even looking for.
  4. Another Representative on the House Intelligence Committee, Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), also contradicts the report, saying that there is evidence Russia was trying to help Trump in the elections.
  5. Democrats release a rebuttal to the report, outlining the areas where they think the investigation is incomplete, including key witnesses that were never called, subpoenas that were never issued, organizations that were never questioned (like social media giants), and broad issues that were never investigated. For example, the committee hasn’t interviewed key players like Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, and Flynn.
  6. A former Russian spy and his daughter are found poisoned in a park and are currently in critical condition. Investigators confirm that the poison is definitely of Russian origin.
  7. And then Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov is found dead in London. Police are treating it as a murder.
  8. Prime Minister Therese May pretty much accuses Russia of an act of war and gives them 48 hours to answer for the poisonings.
  9. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calls the act egregious and says there will be consequences. But Russia probably isn’t too worried about Tillerson anymore for obvious reasons.
  10. Theresa May’s first act of reprisal is to expel 23 Russian diplomats thought to be spies. She also cancels meetings with Russian officials.
  11. The U.S., France, and Germany join the United Kingdom in saying Russia is responsible for the poisonings.
  12. Two witnesses come forward to say Roger Stone spoke with Julian Assange in early 2016, and that he knew about the hacked emails before they were publicized.
  13. We learn that Qatari officials didn’t share information about the UAE having illicit influence over Kushner with Robert Mueller’s team because they were afraid it would hurt their relationship with the Trump administration.
  14. Trump finally imposes sanctions against Russia for meddling in our elections, one month after the deadline set by Congress. He doesn’t include all the recommended sanctions.
  15. Mueller subpoenas Trump Organization records, a sign that he’s expanding his investigation and that he’s not close to the end despite rumors to the contrary.
  16. Federal regulators say that a 2017 Russian hack into our energy grid didn’t compromise any of our power plants, including nuclear power plants. The hacks did, however, trigger a scramble to secure our networks, particularly those managing our infrastructure.
  17. Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for using an academic research cover to scrape data about hundreds of thousands of users. Cambridge Analytica also met with Russian businessmen to talk about how Cambridge Analytica used their data to target U.S. voters.
  18. The Massachusetts attorney general launches an investigation over claims that Cambridge Analytica scraped data from over 50 million Facebook users to develop social media techniques to help Trump’s campaign.
  19. Sessions fires Andy McCabe just over 24 hours before he was to retire, meaning be could lose his pension. McCabe will likely appeal this, other members of government extend offers to hire him short-term, and it is also possible that his pension won’t be that deeply affected.
  20. McCabe learned of his firing from a press release, though he likely saw it coming.
  21. Following Andrew McCabe’s firing, Trump’s lawyers says Mueller’s investigation should be halted and implied to Rod Rosenstein that he should end it.
  22. Andrew McCabe has contemporaneous memos of his interactions with Trump and of Comey’s descriptions of his interactions with Trump. He’s already met with Mueller and turned over copies.
  23. Trump says the Mueller investigation is partisan, even though there are charges and guilty pleas. And even though Mueller and many he works with are Republican.
  24. Senator Marco Rubio criticizes the McCabe firing. Representative Trey Gowdy criticizes the handling of the firing, saying Trump’s acting like he’s guilty. Senator Lindsey Graham says that if Trump tries to fire Mueller, it will be the end of his presidency. All Republicans.
  25. The FEC opens an investigation into whether the NRA received illegal contributions from Russian groups to support Trump’s campaign.
  26. A federal judge warns that Paul Manafort could spend the rest of his life in prison. Manafort is on 24-hour lockdown in his home.
  27. Seth Rich’s family files a lawsuit against Fox News over them promoting a rumor that Rich was the leaker of the DNC emails during the 2016 campaign and that he was killed because of that. If you remember, Seth Rich was a DNC staffer who was killed in an apparent random attack.
  28. Three sources say Jeff Sessions didn’t actually push back when George Papadopoulos suggested the Trump campaign meet with Russians, leading some to wonder whether he committed perjury in his congressional testimony.
  29. Russians elect Putin for another six years in a landslide victory.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump’s administration wants to permanently take away federal judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which stop policies from taking effect until the court can make a final ruling.

