Tag: family separation

Week 111 in Trump

Posted on March 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen defends the family separation policy at the border. The two on the right likely disagree.

In case you’re keeping track (but seriously, who but a major media organization has the time to track this), Trump has lied over 9,000 times since taking office. He started out averaging around 6 lies per day in 2017, accelerated to around 16 per day in 2018, and in 2019 he’s already averaging 22 per day. You can read about them here.

Here’s what really happened last week in politics… Let me know if I missed anything.

Missed from Last Week:

While Trump was in Vietnam for the summit with Kim Jong Un, he announced a $20 billion deal with Vietnam to buy Boeing jets and engines.

Russia:

  1. Judge Amy Berman Jackson brings Roger Stone into court yet again to clarify the parameters of his gag order. This time, it’s over the re-release of a book where he calls Robert Mueller “crooked.”
  2. A judge finds Chelsea Manning in contempt of court and orders her to jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Manning received a subpoena to testify in a sealed case, most likely the sealed case against WikiLeaks that was accidentally revealed in court documents.
    • Just a reminder: Manning received a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, and Obama later commuted her sentence.
  1. Judge T.S. Ellis sentences Paul Manafort to just under four years, much less than prosecutors recommended (19-24 years). He’s scheduled to be sentenced in one more case this month. Ellis says Manafort “lived an otherwise blameless life” (WTF?) and that he was a good friend and a generous person.
  1. Erik Prince admits to attending a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., and George Nader to discuss Iran policy.
    • Nader said that during the meeting, Prince told them that the UAE and Saudi Arabia wanted to help Trump win the election.
    • Prince neglected to inform Congress of this during his testimony.
    • Prince also arranged a meeting with Don Junior, Israeli social media specialist Joel Zamel, and an emissary of two crown princes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The House Judiciary Committee launches an investigation into abuse of powers, corruption, and obstruction of justice. Committee chair Jerry Nadler emphasizes that they aren’t looking at impeachment at this time.
  2. The Judiciary Committee issues document requests to 81 people and organizations, including the White House, the Trump Foundation, Trump Organization, the transition team, the inauguration committee, 2016 campaign staff, long-time Trump associates, and Trump’s family.
    • The list of people receiving subpoenas reads like a summary of the investigation so far: Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Brad Parscale, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Reince Priebus, Don McGahn, KT McFarland, Hope Hicks, Sean Spicer, Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Tom Barrack, Allen Weisellberg, WikiLeaks, American Media Inc. (and its CEO David Pecker), the NRA, and Cambridge Analytica.
    • They’re looking for information on Michael Flynn’s firing, Jeff Sessions recusal from the Russia investigation, and James Comey’s firing.
  1. New York officials subpoena the Trump Organization’s insurer as part of an investigation into whether Trump was personally involved in inflating company assets.
  2. Jerome Corsi apologizes to the family of Seth Rich for pushing the baseless theory that Rich was the source of the DNC document leak during the 2016 campaign.
    • InfoWars follows suit, removing Corsi’s column about it from their website.
    • Fox News pushed this story hard, and was forced to retract it 2017.
    • The Washington Times was also forced to retract an op-ed by a retired Navy admiral, which was the source of the entire conspiracy theory.
  1. A district court orders the release of previously redacted details about plans to build a new FBI HQ. Trump intervened in the decision of where to build the HQ when it was decided to build a new HQ on the location of the old one, across from the Trump Hotel in D.C. Under Obama, the administration planned to build a new HQ in the suburbs, which was more expensive.
  2. Cohen sues the Trump Organization to cover his legal fees saying they aren’t meeting their indemnification obligations.
  3. Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis says that Cohen’s legal team brought up the idea of a pardon with Trump’s legal team last year after Trump’s team “dangled” the possibility last year. It’s not clear whether Cohen knew of the request.
    • According to Rudy Giuliani, several people being scrutinized in related investigations have approached Trump’s legal team to talk about pardons.
  1. Michael Cohen provides documentary evidence of the hush money payments. So now we know that while president, Trump took the time to write him a check for the hush money. We also know that Don Junior signed off on two of those checks.
  2. I don’t even know what to make of this one, so I’ll just say what we know.
    • As part of a bust that shutdown 10 Asian day spas, Patriot owner Bob Kraft was arrested for soliciting sex.
    • The original founder of the spa, Li (Cindy) Yang, is a Trump donor and fundraiser. She’s been selling access to Trump and his associates at Mar-a-Lago to her clients. (She no longer owns the spas, btw).
    • Yang and Trump watched the Super Bowl together, but it’s not clear if he even knows her.
  1. The DOJ unearths a 2017 letter from Jeff Sessions to the DOJ Inspector General John Huber ordering a review of the investigations into the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One. The DOJ previously denied the existence of this letter.
  2. Trump’s inauguration committee received funds from shell companies owned by foreigners or with foreign ties. The donors were from Israel, Taiwan, and India.

