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

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

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

Missing From Last Week:

1. Now that I’m reading last week’s New York Times piece about the conditions in Clint, it turns out that even border agents are broken up about the conditions the kids are being kept in. They have repeatedly reported the conditions to their superiors with no response and no assistance.

• • With all the recent publicity, though, an internal investigation into the facility was ordered last month.
  • It’s a really tough read.

Russia:

1. The White House blocks Annie Donaldson, Don McGahn’s former chief of staff, from answering over 200 questions from Congress about obstruction of justice. The Mueller report cites Donaldson’s notes dozens of times, and Congress asked her to elaborate.
2. The DOJ interviewed Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the now infamous Steele dossier, for 16 hours last month as part of the inspector general’s investigation into the Russia investigation. At first, the interviews were contentious with interviewers hostile to Steele’s information, but they found his testimony to be both credible and surprising.

• • Reminder #1: The surveillance of Carter Page began after he left the Trump campaign.
  • Reminder #2: The FISA warrant didn’t rely on the Steele dossier, though they did use the dossier as a supporting document.

3. The House Judiciary votes (along party lines, of course) to authorize subpoenas of a dozen witnesses as part of their obstruction probe: Jared Kushner; Jeff Sessions; Rod Rosenstein; Michael Flynn; John Kelly; Rob Porter; American Media, Inc. executives David Pecker and Dylan Howard; Keith Davidson (Stormy Daniels’ one-time attorney), Corey Lewandowski, Rick Dearborn, and Jody Hunt.
4. Robert Mueller and House Democrats reach an agreement to delay his testimony by one week and to extend the length of his interview in order to give more members a chance to question him.
5. The DOJ orders two of Mueller’s investigators not to appear for House interviews. I’m not clear on how anyone can look at this and not realize how obstructive the DOJ is being.

Legal Fallout:

1. New York State passes a law that allows congressional committees to access state tax returns for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose.” This opens the door to them getting Trump’s state tax returns, if not his federal returns. Suits to obtain Trumps federal returns are pending against the Treasury and IRS.
2. Congressional Democrats who are suing Trump for using the presidency to profit from foreign governments issue dozens of subpoenas to Trump Organization and other Trump businesses. The DOJ asks an appeals court to stop the subpoenas. Wait… is it the DOJ’s job to get involved in lawsuits against a sitting president?
3. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses a separate emoluments case involving the Trump Hotel in DC. This case was brought by the Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
4. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta defends the plea deal he brokered with Jeff Epstein a decade ago, which allowed Epstein to plead to soliciting prostitution (a reduced plea for what he actually did). Acosta says it was the best he could do, and blames the state attorney’s office.

• • A Palm Beach County attorney disputes Acosta’s account, saying that a lengthy indictment was prepared but never used after Acosta brokered the plea deal.
  • Though Trump takes Acosta’s side in the controversy, Acosta resigns as Labor Secretary. As with all the questionable characters who’ve fallen from this administration, Trump says he feels very bad for Acosta. I wonder if he also feels bad for the children Epstein hurt?
  • Finally, can we all just call this what it is and stop candy-coating it? Epstein raped these girls over and over again, and he pimped them out to his friends to be raped over and over again.

5. If you’re feeling sorry for Acosta, he’s never had the interest of children at heart. As Secretary of Labor, he tried to cut the budget allocated to fighting child labor, forced labor, and child trafficking from $68 million to just $18.5 million.
6. After recusing himself from the Epstein sex trafficking case, Attorney General William Barr unrecuses himself (hey, Jeff Sessions, I guess you can unrecuse!). He will recuse himself from any investigation of Epstein’s previous case in Florida. Barr’s former law firm had represented Epstein.
7. When federal officials arrested Jeff Epstein last week, they found a trove of nude photos of underage girls locked away in a safe.
8. Michael Flynn was supposed to testify against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian. But prosecutors no longer believe Flynn’s version of events and view Flynn as a co-conspirator. So far, the judge says there isn’t enough evidence of that.
9. Felix Sater finally sits down with House Intelligence Committee investigators for an interview about Trump Tower Moscow dealings. Sater has delayed his testimony before and missed his previously scheduled testimony.