International:

  1. Trump fires Rex Tillerson, reportedly via Twitter but with a warning from John Kelly. Trump picks Mike Pompeo, currently CIA director, to replace him as Secretary of State.
  2. Pompeo has a background of voting against women’s and LGBTQ rights, as well as making anti-Muslim comments. He has also supports torture. So there’s that.
  3. Trump then fires Tillerson’s top aide, Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein, for giving an account of the firing that differed from the official White House story.
  4. Trump picks Gina Haspel to replace Mike Pompeo. She’d be the first woman to hold the top position at the CIA, and seems widely respected at the CIA. Her confirmation could be tough though, because of issues around her role the torture of al-Qaeda prisoners.
  5. Prosecutors in Germany are reviewing a request from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) to issue an arrest warrant on Haspel for her involvement in extreme torture measures after 9/11. NOTE: A report on her role in waterboarding suspected terrorists was later retracted. She was not involved in the waterboarding of a suspect who was later found to be innocent.
  6. Steve Bannon addresses France’s far right party, spreading his own brand of white nationalism and telling them to wear labels like racist, xenophobic, and nativist proudly.
  7. Trump brags that he just made up trade deficit “facts” in a meeting with Justin Trudeau, saying the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada. According to Trump, Trudeau disputed that, saying there is no deficit. And Trudeau’s right. You can read the actual facts at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
  8. And then, to make it even weirder, Justin Trudeau says they had no such conversation. So it seems Trump lied about making up facts at a meeting he made up.
  9. And then Trump doubles down, tweeting that we do have a trade deficit with Canada. Again, we do not.
  10. In a fundraising speech, Trump:
    • Accuses the European Union, China, Japan, and South Korea of ripping us off and pillaging our work force.
    • Calls NAFTA a disaster and then criticizes the World Trade Organization.
    • Threatens Seoul if they give us a better trade deal.
  1. The White House plans to have Ivanka Trump meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha when she visits the U.S. Normally the minister would meet with the Secretary of State, but Tillerson was fired. Among other things, Tillerson and Kang planned to discuss talks with North Korea.
  2. Philippine President Duterte says he’ll pull the Philippines out of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is investigating Duterte for crimes against humanity for his handling of the drug problem.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Kentucky takes a page from Florida and bans child marriages.
  2. The House passes a school safety bill. It provides training for both school employees and law enforcement to manage mental health issues and provides money to put systems in place for reporting threats.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Homeland Security spokesman James Schwab resigns, saying that he can’t continue to “perpetuate misleading facts” for the administration. In other words, he’s tired of lying for Trump.
  2. Trump says it’s Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s fault that ICE didn’t pick up more undocumented immigrants in a sweep last week after she issued a warning before the raid took place. ICE typically picks up about a third of their targets in these sweeps, and here they picked up 232 out of 1,000. Trump said they were all violent criminals, but just under half of those picked up had criminal records of any kind.
  3. Trump blames Obama-era rules for mass shootings. The rules in question were an effort to rein in the harsher disciplines brought down on minority students, like suspensions and expulsions. IKYDK, no black student has been the perpetrator of a mass school shooting and minority schools aren’t the targets of these shootings.
  4. Attorney General Jeff Sessions re-opens a court decision that protects domestic violence victims seeking asylum in the U.S. This indicates he’s contemplating removing or weakening these protections.
  5. Trump visits the wall prototypes south of San Diego, only to find protests on both sides of the border.
  6. The ACLU sues ICE for detaining hundreds of asylum seekers with no due process.
  7. A court clears DeAndre Harris of assault charges stemming from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last year where he was severely beaten. Yes, they charged the man who himself was severely beaten. The men who beat him haven’t been tried yet.
  8. Trump wants to trade a short-term DACA deal for funding for his border wall.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Why are we suddenly hearing so much about bomb cyclones? Because abnormally warm temperatures in the Arctic can bring them on, according to a recent study. And since four of the past five years have had an Arctic thaw, we’re seeing rougher weather on the upper east coast.
  2. 2017 was the costliest year yet for weather and climate disasters in the U.S., and yet FEMA just removed any reference to climate change from its strategic planning document. Because if we don’t talk about global warming, it doesn’t exist, right? It’ll just go away?