Healthcare:

  1. Medical and reproductive rights groups, including Planned Parenthood and the AMA, sue the Trump administration over their recent abortion rule prohibiting organizations that receive federal funds from mentioning or referring for abortions. The rule primarily affects low-income women who receive health services through HHS programs.
  2. On top of lawsuits from advocacy groups, 21 states sue over the abortion rule.
  3. Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, starts looking into filing for bankruptcy in light of the nearly 2,000 lawsuits against them for contributing to the opioid crisis.
  4. A Republican State Representative in Tennessee introduces a bill that would require women to prove their U.S. citizenship before receiving prenatal care or government benefits for their U.S.-born children.
  5. He introduces another bill that would only allow birth certificates to be given to children born to parents who are in the U.S. legally. (I think that might contradict federal law.)
  6. Tennessee passes a bill that would prevent abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. No heartbeat bill has made it through the courts so far; this likely won’t either.
  7. A nationwide study in Denmark concludes that there is no relationship between MMR vaccines and autism or autism clusters. This is their second nationwide study to reach the same conclusion. Want details?
  8. The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the middle of their second largest Ebola outbreak, with nearly 600 dead. On top of mistrust from the communities they’re helping, aid workers also face violence—they’re in the middle of a conflict zone.

International:

  1. A second minister resigns from Justin Trudeau’s government after testimony about a scandal where the attorney general claims to have been pressured to back off on charging a Canadian company with corruption.
  2. Contradicting previous statements, Trump says he’s 100% behind keeping some troops in Syria.
  3. According to recent satellite images, it looks like North Korea is reactivating a long-range rocket test site.
  4. Trump reverses Obama’s policy requiring U.S. officials to publish a summary of drone strikes that occur outside of areas where there is active conflict. He also revoked a law passed by Congress saying that the drone strike report must be released to the public.
  5. After 2021, U.S. citizens will have to register for a travel visa to travel to EU countries.
  6. Arron Banks, one of the largest funders in support of Brexit, denies having financial dealings with Russia. But documents show that one of the companies in which Banks is a major stockholder pursued an offer from the Russian ambassador to invest in Russian gold mines, going so far as to identify a shell company to use to facilitate the deal. Sounds familiar, no?
  7. Trump’s administration devises a formula to make our allied countries that host U.S. military bases pay the full cost of stationing troops there plus 50% more. Our allies call this extortion.
  8. Trump accuses India of shutting out U.S. companies, and announces he’ll remove India from a program that reduces duties on exports from certain countries. The program opens up access to U.S. markets for developing countries.
  9. It’s a big week in Israel news:
    • Israel’s electoral committee bans two Arab parties and one Jewish candidate from running in the upcoming elections. The committee was responding to petitions from three right-wing factions, and it comes after Netanyahu entered a deal with the far-right extremist (and allegedly racist) party Otzma Yehudit.
    • The leader of Otzma Yehudit previously led a party that the U.S. labeled as a terrorist group and that Israel outlawed.
    • Netanyahu gets into a war of words with an Israeli celebrity and says (emphasis mine), “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people—and only it.”
    • Just a reminder: Last year Israel passed a nationalistic nation-state law declaring Israel a homeland for Jews and prioritizing Jewish communities.
    • Israel’s attorney general agrees to Netanyahu’s request to wait until the day after the elections to hear evidence on his fraud and bribery indictments. His indictments haven’t hurt him in the polls yet.
    • A UN inquiry into the 2018 protests in Gaza finds that Israeli forces were not justified in using live ammunition to stop protestors. The skirmishes injured 10,000 Palestinians and killed 189, while also injuring four Israeli soldiers killing one. The commission calls for criminal investigations.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After Michael Cohen’s testimony, former Rep. Trey Gowdy says in reference to it that we learned that public congressional hearings are “utterly useless.” I think he forgot that he called these hearings “political theater” a year or two ago, and he’s also the guy who held all those hearings on Benghazi.
  2. New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland becomes the first Native American woman to sit in the House Speaker’s chair when she presides over House debates.
  3. The House passes a sweeping campaign finance, voting rights, and ethics reform bill. I broke it down into a brief summary here.
    • Republican leadership says it’s a power grab by the Democratic party; Democrats say it’s a power grab by the American people.
    • Republicans also claim it doesn’t address the most recent problem we saw, which was ballot harvesting in North Carolina (it doesn’t; that’s a legit complaint).
  1. House Democrats introduce a bill to protect White House whistleblowers.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Pentagon says they’ll tap into $1 billion in leftover pay and pension accounts for military personnel to pay for Trump’s wall.
  2. Now that Congress ended the shutdown and Trump declared a national emergency over the wall, his draft budget will seek an additional $8.6 billion for the wall.