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

1. A federal judge blocks Trump’s rule that would’ve forced drug companies to include prices in their TV ads. This was part of Trump’s efforts to reduce drug prices.
2. After that, Trump withdraws a plan to limit drug rebates to middlemen like insurance companies and Medicare.
3. Republican Senators express hope that the courts do completely gut Obamacare, though they have no plan at this time to fall back on in case the courts do rule that way. They’re awaiting a decision in a Trump-backed lawsuit.

• • If the courts do decimate Obamacare, it would likely cause chaos in the insurance markets.
  • Mitt Romney says he has some ideas. And of course he does. Obamacare was based on the plan Romney instituted in Massachusetts.
  • Susan Collins, on the other hand, thinks it would be very bad if the courts decide to do away with Obamacare. Too bad she didn’t think about that while she was voting to confirm judges who won’t uphold Obamacare.

1. Trump signs an executive order directing DHHS to develop policies to improve treatments for patients with kidney problems. The goals are to reduce kidney failure, reduce the need for dialysis, and make more kidneys available for transplant.

International:

1. Massive protests continue in Hong Kong even though the Chinese extradition bill they were protesting has been deemed dead.

• • People! This should be your wakeup call. If you want to effect change you have to get out and protest. You have to call your Members of Congress. Across the world, we’ve seen how effective protests are for the people.

1. The British ambassador to the U.S. resigns after his cables criticizing President Crazy Train are leaked (and after Trump calls him a pompous fool). Turns out his cables weren’t undiplomatic at all; they’re typical of how ambassadors criticize governments (in private). It also turns out that our own ambassadors to other countries have been behaving worse, and very publicly so.

• • Our ambassador in Berlin regularly and openly criticizes the German government (he started within hours of taking his role).
  • Our ambassador to the Netherlands has lied about their being “no go” zones in the country because of Islamic extremists (though he later admitted he had no idea what he was talking about).
  • Most of the foreign ambassadors in DC share the UK ambassador’s view of Trump.

3. The former ambassador to the UK reported back to his country that Trump was embarking on “an act of diplomatic vandalism” when he pulled out of the Iran deal, and that the reason Trump pulled out was merely because it was a deal brokered by Barack Obama. The White House failed to produce a “day after” plan for the withdrawal, which is likely why we’re now looking at a uranium-enriched Iran.
4. After the cables are leaked, Trump criticizes Theresa May for making a mess of Brexit. Two weeks ago, Trump said May had done a very good job handling Brexit.

Legislation/Congress:

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

Family Separation:

1. Here are some highlights of the House Oversight Committee report on child separations:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The judge overseeing Trump’s case about getting the citizenship question on the 2020 Census denies the DOJ’s request to change out their entire team of lawyers on the case.
2. Trump blames the radical left for blocking the citizenship question, even though it was a conservative right SCOTUS that actually blocked it.
3. The House announces a vote next week on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt regarding their refusal to comply with subpoenas over the citizenship question. Of course, the DOJ will refuse to charge them with a crime (in fact the DOJ urges people not to comply with these subpoenas).

4. 4chan has always been an online forum for hate speech, but racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender slurs have increased by 40% since 2015.

• • If you think it’s harmless, former users say that the constant exposure to the hate desensitized them to hateful language and even violence in their real lives.
  • The proportion of terrorist attacks carried out by the far-right has tripled in the last five years.
  • Extremists have posted about their terrorist plans on 8chan, which is an even more vitriolic version of 4chan. Other users encouraged their terrorist activities, such as the Christ Church mosque shooting.

5. Trump invites a group of alt-right online social media personalities to the White House, and announces to them that instead of adding a citizenship question to the White House, he’s issued an executive order to obtain citizenship information from government agencies. Which is actually how it already works.

• • Barr, speaking after Trump’s announcement, essentially says that this is a workaround of the legal system.
  • The invited group of online personalities include discredited videographers from Project Veritas, online conspiracy theorists (especially those who spread the QAnon crazy), and online meme creators.
  • The event ends in Rose Garden chaos as Seb Gorka gets in a screaming match with a journalist.

