If you were wondering why all sorts of stories about investigations into Clinton popped up this week, we found out on Friday that Mueller filed the first charges in the Russia investigation. By the time I publish this, we’ll know much more about the charges, but the message for week 40 was deflect, deflect, deflect.

Here’s what happened.

Missed Previously:

Around the time that the U.S. recalled much of the diplomatic personnel from Cuba, we also expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the U.S. I missed this when researching the mysterious symptoms our personnel were experiencing in Cuba.

Russia:

1. Putin places Bill Browder on the Interpol list, which led to the U.S. border control temporarily halting his travel to the U.S. Browder was instrumental in the Magnitsky Act and he’s testified in the Russia investigation.
2. Kaspersky Labs allows outside experts to come in and look at their software to dispel any worries that the Kremlin uses their products to spy on the U.S.
3. Even though a foreign country worked to undermine our democracy, and even though we know they are still doing it and will continue doing it into the next elections, it doesn’t appear that Congress is motivated to do much about it. It’s up to us, people. Let’s not fall for the bullshit again.
4. The Trump administration still hasn’t implemented the sanctions on Russia that Congress signed into law last August. They’re almost a month past deadline to implement the policy.
5. It turns out that the reason behind the failure to implement sanctions is that Rex Tillerson dissolved the office responsible for that (the Coordinator for Sanctions Policy).
6. With big news coming up in the Russia investigation, there’s a new push to deflect attention to Hillary Clinton:

• • Devin Nunez announces a new congressional probe into Russia’s relationship with the Clintons regarding a 2010 uranium mine deal.
  • Trump personally tells the Justice Department to lift a gag order on an FBI informant around the uranium deal so the informant can testify to Congress. The U.S. has already prosecuted Russian agents for bribery and kickbacks to a trucking a company.
  • The House announces two committee inquiries into James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case and into the FBI’s 2016 investigation of some members of Trump‘s campaign.
  • We learn that the Podesta Group and its chairman Tony Podesta (brother of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta) is part of the Mueller investigation for working with Paul Manafort’s agency on a pro-Ukraine PR campaign.
  • The original funder of Fusion GPS’s opposition research on Trump is a conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, which hired Fusion GPS in fall of 2015 presumably on behalf of a Republican primary candidate. This initial research found Trump’s business interests were heavily weighted toward Russia.
  • Around the time the Beacon stopped funding the opposition (in May), the DNC and Clinton campaign (through a lawyer) hired Fusion GPS to continue their work (in April).
  • Since Fusion GPS’s previous research had already led them to Russia, they contracted Steele to continue that line of research.
  • The Campaign Legal Center files a complaint with the FEC against the DNC and Clinton campaign saying they hid payments to Fusion GPS on their FEC filings.
  • Trump personally tells the State Department to speed up the release of all remaining Clinton emails.
  • Hyperbole much? Sebastian Gorka says Hillary should be tried for treason and executed.

7. While much of the above is coming out now in an attempt to discredit the Steele dossier, the intelligence community came to their conclusions about Russia meddling without using the dossier at all.
8. A top employee at Cambridge Analytica, the firm the Trump campaign used to target certain demographics, says he contacted Wikileaks about Clinton’s emails, offering to help index them so they’d be more easily searchable online. Julian Assange refused the offer. This occurred in August 2016. After we knew Russia was behind the hack, and after Cambridge Analytica started working with the Trump campaign.
9. Trump plans to pay almost a half million dollars for his aides legal fees around the Russia investigation.
10. Mueller files the initial charges in the Russia probe. As of the end of the week, they’re still sealed under orders from the court.
11. After the charges are announced, Roger Stone unleashes a profane tirade on Twitter, which gets him banned permanently from Twitter.
12. Twitter bans ads from Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.
13. Facebook, Twitter, and Google played a much bigger role in the election than we thought. The companies offered to embed their employees in both Clinton’s and Trump’s campaigns, though Clinton declined. Those employees created campaign strategies and communications for Trump’s campaign, including targeting voters and preparing responses to attacks.
14. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last year, says the information she had to share was from her own research, but it turns out that her paperwork included verbatim text from Russia’s prosecutor general.
15. To help combat the disinformation campaign, Quartz creates a bot that hunts down political bots on Twitter, @probabot. You can follow it on Twitter.
16. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, meets with the House Intelligence Committee to discuss a request he made to Dmitry Peskov for help in building Trump Tower Moscow. The request was made during the 2016 campaign.