Family Separation:

  1. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifies in support of asylum policy and family separation. For anyone who’s been to the border lately, it’s obvious she’s either lying about procedures and process there or she really doesn’t know what’s going on. She also either isn’t aware of or doesn’t care about the lifelong traumatizing effects of the family separation policy.
  2. The Trump administration has separated 250 children (that we know of) since a court ordered them to stop nine months ago.
  3. A judge rules that all families separated at the border are eligible to participate in the ACLU’s class action lawsuit against the government. The suit now includes families separated from July 1, 2017, to the present.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. There were 76,000 illegal border crossings in February. That’s the most in over a decade and almost double last year. So the problem is getting worse in some areas because of the tight restrictions on asylum seekers.
  2. A judge finds that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the law and the constitution by trying to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. This is the second court to block the question.
    • And speaking of the Census, after the first judge blocked the citizenship question the Census Bureau proposed a plan to get comprehensive information about immigrants’ legal status from the Department of Homeland Security.
  1. A federal appeals court rules that asylum seekers can fully appeal their case in U.S. courts if they fail to pass the initial credible fear test to qualify for asylum.
  2. The Health and Human Services Department will funnel money away from health programs in order to house migrant children. There are sponsors in the states willing to take responsibility for so many of these minors. Detaining them is a waste of money.
  3. Former chief of staff General John Kelly defends NATO and also says that:
    • Migrants who cross our southern border aren’t criminals and don’t pose a serious threat.
    • A wall across the border would be a waste of money.
    • Trump can’t separate his personal views from policy issues.
  1. Someone from Homeland Security leaks documents showing that the Trump administration has a secret database of journalists, immigration advocates, and attorneys. The list is used by CBP, ICE, and the FBI.
    • Some of the targeted people have been denied entry into Mexico, have faced enhanced security screenings, or have even been arrested or detained.
    • Their profiles include information about their ties to migrant caravans (including reporters who are just covering the news).
    • People on the list had feared that they were being targeted but they couldn’t prove it until now.
  1. Seemingly bowing to GOP pressure to condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar for her comments about Israel, Nancy Pelosi brings a resolution to the floor. But she turns it into a resolution condemning all hate speech, including antisemitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-Christian speech.
    • The resolution also condemns discrimination against minorities stemming from white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and neo-Confederates.
    • The resolution passes with only 23 members voting against, all Republican.
    • And then Trump calls Democrats anti-Israel and anti-Jewish and calls the vote disgraceful.
  1. Fox News rebukes Janine Pirro for saying that Rep. Omar is against the constitution because she wears a hijab.
  2. Several stories hit the news this week about high school kids taking part in Nazi symbolism.
  3. A judge rules that the Trump administration can’t halt Obama’s rule requiring companies to disclose employee pay information by race, gender, nation of origin, and job title. The reason for collecting this information is to be able to address wage discrimination and disparity.
  4. Arizona Senator Martha McSalley reveals to the Senate Armed Services Committee that she was sexually assaulted by a senior officer. She says she didn’t report it at the time and that she felt ashamed. I believe her, just like I believe Blasey-Ford.
  5. A grand jury returns an indictment against Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts for making a false police report and lying to the police about a hate crime he staged. Moron.
  6. On International Women’s Day, the U.S. women’s soccer team files a gender discrimination lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation. They argue that their highly successful team should be treated at least equal to the less successful men’s team.
  7. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Liberian refugees ends on March 31, which will deport people to Liberia who haven’t been to the country since they were small children. Courts already blocked efforts by Trump to deport TPS refugees from Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Lawsuits are ongoing for the remaining TPS countries.
  8. Since 2017, the FBI has worked more domestic terrorist cases (fueled largely by white nationalists and supremacists) than foreign-linked terrorist cases.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump finally has a science advisor who says mankind plays a significant role in climate change. Unfortunately, this same scientist says he’s not going say that to the president.
  2. Costa Rica aims for zero carbon emissions by 2050.
  3. Atlanta’s City Council votes to require all buildings in Atlanta to use renewable energy sources by 2035.
  4. FEMA says they’ll pay just over half of the $639 million needed for emergency repairs to the Orville Dam in California. After heavy rains damaged the dam’s main spillway last year, water overflowed the emergency spillway.
  5. Opponents of the Green New Deal have been claiming that a study shows it would cost $93 trillion, but that number appears nowhere in the study. Even the think tank behind the study say they don’t know how much it would cost.
  6. For comparison, a recent study actually did predict that global warming will cost $69 trillion (globally though, not just in the U.S.).

