Tag: daca

Week 127 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Trump likes to say that Obama separated families at the border and locked kids up in cages. Obama didn’t separate families, but he did have a huge influx of migrant children in 2014 and built the makeshift detention centers we still see today. He also had a record number of family units coming across the border. At first the Obama administration released family units with notices to appear. Then they tried to hold them in detention centers together, but human rights activists protested that move and they risked violating the Flores Agreement. So they went back to releasing them. In fact, in 2016, ICE implemented a very successful pilot program, the Family Case Management Program, designed to keep families together, out of detention, and in compliance with immigration laws. The program had a high rate of compliance and helped refugees thrive. In 2017, Trump shut that program down and later that year began his own pilot program, this time mandating the separation and detention of families.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the factsheet for that program. And here’s the AP’s story on ending the program. And here’s Jeff Session’s announcement of the zero tolerance policy (though we now know they were already separating families in fall of 2017). Trump said ending Obama’s program would save money, but it costs us $750 per day per person in private detention centers. That’s a lot of money each day and private companies are making a fortune off the American taxpayers (around $4 billion per year, at the rate we’re going).

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 30…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. Jared Kushner travels to Bahrain to describe how he’ll solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offers an economic development plan, but no pathway to get to an agreement between the two sides nor any way of dealing with the underlying conflicts. No government officials from either side of the conflict show up, and Palestinian officials dismiss it as a “snow job.”
  2. Mike Pompeo says privately that the plan isn’t particularly original and it’s likely not executable.

Russia:

  1. After much discussion, Robert Mueller agrees to testify in public hearings before both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. It’s scheduled to happen July 17. Both committees issued subpoenas before coming to this agreement.
    • Members of Mueller’s team will also testify, but not in public hearings.
  1. In response, Trump accuses Mueller of committing a crime (deleting emails from FBI agents involved in the investigation, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, of which Trump has no evidence). He also calls Page and Strzok “pathetic.”
  2. The White House refuses to tell the House Oversight Committee where the translator notes are from Trump’s private meetings with Putin. Trump took the notes from the translator personally. The House Oversight Committee says these notes must be maintained under our laws for preserving federal records.
  3. When asked what Trump and Putin will talk about at their G20 meeting, Trump tells reporters that what he says to Putin in private isn’t any of their business.
  4. Trump later jokes with Putin and Russian officials about meddling in our elections, telling them not to meddle at a press conference while they all laugh.
    • Mueller’s investigation concluded that Russia ran a “sweeping and systematic” operation to influence voters in the 2016 elections.
    • The last time the two met, Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies when asked about Russian interference.
  1. Trump then jokes with Putin about “getting rid” of journalists.
  2. The Trump-appointed FBI director, Christopher Wray, maintains that he believes there was no spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump says he disagrees and also refuses to say that he has confidence in Wray.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Paul Manafort pleads not guilty to state charges on mortgage fraud brought by New York. Manafort’s lawyer intends to fight this case under double-jeopardy rules, but the Supreme Court just ruled that state and federal agencies can bring up the same charges.
  2. In keeping with the tradition of the Trump administration, the Commerce Department orders a former official not to answer any questions from House committees about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
  3. The House Oversight and Reform Committee moves to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt after they ignore subpoenas on the topic of the citizenship question.
  4. Play it again, Sam… The White House orders Kellyanne Conway to refuse to testify at the House Oversight Committee’s behest. They want to talk to her about violations of the Hatch Act as outlined in a report from the Office of Special Counsel (reminder, that’s nothing to do with Mueller).
    • The committee subpoenas Conway after she fails to appear.
  1. Nearly 200 Democrats are suing Trump, claiming that his private business dealings violate the emoluments clause. A federal judge rules against Trump this week, saying the lawsuit can proceed.
  2. The Justice Department sues Omarosa Manigualt Newman, a former advisor to Trump. They say she failed to file a financial disclosure report after Trump fired her. Newman argues that she can’t, because the White House didn’t return her personal files to her.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that gerrymandering is out of the scope of federal courts and that it should be handled by legislation.
    • This means that North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, and Michigan all get a pass on having to redraw their gerrymandered district lines as was previously ordered by lower courts
    • Voters are getting tired of gerrymandering, and voted in five states last year to limit the power of the state houses to gerrymander. That’s on top of states that already have independent redistricting commissions.
  1. The Supreme Court blocks the citizenship question on the 2020 Census for now, saying that the Commerce Department could have a right to reinstate the question but that their reasons were contrived. The case gets kicked back to a lower court.
    • So Trump says he’ll just delay the census. FWIW, he can’t.
    • The Census Bureau estimates that adding the question would cause about 6.5 million people to not be counted (that includes people here legally and not). That equates to a loss of around seven to ten House seats and an unknown number of state seats. It also means those same areas will see a loss of government programs and assistance.
  1. The court agrees to hear arguments about DACA and whether Trump acted illegally in trying to end it.
  2. The court refuses to hear Alabama’s appeal for their stringent abortion law, keeping in place a lower court’s ruling that the law places an undue burden on women.

Healthcare:

  1. The U.S. hits 1,077 measles cases so far this year, making it already the worst year since 1992. If only we had a way to prevent the measles… if only.

International:

  1. Trump signs an executive order to place new “hard-hitting” sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader and eight military commanders. The largely symbolic sanctions stem from Iran downing a U.S. drone last week.
  2. Iran’s foreign ministry says the executive orders have closed the door to diplomacy and that they won’t be intimidated. Iran also says they’ll start reducing their commitments to the JCPOA.
  3. Trump threatens to obliterate Iran if they attack. He implies that Kerry and Obama were soft on Iran, even though Iran has followed the guidelines of the JCPOA up until now.
  4. It turns out that when Trump backed down from an actual air attack last week, he also approved a cyberattack, which disabled the computer systems Iran uses to control rocket and missile launches. These attacks were in the works for months.
  5. Trump says he doesn’t need congressional approval to launch a military strike against Iran. He does need their approval, though, unless Pompeo can find evidence to support his assertion that Iran is involved with Al Qaeda.
  6. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) says Trump can launch a strike because we’re already at war with them. Is he talking metaphorically? Because AFAIK, we aren’t at war with Iran.
  7. Trump considers withdrawing from another defense treaty, this time with Japan. Fitting his constant narrative of how everyone’s against us and taking advantage of us, he says the agreement is one-sided. The agreement has been the foundation of a post-war alliance since WWII.
  8. Sean Lawler, Trump’s diplomatic protocol chief, is suspended just before the G20 Summit. Talk about bad timing. He’s under investigation over workplace accusations of intimidation, including carrying a whip around the office.
  9. Trump insults Japan upon arriving in the country for the G20 Summit. He says that if we were attacked, they’d just sit and watch it on TV. He goes on to insult Germany, Britain, and India, and repeats his previous misinformation about NATO. He has nothing bad to say about Putin or Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, though.
  10. At the G20, Trump demands that India pull their latest tariffs on U.S. products.
  11. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gives Trump a colorful diagram to illustrate Japanese investments in the U.S. Abe has him figured out.
  12. Also, what the heck was Ivanka doing a) at the summit and b) getting a front-row seat? Video shows world leaders not very interested in what she has to say, to the point of being dismissive.
  13. Trump pays a surprise visit to North Korea where he meets with Kim Jong Un and becomes the first sitting president to set foot in the country, albeit briefly and at the border with South Korea.
    • The two agree to continue talks.
  1. Trump reverses his ban on U.S. companies supplying software and hardware to Chinese company Huawei. It’s part of an agreement to restart trade negotiations. I’m not sure what this means for the lawsuits against Huawei and its executives.
    • Side note: The restrictions against Huawei were based on national security risks of spying.
  1. Protests in HongKong against an extradition law with mainland China continue, now growing violent as protestor storm the parliament chamber. The mostly peaceful protests have been ongoing for two months.
  2. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes how Jared Kushner would bypass the State Department and meet with foreign officials on his own.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Republicans block a proposal that would’ve restricted Trump’s ability to go to war with Iran without congressional approval. The proposal required congressional approval for funding.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. A district court judge permanently blocks Trump from using the billions of dollars in military funds that he had tapped to build his wall.

