Tag: Erdogan

Week 142 in Trump

Posted on October 23, 2019 in Politics, Trump

How do you burst the bubble of conspiracy theories? How do you unmuddy the waters stirred up by innuendos and lies and fake news? Seriously folks, we all need to be using our powers of rational thinking and logic. There was a time I would’ve said that if something sounds too outrageous to be true, it probably isn’t. But you can’t make up the shit we’re learning about right now. You just can’t.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending October 13…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. A federal judge says that lawsuits brought by Native Americans to prevent Trump from shrinking the Bears Ears National Monument have legal standing and can move forward.

Shootings This Week:

  1. There are ELEVEN mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing or injuring four or more people). Condensed version: Shooters kill 20 people and injure 34.
  2. A shooter at a Jewish synagogue in Germany is foiled when he can’t get in through the doors of the synagogue. He pushes on the doors, shoots at the locks, and even tries a small explosive to force the doors open. Still, he kills two people outside the synagogue, but the 51 people inside are unharmed.
  3. Gunmen kill 15 people as they’re worshipping in a mosque in Burkina Faso.

Russia:

  1. The DOJ argues that the grand-jury materials from Robert Mueller’s investigation shouldn’t be given to Congress, arguing that Congress shouldn’t have been able to obtain information from the Watergate grand jury either.
    • The judge’s response to that argument? “Wow. OK….the department is taking extraordinary positions in this case.”
    • She says Trump administration lawyers have given her several extreme arguments in their attempts to prevent the release of information.
  1. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee releases its second volume of findings in their investigations into Russian interference in our 2016 elections. This volume focuses on the social media disinformation campaign by the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The much-redacted report finds pretty much the same as all previous investigations:
    • Russia meddled in our elections.
    • The IRA, backed by the Kremlin, set out to harm Hillary’s chances of winning and assist Trump in winning.
    • The IRA’s purpose was to sow discord in the U.S. and they strongly aimed to stoke racial divisions. Russia continues to do this long after the 2016 elections, including exploiting Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel for the anthem.
    • The IRA’s activity increased after the 2016 election.
    • Russia’s targeting of the 2016 election is part of a larger, sophisticated, and ongoing disinformation campaign.
    • We need sweeping changes to protect ourselves from foreign interference, and we need them now.
  1. Here’s an excerpt of a communication obtained by the committee detailing an IRA employee’s description of election day:
    • “On November 9, 2016, a sleepless night was ahead of us. And when around 8 a.m. the most important result of our work arrived, we uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne…took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes…. We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great.’” Welcome to Russia 2.0, comrades. Wake up.
  1. And in the midst of this, Facebook announces they won’t remove debunked political ads from their platform, citing the right to free speech. So if you believe what you read on Facebook, don’t say I didn’t warn you that you’re reading a bunch of lies.
  2. Also in the midst of this, Mitch McConnell still refuses to take up House bills addressing election fraud, voter suppression, and election security.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that Trump once asked him to try to get the DOJ to drop a case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader.
    • Why on earth would Trump be interested in this case? Maybe because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted the case dismissed.
    • The trader, Reza Zarrab, has since agreed to cooperate with the prosecution in the case, which centered on efforts to help Iran evade sanctions by hiding money transfers in gold sales.
    • A Turkish official from state bank Halkbank was found guilty in the case, and Zarrab also implicated Erdogan.
    • Zarrab was Rudy Giuliani’s client at the time.
    • Can we just take a moment to remember that the reason Michael Flynn is in trouble is from his work for Erdogan?
  1. It’s an up and down week for Trump’s attempts to keep his finances private.
    • At the beginning of the week, a federal judge rules that Trump’s accounting firm must release eight years of his tax returns.
    • Then a federal court grants Trump a temporary stay on releasing those returns to the Manhattan D.A.
    • But by the end of the week, a federal appeals court rules that the accounting firm must release Trump’s financial records to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. I’m not sure what the implications are for the Manhattan D.A.’s case.
    • Even the lone dissenting judge says that impeachment is the only valid way to get the records (though she doesn’t actually say that would work).
    • In case you’re wondering, the judges rejected the argument that sitting presidents can’t be criminally investigated.
  1. A judge rules that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been violating a court order by continuing to collect student debts for a college that has folded. The judge threatens her with jail time.
  2. Attorney General William Barr meets with Rupert Murdoch. Who knows what they talk about, but two days later, Shepherd Smith announces his last day at Fox News.
  3. Trump Organization refuses to pay the Scottish government’s legal costs in Trump’s failed lawsuit to block a wind farm near his golf course.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court Justices decide on what they’ll hear in the next session. Jumping right into the political fray, they’ll hear cases about abortion, guns, LGBTQ rights, separation of church and state, immigration, congressional oversight, and presidential power.