Budget/Economy:

  1. The U.S. deficit grew 77% in the first four months of fiscal year 2019 compared to the same four month in FY 2018 (our fiscal year begins in October). Tax revenue fell by $19 billion, corporate taxes fell by 23%, and spending increased by 9%.
  2. Our trade deficit with China also hit an all-time high, with a disparity of $419 billion (last week we learned that our overall trade deficit hit an all-time high as well).
  3. Americans have paid at least $12.3 billion in tariffs to the U.S. government as a result of the trade war.
  4. The job market added 20,000 jobs in February, about one-tenth of the typical number over the past several years. I expect that number to be revised, but it won’t come close to the norm.
    • The unemployment rate still dropped down a bit to 3.8% (it was 4% in January).
    • And wages had good growth—up 3.4% from the year prior.
    • This means it’s not likely we’ll see any interest rate hikes this year, or at least not many.
  1. The European Central Bank (ECB) lowered its economic growth forecast for the EU over trade uncertainties about U.S. actions on trade and tariffs.
  2. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also lowered their global growth forecast, so they think it’s not just Europe that’ll slow down.

Elections:

  1. The trial in the lawsuit against Ohio’s gerrymandered congressional map begins. The map creates a 12-4 district advantage for Republicans even though they only receive about 51% of the statewide vote.
  2. The right-leaning National Legal and Policy Center files a complaint with the FEC against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign. The complaint sounds like a pay-for-play scheme, but it turns out that the campaign likely only described services provided by their LLC incorrectly, a minor FEC infraction.
  3. After the New Yorker publishes an article about the symbiotic relationship between the Republican Party (specifically Trump) and Fox News, the DNC announces that they won’t let Fox News host any Democratic primary debates. Not really a BFD. Fox hasn’t hosted a Democratic primary debate in 15 years, and Republicans cut off debates on NBC in 2015.
  4. The House Oversight Committee opens an investigation into voter irregularities in the Georgia midterm elections.
  5. 80% of our election equipment comes from companies that have installed remote access software (like PCAnywhere) on the county-based systems that pull together precinct tallies.
  6. Despite shutting her company down last July, Ivanka obtains a patent for voting machines in China. Trademark requests are often very broad, but voting machines? She obtained trademarks for clothing and jewelry, but also for some random things like nursing homes and sausage casing.
  7. Remember the kerfuffle over Donna Brazile giving Hillary Clinton advance notice of one debate question? Well, it turns out that Rupert Murdoch did the same for Trump.
  8. Well, this is weird. It turns out that Trump and Ivanka have donated to six of the 2020 Democratic candidates for president at some point.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump promises A+ assistance to the great state of Alabama following devastating tornadoes. Pretty much the opposite of his response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico and the California wildfires.
  2. Last week we learned that Trump intervened to get Jared Kushner his top-secret clearance. Now we learn that he pressured John Kelly and Don McGahn to give Ivanka security clearance. They objected, and Trump ended up granting it himself.
  3. Meanwhile, the White House rejects the House Oversight Committee’s request for documents regarding the security clearance for Jared and Ivanka.
  4. Police arrest dozens of people in California who were protesting the decision not to charge the officers who killed Stephon Clark after mistaking his cell phone for a gun.
  5. Trump’s communications director, Bill Shine, resigns to start working on Trump’s 2020 campaign.
  6. An Ethiopian Airlines plane crashes on takeoff killing all 157 people on board. It’s the same Boeing model as the one that crashed last year in Jakarta.
  7. We learn that Trump directed Gary Cohn to push the DOJ to block the AT&T merger with Time Warner (which owns CNN).

Polls:

Here are some polling numbers from Quinnipiac:

  1. 64% of voters think Trump committed crimes before he became president. 45% think he committed crimes during his term.
  2. 59% say Congress should not begin impeachment, but about the same number say Congress should keep investigating.
  3. 50% of voters believe Michael Cohen over Trump.
  4. 36% of voters disapprove of how Democrats handled the Cohen hearing; 51% disapprove of how the Republicans handled it.
  5. 65% of voters think Trump is not honest.
  6. 22% think he’s a good role model for children.
  7. 66% disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their job.
  8. 56% disapprove of the way Democrats in Congress are doing their job.

Week 110 in Trump

Posted on March 5, 2019 in Politics, Trump

By J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post via Getty Images.