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump blocks the $117 billion bid from Broadcom to buy Qualcomm citing security concerns. Broadcom drop its bid.
  2. Trump names TV personality Larry Kudlow to Gary Cohn’s old position as top economic advisor. Kudlow has gotten some things very, very wrong, including predicting these things wouldn’t occur: the positive effects of Bill Clinton’s tax plan, the negative effects of Bush Jr.’s tax plan, the housing bubble in 2007, and the great recession.
  3. The Senate passes a bill to weaken the financial protections in Dodd-Frank, increasing the size of banks that do not need to follow the regulations. They say that this will help small community banks get out from under regulatory red tape, but most community banks have less than $10 billion in assets and this bill only helps banks that have $50 billion to $250 billion in assets. So I guess if you consider that a small bank… What the bill changes is that these banks no longer need to have an emergency plan for in case they fail.
  4. The House passes a bill requiring federal financial regulatory agencies to limit burdens on institutions. In other words, the bill favors institutions over consumer rights and once again would allow them to engage in the risky behavior that led to the great recession. And just to make sure they erase Obama’s and Elizabeth Warren’s fingerprints on any regulations, they make it retroactive to any regulations passed in the last seven years.
  5. A federal court tosses out the fiduciary rule, an Obama-era rule that required your financial advisor to act in your best interest instead of pushing you into investments that would put money in your advisor’s pockets.
  6. According to Puerto Rico’s governor, the Treasury reduced their $4.7 billion disaster relief loan to just $2 billion.

Elections:

  1. A court blocks Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, from enforcing his law requiring a voter ID to register to vote. The 10th circuit court calls it a denial of a fundamental constitutional right. If you’ll remember, Kobach believes there are thousands of undocumented immigrants who are registered to vote, even though decades of commissions and studies (both conservative and liberal) conclude that this isn’t the case.
  2. Democrat Conor Lamb defeats Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania’s district 18 special election for House of Representatives. The race was to replace Republican Representative Tim Murphy, who was staunchly anti-abortion, except, it turns out, when it’s his mistress who is pregnant.
  3. This is the 42nd seat to flip from Republican to Democrat since Trump’s election. Four have flipped the other way.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Three packages left outside homes explode in Austin, killing two people and injuring another.
  2. Betsy DeVos can barely answer basic questions about our education system in an interview on 60 Minutes. She also says that she doesn’t intentionally visit troubled schools.
  3. Trump considers firing David Shelkin from the VA and moving Rick Perry from the Department of Energy to the VA. Though by the end of the week, he’s looking at different replacements
  4. The White House fires Trump’s personal assistant, John McEntee, because of financial crimes being investigated by DHS. The crimes must’ve been bad, because they didn’t even give him a chance to get his coat before walking him out. But then Trump gives him a job as senior advisor for his campaign operations.
  5. Data scientists at MIT publish a study concluding that fake news is shared much, much more than real news on social media and in one test, fake news reached 1,500 people 6 times faster than real news. Even when controlling for verified accounts, fake news is 70% more likely to be shared.
  6. Well, that was brief. At the beginning of the week, Trump reverses his stance on the NRA and drops his promises on gun control efforts, like raising the purchase age and expanding background checks. Here’s what he offers instead:
    • Rigorous firearm training to school employees who want it
    • Modest fixes to the background check process
    • A new Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by Betsy DeVos.
  1. A bill in the Senate to improve the background check database has 62 co-sponsors (so by definition, it’s bipartisan). But it’s being held up by the remaining Republicans.
  2. Another teacher accidentally discharges a weapon in class, injuring three students.
  3. Leaked emails imply that the purging of career officials at the State Department was politically motivated and targeted people who weren’t loyal to Trump.
  4. Donald Trump Jr.’s wife of twelve years files for divorce.
  5. A UPenn study concludes that when a Trump rally comes to a town, there’s a rise in violence on that day. There was an average of 2.3 more assaults on the days of the rallies in the data and cities they studied.
  6. Trump’s lawyers say Stormy Daniels violated her non-disclosure 20 times and wants $20 million in damages ($1 million per violation).
  7. Trump lays down an epic tweetstorm following McCabe’s firing. Here’s some of what he said:
    • Mueller’s team has 13 Democrats and no Republicans, so it must be partisan. (Except Mueller himself is a Republican, so already we know that’s false.)
    • Andy McCabe and James Comey are both liars, and Comey even lied under oath. (His source was Fox & Friends.)
    • The following all came from one tweet: No collusion, no crime, fake dossier, crooked Hillary, FISA court, WITCH HUNT!
    • He brings up the donations made from the DNC to McCabe’s wife’s campaign. (This isn’t even being investigated.)
    • The House Intelligence Committee found no collusion. (In fairness, that wasn’t part of their investigation and Republicans on the committee disagree.)
    • And my favorite:

Quote of the Week:

Or maybe this is just the understatement of the week…

“I anticipated that this would be a lower-profile job.”

~Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein:

Week 19 in Trump

Posted on June 5, 2017 in Politics, Trump, Uncategorized

The big news of the week is our withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. At an Asian security forum in Singapore, James Mattis gave a speech reiterating our support for national alliances and institutions in an effort to reassure our allies. When asked whether moves like leaving the Paris accord meant the U.S. is abandoning these alliances and institutions, here was his response (referring to a Winston Churchill quote on democracy):

“To quote a British observer of us from some years back, bear with us. Once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing…. So, we will still be there, and we will be there with you.”

In other words, once we’re done fucking around, we’ll start doing the right thing again.

Russia:

  1. The Russia investigation expands to include Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is refusing to cooperate with investigations, former adviser and White House aide Boris Epshteyn, and campaign aide Michael Caputo.
  2. The Kushner investigation includes looking into why Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker and associate of Putin’s. This is part of finding out why he was setting up a confidential line of communication.
  3. Trump makes moves to reopen two Russian compounds in the U.S. that Obama had closed when he expelled 50 Russian spies last fall. Trump wants to return the compounds to Russia.
  4. Putin changes his tune somewhat and says it’s possible that “patriotically minded” Russians might have been involved in last year’s email and DNC server hack, as well as in meddling in the elections. He still denies that the Russian government was involved, and adds that it could’ve been some kid sitting in their living room.
  5. The house intelligence committee issues seven new subpoenas in the Russia investigation, indicating they are ramping things up. Three of these are about the unmasking, however…
  6. …In an apparent misunderstanding of the word “recuse,” Devon Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee who “recused” himself from the Russia investigation two months ago, issues subpoenas looking for info not about Russian ties or meddling, but about the unmasking of Trump associates caught up in foreign surveillance.
  7. Almost immediately after taking office, Trump officials asked the State Department to work on lifting sanctions with Russia and returning diplomatic compounds in the U.S. to them. State Department officials were so concerned by this they began lobbying Congress to pass legislation to block it.
  8. Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia probe is expanding to include the investigation into Michael Flynn and a criminal investigation into Paul Manafort, and it could be expanded to include the DoJ’s involvement in the Comey firing.
  9. According to Mark Warner, Democrat ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, there are reports that the Kremlin paid over a thousand internet trolls to create fake anti-Clinton news stories and to use botnets to target the stories to key states. He reconfirms the hacking and selective leaks.
  10. The Russia investigations hamper Trump’s ability to fill government jobs. There are hundreds of open positions, but candidates are nervous about coming on to this administration and the people who are doing the hiring are distracted by the probe. They’ve only nominated 117 out of 559 major Senate-confirmed positions.
  11. NBC and CNN report that, according to several U.S. officials, the Russia investigations include a meeting in April of last year at the Mayflower Hotel between Trump, Sessions, Kushner and Kislyak.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge in D.C. throws out a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton brought by the parents of one of the people who lost their lives in Benghazi. The lawsuit alleges that Clinton’s use of a private email server directly resulted in the deaths, and that Clinton had called the parents liars. The judge ruled against both of these, and said about the latter, “To the contrary, the statements [made by Clinton] portray plaintiffs as normal parents, grieving over the tragic loss of their loved ones.” The parents are expected to appeal.