International:

Syria/Kurds:

  1. Trump’s surprise announcement about abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria alarms the rest of our allies for its sheer impulsiveness.
  2. U.S. troops begin to withdraw from the area.
  3. The Pentagon, the State Department, soldiers on the ground in Syria, and even Republican Members of Congress harshly criticize Trump’s decision, and Trump seems surprised by this.
  4. Trump defends the move, saying it’s time to get out of these endless wars. But he’s just moving those troops to Iraq; he’s not bringing them home. He also defends himself by saying that the Kurds didn’t help us with Normandy, a line he got from a Fox contributor (and since when is that how we measure our allies?).
  5. Trump invites Turkish President Erdogan to the White House.
  6. Turkey says they want to combat Kurdish soldiers in the border area and create a safe zone for Syrian refugees now living in Turkey.
  7. The White House says we’ve defeated the ISIS caliphate, but experts say ISIS is regrouping already. They also say this is the most destabilizing move we could’ve made.
  8. Trump threatens Turkey if they do anything Trump thinks is off-limits. But Turkey immediately mobilizes their forces at the border and begins their assault against the Kurds, launching airstrikes and firing artillery. In other words, they’re bombing the Kurds.
  9. The White House says that Turkey will take over control of over 12,000 suspected ISIS fighters captured and held by Kurdish allies. The U.S. takes custody of two ISIS militants known for beheading their enemies. Some ISIS militants escape after Turkish forces start shelling nearby areas.
  10. Kurdish civilians begin to flee, and some soldiers begin to leave their posts to go home and protect their families. These are people who were forced to flee ISIS fighters just a few years ago. International Rescue Committee estimates 64,000 people have already fled, and that number could end up being more than 300,000.
  11. Turkey strikes at least six towns along the border, killing at least two dozen people and critically injuring 19, mostly civilians and several children.
  12. The fighting escalates on the second day after Trump’s announcement, and Saudi-backed Syrian fighters join in, killing Kurdish captives. A Kurdish politician is also killed. This whole thing has just tossed fuel on Syria’s 8-year-long war.
  13. To be clear, Turkey, a NATO nation, bombed an area where hundreds of U.S. troops were stationed. What could go wrong? Maybe this: A contingent of U.S. Special Forces is caught in Turkish artillery fire, and they withdraw instead of firing back. Because we’re not at war. Right? Are we?
    • The U.S. forces say Turkey targeted them.
  1. Even with this, the order to withdraw all U.S. troops from the area doesn’t come until the end of the week.
  2. A National Security Council member says Trump got rolled and out-negotiated by Erdogan.
  3. The Secretary of Defense and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both call their counterparts in Turkey to try to get them to back down.
  4. Even Russia blames the U.S. for the chaos at the Syrian border.
  5. Trump says he’ll move some troops from Syria to Saudi Arabia. Also, the Pentagon says they’re sending 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia to protect their oil fields from alleged attacks from Iran. One Saudi prince admits they really don’t know where the U.S. stands on Syria.
  6. Trump has two towers in Turkey, one residential and the other offices, in a single complex with a shopping mall and theaters.
  7. The UN calls an emergency meeting of the Security Council to condemn Turkey’s attack on our Kurdish allies. Russia opposed the condemnation, as did the U.S. (despite Trump’s claims that he’d hold Turkey in check).
  8. The bombing of four Syrian hospitals within a 12-hour period in May has been traced back to the Russian Air Force.

Other International:

  1. Trump says he’s thinking about withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, which is seen as a cornerstone of global defense. The treaty lets us monitor Russian military deployments and lets them monitor ours. The treaty has 34 signatory countries.
  2. The State Department announces they’ll impose visa restrictions on certain Chinese government officials believed to be responsible for the detention and surveillance of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups.
  3. Military generals agree on a few things about Trump’s military leadership:
    • He isn’t interested in policy details and disdains expertise and process, and thus he makes ill-informed decisions.
    • He thinks his own gut feelings are genius, and only trusts his own instincts.
    • He’d rather keep perceived enemies confused than stick to a strategy, increasing the risk of a miscalculation.
    • He likes others to agree with him but is himself a contrarian.
    • His ideas of the military are simplistic and outdated.
    • He’s risked unnecessary wars and created major problems for his field commanders in combat operations. They’re saving his hide right now.
  1. A U.S. peace envoy meets with the Taliban for the first time since Trump canceled the Labor Day weekend peace talks with the Taliban and Afghan government.
  2. Violent protests continue in Ecuador until the president comes to an agreement with protestors to end austerity measures. Protestors and officials both help clean up the residual mess.
  3. The Hong Kong protests have been ongoing since March, and protesters just upped their game by using flash mob tactics to avoid arrest. I don’t mean to make light of it; the protests have been violent and destructive at times, and many of the citizens are tired of it.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Yet another federal judge rules that Trump’s emergency declaration to fund his border wall is unlawful. The complainants argued that the wall didn’t qualify as an emergency and Trump overstepped his authority.

Family Separation:

  1. Loopholes in our immigration laws let judges grant custody of migrant children to American parents without notifying the deported parents of those children. In some cases, foster families ignore requests from the Department of Homeland Security to return the children. This isn’t new to the Trump administration.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A white police officer called to investigate a home late at night because the front door was open shoots the black women inside playing video games with her nephew. The woman, Atatiana Jefferson, heard noises outside so she stood up and got her handgun. That’s when the officer shot her through the window, without announcing himself and without warning. He’s charged with murder. He also resigns.
  2. Contradicting all medical science, a Florida judge rejects a Tampa ordinance banning conversion therapy for LGTBQ minors because he says it limits parental rights to make healthcare choices for their kids.
  3. Over 100 activists are arrested at a protest outside the Supreme Court while they heard arguments for three LGBTQ employment cases.
  4. Two towns in Alabama—Montgomery and Talladega—elect their first black mayors.
  5. Three separate courts block Trump’s efforts to keep low-income immigrants out of the country (his “public charge” rule).