Family Separation:

  1. House Democrats cave in and pass the GOP-led Senate version of a bill to provide emergency humanitarian aid at the border. The House had previously passed their own version, which included provisions for improving the condition of detention centers and regulating how migrants can be held in custody. The Senate version includes additional funding for DHS with no strings attached.
  2. McConnell says that no one doubts anymore that this is a humanitarian crisis. Congratulations, GOP, for creating this crisis; not quite the one that you said was there all along, but a crisis nonetheless.
  3. Following last week’s reports from immigration lawyers about squalid conditions in child detention camps, CBP invites journalists to come take a look at those facilities. The conditions seem to rebut the lawyer’s claims of lack of hygiene, food, and supplies, but reporters aren’t allowed to talk to detainees.
  4. A federal judge orders that health experts be allowed to examine migrant children and to inspect their living quarters.
  5. The Department of Health and Human Services is running out of money to provide shelter for migrant children. They expect funds to run out in July, and say they don’t have room for any more. To which I say, then release these kids to their families and stop pretending you aren’t part of the problem.
  6. CBP rejects donations for the children held in their overcrowded detention centers. People are sending toys, soap, toothbrushes, diapers, and medicine, but the law prevents Border Patrol from accepting it. So maybe they shouldn’t be holding on to these kids.
  7. Bank of America announces it’ll end its relationships with companies that run the detention centers.
  8. Illinois bans privately run detention centers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Ravelry.com, a social site for knitters and crocheters, bans any talk of Trump and his administration. They want to keep the site free from hateful expression, and view support for Trump as support for white supremacy.
  2. The acting Commissioner of CBP, John Sanders, resigns following the release of information about the conditions of border detention centers. It’s not clear the two are related.
  3. Trump picks Mark Morgan to replace Sanders. Trump made Morgan acting director of ICE earlier this month. Morgan was the head of Border Patrol under Obama.
  4. In a move that is predicted to create chaos in the military, Trump moves to remove protections for undocumented family members of active-duty troops. A few things outside of the news here:
    • First, we must treat our military with respect.
    • Second, our troops need to concentrate on their work. I mean they really need to concentrate. It’s an enormous distraction to be scared that your family might be deported while you’re deployed. Is that what we want them thinking about?
    • Third, our troops, documented or not, are out there defending our country. THIS country. If they can’t count on us to treat them humanely, why would they continue to defend this country?
  1. James Fields Jr., the Neo-Nazi who killed protestor Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017, gets life without parole.
  2. Far right hate groups have been planning violence at Drag Queen Story Hours. Just like it sounds, drag queens read children’s books to children. One of the first story hour events had to be protected by a SWAT team, 40 officers, and a marksman. WTF people? This is not OK. There is nothing scare about a drag queen!
  3. The inspector general for the Treasury Department announces an investigation into why Steve Mnuchin really delayed the Harriet Tubman $20 bill. The Trump administration denies they delayed it.
  4. DHS says they think arrests on our southern border will fall by 25% this month for two main reasons:
    • Mexico is cracking down on Central American migrants.
    • Trump is expanding the program for keeping asylum seekers in Mexico while they await their asylum hearings. In case you didn’t know, Mexico isn’t necessarily safe for all asylum seekers because the people they are fleeing from can get to Mexico.
  1. Hours after the Democratic-led House passes the package for humanitarian aid and increased security at the border, Trump complains that Democrats in the House won’t do anything about border security.
  2. Trump wants to delay the Census so he can get his citizenship question on it, “no matter how long” it takes.
  3. The far-right Proud Boys and far-left Antifa clash at rallies over the weekend in Portland. Violence and arrests ensue. The Proud Boys are a white supremacist group. Antifa is a far-left group against far-right hate groups.

Climate:

  1. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue says that climate change is just the weather changing. It’s raining today, it’s sunny tomorrow; that’s just climate change, which goes in long and short increments. Lemme help Sonny out with that:
    • Climate: the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.
    • Global: relating to the whole world.
  1. Bill Wehrum resigns as EPA air chief over allegations of ethics violations (shocking for this administration, I know). Wehrum worked to reverse Obama regulations for cutting pollution even before he joined Trump’s administration.

Budget/Economy:

  1. For 2018, farm income ended up half as high as the all-time high in 2013 and the debt held by farmers has increased to almost $427 billion. In the first calendar-year quarter of 2019, the default rate hit its highest level in seven years. Farm income is projected to go up slightly in 2019.
    • Trump blames Obama and says he’s turned it around, but the slight increase in 2019 barely makes a dent in the 2018 decrease.
  1. With no changes to policy, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the national debt will rise from 78% of GDP now to 92% in 2029 and then to 144% in 2049. Spending is outpacing tax collections (surprise, surprise).
  2. Mnuchin says we’re close to a trade deal with China, about 90% of the way. Trump, meanwhile, threatens to raise tariffs on the remaining Chinese imports if things don’t work out at the G20 summit.
  3. The White House is working on a plan to bypass Congress and cut taxes on capital gains by indexing capital gains to inflation. The top 1% of earners would receive 86% of the benefit of this plan. Just a reminder that capital gains are money we earn by doing absolutely nothing but watching our money grow. We don’t work for capital gains—we can earn them in our sleep.

Elections:

  1. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill forcing felons who’ve served their sentences to pay any fines before they can register to vote. An overwhelming majority of voters voted to give ex-felons the right to vote, and the GOP state legislature and governor are overriding the will of the people. Lawsuits to block the law are already filed.
  2. The Democratic Presidential candidates participate in their first round of debates. I won’t say much about them, since it’s pretty subjective. But here are a few fact-checks:

Miscellaneous:

  1. Fake news? An advisor for the New York Post orders a story about Trump raping writer E. Jean Carroll to be scrubbed from the website. He apparently forgot that you can’t really delete anything from the web. The advisor, Col Allan, was once an editor at the paper and was brought back earlier this year to make the paper more Trump-friendly.
  2. Two women step forward to corroborate E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her (interestingly, Carroll refuses to call it a rape, even though she says Trump forced himself on her and there was penetration). Both women advised Carroll on what to do when it happened.
  3. Trump names Melania’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, to be the next communications director and press secretary. Grisham replaces outgoing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former communications director Bill Shine, who left in March.

Polls:

  1. 65% of voters approve Trump’s decision to rescind the orders to attack Iran.

Week 63 in Trump

Posted on April 9, 2018 in Politics, Trump

YOU'RE FIRED Rubber Stamp over a white background.

I’ve been thinking that Trump doesn’t fire people personally because he has an aversion to doing the actual firing as opposed to doing the reality show firing. You can tell he tries to make people so uncomfortable in their jobs that they’ll quit before he gets around to firing them. What I didn’t realize is that the president’s ability to fill a position under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act hinges around vague language that describes when the president can make his own appointments in case of vacancies, and firing someone doesn’t seem to be one of those cases. So it’s in his best interest if they quit. Crazy.

But I digress. Here’s what happened this week…

Russia:

  1. We learn through Russian media that Trump invited Putin for a White House visit when he congratulated Putin on his electoral victory.
  2. After opening arguments, Paul Manafort‘s lawyers withdrew part of their civil suit. Manafort says Mueller is overreaching in his investigation, but a court document shows that Rod Rosenstein gave Mueller authority to investigate Manafort’s relations with Russia and with the Ukraine. The judge doesn’t think Manafort has much of a case.
  3. The first prison sentence comes down in the Mueller investigation. It’s short — Alex van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, gets 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine for lying to the FBI.
  4. Konstantin Kilimnik is identified as the Russian agent with whom Manafort and Rick Gates had contact during the 2016 campaign.
  5. The State Department says that the expelled Russian diplomats can be replaced on a case-by-case basis. Expelling diplomats doesn’t change the agreement that outlines the number of Russian diplomats allowed in the states, so they can ramp it back up.
  6. While Mueller says Trump is a subject of the Russia investigation, he also says Trump is not a target. What this means is that Trump is anywhere between a witness and a suspect, and we don’t know which side he’s closer to. So this doesn’t tell us much.
  7. Mueller’s team questions two Russian oligarchs traveling to the U.S., searching at least one of their phones. Mueller also requests an interview with a third oligarch who has not traveled here. He’s looking into whether Russians illegally funded Trump’s campaign or inauguration.
  8. In his last public statement as national security advisor, H. R. McMaster says we haven’t done enough to punish Russia for its increased global aggression. Just hours before that, Trump said that no one has been tougher on Russia than him.
  9. But then, the U.S. sanctions 24 Russian oligarchs and government officials, including a few with ties to the Trump campaign. The sanctions also target about a dozen companies owned by the oligarchs.
  10. A newly released email shows that on the day Roger Stone went on InfoWars and predicted leaks about the Clinton Foundation, he emailed Sam Nunberg to say he had dinner with Julian Assange the night before. This indicates he had knowledge of the documents hacked by Wikileaks, but Stone now claims that he didn’t meet with Assange and flight records would prove it.
  11. Mark Zuckerberg says it’s reasonable for anyone on social media to expect that their data has been scraped in some way. And of course it is. We get warnings all the time about the info people are scraping and we choose to ignore it.
  12. Facebook estimates that Cambridge Analytica could have accessed information from up to 87 million users. They’ll start notifying Facebook users whose information was accessed.
  13. Mueller plans to issue a series of reports on his investigation. The first is about whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice and should be released this summer.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit against Massachusetts’s assault weapon ban, saying that right to own the banned guns and ammunition isn’t guaranteed by the second amendment.
  2. Florida officials appeal a court order directing them to create a new process to restore rights to former felons.

Healthcare:

  1. The Department of Health and Human Services removes information from its website about low-cost and no-cost women’s health issues, specifically around breastfeeding issues and cancer.
  2. A federal judge orders the government to stop blocking undocumented women from getting access to medical appointments, counseling, and procedures (including abortions).
  3. The surgeon general issues a nationwide advisory to give more people access to naloxone, along with training on how to use it. Naloxone reverses the effects of opioid overdose.