Healthcare:

  1. Senator John Thune says that their caucus is done with preliminary meetings and is now drafting the base language for their replacement plan for the ACA.
  2. John Cornyn promises there will be a bill by the end of July at the latest.
  3. Governors from both sides are relieved that the House healthcare bill is stalled, and voice concerns about the Senate version, specifically around block grants. Senate Republicans want to solicit governor input for their version of the bill.
  4. Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says it’s not likely that they’ll get a healthcare deal at all, and Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) says he doubts they can pass a healthcare bill before the August recess.
  5. The California Senate passes a statewide single-payer healthcare bill, which now moves on to the Assembly for approval. Funding is only partially worked out, so it’ll be up to the Assembly to plan that before approving.
  6. Trump says we should spend more on healthcare to make our system the best, but his budget cuts anywhere from $800 billion to $1.4 trillion from Medicaid and doesn’t request any additional healthcare spending.

International:

  1. A car bomb went off during rush hour in Kabul, killing an estimated 90 people and injuring over 400. This happened in what should be a highly secure area near the embassies.
  2. Concerns about security arise on news that Trump hands out his cell phone number to world leaders and tells them they can call him directly. On an unsecured line. Without the meeting preparation needed to hold an informed discussion.
  3. French President Macron took some hard lines with Putin in their meeting this week, and called him out on Russian interference in the French election (if you remember, there was a last minute document leak after the media blackout). While Macron took a firm stance with Putin, Trump has been taking a softer stance with Putin.
  4. A gunman attempts to rob a Manila resort and casino, leaving 37 dead. This was not a terrorist attack, but a lone gunman, though Trump calls it a terrorist attack in his Paris agreement speech.
  5. Trump announces that the U.S. Embassy in Israel will remain in Tel Aviv for now instead of relocating to Jerusalem.
  6. A group of three assailants drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge, and then jump out and begin stabbing people, leaving at least seven dead and 48 injured. Police kill all three assailants and neutralize the threat within eight minutes. Later police arrest 12 in connection with the terrorist attacks. This attack comes a week before the elections and is the third recent attack (though the attacks are said to be not connected).
  7. Trump and other world leaders express condolences and support to England, but then Trump criticizes London’s mayor in a tweet, taking his words out of context. He also tries to use this as support for his travel ban.
  8. Putin says that if Sweden becomes a part of NATO, Russia will consider it a threat and will think about how to eliminate that threat.
  9. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with Qatar for sponsoring terrorist groups, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. This could make things a little harder for the U.S. in the war against ISIS since our military operations are spread throughout the region.
  10. H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn pen an op-ed where they claim Trump expressed support for NATO’s article 5, though he never said that in his speech.