Climate:

  1. The climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion holds demonstrations and die-ins across the globe, closing down streets and at times vandalizing public property. The group says the demonstrations will last for two weeks.
  2. Almost 600 former EPA officials call for an investigation into the Trump administration’s treatment of California. They accuse the administration of abusing their authority by retaliating against California officials for not following Trump’s political agenda.
  3. The House Science Committee finds that Commerce Department officials, not NOAA staff, were responsible for issuing the statement rebuking National Weather Service staff in Alabama who contradicted Trump’s warning that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama hard.
  4. Typhoon Hagibis is the largest to hit Japan in decades. It causes widespread flooding, leaves at least 35 dead, and injures 166 people.
  5. Arctic ice melt has started a power struggle in the area because it’s opened up access to oil and gas reserves. Every country wants a piece of it.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Employment grew more in Obama’s first 31 months than it did in Trump’s first 31 months (1.5 million more). In fairness, Obama started out with a lot more room to grow than Trump did.
  2. According to Pro Publica, the new limits on state and local taxes and to mortgage interest deductions resulted in a reduction or plateau in home values in some areas. Areas in the Northeast and Chicago saw the biggest drops.
  3. In 2018, for the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid the lowest tax rate of all income groups. People who’re making more than $1 million per year paid a lower tax rate than all of us. Is that how anybody really thinks this should work?
  4. The U.S. and China announce an interim trade deal, a truce if you will. China will buy more agricultural products and start to open its economy, and the U.S. won’t implement the planned tariff hikes.
  5. The Treasury Department considers rolling back a rule designed to prevent American companies from moving money offshore in order to avoid taxes.

Elections:

  1. In response to Facebook refusing to remove an ad from the Trump campaign smearing Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren takes out a Facebook ad claiming that Mark Zuckerberg endorsed Trump. She then goes on to explain that it’s a lie, but Facebook wouldn’t take the ad down even knowing it was full of lies.
    • Several media outlets refuse to air Trump’s ad because it’s full of misinformation.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump awards former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese with the Medal of Freedom, one of our highest civilian honors. Meese was directly implicated in three scandals under Reagan, including the Iran-Contra affair.
  2. The Oath Keepers say they’ll protect Trump supporters at his rally in Minneapolis, which draws an enormous protest outside the arena. Several neighboring businesses donate their proceeds for the day to groups like Planned Parenthood.
  3. Trump is mad at the rally, under pressure from impeachment hearings. And it shows. As one person put it, his words “were stunning in ugliness & tone.”
    • He targets Representative Ilhan Omar and Somali refugees in the city with the largest concentration of Somali refugees. He says he’d protect cities like Minneapolis from refugees they don’t want.
    • He as much as says that Somalis bring violent ideologies to our shores. He calls Omar an “America-hating Socialist.”
    • He says the Bidens got rich off Americans, though there’s no evidence of that. Also, with his kids making international deals left and right, he shouldn’t be pointing any fingers.
    • He says Biden “was only a good vice president because he knew how to kiss Barack Obama’s ass.”
    • He calls Speaker Nancy Pelosi “really stupid.”
  1. One of the few voices of truth on Fox News, Shepherd Smith, announces his sudden departure from the network to explore “another chapter.” This comes at a time when tensions between the opinion division (Carlson, Hannity, Perry, Ingraham, etc.) and the news division (Smith, Baier, Wallace, etc.) are at a peak. Do you suppose this is what Barr and Rupert Murdoch met about the other night? If I were Brett Baier or Chris Wallace, I’d be polishing my resume.
  2. Mark Zuckerberg has been having informal meetings with conservative politicians and journalists. He’s discussing free speech and partnerships.

Polls:

  1. A Fox poll indicates a record high level of support for impeachment.
    • 51% want Trump impeached and removed from office.
    • 4% want him impeached by not removed from office.
    • 40% are opposed to impeachment.

Week 103 in Trump

Posted on January 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

A fence or a wall? Both are designed to separate, both disrupt migration for both people and animals. Is one better than the other?

Poor Mick Mulvaney. He was just trying to help. When Trump was negotiating with Congressional leaders over the budget for the wall, Mulvaney attempted to find middle ground by proposing that both sides give a little. Trump didn’t really like that much, and said, “You just fucked it all up, Mick.”