Courts/Justice:

1. The inspector general for the Treasury Department releases a report on the allegations that the IRS under Obama targeted conservative organizations for heavier scrutiny of eligibility for tax-exempt status. It turns out that equal scrutiny was given to both liberal and conservative groups during this time, and that both were more heavily scrutinized.
2. However, despite all the above information, the DOJ under Sessions settles cases with some conservative groups anyway. The settlements are pending court approval.

Healthcare:

1. The company that created OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, is spreading the opioid epidemic abroad. They’re pushing into international markets, and providing educational tools and text for medical schools.
2. Trump declares a national public health emergency instead of a national emergency in the opioid epidemic. This gives agencies more flexibility in dealing with the problem but doesn’t provide funding like a national emergency would. This only provides $57,000 in funding and doesn’t improve access to the life-saving drug naloxone.
3. Trump’s solution to the problem seems to be “just say no,” which didn’t work the first time we tried it in the 1980s. Agencies dealing with the crisis still haven’t been given direction from the administration.
4. While opioid addiction is the big problem, the increased number of deaths seems to be coming from fentanyl mixed in with heroin.
5. The CBO estimates that the latest bipartisan healthcare bill being proposed would reduce the deficit by $4 billion while funding the insurance subsidies and giving states more flexibility. They also say that not funding subsidies would increase the deficit by $194 billion over 9 years.
6. Joshua Kushner, Jared’s brother, writes an op-ed supporting the ACA and criticizing Trump’s handling of it. He’s in the insurance industry.
7. While industry experts say that the healthcare markets and associated premiums had pretty much stabilized, now it turns out that premiums are increasing 34% as a result of the uncertainty around Trump’s and the GOP’s policies.
8. Congress let the funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expire more than three weeks ago. Some states can continue funding it for a few more months, but others are running out of money.

International:

1. General Dunford holds a press conference to answer questions about how the troops died in Niger.
2. It turns out that hardly any members of Congress knew we had so many troops in Niger. They’ve been there since 2013.
3. While the administration has been pushing a narrative of success with security in Afghanistan, Rex Tillerson meets with the president of Afghanistan in what he says is the capital city of Kabul. But they actually met at a military base, as noticed by the military clock on the wall in the press photo of the two. At least Afghanistan PR was smart enough to photoshop the clock out of the picture.
4. Trump says the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight, and he could be right thanks to steady losses over the past three years. Anti-ISIS fighters have squeezed ISIS down into a tiny fraction of the land they once occupied.
5. Jared Kushner takes an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia to continue Middle East peace talks.
6. Cuba blames the “sonic attacks” that led to many U.S. diplomats there returning home on cicadas. They got this from comparing recordings the U.S. embassy provided them for investigation.
7. Airlines with direct flights to the U.S. from abroad must now comply with new HHS rules that include tougher screenings, including interviews with security. The tougher rules come from the findings earlier this year that explosive devices could be hidden inside laptops.
8. Normally the different areas in Spain are mostly run by their own local governments, but the government of Spain is taking over Catalonia’s government after their recent attempt to gain independence.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The House schedules a hearing on a heartbeat abortion bill. This could pass the House but it’s doubtful it would pass the Senate. Even if it gets signed into law, the courts would strike it down as it has with each state that’s tried to pass similar legislation.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. ICE detains a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy immediately following an emergency surgery. She’s been in the U.S. since she was three months old.
2. Trump lifts the refugee ban, but the administration caps the number of refugees allowed each year and implements new and more strict vetting rules.
3. White Lives Matter holds rallies in Tennessee, chanting “Closed borders, white nation! Now we start the deportation!” I only found one incidence of violence, where white supremacists beat an interracial couple in a restaurant.
4. Counter-protestors outnumber the White Lives Matter crowd, and they play Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech over their speaker system, drowning out the White Lives Matter speakers.
5. HUD secretary Ben Carson ends a rule to prevent housing segregation. The rule would’ve stopped a practice that limited the areas where low-income families could live and would’ve allowed them to move into areas with more opportunities. In response, civil rights groups sue Carson and HUD.
6. While Trump goes ahead with his border wall prototypes, emails show a chaotic and confusing bidding process. Even basic details, like how and where to submit bids, were confusing. One industry expert says that this indicates the administration doesn’t have a clear picture of what they want. Shocking, I know.
7. Senate Republicans form a group to work on immigration issues, including saving Dreamers.