International:

  1. Despite a public commitment that we won’t leave Syria hanging, Trump says we’ll be out of there soon and he freezes funds to help stabilize the area.
  2. Assad launches another chemical attack on Syrian rebels, killing at least 40 and injuring at least 500. And now it’s up to John Bolton to come up with our next steps. Oyveh.
  3. Trump‘s announcement about Syria takes his military staff by surprise. A day after Trump says we’ll be out of Syria soon because ISIS is almost defeated, the White House says that we remain committed to fighting ISIS in Syria.
  4. Russian and Chinese military leaders meet, to show America their close ties with each other and to reaffirm those ties.
  5. A delivery truck drives into a crowd in Germany killing two people and injuring 20. The driver, a German citizen, kills himself. There are no ties to ISIS so far.
  6. The Department of Homeland Security says it found cell tower simulators—called stingrays—last year in DC. Foreign spies and other criminals can use these to track people and to intercept communications, and hardly anything has been done to combat them.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Chicago bans a long list of semi-automatic weapons.
  2. I can’t believe this had to be done. State legislators in New York pass a law making it illegal for police officers to have sex with people in their custody.
  3. South Carolina representative Ralph Norman took out his loaded pistol and laid it on a table during a meeting with constituents while they were discussing gun violence. South Carolina’s Democratic party calls for an investigation. Never point your gun—loaded or not—at anything you don’t want to shoot. And it’s probably never a good idea to shoot your constituents.
  4. Representative Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) resigns over using taxpayer money for sexual harassment lawsuit payouts.
  5. While Marco Rubio has been telling Parkland students that he supports raising the purchase age for certain weapons to 21, he’s also been pushing to end a similar law in DC.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump tweets that DACA is dead and again blames Democrats in Congress. He encourages Republicans in Congress to stem the ‘massive influx’ of people and drugs over the border.
    Background: Trump rescinded DACA in fall of 2017 and gave Congress until March to fix it. The only reason it’s still going is that it’s held up in the courts. It’s possible this tweet storm stems from recent CBP data showing a major uptick in border crossings in March, which seems typical for every year except 2017.
  2. Adding a citizenship question to the census (which the administration wants to do) will likely hurt these states the most: Nevada, Texas, California, New Jersey, Arizona, Florida and Maryland. The census is the backbone for all sorts of government programs and for government representation. Tying the census to any kind of federal law enforcement inhibits full census reporting because people are afraid they’ll be reported to the DOJ.
    Background: Information from the 1940 census was secretly used in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II under the Second War Power Act.
  3. Seventeen states, DC, and six cities sue to get the question dropped.
  4. Trump announces he’ll send National Guard troops to help guard the border. From what he says, this seems like a reaction to Fox & Friends’ shady reporting about a caravan of immigrants traveling through Mexico to storm our borders. The caravan is actually an annual human rights protest march in which some people request asylum in Mexico and the U.S.
    Background: Bush spent $1.2 billion sending National Guards troops to help border patrol, and Obama spent $110 million on the same. But neither of them did it in reaction to a hyped up news story.
  5. In a tax roundtable:
    • Trump doubles down on his theme of Mexicans-as-rapists through a misunderstanding of the caravan in Mexico. He later says women are “being raped at levels never seen before” in response to reports that women and children travel in numbers as a safety measure.
    • Trump tells a story, clearly designed to heighten people’s fear of immigrants, about how young girls never see their parents again after they’re “cut up” by immigrant gang members.
  1. Trump takes credit for getting Mexico’s president to break up the caravan, saying he pressured Mexican officials in a conversation on Monday. The White House later says this conversation never took place. And also, the caravan didn’t break up.
  2. The Trump administration institutes quotas for immigration judges to speed up processing.
  3. Police shoot and kill another black man. This guy was holding a pipe, which I guess is more easily mistaken for a gun than a cellphone is.
  4. Though Native Americans only make up 10% of the Department of the Interior’s staff, 33% of the staff that Ryan Zinke reassigned are Native Americans.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Michigan says it’s done giving away free water to residents of Flint. They say the water has been up to par for two years. But they’re still replacing the contaminated pipes so you can see why residents are wary.
  2. Michigan, home of what is probably the largest clean water disaster in the U.S. (see above), approves Nestle’s request to increase the amount of water they pump out of the state. Over 80,000 people commented against the move during the public comment period.
  3. The EPA scraps the fuel mileage targets for passenger cars and SUVs that were put in place under Obama to help combat global warming. They also plan to challenge California’s right to set their own targets, which was established under the Clean Air Act due to the state’s history of smog problems. Even if we back off of our standards, the rest of the world won’t, and we’ll have to play catch-up at some point.
  4. The Justice Department sues California over a state law that limits the federal government’s right to buy or sell federal land in the state.
  5. The administration is looking into rescinding a rule that protects endangered wildlife in order to give agricultural and mineral interests more freedom and access to use land that is currently off limits.
  6. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, picks Susan Combs to oversee federal wildlife policy. This is only important because she opposes the Endangered Species Act and has spent the last several years fighting it.
  7. Last week, I wrote about Scott Pruitt paying $50 a night for a room in a lobbyist’s DC apartment, which then turned out to be a whole apartment. This week, we learn that his daughter stayed with him there as well while she was interning at the White House. And also:
    • He paid about $2,150 less than the going rate in DC.
    • The ethics committee signed off on the agreement, but now say he didn’t give them complete information.
    • The condo is partially owned by the wife of the head of Enbridge Inc., whose pipeline-expansion project was approved last year by the EPA under Pruitt. The head of Enbridge has been a long-time fundraiser for Pruitt.

    • He didn’t always pay his $50, and he wouldn’t leave the apartment when his agreement was up.
    • He wanted to spend $100,000 a month on a private jet subscription.
    • His security detail is more than three times as large as his predecessor’s (and his predecessor’s was part-time, unlike Pruitt’s full-time detail).
    • He tried to get his security to use sirens to get through traffic so he wouldn’t be late for dinner.
    • He used an obscure provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to give massive raises to some of his friends that he hired at the EPA, and then refused to take responsibility in a Fox interview.
    • Several EPA officials who confronted Pruitt about his spending were reassigned, were demoted, or requested new assignments because of the work environment.
  1. A federal judge dismisses Exxon Mobil’s lawsuit against states attorney generals, allowing the lawyers to continue investigating whether Exxon knew about climate change and lied to the public to cover it up.
  2. A district judge rules that officials must take climate change into account when making certain infrastructure decisions.
  3. Indonesia declares a state of emergency after an oil spill caused by a leak in a pipeline in Borneo. The spill has spread across an area larger than Paris and is now heading out into the open ocean. The spill caused the death of 5 fisherman caught when clean-up workers sparked a fire.

Budget/Economy:

  1. On Monday, Trump hits back at people who fact-checked his tweet storm about Amazon last week, maintaining that Amazon is bad for the USPS and that they don’t pay taxes.
    Background: Trump isn’t concerned about the USPS. He hasn’t even appointed a board of governors yet for the post office, so they’re running on a temporary emergency committee with limited powers. Also, the Trump campaign spent over $150,000 at Amazon for office supplies. So there’s that.
  2. And on Monday, stocks continue to dive on a tech sell off as Trump keeps up his criticism of Amazon. But then stocks recover on Tuesday. And then they’re down… and then…
  3. The market volatility continues throughout the week, with pretty major fluctuations. According to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, investors aren’t reading the Fed’s moves correctly. Vanguard founder Jack Bogle says he’s never seen anything like it. Bloomberg says that the market had it’s worst April start since 1929, however it looks to be recovering.
  4. China retaliates against Trump’s announced tariffs by placing tariffs of their own on 128 American goods, estimated at about $3 billion.
  5. Trump raises the tariff ante by threatening tariffs on an additional $50 billion of Chinese goods, and China threatens tariffs on another $50 billion worth of American goods. Both sides say they don’t want a trade war though.
  6. Agricultural organizations express concerns over potential trade disagreements, noting that the current situation will definitely cut into hog farmers’ bottom lines. Trade agreements have generally been good for farmers. When Trump pulled out of TPP, Japan instated emergency tariffs on U.S. beef of 50%. When Trump threatened NAFTA, Mexico increased their corn imports from Brazil. The price of soybeans also dropped this week on the threat of greater trade disputes.
  7. Teachers in Oklahoma walk out of classes in protest. They’re looking for better salaries and school funding. Kentucky teachers protest as well, and Arizona teachers are working on a date to start their protest.
  8. Mick Mulvaney, the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recommends weakening the bureau’s responsibilities and requiring congressional approval for CFPB rules. Instead of being an independent and apolitical agency, Mulvaney says the director should report to the president and that it should be funded by Congress and not the Fed.
  9. Trump and Kevin McCarthy (Majority House Leader) are working to rescind some of the funding agreed upon in the bipartisan spending bill earlier this year. Trump had tried to get a line-item veto for the bill, but the Supreme Court ruled that out in a court case 20 years ago.