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Last week I reported that Ford scrapped plans to build a plant in Mexico in favor of expanding U.S. operations. I was wrong. This story was from two years ago, before Trump took office. This rumor recirculated when Donald Trump, Jr. retweeted a two-year-old story.
  2. Trump starts off a meeting with Members of Congress over the shutdown with 15 minutes of profanity-laced talk about impeachment. He also says he prefers to call it a “strike” and not a “shutdown.” (from the Wall Street Journal)
  3. It took two weeks after shutting down for the administration to realize that a shutdown would cause 38 million Americans to loose SNAP benefits and that, without continued HUD assistance, thousands of people could be evicted.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. After requesting $5.7 billion for the wall and spurning Mike Pence’s negotiations to find a middle ground, Trump ups the ante and asks for $7 billion.
  2. A group of Senate Republicans work on a deal to reopen the government, but Trump shoots that one down too.
  3. The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, calls on Trump and Congress to end the shutdown.
  4. Last week I gave a link to a summary of the misrepresentations and lies being told about the border and illegal crossings. Well, the lies continue this week, so here’s another helpful explainer.
  5. Trump holds a televised address from the Oval Office to talk about immigration policies, the wall, and the shutdown. Network stations agree to carry the address, even though they refused to air Obama’s speech on immigration policy because it was too political.
    • Fact checkers abound, but it’s not really necessary because he doesn’t say anything we haven’t already heard before.
    • Following the Oval Office address, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer give a rebuttal.
    • The address doesn’t change anyone’s mind, according to polls. But more people are now blaming Trump and Republican lawmakers than they were before. Which is weird because those earlier polls were before Democrats officially took back the House.
    • Trump tells TV anchors in an off-the-record lunch that he doesn’t really want to give the Oval Office address nor does he want to visit the border in Texas. His advisors talked him into it.
  1. A second federal employees union sues the Trump administration over the shutdown. The named plaintiff in the case is a Customs and Border Patrol officer. In a similar suit brought against Obama’s administration during the 2013 shutdown, the court took the side of federal workers.
  2. Trump storms out of a border security meeting with Democratic leaders. Trump says Democrats refused to negotiate; Democrats say Trump threw a temper tantrum.
  3. The Coast Guard Support Program advises furloughed Coast Guard employees to have garage sales or become mystery shoppers to help make ends meet. The program warns that bankruptcy is the last option. Jeez… I hope the government isn’t going to bankrupt any of its employees.
  4. Despite claiming hundreds of times (at least 212 just on the campaign trail) that Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump now says he never meant that Mexico would directly pay for the wall. Historical note: His campaign website featured a memo at one point suggesting that Mexico would pay a one-time fee of $5-$10 billion.
  5. Trump cancels his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland because of the shutdown. He blames Democrats, though—and I can’t say this enough—the shutdown happened under full Republican control.
  6. The first federal workers start missing their paychecks, and around 1,000 of them start GoFundMe accounts. Restaurants start offering them free meals. By the end of the week, there are over 10,000 GoFundMe accounts.
    • Interesting bit of shutdown history: Government workers are still waiting for back pay from the 2013 shutdown, and the government doesn’t even know how much they owe.
  1. The House passes bills to reopen parts of the government, but Mitch McConnell refuses to bring them to a vote in the Senate. Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid did the same thing in 2013.
  2. Around 100 landowners near the border have received letters from the government requesting access to their land for surveying for the wall. This is the first step in the process of eminent domain.
    • The landowners promise a legal battle to stop the land grab. It’s worth noting that lawsuits from use of eminent domain related to the 2006 Secure Fences Act are still being fought in court.
  1. Another migrant caravan is organizing in Honduras, and Mexico is preparing a strategy to manage them. Trump says the only thing that will stop them is a big wall, though CBP has done a pretty good job of stopping the current caravan.
    • The number of people coming in caravans represents a minuscule proportion of the total number of border apprehensions. But caravans are cheaper and safer than coyotes, so they might become the new norm.
  1. Donald Trump Jr. posts on Instagram comparing the wall to the “walls” that separate animals and people at the zoo. First, is he comparing migrants to animals? And second, if the animals are separated from us by walls, how can we see them?
  2. The shutdown becomes the longest in history.
  3. Trump reiterates his desire to declare a national emergency and use funds earmarked for other purposes for the wall. Also, Border apprehensions are at some of the lowest levels in decades.
  4. Trump considers using FEMA disaster relief funds (that is, those tagged for Puerto Rico, Florida, the Carolinas, and so on) to pay for his wall.
  5. Trump and his advisors think if they declare an emergency, it would reopen the government but the declaration of emergency would be stuck in the courts for so long, that it might never actually happen. So the government would reopen and Trump could save face.
  6. The DOJ furloughs 5,000 intelligence analysts, special agents, lawyers, and other employees. They also freeze funds for ongoing investigations.
  7. The Mayors of McAllen, TX, and its sister city across the border, Reynosa, oppose building a wall between the two cities. The two mayors often work together on initiatives to improve both cities. Also, McAllen is rated the 7th safest city in the U.S., according to FBI statistics. Trump just visited the border there to gin up support for the wall.
  8. GoFundMe says they’ll refund all the donors who donated a collective $20 million to go toward building the wall. The creator of the GoFundMe account had originally said all the money collected would go to the government to help build the wall, but he has since created a non-profit where he wants to direct the funds. His plan is to start building the wall himself, but that goes against his original GoFundMe mission.
  9. Nine Republican Senators introduce a bill that would put an end to government shutdowns, including the current one.
  10. Trump orders many of the activities that were prohibited under previous shutdowns to resume. Those include processing tax refunds, SNAP, mortgage processing, flood insurance programs, and national parks.
    • However, the FDA stops routine inspections of food-processing plants.
  1. The mortgage industry lobbies to restart the IRS’s income verification service so that loans can be processed. Trump complies.
  2. Mexican officials discover another tunnel under the border. This is the third tunnel they’ve found this month, adding more questions about how effective a wall would be.
  3. Kevin Hassett, the chief economic adviser, says furloughed workers are better off because of the shutdown. They didn’t have to use any vacation days to get time off over the holidays.
  4. Trump tweets misleading crime statistics for undocumented immigrants, citing numbers up to three times higher than they actually are. Now’s a good time for a reminder that crime rates for immigrants, documented or otherwise, are lower than crime rates for native-born Americans.
  5. It turns out that this shutdown was at the urging of Freedom Caucus Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. The Tea Party is just the gift that keeps on giving. It completely took Mitch McConnell and a few others by surprise, because they thought they had a deal to avoid this.
  6. McConnell, Ryan, and McCarthy all warned Trump against the shutdown, yet none of the three did anything to stop it. And McConnell and Ryan had the power to override it.
  7. A passenger was able to board a flight from Atlanta to Tokyo carrying a firearm. That’s a pretty good argument for ending the shutdown and letting TSA workers get back to doing their jobs.
  8. A group of Democrats catch flack from the right for heading to Puerto Rico during the weekend to attend a retreat, which includes the opening of Hamilton there. I’m torn—part of the reason for the opening is to support Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts, so it’s not all play.