It was week full of news and punctuated by Trump hugging the American flag and giving the longest speech ever at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference. It’s hard to fact-check a 20-minute Trump speech, much less one that lasts over two hours. So I’ll summarize. He lies about immigration, the VA, late-term abortions, tax reforms, the Green New Deal, Mueller’s investigative team, healthcare, solar power (actually what he says here is not so much a lie as it is just dumb), tariffs, Russia, crowd sizes, ISIS, and the economy. He brags about his 2016 election, brags about firing Comey, defends his declaration of national emergency, backtracks on his comments about Otto Warmbier, excuses poor cabinet choices, accuses Members of Congress of hating our country (wow), bags on Jim Mattis, claims he doesn’t have white hair (huh?), takes credit for the 2018 elections (Senate) but then says he’s not responsible for the 2018 elections (House), announces a “free speech” executive order for college campuses, and makes fun of a sitting Senator. And of course CPAC wouldn’t be complete if he didn’t berate Democrats as socialists.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. A county judge in North Carolina ruled that two amendments put forth to the voters last November by the state’s legislature are unconstitutional. The basis for his decision was that NC’s General Assembly was “illegally constituted” due to racial gerrymandering. NC’s government has been caught up in lawsuits for over two years. Dig deeper here.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. A bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials issue a statement saying there is no factual basis for the national emergency over the wall.
  2. A Republican group of 24 former Members of Congress sign a letter urging Republicans in office to pass a joint resolution to end the national emergency.
  3. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers recalls Wisconsin’s National Guard troops from the southern border saying there’s no justification for it. New Mexico has already ordered all troops away from their border, and California has pulled their troops out as well.
  4. Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy says there’s no military threat at our southern border and that we should be focused on risks from Russia and China. O’Shaughnessy is Commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (USNORTHCOM).
  5. The House passes a resolution to end Trump’s declaration of national emergency over the wall. This means the Senate must vote on it. Mitch McConnell says it‘ll pass, but Trump will veto it.
  6. The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the Trump administration’s policy of separating families seeking asylum at our southern border.

Russia:

  1. Adam Schiff, the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, says that if the final report on the Russia and obstruction investigations aren’t released to the public, he’ll subpoena the report and have Robert Mueller testify before the committee.
  2. Paul Manafort’s lawyers argue that he should get a lenient sentence in the D.C. case, because it’s not like he’s a drug dealer or murderer, there’s no evidence of Russia collusion, and he’s only guilty of garden variety crimes. Or rich people‘s crimes, as I call them.
    • Manafort has another sentencing hearing for a separate case on March 8 in Virginia.
    • On top of these, he could get more years for breaking his plea agreement and get additional trials for crimes for which he hasn’t been tried yet.
    • Mueller did amend one of his court statements that supported his claims that Manafort lied about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, but there’s still enough evidence to show Manafort lied.
  1. A federal judge rejects Andrew Miller’s claim that Mueller’s appointment is unconstitutional. Now Miller has to testify to the grand jury or go to jail.
  2. It doesn’t take Roger Stone long to violate his gag order and in multiple ways.
    • The day the judge issues the gag order, Stone violates the order with a tweet which he then deletes.
    • Next he responds to an email from VICE News saying that Cohen’s statement is entirely untrue.
    • Next he gets called back into court to explain the imminent release of a book that will likely violate the gag order and that neither he nor his defense team mentioned to the judge.
    • And THEN, Stone posts on Instagram that Mueller framed him. Seriously, this guy can’t help himself.
  1. Some of Stone’s actions flat-out violate the gag order, but others are a little ambiguous. Here are the judge’s parameters:
    • Stone cannot speak publicly or to the media about the investigation, the case, or any of the participants.
    • Stone can speak publicly about raising funds for his defense.
    • Stone can say that he is innocent of charges against him.
  1. Russia’s state-sponsored news announces that Russia is developing hypersonic missiles that can reach the U.S. targets, like the Pentagon and Camp David, in under five minutes.
  2. U.S. Cyber Command says they blocked internet access for the Internet Research Agency (a Russian troll farm) during the 2018 elections.

Legal Fallout:

  1. During Sean Hannity’s interview with Trump, he claims to have information that contradicts Michael Cohen’s testimony about the Stormy Daniel’s hush money payments. If he does, Hannity could be called before Congress himself to testify.
  2. Michael Cohen begins three days of Congressional hearings. Two are behind closed doors and one, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is public. Here are a few things Cohen alleges (remember these are allegations):
    • Trump knew in advance about WikiLeaks’ plans to release the DNC’s hacked emails, and he found out through Roger Stone. Roger Stone disputes this.
    • Trump was completely involved in the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. Cohen provided Congress with a check signed by Trump and another signed by both Donald Trump, Jr., and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
    • Eric Trump was also involved the hush money payments.
    • Ivanka and Don, Jr., were both involved in the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, which continued throughout the campaign.
    • Cohen threatened Trump’s schools so they wouldn’t release his grades or SAT scores after Trump told him he didn’t want those records released. Fordham University confirms that they received a threatening letter.
    • Trump inflated his net worth in order to secure loans and to get on Forbes’ lists, but he deflated the worth of his assets for tax purposes.
    • Trump‘s taxes are likely not under audit.
    • Weisselberg knew about all the things—hush money, Trump Tower Moscow, bank fraud, insurance fraud, and tax fraud.
    • BuzzFeed’s reporting that Trump directly told Cohen to lie to Congress isn’t accurate. Cohen says Trump implied he should lie. BuzzFeed continues to stand by their story, so now I’m super curious about their source.
    • The rumors about mistreatment of Melania, a love child, and the existence of a sex tape are likely not true.
    • Cohen’s never been to Prague, disputing one point in the Steele Dossier.
    • Cohen and Corey Lewandowski discussed a Trump trip to Russia during the campaign.
    • There are other illegal acts and wrongdoing that weren’t discussed during his testimony. Some of those are currently under investigation in New York state.
    • Cohen didn’t want a White House position, so he’s not doing this out of vengeance for that. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) later files a complaint alleging that Cohen is lying about this.
    • Trump purchased a third portrait of himself through the Trump Foundation (we already knew about the first two).
    • Jay Sekulow, Trump’s lawyer, edited Cohen’s previous testimony to Congress, causing it to be false.
    • Trump doesn’t email or text. That’s so old-school, but could be his saving grace.
  1. Cohen provides a list of Trump associates who can corroborate these allegations or who have additional information. The questioning also gave the committee the basis to subpoena Trump’s tax returns.
  2. During Cohen’s testimony, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) calls him a liar, Mark Meadows (R-NC) uses a black woman as a prop to prove Trump isn’t racist, and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) puts up a poster that says, “Liar Liar Pants On Fire.”
  3. During and after the hearing, committee chair Elijah Cummings worked hard to make sure both sides of the aisle felt heard and he concludes with a call for healing.
  4. Describing the destruction of our civility toward each other, Cohen says, “I’m responsible for your silliness because I did the same things that you’re doing now. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”
  5. Just before Michael Cohen is to testify before Congress, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweets a thinly veiled threat. As a lawyer, he should know better. Here’s what he tweets:

“Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…”

    • So then legal experts and fellow Representatives call this a violation of House ethics rules and potential witness tampering.
    • And then the Florida Bar opens an investigation into whether Gaetz violated their regulations.
    • And then, Gaetz apologizes for the tweet and deletes it.
    • But then Gaetz continues to tweet and retweet disparaging comments and articles about Cohen throughout the hearings.
  1. The House Oversight Committee wants to interview Ivanka and Don, Jr. The House Intelligence Committee will interview Cohen, Weisselberg, and Felix Sater.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee opens an inquiry into alleged abuses of power by Trump, based on his attacks against the press, the courts, the FBI, and the DOJ. Presidents actually have wide leeway here.
  3. The House Ways and Means Committee announces they’ll demand Trump’s tax returns. Cohen’s testimony pretty much forced their hand on this.
  4. D.C.’s attorney general subpoenas documents from the Trump inaugural committee. This is the third active investigation into the committee’s finances.
  5. The House Financial Services Committee announces an investigation into Trump’s personal finances, specifically why Deutsche Bank was willing to loan him money at a time when nobody else would.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal court upholds the Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks, but the plaintiffs in the case say they’ll appeal.
  2. Former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker abruptly leaves the DOJ.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate votes against allowing the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” to proceed. A few things:
    • This bill appears to be intended to protect babies born alive after a botched abortion (this is a rare and extreme circumstance).
    • Late-term abortions can only be performed when the mother’s health or life is threatened, or when the fetus has a fatal condition. Less than 1% of abortions occur after fetal viability.
    • Infanticide is already illegal in the U.S., plus the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was already signed into law in 2002. The current bill mostly adds criminal penalties against doctors.
    • Typically the procedure in which the baby survives is not actually an abortion but natural or induced early labor.
    • All this is to say, doctors aren’t out there killing live babies willy-nilly.

International:

  1. Mike Pence joins the self-proclaimed interim President of Venezuela Juan Guaido in Bogota, Colombia to express U.S. support for Venezuela and opposition to Nicolas Maduro.
  2. At the same time, Trump travels to Vietnam for another summit with Kim Jong Un. Kim travels the 2,700 miles across China by private train, a 48-hour trip.
    • The summit is supposed to end with a signing ceremony, but Trump (probably rightly) walks out early when they can’t agree on demands.
    • Depending on the version you believe, one sticking point is that North Korea wants sanction relief for giving up just one of their nuclear facilities.
    • Ahead of the summit, the U.S. already dropped the requirement that North Korea disclose all of their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
    • Trump ends our large-scale military drills with South Korea in the interest of diplomacy with North Korea. Small-scale drills will continue.
    • There are no current plans for continuing the conversation.
    • Trump says he believes Kim when he says he didn’t know about how Otto Warmbier was being treated. The next day, Warmbier’s parents clarify that they blame Kim for the death.
    • This is rich coming from a dictatorship. North Korea says the Trump administration is a billionaire’s club that holds policies of racism, exacerbates social inequality, suppresses freedom of the press, and denies health coverage to U.S. citizens.
    • Trump blames Michael Cohen’s testimony for the talks falling apart.
    • Throughout the summit, North Korean hackers continue to target the U.S.
    • While the GOP pushes the narrative that Democrats=Socialists, Trump says this about socialist dictator Kim Jong Un: He’s “very sharp” and “a real leader.” “I like him.”
    • The White House bans several reporters from a joint dinner likely based on shouted questions about denuclearization and Michael Cohen during an earlier press event.
  1. Britain’s Labour Party supports another Brexit voter referendum in case voters have changed their minds. The deadline for Brexit is the end of March.
  2. I don’t know if you can indict a president, but it looks like you can indict a prime minister. The Israeli Attorney General announces he’ll move forward on indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges.
    • Netanyahu faces an election in April, and says he won’t step down if he is re-elected and also indicted.
  1. Jared Kushner meets with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They don’t talk about Khashoggi’s murder.
  2. Pakistan shoots down an Indian fighter pilot, who then parachutes down and gets beaten by a mob before being rescued by the Pakistani military. Air fights and shelling along the border by Kashmir escalates as a result.
    • This all started with a suicide bombing of Indian troops a few weeks ago.
    • Pakistan releases the pilot by week’s end.
    • The last thing we need right now (or ever) is escalating tensions between two nuclear powers.
  1. Justin Trudeau faces unrest in his government after former attorney general Jodi Wison-Raybould testifies that she was pressured to ignore bribery charges against a Canadian engineering company. Et tu, Justin? Say it isn’t so.
  2. After negotiating with the Taliban, the Pentagon issues a proposal to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan within five years.
  3. We learn that Saudi Arabia detained and then tortured a U.S. citizen with dual citizenship with Saudi Arabia.
  4. An American who’d been held in Yemen for 18 months is finally freed.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House passes two background check bills:
    • The first fixes a loophole that currently allows gun dealers to transfer some guns before a background check is complete. Dylan Roof obtained his gun through this loophole.
    • The second bill requires a background check on ALL firearm sales. This is the first major gun control bill to pass the House in nearly 25 years.
  1. Republicans in the Senate say they don’t plan on dealing with any gun control bills, so these are both likely DOA.
  2. Trump says he’ll veto both bills if they make it to his desk.

Family Separation:

  1. Through a system of relief workers and immigration lawyers, 29 parents who were separated from the children last year make the trip back up to the border to demand asylum hearings and hopefully be reunited with their children. After 12 hours of negotiations, they’re all allowed into the U.S.
  2. At least 200 children are still separated from their parents.
  3. Because we’ve kept these children from their parents, those parents are now paying smugglers to come back to the U.S. illegally just to be with their kids. This isn’t working.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. West Virginia’s legislature got violent after the state Republican party set up a display in the statehouse linking Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to the 9/11 attacks.
    • Omar has been criticized repeatedly for what some call anti-Israel statements and what others call anti-Semitic statements.
    • Allegedly, the sergeant-at-arms for the state House said, “All Muslims are terrorists.”
  1. The Trump administration wants to expand their program to send Central American asylum seekers back to Mexico. Currently, this is only done at the Tijuana-San Diego ports of entry; the administration wants to do it in more border cities.
    • This is already endangering refugees in Tijuana, which doesn’t have the resources to handle the influx. Relief agencies are taking the brunt of this.
  1. Because of the barriers to legal immigration put in place by the Trump administration, more people are crossing the border illegally. Again, this isn’t working.
  2. Relief agencies claim that nine infants under one-year-old are being held in migrant detention centers without the required level of care.
  3. The U.S. government has received nearly 6,000 complaints of sexual abuse of detained migrant minors over the past four years.
  4. All four anti-transgender bills introduced in the South Dakota state legislature this year are now dead with the failure to pass the fourth one this week.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Following on the Senate’s passage of the bill last week, the House passes a public lands conservation bill that protects over a million acres of wilderness and reauthorizes conservation funding.
  2. A group of youth climate activists protest at Mitch McConnell’s Senate office to demand he take the Green New Deal seriously. Police arrest 42 of them.
  3. The Senate confirms fossil-fuel lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to run the EPA, and immediately Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) files an ethics complaint against him. Apparently he’s been participating in meetings on issues he previously lobbied for and he’s been holding meetings with his lobbying clients, both in violation of his signed ethics pledge.
  4. A court rules that Trump has to pay the legal costs for the Scottish government in a case where Trump tried to get them to halt a wind turbine project in Scotland.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The White House trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, corrects Trump about memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in the middle of a trade talk. Trump says they don’t mean anything, but Lighthizer explains to the press that an MOU is actually a binding contract. Trump says he doesn’t agree, at which point Chinese vice premier Liu He cracks up.
  2. It’s the retail apocalypse. So far, companies have announced 4,300 retail store closings slated for this year.
  3. Even though we’ve implemented steep tariffs, the U.S. trade deficit is now 16% larger than when Trump took office, with imports exceeding exports by a record high of $914 billion in 2018.
    • Part of the problem is that countries retaliated with their own tariffs, which caused U.S. exports decline starting in May of 2018.
    • According to economists, macroeconomic factors, like tax cuts and increased federal spending, overwhelmed Trump’s attempts to target specific trade deficits.
    • This all pretty much supports Janet Yellen’s statement earlier this week that Trump doesn’t understand macroeconomic policies (which would explain the scattershot combination of tax, trade, healthcare, immigration, spending, and foreign policies).
  1. A report shows that the caps on state and local tax deductions will hit around 11 million people this year. What was redacted from the report, though, was a description of the efforts by the Treasury to block state workarounds for the cap.
  2. Over 1,000 TSA employees still haven’t received back pay from the shutdown. I guess they better hold more bake sales.