Elections:

  1. One of the GOP candidates for Lieutenant Governor in Idaho says that maybe if we pushed women with the death penalty, they would stop seeking abortions. Don’t vote for this guy!
  2. In tax roundtable, Trump goes off script and says millions of people vote multiple times, specifically in California. Trust me, we can barely get anybody to vote once in CA, much less get them out there to do it again and again.
  3. Many Republicans in Congress see keeping control of the House in the midterm elections as hopeless, so Mitch McConnell is focused on keeping control of the Senate.
  4. A review of news subscriptions shows that Trump did better in areas where there’s a “news desert.” In other words, where there weren’t enough news outlets to quickly fact check what Trump said, people tended to believe him more.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Another woman files a suit to nullify a non-disclosure agreement related to Trump. She says she faced harassment while working on Trump’s campaign (to clarify, not from Trump himself).
  2. At the White House Easter Egg Roll, which is largely attended by kids, Trump takes a moment to talk up the U.S. economy and military might.
  3. Trump tweets about his latest polls, calling Obama ‘Cheating Obama’. Probably the first president to accuse a predecessor of cheating.
  4. Trump calls the (hardworking men and women of the) FBI and DOJ an embarrassment to our country.
  5. The former head of the VA, David Shulkin, says he was never asked to tender a resignation letter and never did so, which he offers as proof that he was fired.
  6. A shooting at YouTube’s headquarters sends three people to the hospital. The shooting, a female, was upset about YouTube’s new monetization policies.
  7. Trump will once again skip the White House Correspondents‘ dinner.
  8. A fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower takes the life of one person living there, a death that might have been prevented if fire sprinklers had been installed in the upper residential floors. Six firemen were also injured. A minor fire broke out two months ago on the roof of the building.
  9. Trump steps into the fire story a little too quickly, and, before news breaks of the man’s death, tweets:

“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!”

  1. The Department of Homeland Security has a new media plan. They plan to compile a list of journalists and media influencers, and to monitor what the people on the list put out to the public.
  2. Sources say that Trump conferenced in Lou Dobbs to senior-level meetings during his first year in office, often interrupting officials to let Dobbs advise him.
  3. Todd Johnson, a Trump campaign manager in New Mexico and Defense Department appointee, resigned after it was discovered he posted controversial and false stories about Obama, like birtherism and how Obama is the anti-Christ. He also posted anti-Muslim propaganda.
  4. Twenty-six email domains managed by the Executive Office of the President were tested for security compliance, and 18 were found to be out of compliance. Only one had fully implemented the security protocol. But her emails!!!
  5. Trump says he didn’t know anything about Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, which would mean that Cohen committed fraud.
  6. Robert Mercer, a major funder of Breitbart and the Trump campaign, gave Secure America Now $2 million. Secure America Now is an extreme-right organization that bought anti-Muslim ads to place on Facebook and Google in 2016. The ads were micro-targeted to voters who would be receptive of them.
  7. Ronny Jackson is up for a military promotion, which means if he takes the job as head of the Veteran’s Administration, it could cost him nearly $1 million in lifetime retirement benefits.
  8. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) requests an explanation from Sinclair Broadcasting’s chairman about forcing their anchors at local stations to read propaganda statements.
  9. Fun fact: Sinclair’s contracts include a clause that penalizes employees for quitting, which might be discouraging anchors from protesting the propaganda pieces. Also, these clauses are likely not enforceable.

Polls:

A new poll shows that:

  • 48% of Americans trust CNN more than Trump.
  • 45% trust MSNBC more than Trump.
  • 30% trust Fox News more than Trump.
  • 75% of Republicans trust Trump more than CNN.
  • 72% of Republicans trust Trump more than MSNBC.
  • 35% of Republicans trust Trump more than Fox News.

  • Trump’s support among women fell from 41% to 35% this month.
  • Trump’s support among men rose from 50% to 53%.

Week 62 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Trump’s public attacks on major businesses like Amazon are not just bad presidenting, they’re bad for the economy. As I write this, the stock market is still dropping, partly on a tech sell off and partly on fears of a trade war. Both, you can argue, are sparked by Trump’s rhetoric, and now the market has lost all of its gains so far this year.

Here’s what else happened this week.

Russia:

  1. Over 20 countries expel Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of Russian ex-pats on British soil. Trump expels 60 Russian diplomats and closes their consulate in Seattle. Worldwide, over 100 Russian diplomats are expelled.
  2. Russia threatens to expel U.S. diplomats in retaliation.
  3. Russia performs another test of its latest nuclear missile that it says can reach anywhere in the world and get through any missile defense system.
  4. Emails turned over to investigators show that George Papadopolous had more contact with transition and campaign officials than has previously been recognized.
  5. A new court filing by Mueller shows that Rick Gates and Paul Manafort continued their ties to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign. Such links were previously known, just not that they had continued throughout the campaign.
  6. It turns out that Trump did speak with his attorneys about pardons for Manafort and Michael Flynn last year.
  7. Manafort asks a court to dismiss 18 criminal charges against him because his work with Russia ended in 2014. Reminder: Manafort’s business associate, Rick Gates, already pleaded guilty and is cooperating.
  8. Manafort’s friends think he’s counting on a presidential pardon, even though a pardon doesn’t apply to state crimes (which he will likely be charged with should a pardon be issued).
  9. The FBI issues Trump’s friend Ted Malloch a subpoena to testify for Mueller. They‘re interested in Malloch’s relationship with Roger Stone and Julian Assange.
  10. Mueller is taking another look at the 2016 Republican National Convention, specifically Jeff Sessions’ meetings with Russian officials and how language in the party platform that was hostile to Russia got removed.
  11. High profile law firms continue to turn down the opportunity to represent Trump in the Russia investigation. Most of them seem to be citing conflicts, and some are already representing witnesses.
  12. Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange’s access to the internet at the embassy in London where he’s been staying. Earlier this year, Ecuador granted Assange citizenship.
  13. Facebook announces plans to fight fake news and foreign interference in our elections. They’ll fact check stories, photos, and videos; add stricter requirements for political ads; notify people who share fake news; display a new dashboard that lets you see who’s buying political ads; and be more proactive about blocking fake accounts.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions directs the inspector general of the Justice Department to investigate the FBI and DOJ surveillance of former Trump campaign aides (that is, Carter Page). This isn’t enough for critics, who want a special counsel to investigate potential FISA abuses. The inspector general is also looking into whether the investigation into Uranium One was thorough enough.
  2. A federal judge says an emoluments lawsuit against Trump can continue. The lawsuit, brought by Maryland and DC, accuses Trump of accepting payments from foreign governments or individual states in violation of the emoluments clause.
  3. A New York judge allows Summer Zervos’s defamation case against Trump to continue.
  4. Judge Reinhardt of the ninth circuit court of appeals dies.
  5. The wife of the gunman who carried out the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL, is acquitted of being a co-conspirator to the crime.

Healthcare:

  1. After the largest black lung cluster in history is found in Kentucky, state legislators pass a law requiring pulmonologists and not radiologists to diagnose black lung. Most pulmonologists in the state are regularly hired by coal companies or the healthcare insurers used by coal companies. This cluster is especially confounding because it’s striking miners at a younger age and is very aggressive.

International:

  1. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has an unannounced meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping weeks ahead of a planned meeting between North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S.
  2. Satellite images indicate that North Korea is testing a new light water nuclear reactor and has brought another reactor online, bringing their promise to denuclearize into question.
  3. Over 200 former U.S. ambassadors and diplomats sign on to a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warning about the deterioration of U.S. leadership in the world and urging a restoration of U.S. diplomatic influence around the globe. The letter is in advance of the committee’s confirmation hearings for Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.
  4. Even though state and military officials say we should stay in Syria for the foreseeable future, Trump says we’ll be out of there very soon.
  5. U.S. military commanders say their ability to fight ISIS is hampered by a lack of direction from the White House. Ten weeks ago, they would’ve told you that ISIS would be taken down in Syria by mid-April, but now they see that falling apart.
  6. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announces that the U.S. will no longer pay over 25% of the UN’s peacekeeping costs.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. New York tightens gun ownership rules for domestic abusers, preventing them from owning any firearms at all.
  2. Vermont, which had some of the weakest gun laws in the country, passes a sweeping gun control bill that includes raising the minimum purchase age to 21, banning bump stocks, expanding background checks, and limiting magazine capacities.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. At least 12 states sue the Trump administration over the addition of a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. Critics say that the question will prevent some citizens from filling out the questionnaire, and that it goes against the Constitutional requirement that the census count everyone. The administration says the information will help enforce the Voting Rights Act.
    Background: The citizenship question was dropped from the census in 1960, and has only been added to supplemental questionnaires ever since. Most questions have years of vetting, but this was added suddenly.
  2. Orange County’s board of supervisors votes to fight California’s sanctuary laws.
  3. A draft of changes proposed by the Trump administration to immigration rules widens the definition of benefits for which immigrants can be penalized. Currently, immigrants who receive welfare are penalized, but the new definition of welfare would include Earned Income Tax Credits as well as health insurance subsidies.
  4. Trump pushes for the military to use part of their expanded budget to pay for the military wall. Repurposing military funds for the wall would require approval by Congress, and the wall is not popular with either party in Congress.
  5. Ben Carson moves to scale back enforcement of HUD’s fair housing rules, which protect people from racial, ethnic, and income segregation in federal housing projects.
  6. Chuck Grassley’s chief investigative counsel for the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee is also the guy pushing the current attacks against the FBI and trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation. He’s the reason Grassley pushed for criminal charges against Christopher Steele. If you wonder what informs his choices, here are a few things he’s written on his blog:
    • Homosexuality is like incest
    • There’s an impending Islamic takeover
    • Liberals are anti-American
    • McCarthy should be remembered more kindly
  1. A federal judge cites Trump’s “racially charged language” when ruling that a lawsuit to prevent DACA from being ended can go forward. The judge says that Trump’s racial slurs and epithets infer that his ending DACA violates the equal protection clause of the constitution.
  2. The State Department issues notices that will require most visa applicants to hand over five years worth of social media accounts. The 60-day public comment period begins this week.
  3. Happy Easter. Here’s a round up of Trump’s Easter day tweet storm:
    • He says “ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release” make it too dangerous for Border Control to do their jobs, and calls on Republicans to unleash the nuclear option to overhaul immigration. Also, “NO MORE DACA DEAL!” There is no catch and release law, just a policy on when to detain asylum seekers. The courts might make Trump’s view on DACA irrelevant, but it’s not clear if he really means to end the program.
    • He then threatens to withdraw from NAFTA if Mexico doesn’t stem the flow of drugs and people into the country, and reiterates the need for the wall. Which experts says won’t stem the flow of either of those things.
    • This all seems to be a reaction to a Fox & Friends commentary labeled “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S.” talking about a group of Hondurans reportedly traveling through Mexico to seek asylum here.
  1. Trump clarifies the above to reporters as he goes into church that morning, saying Democrats prevented a potential DACA deal and a lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of the DACA program. (DACA is only available to people who arrived before 2007, so no one coming in now is eligible.)
  2. Trump tweets out pictures of a border project saying they’ve begun building the wall. Except the photos are of a fence repair project authorized under Obama.
  3. Trump once again opts out of the tradition started under Obama of holding a White House Seder to celebrate Passover.
  4. A black woman in Texas who voted illegally because she wasn’t aware she wasn’t eligible gets sentenced to five years. Meanwhile, a white woman in Iowa who tried to vote for Trump twice (once as her dead mother) gets probation. I’m not sure if the difference in treatment is due to state laws or to the color of their skin.
  5. In order to speed up deportation cases, Jeff Sessions is considering overruling judges who put these cases on hold. The Justice Department is also setting quotas for immigration judges.
  6. After ending temporary protected status for refugees from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan earlier this year, this week Trump lets it expire for Liberians as well. As before, some of the people have been here for nearly two decades.
  7. After the questionable shooting of Stephon Clark, the Sacramento Kings announce a partnership with activists against the shooting. Also, an independent autopsy shows he was shot 8 times in the back and side.
  8. No charges are brought against the officers who killed Alton Sterling in 2016, but the shooter is fired and his partner is suspended.
  9. ICE detains and deports an army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Scott Pruitt wants the EPA to ignore any research based on raw data that is not publicly available. This data often includes people’s private information. So while Facebook is under attack for releasing private information, Scott Pruitt is asking scientists to publicize people’s private information or risk having their studies ignored.
    Background: This isn’t how science is done. When a scientist completes a study, other scientists try to replicate or refute it using their own data.
  2. Giraffes make the endangered species list. Yay us.
    CORRECTION: Giraffes are listed as vulnerable. They aren’t on the official list.
  3. The Sahara Desert is growing due to a combination of natural climate patterns and global warming.
  4. The UN Secretary General says that climate change is the biggest danger we face today. He also dismisses Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, saying that the U.S. people are doing much on their own to help control greenhouse gases.
  5. The EPA distributes a list of climate change talking points to its staffers as part of guidance on how to talk to local communities about related issues. The talking points downplay climate science and question how much we actually know about human causes. This is either a way to downplay global warming while actually addressing the problem, or it’s a way to continue to stir up confusion on the issue.
  6. Scott Pruitt comes under even more scrutiny over his spending with the disclosure that he’s been renting one bedroom for $50 a night, but only when he stays there and even though all the other bedrooms in the apartment are empty. The apartment building is owned by the wife of an energy industry lobbyist.
  7. The House Oversight Committee is investigating Pruitt’s travel and security costs.

Budget/Economy:

  1. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announces a new trade agreement with South Korea. Trump uses the threat of a steel tariff to get concessions in the deal.
  2. Wall Street bonuses are their highest level since before 2008, at an average of $184,220. There’s your trickle down economics.
  3. As a way of trying to show they’re for fiscal responsibility before the midterm elections, Republicans in the House are considering voting on a constitutional amendment that would require balanced budgets. This, after a $1.5 trillion tax cut and a $1.3 trillion spending bill. In order to pass, it would require Democrat votes plus ratification by 34 states.
  4. In protest of changes to their pension plan, teachers in Kentucky call in sick or call for substitutes, shutting down several schools across the state. Teachers in Arizona head to the capital building to demand higher pay and better funding.
  5. Trump goes after Amazon in a series of tweets, causing Amazon’s stock to drop and causing Jeff Bezos to lose over $10 billion in stock value.
    • Trump’s tweets about Amazon were inaccurate. The post office has a profitable agreement with Amazon, the Washington Post is not a lobbyist organization, and Amazon does pay state taxes.
    • This precipitated a continued fall in tech stock prices.
    • Could this be because Bezos also owns the Washington Post?

Elections:

  1. Ryan Costello, one of the strongest opponents of the redrawn district lines in PA is not running for re-election. He says pro-trumpers are too strident and anti-Trumpers are too angry. His timing leaves Republicans having to maneuver ways to get a new candidate on the ballot.
  2. Joe Arpaio, who is running for Senate in Arizona, promises to renew his efforts to prove that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.
  3. After being ordered by a court to hold special elections for two open seats, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker sets a date for June 12. GOP legislators in Wisconsin had considered holding a special session to change the rules in order to avoid a special election, but the court also denied Walker a delay he needed in order to get that done.
  4. Florida moves to give voting rights back to ex-felons. A judge ordered Governor Rick Scott to overturn Jim Crow-era laws that disenfranchised African Americans.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Puerto Ricans are having a hard time getting FEMA assistance for their damaged homes because it’s hard for some to prove that they own the homes.
  2. Wisconsin students march 50 miles to Paul Ryan’s hometown to get him to take action on gun violence.
  3. White House lawyers look into whether loans to the Kushner family business violated any laws or ethics rules. The loans in question were made after the loaning companies met with Kushner at the White House.
  4. Color me surprised. Mitch McConnell issues a bill to legalize hemp and remove it from the list of controlled substances.
  5. Lawyer Michael Cohen says Trump didn’t know about his $130,000 bribe to keep Stormy Daniels quiet, which could insulate Trump but could also invalidated the non-disclosure agreement.
  6. Sinclair Broadcasting forces anchors at local news stations to repeat the same script about fake news, biased media, and one-sided journalism.
  7. The FTC opens an investigation into Facebook‘s privacy practices.
  8. Trump fires the head of the VA, David Shulkin, and says he’ll nominate his personal physician, Ronny Jackson, to fill the position. Interestingly, Trump and Shulkin had a meeting about the VA and its programs right before Trump had John Kelly call Shulkin and fire him. There was no mention in the meeting that anything was up.
  9. Shulkin says he was prevented from defending himself from the accusations of taking his wife to Europe on the government’s dime. He says it was approved by the ethics committee, and after the controversy swelled, he paid the government back. He also says he was fired because people in the administration want to privatize the VA, though he had privatized several services himself.
  10. Official word from the White House is that Shulkin resigned. Official word from Shulkin is that he was fired. This is an important distinction because of the Federal Vacancies Act, which allows Trump to temporarily replace him without confirmation.
  11. Over a dozen advertisers pull out of Laura Ingraham’s show after she mocks a Parkland student activist and he calls her out on it.
  12. In a speech, Trump admits he doesn’t know what community colleges are, conflating them with vocational schools (not the same thing). Community colleges offer associates degrees and less-expensive prep for completing a 4-year degree at a university or college.
  13. The Texas police chief who called the Austin bomber a challenged young man now says the bomber was actually a domestic terrorist.
  14. The NRA confirms that it receives foreign donations, but denies that it uses any of those funds for election-related purposes.