Russia:

  1. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indict Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (of Trump Tower meeting fame) for obstructing a money laundering investigation. This isn’t tied to the Trump Tower case, but it confirms her ties to Russian government officials.
  2. Mueller interviewed Blackwater’s Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos’s brother) about meetings with Russians in the Seychelles two years ago. This week, Prince says he’d rather have a proctology exam than sit down with Mueller’s team.
  3. A (Trump-appointed) federal judge scolds Russian company Concord Management, which was charged by Mueller. The judge says their brief was inappropriate, unprofessional, and ineffective. The brief quoted the movie Animal House. One of their previous briefs quoted Casablanca.
  4. The Supreme Court refuses to vacate a lower-court order forcing a foreign-owned corporation to comply with a subpoena in the Russia investigation.
  5. It seems Manafort’s lawyers accidentally reveal collusion (by Manafort, not by Trump). They fail to thoroughly black out redacted information in a court filing, and reporters were easily able to see the redacted text by copying and pasting the PDF.
    • The filing shows that one of the things Mueller thinks Manafort lied about was that he shared Trump campaign polling data with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik (who’s also criminally charged in the Russia investigation).
    • Mueller accuses Manafort of lying about a text message asking if someone could use Manafort’s name to get an “in” with Trump.
    • The filing also shows that Manafort and Kilimnik talked about a Ukraine peace plan, something Manafort previously denied. In 2016, the Trump campaign altered the GOP platform to block a provision for the U.S. to arm Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Michael Cohen has also confirmed work on a Ukraine peace plan that would benefit Russia.
    • There are three more breaches of the plea agreement that are not yet public.
  1. A new report says that Mueller’s office has spoken with Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio.
  2. Steve Mnuchin briefs House committee leaders on why the administration plans to lift sanctions on Russian companies associated with Oleg Deripaska, who’s implicated in Russia’s meddling in our 2016 elections. Democrats complain that most of the information they got was unclassified and that Mnuchin gave them little information. They call for a delay in dropping the sanctions.
  3. Michael Cohen will give public testimony to the House Oversight Committee next week.
  4. We learn that FBI counterintelligence opened an investigation into Trump following the firing of James Comey. They were looking into whether Trump was working on behalf of the Russian government against American interests (either with knowledge or unwittingly).
    • Even though they became suspicious during the 2016 campaign, the FBI hesitated to open the case, unsure how to handle such an unprecedented situation.
    • We don’t know if the investigation is still ongoing.
  1. Trump confiscated the interpreter notes from his Hamburg meeting with Putin, and now we have no reliable record of what was discussed. Democrats discuss subpoenaing the interpreter, which is dicey since they’re supposed to keep their info confidential.
  2. In case you were wondering whether Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin’s plans to infiltrate the NRA were sanctioned by the Russian government, it turns out that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed off on it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses oral arguments for the first time in 25 years while she’s at home recovering from lung surgery. She’s out all week recovering, and Trump and Republican lawmakers start talking about how they’ll be able to seat another conservative judge. Morbid.
  2. Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department if and when a new attorney general is confirmed. Other sources say Rosentstein will stay until the Mueller investigation is complete. He’s not being forced out.
  3. An appeals courts rules that politicians can’t block people on social media. This echoes a similar case against Trump, where it was ruled that he can’t block people on Twitter.
  4. William Barr, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General begins speaking with members of the Senate Judicial Committee, or at least Republican members.
    • At first he refuses meetings with committee Democrats until one of them makes that public.
    • He drafts a memo saying a president can’t obstruct justice in the process of exercising his official powers. The memo also questions Mueller’s authority.
    • Interesting history: Barr is the reason that every person involved in the Iran-Contra affair got pardoned by Bush Sr.
    • Despite his previous criticism of Mueller’s investigation, Barr tells Senators that it’s vitally important that Mueller complete his investigation.

International:

  1. Despite Trump’s claim that he’s removing troops from Syria by the end of the month (and they’ve already started removing equipment), John Bolton places conditions on removal that will slow it down.
    • The remaining bits of the Islamic State must be defeated.
    • Turkey must guarantee they won’t attack our Kurdish allies.
    • This kind of falls on Bolton. He’s mostly ended internal policy debates that allow administrations to flesh out and plan decisions like this. Bolton was taken by surprise with Trump’s decision, and has had to scramble to create a plan that in normal times would take weeks, if not months, to complete.
  1. When asked if Trump made a mistake on this, Lindsey Graham says “This is the reality setting in that you’ve got to plan this out.” And this is why Trump as president makes people nervous. Planning isn’t in his nature.
  2. Turkey’s President Erdogan harshly criticizes Bolton for saying Turkey has to promise not to attack the Kurds.
  3. The month-long protests in Hungary against the autocratic regime of prime minister Viktor Orbán continue to spread. Orbán is another anti-immigrant hardliner trying to control the press and the judiciary. He’s working toward one-party rule in Hungary, and wants anti-immigrant leaders to take over the EU. He’s already created a coalition with the like-minded leaders of Poland and Italy.
  4. The Trump administration reinstates the diplomatic status of the EU’s delegation to the U.S.
    • Trump quietly downgraded that status in December, and only brought it back temporarily and only because they protested it.
    • We only found out about it when the delegate’s name wasn’t called in the correct order during George W. Bush’s funeral.
    • Unlike every previous modern president, Trump views the EU as a foe.
  1. In anticipation of Brexit, banks and financiers move $1 trillion from Britain into other EU countries. That’s about 10% of UK’s financial sector.
  2. Mike Pompeo gives a speech in Egypt, criticizing Obama’s handling of the region. One of the biggest departures from the Obama administration is that there wasn’t any focus on democracy or human rights. Another difference was the venue: Obama chose one where he addressed the people, Pompeo chose one where he addressed elites and government officials.
  3. U.S. officials say that the White House requested plans to launch an attack on Iran last year after an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad by a military group associated with Iran.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The CEO of the Tornillo migrant child detention facility says that the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement kept pressuring him to hold more minors at the facility. He says the reason the facility is being closed is that he refused to accept any more because ORR wasn’t releasing any of them.
    • The facility was able to rapidly release all the children in custody because HHS waived the new stringent vetting requirements for the children’s sponsors. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were paying to detain these children when they could’ve been staying with family or guardians who would’ve paid for their needs. Because what this administration really wants to do is deport people.
  1. A judge rules that Sandy Hook families suing InfoWars can access InfoWars internal marketing and financial documents, among others. Next week, the judge will decide whether the families’ attorneys can depose Alex Jones.
  2. Around 1.4 million Floridians become eligible to vote. Last year, voters there passed a referendum ending the practice of reinstating ex-felons’ rights on a case-by-case basis. The new rule automatically gives ex-felons their voting rights back after they’ve served all time and probation (excluding certain violent criminals).
  3. A judge temporarily prohibits ICE’s new practice of conducting unannounced raids on Cambodian immigrants’ homes and businesses. Sudden deportations to Cambodia were up 279% last year. Deportees don’t get to talk to their lawyers or loved ones first, they haven’t been to Cambodia since childhood, and Cambodia doesn’t want them.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Carbon emissions in the US increased by 3.4% in 2018, despite the large number of coal plant closures last year. This is likely tied to the uptick in manufacturing, and is a reversal from the previous 12 years during which emissions declined.
  2. Trump threatens to halt FEMA payments to victims of the California wildfires, and then he later tweets that he’s already ordered FEMA to stop sending money. It’s not clear whether he actually did that and if he did, whether it’s legal.
  3. I feel like this was already reported last year, but a new study shows that oceans are warming 40% faster than previously expected. 2018 is the warmest year for oceans, with 2017 coming second and 2016 coming third.
    • Oceans absorb nearly 93% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
    • Heat causes the water to expand, and that accounts for most of the rise in sea levels that we’ve seen so far.
  1. State legislatures across the east and west coasts introduce bills to fight Trump’s expansion of offshore drilling, including Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island. California has already passed such a bill into law.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China starts buying soybeans from the U.S. again, and they’ve cut tariffs on American cars. They say they’ll stop demanding corporate secrets from companies doing business in China.
  2. Trump puts a freeze on the planned $10,000 pay raises for Mike Pence’s staff.
  3. Democrats propose rescinding the tax breaks for the top 1% to fund raises for the country’s teachers.
  4. One year into the new tax plan, it hasn’t panned out as planned. Federal tax revenues fell by 2.7%, despite strong annual economic growth of 3%. The last time growth came close to this, tax revenues increased by 7%.

Elections:

  1. Democratic Senator Doug Jones officially requested an investigation into the social media disinformation campaign run by a Democratic group in Alabama when Jones got elected. The group ran test cases against Jones’ opponent using Russian disinformation methods on social media.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump has had twice as much staff turnover as any other president at this point in their presidency. He’s at 12; Clinton is the next highest with six.
  2. In 2013, Mike Pence harshly criticized Obama for some of the same things he’s supporting Trump on now in regard to government shutdowns.
  3. Three top Republican members of the House rebuke Representative Steve King for wondering what’s wrong with the phrases white nationalist and white supremacist. When King made racist statements prior to the 2018 midterms, only one member of the House said anything.
  4. Former GOP Senator Jon Kyl turns down Trump’s offer to take over as Secretary of Defense.

Polls:

  1. Here’s a great summary from Pew Research of their polling on immigration and the wall.
  2. 74% of Americans say the shutdown is embarrassing; 72% say it’s hurting the U.S.
  3. During the first days of the shutdown polls showed that between 43% and 47% blamed Trump for the shutdown and around 1/3 blamed Democrats. Now, 47% to 51% blame Trump, while 1/3 still blame Democrats.
    • What’s weird about this? Right before the shutdown, Trump took complete responsibility for any shutdown, Democrats weren’t even in power when it happened, and the Senate had a veto-proof majority to override Trump’s veto. So why weren’t more blaming Trump then?
    • Interesting history note: The country was similarly split during the 2013 shutdown, with 53% of Americans blaming Republicans.
  1. 59% of Americans oppose the wall, and 39% support it.
    • 74% of Republicans support the wall, but that percentage drops for Republicans who live within the vicinity of the border.
  1. 69% of Americans are against declaring a national emergency over the wall.
  2. Trump’s approval rate is trending downward, now at 40.6%. His disapproval rate is trending up, now at 54.3%.

Things Politicians Say:

  • “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”
    —Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to the     New York Times
    Thank you, Iowa, for continuing to force this racist on the rest of the United States.
  • “When during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it. Obviously I never said that and I never meant they are going to write out a check.” —Donald J. Trump, this week.“It’s an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” —Donald J. Trump,three years ago.

Week 76 in Trump

Posted on July 9, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Was your Member of Congress in Russia?

Thankfully it was a short news week with the 4th of July holiday falling right in the middle, but that didn’t stop the government from working. GOP Members of Congress traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian officials (over the 4th? weird); Pompeo met with North Korean officials; children are still separated from their parents at the border (surprisingly there was no plan to reunite them); Scott Pruitt retired; and let the trade wars begin.

Here’s what happened last week. I’m sure I missed things, so if you notice something, let me know.