Legislation:

  1. Trump calls for changes to senatorial proceedings to allow things like healthcare and tax reform to pass with a simple majority instead of the currently required 60 votes. Senate Republicans are using reconciliation to pass these through, which doesn’t require 60 votes.
  2. The California Senate passes a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be allowed on the primary ballot. The bill moves to the Assembly.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The tourism industry estimates that international tourism will drop by an additional 800,000 in Southern California over the next three years. International tourism in Southern California dropped 16% from the first quarter of 2016.
  2. The Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to allow the travel ban to go ahead, filing a petition to overturn the appeals courts rulings blocking the ban.
  3. The administration calls for tougher visa vetting, including social media checks.
  4. A federal court rules that a 17-year-old transgender student can use the men’s bathroom. Earlier in the year, the administration overturned the bathroom rule that allowed students to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender they identify with. This ruling is consistent with the previous administration’s stance that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination allows students to use the bathroom consistent with their self-identity.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump indicates he’s planning to pull out of the Paris agreement, but tries to keep us all in suspense like on a reality TV show. When he does announce the withdrawal, his speech is peppered with much misinformation. Critics say it weakens efforts to combat climate change and weakens our global standing. Proponents say it will save us money and now the world can’t tell us what to do… except this whole thing was our idea.
  2. Trump opts for the withdrawal process laid out in the agreement, which could take nearly four years.
  3. In his statement on the withdrawal, Trump issues a few untruths:
    • He called the attack at the Manila casino a terrorist attack, though it turned out to be a robbery gone very bad.
    • He said the tax bill is progressing through Congress, though there is no tax bill.
    • He uses incorrect statistics about slowing the increase in global temperature with numbers from a draft done before the deal was even signed. The actual reduction was expected to be between 0.6 and 1.1 °C.
    • He says that India could double their coal production, which is technically true. However that also means we could do what we want to since the accord is nonbinding. Also, both India and China are on track to exceed their promises to the agreement.
    • He says we’ll ″begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.″ Uh, Europe says no thanks– not renegotiable. According to Christiana Figueres, a former UN official who worked on the deal, “You cannot renegotiate individually. It’s a multilateral agreement. No one country can unilaterally change the conditions.”
    • Figueres also says Trump shows a lack of understanding of how international agreements work. Apparently we can’t even submit our intention to exit the accord until November 2019, and then the process would take a year.
    • Trump says the agreement puts draconian burdens on the U.S. and that we’ll have massive legal liability if we stay in. But an agreement can’t really be both nonbinding and impose draconian burdens, and a nonbinding agreement can’t have legal implications. The point of the agreement is to use public accountability.
    • He says China and India are the two largest emitters. Actually, China and the U.S. are, but no one tops the U.S. in per capita emissions; China’s are about half ours per capita.
    • There are more misstatements–I can’t get into them all here. Here are a few links: factcheck.org, politifact, WaPo.
  4. Days before Trump announces his decision on the Paris agreement, Russia expresses support for the agreement.
  5. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Fox News correspondent, says Trump called her the morning of the decision for advice.
  6. Tesla’s Elon Musk and Disney’s Bob Iger leave Trump’s advisory council due to the exit from the climate deal. The CEOs of 25 leading tech companies signed a letter against the withdrawal. Even Exxon Mobile thinks we should keep our seat at that table.
  7. Major companies say the accord would’ve helped create jobs in clean energy fields.
  8. Three states, 80 universities, more than 200 mayors, and more than 100 businesses vow to remain in the Paris agreement and to adopt and uphold the commitments to our original goals by working together to create a clean energy economy.
  9. More Americans say the U.S. should stay in the Paris agreement by a ratio of more than 5 to 1.
  10. Michael Bloomberg says he’ll cover the cost of the U.S. portion of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change to the tune of about $15 million.
  11. In response to our withdrawal from the agreement, Macron expresses his says his country still supports the American people and our efforts against climate change. He invites scientists to his country if their research is cut here, inviting brain drain from the U.S.
  12. The 2017 hurricane season starts with no one at the helms of FEMA and NOAA. Trump nominated someone to head FEMA a month ago, but is waiting on confirmation. He hasn’t appointed anyone to head NOAA.
  13. A California court rules against Monsanto and says California can label RoundUp weed killer with cancer warnings.
  14. The California state Senate passes a bill guiding the state to get its energy from 100% renewable sources by 2045. The bill moves on to the Assembly.
  15. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke starts a review process on opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. The review should take a month and will include input from locals. The results of opening ANWR are unpredictable, with the high cost of exploration and drilling in the difficult terrain and the low cost of oil with the current glut.
  16. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) goes live.