Polls:

  1. A third of Americans say they see a bigger paycheck after the tax reform bill. 52% say they haven’t seen a change. In fairness, nobody noticed Obama’s tax cuts in 2009 either, when 97% of households got an average of $1,200 in tax cuts per year.
  2. 54% of Americans say Trump will lose in 2020. But that’s the same percentage who thought Obama would lose in 2012.

Quote of the Week

David Shulkin, outgoing head of the VA

“It should not be this hard to serve your country.”

Week 55 in Trump

Posted on February 12, 2018 in Politics, Trump

In the midst of the dueling memos, we did manage to pass a budget. But I’m starting with my favorite recap of the Nunes memo. It came from Jon Zal.

“Yes, we did some treason, but one of the guys who caught us doing the treason was biased against us because he doesn’t like people who commit treason, and the people who paid the people who paid him to investigate us didn’t like us either, so the evidence of our treason must be ignored.”

Russia:

  1. Now Trump’s lawyers want him to refuse any requests to be questioned by Mueller. Trump’s lawyers don’t even want him talking to Mueller, but Trump wants to do it anyway… but then he doesn’t. He’s keeping us guessing.
  2. The House Intelligence Committee votes to release the Democratic memo regarding the issues in the Nunes memo, which Trump released earlier. Trump refuses to release the Democratic memo.
  3. The New York Times makes a FISA request to publicize documents about Carter Page’s surveillance. The Times argues that since Trump decided to declassify the Nunes memo, public interest outweighs confidentiality.
  4. Devin Nunes acknowledges that, contrary to what his memo says, the FBI did disclose the political backing of the Steele dossier when requesting the FISA warrant on Carter Page.
  5. Nunes wants to build a physical wall to separate Republican and Democratic staffers working for the House Intelligence Committee members. Typically, these staffers work together.
  6. Republican Representative Thomas Rooney says that the Office of Congressional Ethics has ethics investigations into every single Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, including their staff. The investigations are further eroding trust in the committee.
  7. Rex Tillerson says that Russia has a lot of tools to influence our elections and that they’re already working on our midterms later this year. He says we’re no better prepared than we were in 2016, basically implying that there’s nothing we can do because the Russians will adapt.
  8. At an economic summit, former President George W. Bush says that there is “pretty clear evidence that the Russians meddled” in our 2016 elections. He also says that “it’s problematic that a foreign nation is involved in our election system. Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results.”
  9. The DOJ’s number 3 attorney resigns, in part because she thought she’d have to take over the Russia investigation if Trump fires Rod Rosenstein. Also, 25% of the divisions she oversaw are still unfilled, making her job that much more difficult.

Healthcare:

  1. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says they’ve found the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease we’ve ever seen. This disease was once nearly eradicated, but now it strikes and kills miners at a younger age than before, and it progresses more quickly than before. The cluster is located in Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia. One possible explanation is new mining techniques.
  2. Though the Trump administration says they won’t reverse Obama’s regulations to protect miners against black lung, the rule is marked for evaluation and as “deregulatory,” indicating it could be on the chopping block like so many other protections.
  3. Kellyanne Conway leads Trump’s efforts to deal with the opioid epidemic, but she doesn’t rely on drug policy professionals and instead leans on political staff. There’s no permanent director for the drug policy office, and the acting director hasn’t been invited to any meetings.
  4. Conway’s plans so far are to build the wall to stop the influx of drugs (it won’t—so many addictions begin with prescribed drugs) and to start a “just say no” campaign (because that obviously worked the last time, right?).
  5. The most senior official in the drug policy office is a 24-year-old appointee with no relevant experience. He just stepped down.
  6. Trump indicates he’ll focus on legal crackdowns on opioids instead of treatment options.
  7. As a result of lawsuits, Perdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, says they’ll stop marketing the drug to physicians. There are at least 200 lawsuits by local governments, and now 14 states are suing Perdue as well.

International:

  1. The UN investigates several reports of the Syrian military using chemical weapons against the rebels this week.
  2. The Syrian military shoots down Israeli fighter plane. Syrian rebels shoot down a Russian fighter plane.
  3. The U.S-led coalition in Syria ramps up air and artillery strikes against Syria’s forces. This is unusual in that we most often target ISIS forces, but the military says they were acting out of self defense.
  4. The UN wants a month-long cease fire so they can get aid in to areas trapped by the fighting.
  5. Olympics and politics don’t mix Part I: Mike Pence and his wife don’t stand for their host country’s athletes in the opening ceremonies.
  6. South Korea and the U.S. agree to negotiating terms with North Korea.
  7. Support grows in Great Britain for a second vote on Brexit after the government seems to not be making much progress on the exit agreement with the European Union. The most likely way this would happen is if the Brexit negotiations fall apart, causing Theresa May’s coalition to crumble and triggering a new general election.
  8. We learn that the Trump administration secretly reached out to Iran to negotiate a prisoner release last December. Iran refused the request.


Legislation/Congress:

  1. Nancy Pelosi takes up the House floor, speaking for eight hours in defense of Dreamers and telling their stories as a protest against not including a clean Dreamer bill as part of the budget negotiations. She wants Paul Ryan to make the same commitment that Mitch McConnell made to getting a clean bill.
  2. The House passes a bill that would require lawmakers to use their own funds to pay for sexual harassment and abuse settlements instead of using taxpayer dollars. I can’t believe we even have to have a law like this. I just can’t.
  3. Devin Nunes doesn’t like real news, so his PAC created its own alternative news site named “The California Republican.” It’s listed as a Media/News Company on Facebook, claiming to deliver “the best of US, California, and Central Valley news, sports, and analysis.” The site resembles a news site, but is designed to shine up Nunes’ image.
  4. The California Republican site gets knocked down by a denial of service report.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. John Kelly says that Trump is not likely to extend DACA if Congress can’t agree on a solution by the March deadline. But then he says Dreamers won’t be a priority for deportation. We’ve heard that before. Ask the Iraqi Christians who got sent home, or the doctor who just got sent back to Jordan, or the science teacher who just got sent back to Mexico, or any activist who’s been making noise about DACA protections. Ask them what it means to not be a priority.
  2. Trump says that we might need a shutdown—he would even love a shutdown—if Democrats won’t agree to his immigration policies.
  3. Senators John McCain and Chris Coons are set to propose a bipartisan immigration bill, but Trump shoots it down before it even comes out.
  4. The Austin, TX, city council votes 10-1 to boycott any contractors who work on building the wall. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao doesn’t think this should be tolerated.
  5. You might remember a story last November (which Trump repeated) that two border agents were attacked and brutally beaten near the border by undocumented immigrants. One agent was killed and the other was in serious condition. Fox News reported that an agent was “brutally murdered.” The surviving agent doesn’t remember what happened. The FBI investigation found nothing consistent with an assault or scuffle, and thinks it looks more like there was an accident. They haven’t reached a conclusion yet.
  6. A former leader of the American Nazi Party (and current anti-Semite and white nationalist) is likely to be the Republican candidate for an Illinois state congressional seat. Come on, Republicans. You have to do better than this.
  7. The DHS drafts rules that could target undocumented immigrants who use certain benefits, making it harder for them to gain permanent residency even if those benefits are used for their children who are U.S. citizens.
  8. Olympics and politics don’t mix Part II. Skater Adam Rippon says he wouldn’t visit the White House. An openly gay athlete, Rippon has come out strongly against Mike Pence’s support of gay conversion therapy.
  9. Trump orders the creation of a National Vetting Center to focus on immigrants, refugees, and other visitors to the U.S. The purpose is to identify people who present a security threat. It will be part of the DHS.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Employment is down in the US solar industry for the first time since 2010.
  2. Nineteen governors of western states protest Ryan Zinke’s plans to reorganize the Interior Department, saying that he promised he would consult with them and he hasn’t done so. The governors represent Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. That’s a diverse and bipartisan group.
  3. And under the heading of Read A Damn Book Already: Despite scientific evidence pointing to serious health, agricultural, and economic impacts of climate change, not to mention climate-related natural disasters and droughts, Scott Pruitt says that maybe climate change will be good for us. Because who knows what the ideal temperature will be in 2100? Scientists know, Scott. That’s who knows.
  4. At least Pruitt also says climate change is real and that humans contribute to it “to an extent.”
  5. The White House sends out a draft memo to federal agencies that would speed up permitting for infrastructure projects by shortcutting environment reviews.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Dow makes its largest one-day point drop (not its largest percentage drop), going down by 1,175. Overall, the Dow drops around 2,700 points in a long-expected market correction.
  2. TV stations airing a Trump rally show side-by-side panels of Trump touting the economy and the market on one side and the Dow Jones dropping precipitously on the other side.
  3. Trump gets mad at the stock market for taking a 2-day nosedive, saying it made a big mistake!
  4. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) drops its investigation into the Equifax breach, where the person information of 143 million Americans was hacked. State attorney generals are picking up the slack, evaluating over 240 class action law suits.
  5. On top of ending protections and lawsuits against payday lenders that have been charging up to 900% interest on loans, Mick Mulvaney requests a review of all current CFPB cases and policies to see which he wants to drop. This is what happens when the man in charge of a protection agency also thinks we should shut that agency down.
  6. The deadline for funding the government is already up this week. It has to be passed by Friday to avoid a shutdown.
  7. The Senate reaches a deal on Wednesday… but then when it comes time to vote, Rand Paul takes the floor for several hours pushing the vote past the deadline and briefly shutting down the government. And keeping lawmakers up all night.
  8. The Senate passes a two-year spending bill that really is the result of compromise, but that increases spending for pretty much everyone. The House also passes the bill and Trump signs it. Here’s some of what it does:
    • Raises caps on spending that were imposed in 2011 and that were once seen as a key Republican victory.
    • Increases defense spending by $165 billion over two years.
    • Increases domestic spending by $131 billion over two years.
    • Increases disaster aid for hurricane and fire victims by $90 billion.
    • Extends CHIP for 10 years (when added to the previous six-year extension).
    • Refutes many of the cuts Trump requested in his budget.
    • Combined with the tax bill, ends any semblance of fiscal conservatism.
  1. Republicans concede that with the recent tax cuts and spending bill, eliminating the federal deficit is not possible.
  2. Trump proposes a $4.4 trillion budget that cuts social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP, while increasing military spending and the immigration enforcement budget. It also asks for $200 billion for infrastructure. It cuts the State Department by 27% and the EPA by 34%.