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Paul Manafort’s personal assistant was the person who gave the FBI access to the storage locker where they found evidence in the case against Manafort. Manafort is now trying to have that evidence suppressed, but the assistant was likely within his rights to provide access.

Russia:

  1. Michael Cohen replaces his legal team with Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House spokesperson and special counsel.
  2. Mueller is looking into whether Russian nationals used the NRA to illegally funnel funds to the Trump campaign.
  3. Mueller expands his team of prosecutors.
  4. Paul Manafort is spending much of his time in custody in solitary confinement for his own safety.
  5. Ahead of Trump’s upcoming visit with Putin, a delegation of GOP Senators and Representatives take a trip to Moscow to meet with Russian leaders.
    • John Neely Kennedy (R-La.)
    • Sen. John Thune (S.D.)
    • Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who denounced our sanctions against Russia when he returned
    • Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.)
    • Steve Daines (Mont.)
    • Jerry Moran (Kan.)
    • John Hoeven (N.D.)
    • Kay Granger (R-Texas)
  1. Coinciding with this visit, the Senate Intelligence Committee releases an interim report on their Russia investigation, concluding that the U.S. intelligence community was correct in its findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections to help elect Donald Trump. They also say that Putin ordered this interference.
  2. The committee’s main criticism is that the intelligence community could’ve been more thorough. The committee claims they found a far more extensive effort by the Russians to sow division and disrupt our elections.
  3. Independent journalist Marcy Wheeler becomes an FBI informant after spending more than a decade criticizing the U.S. intelligence community. She went to the FBI once she realized her informant played a part in the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Chuck Schumer calls Trump to suggest he nominate Merrick Garland to Justice Kennedy’s about-to-be-empty seat. Seems the answer was no.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump halts payments to insurers that cover sicker patient populations, an ACA program to protect such insurers from loss and to spread the risk among all insurance companies. Note that these payments come from insurance companies and not taxpayer dollars.
  2. Insurance companies say to expect premium increases next year because of this.
  3. The U.S. refuses to sponsor a noncontroversial resolution at the World Health Assembly promoting the health benefits of breastfeeding, even threatening to withhold funding to WHO. Not only that, we threaten the country that introduced the resolution, Ecuador, with economic and military punishments. Ecuador withdraws the resolution. Health activists look for a replacement, but other countries are now too afraid to step up. Except Russia, that is, which steps up and saves the resolution. For some reason, we don’t threaten them over it.
  4. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) plans to cancel dental and vision benefits provided under Medicaid after a judge blocked his Medicaid work requirements.

International:

  1. Denmark now legally classifies low-income immigrants (in what they call “immigrant ghettos”) as “ghetto children” and “ghetto parents.” They also require these children spend 25 hours a week away from their parents starting at age one to get training in “Danish values.”
  2. Protests continue in Iran over water shortages caused by mismanagement and over the economy, now threatened by U.S. sanctions after we withdrew from the Iran deal.
  3. We learn that Trump has asked at least four times why we can’t just invade Venezuela.
  4. After Mike Pompeo’s meeting with North Korean officials, Pompeo says the meetings were productive but North Korea says the attitude of the U.S. team is “regrettable,” “gangster-like,” and “cancerous.”
  5. Over the past few months, North Korea’s been increasing their production of enriched uranium, indicating that they don’t currently have any intentions of denuclearizing. The country is also finishing up an expansion of a ballistic missile factory.
  6. John Bolton says North Korea could denuclearize in about a year, while Mike Pompeo says two and a half years.
  7. Trump threatens NATO allies, saying they must increase defense spending or the U.S. will decrease its military presence around the world.
  8. A British couple is exposed to the toxic nerve agents that was used on a former Russian spy and his daughter in March.
  9. With newly expanded powers, Turkey’s president Erdogan fires over 18,000 state employees because of alleged terrorist ties.

Separating Families:

  1. Groups have been raising money to make bail for mothers separated from their children because that’s the quickest way to reunite them. But now ICE agents are saying that they’ve been told to deny bonds for separated parents.
  2. ICE agents, under administration instructions, are using the separated children to extort asylum seekers into voluntary deportation.
  3. Asylum seekers are not being allowed to reunite with their children while awaiting their asylum hearings (even parents who have passed their initial asylum screening).
  4. A federal judge orders the administration to halt blanket arrests of asylum seekers. The judge also rules that asylum seekers must either be released or granted a hearing.
  5. ICE is reportedly not giving families a chance to officially seek asylum. They’re telling refugees that they can either leave with their children, or seek asylum and have their children taken away.
  6. All of this is increasing the calls to abolish, or at the very least restructure, ICE.
  7. A woman climbs the base of the Statue of Liberty after a protest to abolish ICE, shutting the statue down to the public for several hours while law enforcement brings her down.
  8. Local officials cancel their contracts with ICE to provide facilities to detain immigrants.
  9. The Trump administration requests more time to reunite families. A federal judge says children under 5 must be reunited by July 10, and others by July 26.
  10. Why are they having trouble reuniting these families? Because some records linking families have been misplaced or destroyed. It’s almost like they never intended to bring the families back together. They’re now using DNA testing to find families. Humanitarian issues aside, the zero-tolerance policy is ending up costing us an immense amount of money in the long run.
  11. Meanwhile, toddlers continue to appear before court in immigration hearings, with judges admittedly uncomfortable asking them if they understand the proceedings.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A federal judges rejects a Trump administration request to block three sanctuary laws in California.
  2. To justify his policy of family separation, Trump says we have a border crisis. But the numbers show that the number of border crossings has plummeted 80% from 2000 to 2017.
  3. Trump says he didn’t push Republicans to pass an immigration bill despite tweeting three days earlier that House Republicans should pass Goodlatte’s bill (while continuing to blame Democrats for the failings of the GOP-led Congress).
  4. The Trump administration plans to rescind Obama-era rules for colleges to consider race in order to diversify their student population. The DOJ says they’ll sue any universities who don’t follow the new policy. This is the seventh affirmative action rule Trump has rescinded.
  5. Trump repeats a lie that seems to have started with a hard-line Iranian cleric by saying that Obama gave citizenship to 2,500 Iranians as part of the Iran deal.
  6. The U.S. Army begins discharging immigrant recruits who were promised a pathway to citizenship at the end of their service. Some aren’t given a reason, some are told that something came up in their background checks, and some are suing the military.
  7. The above could be part of Trump’s new task force that was put in place to review immigrants who have been granted citizenship to find out if there’s anything in their background that we can use to deport them.
  8. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago has applied for 61 H2-B visas to hire temporary workers from abroad.
  9. A judge orders the Trump administration to provide documentation about how they decided to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The judge indicates the administration might have acted in bad faith.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Scott Pruitt and his staff keep secret calendars in order to hide meetings with people representing the very industries the EPA is supposed to watch over.
  2. EPA staffers even modified Pruitt’s official calendar to make sure there weren’t any meetings that might look bad.
  3. Staff members also testify to Congress that Pruitt ignored warnings about ethics violations and tried to use his position for personal gain.
  4. Scott Pruitt finally resigns, and Andrew Wheeler will take over as acting administrator for now. Wheeler was a coal lobbyist for Murray Energy.
  5. Pruitt pens quite the love letter to Trump as his resignation letter.
  6. Ah… but before he leaves, Pruitt gives us one last gift. He enacts a loophole that raises the limit on the number of trucks a manufacturer can produce that use old engines (super polluter trucks). These trucks emit up to 55 times the pollutants that trucks with more modern engines do.
  7. Locations all across the northern hemisphere log record high temperatures this week.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The latest BLS numbers show that while employment increased by 213,000 in June, the unemployment rate rose to 4.0% because of more people, largely college graduates, entering the workforce.
  2. Trump doesn’t like the updated NAFTA deal and says he won’t sign it until after the midterms. Is he really using this as an election campaign tool?
  3. U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports begin, while Chinese tariffs on the same amount of American goods go into effect, including on pork, wheat, rice and dairy products. China will also cancel orders for 1.1 million tons of soybeans.
  4. Canada places retaliatory tariffs on $12.5 billion in American goods.
  5. Mexico implements the second part of their retaliatory tariffs on $3 billion in American goods.
  6. Russia places retaliatory tariffs on American goods.
  7. Ahead of these tariffs, global export growth has slowed to a crawl.
  8. The [conservative] U.S. Chamber of Commerce launches a campaign opposing Trump’s trade policies.
  9. Trump says that Saudi leaders have agreed to his request to increase oil production, but Saudi leaders say they can increase production, not that they will.
  10. The Tax Foundation estimates that the current trade wars will cost us 250,000 jobs.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Leaked copies of Michael Cohen’s shredded documents seem to confirm his hush money payment to a playboy model on behalf of Elliot Broidy.
  2. Maybe this is why Jim Jordan is so mad. Several Ohio State wrestlers have come forward to say that Jordan was aware of alleged sexual abuse by the team doctor during his time there as coach. Jordan is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, whose members are being urged to stand behind him.
  3. Trump hires Bill Shine to be Communications Director. You might remember that Fox News fired Shine for how he handled sexual harassment claims while there.
  4. Melania Trump has an agreement with Getty Images that not only pays royalties to the Trumps when photos of them are used, but that also says the photos can only be used in positive news stories.
  5. Public confrontations with people affiliated with the Trump administration are growing. Protestors follow Mitch McConnell in a parking lot asking him where the children are, and a woman is kicked out of a bookstore for calling Steve Bannon a piece of trash. A bartender flips off Steven Miller, so Miller throws away the take-out sushi he got there.
  6. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, says he’ll run for president in 2020 if Trump does, because he alone can beat him. Where’ve we heard that before?

Polls:

  1. 63% of American voters support the Roe v. Wade decision.
  2. 64% of American voters want campaign spending limits for corporations and unions.
  3. 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration. I seriously can’t believe that 40% of Americans are OK with treating families this way.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

Trump holds yet another campaign rally, this time in Montana. Here are a few highlights.

  1. A week after the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland, he again makes a point of calling the media “fake news.”
  2. In another assault on our intelligence officers, he accuses them of giving Hillary Clinton special treatment.
  3. He says North Korea signed a denuclearization deal, which they haven’t yet.
  4. He once again hypes the threat of MS-13, saying that if Democrats win, MS-13 members will run free. A) MS-13 makes up .1% of all gang members in the U.S. and B) no one wants them to run free.
  5. He pushes the false theory that we have rampant voter fraud, and this time throws in the misinformation that Republicans have a tougher time winning the electoral vote. Of note, Democrats have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, but have only won the electoral vote in 4 of them.
  6. He mocks the #MeToo movement, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, John McCain, and George Bush Sr. (whose eloquence apparently went over Trump’s head). But Putin? He says Putin’s fine.
  7. He also mocked people who say that Putin was KGB, despite the fact that Putin really was in the KGB for quite some time, rising to the level of directory by the time it became the FSB.
  8. He went into a stream of consciousness comparing his crowd size with Elton John’s:

“I have broken more Elton John records…and I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ.”