6. ICE opens three new detention centers despite being told by Congress not to. Congress also told them to stop detaining people.
7. We learn that ICE has been using facial recognition software to go through drivers license photos to identify undocumented immigrants. That means they’ve combed through photos of American citizens without their permission.
8. Migrant children being held at yet another overcrowded Arizona migrant detention facility accuse border patrol officers of sexual abuse.
9. There are over 800 candlelight vigils across the globe in solidarity with migrants, especially the children, being held at the border in horrible conditions.
10. President Crazy Train rounds out the week with a series of tweets, several of which are directed at four progressive Democrat women in Congress “who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all)” and that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” 

• • The only problem is that all but one of them were born in the U.S., and the one who wasn’t came here as a refugee. The president of the United States should at least know these facts.
  • His tweets unite Democrats and get a firm backlash from Speaker Pelosi.
  • Trump’s feelings are apparently hurt when the four women don’t take it sitting down and instead take to Twitter to defend themselves. He says they should apologize to him for the bad things they say about him.
  • And finally, the media is actually using the term “racist” as opposed to couching it in terms like “racially charged.”

11. Trump threatens all week that he’ll deport thousands of undocumented immigrants in wide-ranging raids across the country, but for the second time in as many weeks, this threats fail to materialize and a very small number are actually arrested.

• • New Orleans was on the list of cities to be raided, but with the flooding and a tropical storm on the way, ICE cancels that one. They learned something from Katrina.

12. Apparently unable to grasp the optics here, Trump’s Doral golf club plans to host a charity tournament put on by a strip club where golfers can buy a stripper to be their caddy girl for the day.

• • It’s for a worthwhile charity, but the charity pulls out after seeing the ads touting how you can buy your own caddy girl. The event is ultimately canceled.

Climate:

1. The DC area gets hit with wide-spread flooding from slow-moving rain storms; even the White House basement is flooded. 

1. New Orleans was already flooding by the time Hurricane Barry made landfall (and thankfully turned into a tropical storm and then a depression).
2. An intelligence analyst in the State Department resigns after the White House blocks evidence in his testimony on climate change and its relationship to national security. The military has long understood that climate change is one of our greatest national security threats.

Budget/Economy:

1. Religious charities and publishers warn that Trump’s newly proposed tariffs on Chinese goods will likely reduce the availability of Bibles in the U.S.

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

Elections:

1. Trump asks his aides to look into ways to devalue the dollar in order to boost the economy ahead of the 2020 elections.

• • Trump thinks the high value of the dollar is getting in the way of his America First initiatives
  • This practice is called currency manipulation, a practice Trump has publicly said he hates.

2. Trump acknowledges that the number one reason for adding the citizenship question to the 2020 Census is to tilt the legislative districts in favor of Republicans.

• • Note that this reason was never used for justification of the question in any previous arguments, though many on the left have alleged that this is the ultimate purpose.

Miscellaneous:

1. DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser sends Trump a letter stating that Trump’s 4th of July event bankrupted their emergency security funding, and that the city is still owed $7.1 million from Trump’s inauguration.
2. Trump has been telling aides he wants to replace Dan Coates as national security director. The last adult in the room. What could go wrong?
3. There are more open civilian and military positions at the Pentagon than at any other time in history, including the positions of Defense Secretary and Deputy Defense Secretary.
4. Sunday’s Twitter meltdown over the four Democratic women in Congress wasn’t Trump’s first meltdown of the week. On Thursday, he:

• • Tries to shame the fake news media while misremembering not just the month but also the year he launched his bid for office
  • Says he’ll stay in office for 14 years
  • Tries to insult Mayor Pete Buttigieg by mistakenly tagging someone who is clearly not a Trump fan
  • Body shames Elizabeth Warren while at the same time managing to get in a racial slur (and saying she’s 1000/24 Native American—whoopsies)
  • Criticizes a small Minneapolis suburb
  • Lies about his dealing with Deutsche Bank.

And that was all before 8 AM.

5. A new book says Paul Ryan couldn’t stomach another two years with Trump and saw retirement as his escape hatch.

• • This, of course, launched a one-sided feud with Trump blasting Ryan’s performance as Speaker of the House.
  • It should be noted that the rhetoric of leaders like Ryan helped lead the Republican party to elect someone like Trump.