  3. Since Congress just passed their own two-year spending bill, and Trump signed it, his proposed budget will likely be ignored.
  4. The Defense Logistics Agency of the Pentagon can’t account for $800 million in construction spending. Apparently they don’t keep very good records.
  5. Even after the bad publicity around cabinet members like Tom Price overspending taxpayer dollars on travel, Scott Pruitt still flies first class and stays in luxury hotels. His excuse is security concerns.

Elections:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses a request from the Pennsylvania GOP leadership to delay a state Supreme Court ruling requiring them to redraw their gerrymandered district lines.
  2. A Republican state representative wants to impeach those state Supreme Court judges for forcing them to redraw district lines, saying they usurped the state constitution.
  3. Pennsylvania Republicans submit their redrawn district lines, which no longer have the obvious physical shape of gerrymandered districts, but which the plaintiffs in the original case say are still as demographically gerrymandered.
  4. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf must approve the new district lines. If he rejects the plan, an independent redistricting expert will redraw the lines.
  5. The Supreme Court is looking at gerrymandering cases in Maryland and Wisconsin as well.
  6. Fun Fact: In 1812, Elbridge Gerry became the first person to draw partisan district lines, and his district looked like a salamander. Thus, the Gerry-mander.
  7. Six teenagers are running for governor in Kansas. The state doesn’t have any age requirements for the governor, but now they’re trying to make the age 18 or over (still seems young!).
  8. Since the 2016 elections, Democrats have flipped 35 Republican seats and Republicans have flipped four. Democrats are targeting 101 House districts in November.

Miscellaneous:

  1. At what was supposed to be a rally to support his tax plan, Trump hypes the memo instead, and talks about how it clears him and proves how bad the DOJ and FBI are.
  2. Trump accuses Democrats of treason for not clapping for him at the State of the Union. Photos abound of Paul Ryan not clapping for Obama. Get over it.
  3. Trump wants a military parade. No, seriously. Members of both parties in Congress say this is a waste of money. Our last military parade was in 1991 to commemorate the Gulf War victory.
  4. A 6.4 earthquake in Taiwan causes buildings to shift on their foundations. Seventeen are dead and 280 injured.
  5. Chief of Staff Kelly defends Staff Secretary Rob Porter, who left his job this week due to allegations of abuse from two ex-wives. Kelly later clarifies his statement, saying he wasn’t aware of the photos. He was, however, aware of the allegations because Porter STILL doesn’t have security clearance because of them.
  6. In a staff meeting, some staffers feel that Kelly is telling them to lie about the actions he took after the abuse allegations surfaced.
  7. Trump tells the press that Porter will have a great career ahead of him and that it’s a tough time for Porter. I’m sure living with Porter was tough on his wives too. Trump wishes him well.
  8. Kelly says he’s willing to resign over the handling of the Porter issue.
  9. A second White House staffer, speechwriter David Sorensen, resigns over allegations of spousal abuse.
  10. Trump defends both staffers on Twitter, saying “lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation.” Just an FYI, lives are also being shattered and destroyed by abuse.
  11. While Trump defends those accused of domestic violence, two police officers are killed responding to a report of domestic violence. Officers are killed every year responding to domestic disputes, deaths that could be prevented if we would stop ignoring the problem of domestic violence.
  12. Trump calls former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (who Trump pushed out) to complain about John Kelly (who replaced Priebus).
  13. Sinclair Broadcast Group solicits its news directors for contributions to its political action committee, which could cross the boundaries of ethics in journalism.
  14. A CNN employee finds DHS documents outlining a terrorism drill for the Super Bowl in the seat-back pocket of a passenger plane.
  15. After finding that a mass shooter in Texas last year should’ve been on the gun ban list, the military adds more than 4,000 people who they had previously neglected to add to the list.
  16. The Trump administration wants to stop funding the International Space Station by 2025 and turn it over to the private sector.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

When Obama first extended the offer of DACA, many people who were eligible didn’t trust the government would have their backs or their families’ backs, so they didn’t sign up. And now, people who did sign up for DACA are now in danger of being deported, along with their families.

But here’s White House chief of staff John Kelly‘s take on that (emphasis mine):

“The difference between [690,000] and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn’t sign up.”

Week 33 in Trump

Posted on September 12, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires! Oh my! If you’re looking for more ways to help with hurricane relief, here are two good sources:

This week was a perfect example of how Trump shoots the hostage. By rescinding DACA, he forces Congress’s hand in making real, lasting immigration change. But he also throws nearly 800,000 DACA protected workers and students into limbo for the next six months and generates a boatload of ill will. This year, he could’ve used many of Obama’s leftovers as bargaining chips (the Paris accord, TPP, the Iran deal, DACA) but instead, he tends to rip the band-aid off too fast and lose his leverage in the process.

Here’s what happened in week 33…

Russia:

  1. In a review of their own operations, Facebook finds that 33,000 ads bought during the election have links to a Russian “troll farm” that pushes pro-Kremlin propaganda. $100,000 worth of ads lead to a Russian company that targeted voters in 2016.
  2. As part of their audit, they also found nearly 500 suspicious accounts operated out of Russia. That actually seems pretty small in the scheme of things.
  3. We learn that the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed FBI and DOJ documents around the Steele Dossier a few months ago. According to the head of the House investigation, Republican Rep. Michael Conaway, “We’ve got to run this thing to ground.” Whatever that means?
  4. Even though he stepped aside as the head of the House investigation, Devin Nunes (R-Cali) has been running his own side investigation into Russia, which might be hurting Trump’s case more than helping it.
  5. Donald Trump Jr. testifies for five hours behind closed doors. The interview was mostly conducted by committee staff with only a handful of committee members attending.
  6. In testimony, Don Jr. says he met with Russians last year because they said they had dirt and he was trying to determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness for office.” He also denied that his father helped draft his original (and incorrect) statement.
  7. Like Kushner, Don Jr. tries to paint the Trump campaign as too chaotic and disorganized to have had a plan for collusion.
  8. There were gaps in Don Jr.’s testimony and he’ll likely be asked back for a public hearing.
  9. Trump has already met with the new Russian Ambassador to the U.S. with zero publicity. It wasn’t on his public schedule and there are no pictures and no info from the White House. Why did we not hear about this in the news? Because American press wasn’t invited. However, Russian press did report on the meeting.
  10. Around 3,000 cyber attacks hit Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, some of which they traced back to Russian IP addresses. Hopefully Europe has learned from the Russian meddling in both England’s and our elections…
  11. Mueller announces his intention to interview Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Hope Hicks, and several White House lawyers.
  12. Ahead of next year’s elections, the DNC begins shoring up it’s cybersecurity. About time, no?

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Justice Department drops its defense of Obama’s overtime rule, denying workers of their earned wages. The overtime rule would have required overtime pay for about 4 million more workers, putting more money in people’s pockets.
  2. Trump and Attorney General Sessions file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court that argues that it’s a constitutional right for businesses to discriminate against people in the LGBTQ community. If the court finds this to be true, a business could literally put a sign in their window that says “We don’t serve gays” and it would be legal. This is a slippery slope for anti-discrimination protections and equal protections under the law.

Healthcare:

  1. Not only did the Health and Humans Services Department defund almost all ACA outreach prior to open enrollment, but they put out ads criticizing the ACA to discourage enrollment. They also launched a social media attack against the ACA.
  2. Insurance regulators ask the government to extend the ACA subsidies past 2018 to help stabilize the insurance market.