Budget/Economy/Trade:

  1. The unemployment rate continues its steady decline to 4.3% last month even though job growth continues to slow, likely because we’re near full employment.
  2. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he’s open to completing a trade agreement with the EU, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
  3. It appears that the relationship between corporate American and Trump is cooling off, with fewer CEOs and other executives meeting in the White House and future meetings falling apart. Many business titans criticize the decision to leave the Paris accord saying it will hurt us economically and take us out of a leadership role.

Miscellaneous:

  1. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this: Trump tweets ″Despite the negative press covfefe…″ Social media hilarity ensues.
  2. The directors of the CIA and National Intelligence worry that because of the casual nature of security briefings, Trump doesn’t retain all the intelligence he gets. Briefings are very visually driven (charts, graphs, pictures) as opposed to data-driven.
  3. Continuing to make violence more acceptable, a Texas legislator threatens to ″put a bullet″ in the head of a colleague after a disagreement over an illegal immigrant rally.
  4. For the first time, a U.S. test of the ground-based system for intercepting ballistic missiles completes successfully.
  5. The White House finally makes public the ethics waivers granted so far to staffers, some of whom were lobbyists and some whose current position overlaps with work they did in the private sector. The waivers exempt them from certain ethics rules. Waivers were granted to Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon. The number of waivers granted by the administration so far is equal to the total number granted by Obama’s administration over 8 years.
  6. Bannon’s waiver allows him to maintain his relationship with Breitbart.
  7. The White House is complying with Senator Burr’s request for all copies of the 2014 report on torture. This report is the result of a years-long investigation and it details CIA methods for detention and interrogation, including water boarding and sleep deprivation. Burr’s request has lead some to believe that Congress wants this information to disappear.
  8. The Secret Service is short agents, and in an effort to bulk up their ranks, they’re relaxing their drug policies for new hires. Agents have been working double-duty to keep up with the president’s far-flung, jet-set family.
  9. This is news to me, but not new this week: Richard and Rebekah Mercer pushed for these positions in the Trump campaign: Steve Bannon as CEO, Kellyanne Conway as Manager, and David Bossie as Deputy Manager. This led even William Kristol to dub it the ″merger of the Trump campaign with the kooky right.” Among other things, Mercer is the multi-million dollar investor in Cambridge Analytica, a firm used by both the Trump and Brexit campaigns to pinpoint and target demographics using ″secret psychological methods.″
  10. Jared Kushner gets in own intelligence briefing every morning before Trump gets his.
  11. The White House has been ignoring oversight requests from Democratic legislators, but this week they make it official by telling federal agencies to ignore the requests.
  12. This isn’t newsworthy for any reason other than the hypocrisy of Trump’s (and the right’s) criticism of Obama. Trump goes golfing for the 23rd times in his 19 weeks in office.
  13. Mike Dubke, Trump’s communication director, resigns after just under three months in the job.
  14. Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George T. Conway III, withdraws from consideration to lead the Civil Division of the DoJ.
  15. Tom MacArthur resigns as chair of the Tuesday Group caucus, a group of moderate Republicans in the House, amid his work on the healthcare bill (the waiver amendment).
  16. Polls show that 43% of Americans want Congress to start impeachment proceedings… even though they don’t think Trump is guilty of an impeachable offense? Weird.