Climate/EPA:

1. China shuts down tens of thousands of factories in a crackdown on pollution violations. China has been making great headway in clean energy sources, but it needs to clean up its smog problem before it can make full use of solar, because the sun doesn’t make it through the smog enough.
2. The National Park Service plans to increase fees to our national parks, in some cases more than double the current price. One example is Joshua Tree in California, where the price per car would go from $25 to $75, and would increase to $50 per motorcycle and $30 for biking or walking in.
3. To compound matters, Trump’s budget cuts $400 million from parks. Members of Congress have proposed bipartisan bills that would use $12 billion in federal oil and gas revenue to pay for long-needed maintenance in the parks, which is the reason for the above increases.
4. The Department of the Interior’s four-year strategic plan removes any mention of climate change. Rather than emphasizing conservation, their strategy appears to emphasize “American energy dominance” by exploiting public lands for their “vast amounts” of energy reserves.
5. Trump announces plans to shrink two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase – Escalante.
6. Rick Perry wants to reward coal and nuclear plants for storing 90 days of fuel on site saying it makes the power grid more reliable. Natural gas and renewable energy producers, along with public utilities, say it would inhibit competition and increase prices for consumers.

Puerto Rico:

1. A few GOP Senators hold up the disaster relief bill, citing concerns for Puerto Rico. Jeff Flake and Mike Lee have fiscal concerns but also want Puerto Rico to be able to ignore the Jones Act.
2. The electric company that won the contract in Puerto Rico is a 2-man operation from Whitefish, MT, where Ryan Zinke is from.
3. Two House committees and one federal watchdog (the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General) open investigations into how the contract was awarded.
4. Whitefish also gets into a Twitter war with San Juan’s mayor over her requests for an open process, threatening to stop working.
5. While the contract with Whitefish says that FEMA reviewed and approved it, FEMA says they never saw it. And even though FEMA’s responsible for paying WhiteFish, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) is the agency that authorized the contract.
6. The governor of Puerto Rico demands that PREPA cancel the contract with Whitefish citing a lack of transparency.
7. The rates charged by Whitefish are more than double those that would be paid by the Army Corps of Engineers. The contract includes a clause that says the government can’t review the labor rates.
8. Questions come up about the number of dead from hurricane Maria as well as the methodology of counting them. Some put the number closer to 1,000 than the official count of 51, largely due to lack of medical care after the hurricane struck.

Budget/Economy:

1. Wall Street scores another win, as Republicans in the Senate barely pass a bill to repeal Obama-era rules about forced arbitration clauses. This repeal makes it harder for consumers to fight back against unscrupulous acts by financial institutions by allowing consumers to be forced into arbitration clauses. In other words, banks can sue you, but you can’t sue banks. The Obama-era rule is what allowed Wells Fargo customers to file a suit against the bank after learning Wells Fargo signed people up for accounts without their knowledge.
2. The GOP tax and budget framework gets mixed reviews. Some of the changes include:

• • Immediate write-offs for equipment investment.
  • Cutting corporate tax rates, which decreases tax revenue and raises deficits.
  • Windfall subsidies on past corporate investments.
  • Not charging companies U.S. taxes on foreign income, which could encourage companies to ship jobs and profits overseas.
  • A $1 trillion cut to Medicaid and a $1/2 trillion cut to Medicare.

3. 100% of leading economists surveyed don’t think the tax plan will boost the economy enough to pay for itself.
4. While Senators Corker, Flake, and McCain have been speaking up for what they think is morally right, they all also just voted to give consumers no recourse when they are swindled by banks and they voted for a tax cut for the wealthy accompanied by a $1.5 trillion cut to healthcare for the elderly and needy.
5. The currently approved framework leaves 401K limits alone for now. Previously, Congress floated dropping the annual limit that you can put in your 401K from $18,000 to $2,400.
6. There’s disagreement among Republicans in Congress over getting rid of two tax deductions, one for local property taxes and one for state taxes.
7. Building contractors and realtors object to the possibility of removing the tax deduction on mortgage interest.
8. Scott Garrett, Trump’s pick for the import-export bank, goes before the Senate November 1. In the model of other Trump appointees who’s job seems to be dismantling their agencies, Garrett has spent many years trying to dismantle the bank.
9. Every investor in Trump Tower Toronto lost money on their investment except Trump.
10. Since Trump made his “Buy American” promise, imports of foreign steel are up 24%.
11. Republicans in Congress are increasingly certain they can pass tax reform by year’s end. They think passing reform will cause some Republicans to rethink their decision to retire out of frustration at not being able to get anything done. The push for passing tax reform is so strong because the GOP thinks this will secure them majorities in the House and Senate in 2018. They plan to run a multi-million-dollar ad campaign to promote their plan.
12. Congressional Republicans worry that Trump will make passing tax reform harder by what he says and does. Remember the hit the ACA repeal effort took when Trump called the House healthcare plan “mean.”