International:

  1. The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting to discuss North Korea’s nuclear threat. The U.S. urges the council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea and ban their textile exports.
  2. South Korea leaders think Trump is a little crazy, especially after he criticized them (in a tweet) over their handling of North Korea.
  3. The EU says that all their member countries must open their doors to refugees. Countries like Hungary and Slovakia have been holding out, and Slovakia is still refusing.
  4. It appears the U.S. didn’t offer Mexico any aid after the earthquake and hurricane that hit within days of each other, even though Mexico offered assistance for Harvey.
  5. Areas recently liberated from ISIS in Iraq and Syria provide a trove of intelligence info, giving us thousands of names of suspected ISIS operatives.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House unanimously approves a bill that says states can’t block the use of self-driving cars. This bill also allows the auto industry to place up to 25,000 self-driving cars on our roads without having to meet auto safety standards.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump ends DACA, saying he’ll phase it out over six months and that Congress should fix it within that time. Some of his advisors fear he doesn’t understand what it means to rescind DACA. The current end date is March 5, 2018.
  2. And as is the new norm under this presidency, there is an angry outcry with protests and rallies across the country. Protests last throughout the week.
  3. After Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali) urges Trump to reassure DACA recipients that they’ll be OK, Trump tweets that he’ll revisit DACA in 6 months if Congress hasn’t codified it. DACA recipients are still shell-shocked and scared.
  4. Trumps aides say he asked them for a way out of his campaign promise to rescind DACA while several state Attorneys General threatened a lawsuit against DACA.
  5. Mayors and law officials from around the country denounce the move to rescind DACA and express support for their DACA populations.
  6. As a result of the changes to DACA, the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce resigns from Trump’s National Diversity Coalition.
  7. State Attorneys General across the country threaten to sue Trump over his DACA. At least 20 have urged him not to follow through on this.
  8. Fifteen states plus D.C. bring a lawsuit challenging Trump’s decision to rescind DACA.
  9. Business leaders speak out against rescinding DACA.
  10. Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton came out against rescinding DACA.
  11. Colleges and universities say they started last fall to implement steps to protect their DACA students from a Trump presidency.
  12. The University of California school system files a lawsuit against Trump for rescinding DACA.
  13. Janet Napolitano files a lawsuit against Trump over DACA.
  14. The Department of Homeland Security puts out a talking points memo that includes this: “The Department of Homeland Security urges DACA recipients to use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States—including proactively seeking travel documentation—or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible.” Basically they’re threatening deportation.
  15. If DACA expires with no congressional fix, the DHS says it won’t “proactively provide immigration officers with a list with the names and addresses of DACA recipients, but if ICE officers ask for it, the agency will provide it.”
  16. Another lawsuit is filed against Trump’s transgender ban in the military.
  17. This is also listed under “Courts/Justice”, but it’s so discriminatory that it’s worth mentioning in this category as well. Trump and Sessions came out in favor of a baker who discriminated against a gay couple by refusing to bake them a wedding cake.
  18. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a previous court ruling expanding the definition of “bona fide relationship” in Trump’s travel ban (expanded now to include grandparents, nieces and nephews, and so on). The court also ruled that working with a resettlement agency constitutes a bona fide relationship, opening the door to letting in more refugees.
  19. The Department of Homeland Security announces that it cancelled its plans to conduct nationwide ICE raids, which would have targeted around 8,400 undocumented immigrants—the largest ICE raid of its kind. In light of the hurricanes, they decided to cancel it.
  20. A bipartisan group of Senators roll out a joint resolution condemning the white supremacists rallies in Charlottesville and denouncing hate groups like white supremacists, the KKK, neo-nazis, and so on. If the resolution passes, it will force Trump to either sign it (thus endorsing the condemnation) or not sign it (indicating that his loyalties do lie with these hate groups).

Climate/EPA:

  1. In a rare trifecta, there are three concurrent hurricanes threatening land. Along with Irma, Katia hits Mexico’s east side and Jose is expected to hang around Bermuda and Bahamas before hopefully going back out into the Atlantic.
  2. Hurricane Irma becomes a category 5, one of the strongest storms ever recorded In the Atlantic. The storm slams into the Caribbean islands and makes its way up the west side of Florida before becoming a tropical storm by the time it hits Georgia.
  3. The EPA claims they haven’t visited 13 Superfund sites in Texas because they aren’t accessible, but an Associated Press reporter went to 12 of them by land vehicle or foot and 1 by boat. The EPA called the story misleading and went after the reporter personally.
  4. Trump’s nominee to head up NASA, James Bridenstine, doesn’t believe in anthropogenic global warming. So he will be the head of a science-based agency.
  5. The EPA hired an inexperienced political employee to review grants and make final funding decisions for research projects. John Konkus reviews every award and grant, and has warned staff that he will be on the look out for the double C (climate change). Scientists will have to come up with a code word.
  6. While much of what Konkus has cut so were Obama’s priorities, he’s giving the heavily Republican state of Alaska the most scrutiny. This is likely related to threats from government agencies over Lisa Murkowski’s healthcare vote.
  7. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to restore funding to the UN’s climate change agency, the agency that oversees the Paris accord. According to Rex Tillerson, we need to continue monitoring climate change and keep our seat at the table. Trump wants to stop funding the agency.
  8. EPA head Scott Pruitt says this isn’t the time to talk about climate change, even though the worsened storms we’re seeing now were predicted by scientists over a decade ago. At the very least, now is the time to talk about developing infrastructure to withstand climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump continues to say that the U.S. is one of the highest taxed countries in the world. In truth, personal income tax falls somewhere near the middle compared with developed countries (when looking at tax revenue as a percent of GDP). Corporate tax revenue is even lower in comparison to other countries (538). The Tax Policy Center rates us even lower.
  2. Trump heads to North Dakota to push his tax plan.
  3. In a meeting with Senate and House leaders, Trump strikes a deal with Congressional Democrats on hurricane relief, the debt ceiling, and government funding. The caveat is that the debt ceiling and funding portions are only for the next three months; Republicans were looking for something longer term. This is a clean bill with no border wall funding and no protections for DACA (but it should give Congress some space to focus on immigration over the next few months).
  4. Republican leaders express disbelief and frustration to Mick Mulvaney that Trump struck a deal with Democratic leaders to pass a clean debt ceiling and spending bill. Chuck ain’t “Crying Chuck” no more…at least for now.
  5. After receiving positive press over the deal, Trump calls Schumer and Pelosi both to revel in the news.
  6. Congress signs the hurricane relief bill just in time. FEMA was expected to run out of money by the weekend.
  7. Schumer and Trump agree to try and end the debt ceiling, putting an end to a contentious ritual that has outlived its usefulness.

Elections:

  1. After the hacking attempts during the 2016 elections, some successful and some not, the U.S. needs to spend hundreds of millions to improve cybersecurity and voting practices. However, Congress is still fighting over the role Russian hackers played in the election (as are the American people), and they can’t agree on a way forward. Ideas include replacing voting equipment, strengthening state voter databases, training election workers better, and conducting post-election audits.
  2. Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and the head of the voter suppression commission, publishes an essay on Breitbart claiming he has proof that thousands of out-of-state voters illegally voted in New Hampshire in 2016 and that they probably affected the results of the elections in that state.
  3. WaPo easily debunks Kobach’s “proof” with interviews of college students who did vote on out-of-state licenses, which is completely legal. Note that studies estimate Kobach’s voter laws in Kansas prevented about 34,000 legal voters in that state from having their votes count.
  4. Kobach’s suggestion that New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Hassan’s election was rigged has ignited a firestorm before the voter commission’s second meeting.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Almost 80 lobbyists and government contractors have memberships at Trump’s golf courses, and around 2/3 of them have golfed there at the same time as Trump. This leads some to question the constitutionality of Trump making money off people who are trying to access the office of the president.
  2. Word has it that Trump hasn’t even interviewed a candidate to replace John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security.
  3. In North Dakota, Trump tells the crowd that even with the drought (that is killing their crops), Dakotans are better off than those affected by Hurricane Harvey. He also says he’ll make the drought go away and is surprised that drought could happen this far north. Dust bowl anyone?
  4. Betsy DeVos rolls back Obama-era protections for victims of rape and sexual assault on campuses without replacing them with any new protections or guidelines.
  5. Trump denies emergency assistance to Oregon for the fires. He approved it for Montana after originally denying it, so maybe it’ll be the same here.
  6. An 8.1 earthquake strikes off the southwest coast of Mexico. Nearly 100 are dead and the recovery is still underway.
  7. The Florida corrections agency evacuates thousands of federal inmates, though it’s also reported that thousands are left in the hurricane evacuation zone.
  8. Trump begins selling gold “presidential medals” with his face on them to fundraise for his re-election campaign.
  9. In the weirdest Hurricane Irma news, someone starts a Facebook page on a lark urging people to shoot their guns into Irma to stop the hurricane and providing a “scientific” explanation for how it will all work. This forces Florida officials to issue several warnings to NOT shoot into Irma.
  10. All five living ex-presidents come together in an ad campaign for unity and to drum up aid for hurricane victims.

Polls:

  1. According to a recent poll, 76% of Americans think Dreamers should not be deported and should be allowed to obtain either citizenship or permanent residence.