Elections:

1. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) announces it will investigate Trump’s voter fraud commission over how it’s using federal funds, its methodology, and how it’s protecting voter information and following regulations.
2. Trump’s voter fraud commission isn’t keeping the Democrats on the commission in the loop.

Miscellaneous:

1. File this one under hypocrisy. After criticizing Democrats for not distancing themselves from Weinstein fast enough, not returning his donated money fast enough, and not doing enough to stop him, FoxNews brings accused predator Bill O’Reilly back on air to let him air his grievances about being set up. I’m sure the women he’s harassed were thrilled to see him there.
2. On top of that, we learn that before FoxNews fired him, they renewed O’Reilly’s contract for $100 million for four years, and this was after he settled what was at least his SIXTH sexual harassment suit, this one for $32 million dollars. So please stop trying to make sexual predation a political issue. It’s a power issue.
3. Trump has a very bad Tuesday. Jeff Flake gives a 20-minute impassioned critique on the Senate floor about the state of politics and Trump, saying he won’t run again. Bob Corker gives a brutally honest 6-minute interview on the way to the GOP lunch. And then, as Trump walks to the lunch with Mitch McConnell, a protestor throws Russian flags at them and calls Trump a traitor.
4. Both Mitch McConnell and John McCain praise Flake for his speech on the Senate floor. Sarah Huckabee Sanders calls it petty and not “befitting of the Senate floor.”
5. The latest Pew Research study on politics and policy shows that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats think that “their side” is losing. Surprising for Republicans, since they control the federal government and over half of state governments.
6. Trump brags for at least the 20th time this year about getting standing ovations, this time at the Senate luncheon.
7. Trump announces the release of the remaining JFK files as per a pre-scheduled release date, but there’s a short delay because they didn’t know that certain files needed to be reviewed and redacted. Several documents were released, but some will be released next April.
8. The Education Department is no longer fully protecting students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges. Instead of forgiving their loans, which was the policy under Obama, the students are responsible for half the amount.
9. In a profile with Politico, John Boehner blames the increasing divide and partisanship on the rise of talk radio and social media. He also says “Fuck [Rep. Jim] Jordan. Fuck [Rep. Jason] Chaffetz. They’re both assholes.” Jordan helped cofound the Freedom Caucus (which caused Boehner no end of trouble) and Chaffetz chaired the House Oversight Committee. It’s a long piece, but lots of interesting tidbits.
10. Ajit Pai announces plans to loosen media ownership regulations, opening the door for even more consolidation in media outlets and less consumer choice. The FCC will vote on this in November.
11. As of this week, 1 in 5 Senate Republicans have been the target of Trump’s attacks, including Bob Corker, Ted Cruz, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Dean Heller, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ben Sasse. The great negotiator might be forgetting that he can only afford to lose two Republican votes on any Senate bill.

Polls:

1. 58% of Republicans say that Trump is the hardest working president since WWII. This, despite the fact that as of October 22, he has spent 75 out of 279 days playing golf, or 1 of every 3.7 days. Or 3 times as much vacation times as Obama took by this time.
2. 71% of Americans think U.S. politics “have reached a dangerous low point.” 80% say Congress is dysfunctional. 60% say Trump is making it more dysfunctional.
3. The percent of American who think politicians are honest has dropped from 39 to 14 since 1987.
4. 87% think politicians will do whatever it takes to get re-elected.
5. 48% of registered voters prefer a Congress controlled by Democrats. 41% prefer Republican control.
6. 53% of military officers disapprove of Trump, and 40% of all troops disapprove of him.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

“The people that made the Russians successful are the Democrats, and the people who have continued this nonsense over and over and over again, looking for Russians behind every tree.”

– House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), as a way of blaming Democrats for the Russian meddling in 2016. Even though what really made the Russians successful were the people who believed and helped spread the fake stories out of Russia and Macedonia.