Elections:

  1. Mitch McConnell blames Democrats for the election fraud in North Carolina that likely threw the election to the Republican candidate.
    • He conflates election fraud (where a third party tries to interfere in the votes of legitimate voters) with voter fraud (where someone tries to vote illegally). Republican voter policies, which Democrats tend to disagree with, target voter fraud not election fraud.
    • For comparison, this single case of election fraud in NC affected more ballots than did all of the proven cases of voter fraud over the past 70 years (even according to the Heritage Foundation’s inflated numbers which also include cases of election fraud).
  1. Mark Harris, the Republican at the heart of the fraud case, will not run again for health reasons. He suffered a stroke earlier this year.
  2. A grand jury charges Leslie Dowless with seven felonies in connection with election fraud. More charges could follow.
  3. And speaking of voter fraud, remember how Trump pointed to the attempted Texas voter role purge as evidence of voter fraud? Well, a judge just blocked that effort calling it ham-handed and threatening.
    • Just an FYI, this purging effort is a direct result of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, where the Supreme Court decided we are a post-discrimination society so we no longer need to monitor those states with a history of voter discrimination.

Miscellaneous:

  1. We learn that Trump ordered John Kelly to grant top-secret clearance to Jared Kushner, overruling the red flags brought up by security staff and officials. Kelly documented the request at the time.
  2. New defense rules change the way troops are reported on the census. Now they’ll be counted where they’re usually stationed instead of where they typically live, which could cut funding to their local communities.
  3. Wynn Resorts gets hit with a record $20 million fine for failing to investigate claims of sexual misconduct against Steve Wynn. Wynn left the company last year.

Polls:

  1. 68% of Americans want Mueller’s report to be released to the public.

Week 85 in Trump

Posted on September 10, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week we learned that during Trump rallies they fluff up the crowd standing behind Trump before the rally, they make sure that the crowd will be enthusiastic, and they make people wear MAGA hats. And if you don’t comply they kick you out in the middle of the rally. Thank you, plaid shirt guy.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. Giuliani says that the White House won’t let the final Mueller report be publicized after he is finished with his investigation.
  2. George Papadopoulos takes his plea agreement and gets sentenced to 14 days in jail, a $9,500 fee, and community service. His lawyer says that Trump hindered the investigation far more than Papadopoulos ever did.
  3. Papadopoulos says in a TV interview that members of the Trump campaign not only knew that he was working to set up meetings with Putin, but that they were supportive of those efforts.
  4. Protests break out across Russia over a proposed pension revamping that includes raising the retirement age. The protests are organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s supporters.
  5. Trump’s criticism of our law officials now extends to Christopher Wray, director of the FBI.
  6. From recent interviews and subpoenas, it looks like the Mueller investigation is now focussing on Roger Stone.
  7. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has previously denied Russian meddling in our elections, calls out Putin for meddling in our elections.
  8. The U.K formally charges two Russian agents with the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England.
  9. Federal prosecutors say their accusations against Maria Butina of exchanging sex for influence was mistaken and was based on joke texts between her and a friend.
  10. If you’re keeping track, here are the Russia investigation stats:
    • 35 people or organizations indicted
    • 191 criminal counts
    • 1 conviction
    • 6 guilty pleas
    • 2 prison sentences

Legal Fallout:

  1. Pursuant to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, the New York attorney general opens an investigation into the Trump Organization and whether anyone there violated campaign finance laws. The organization’s CFO is already cooperating with investigations.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court begin, though Democrats on the judiciary committee try to postpone the hearing after receiving a dump of 42,000 documents the night before.
  2. Democrats are also trying to get a delay over questions about Trump’s legal issues. Committee chair Chuck Grassley refuses to hear Democrats’ arguments.
  3. Democrats are also complaining about transparency, since the documents released on Kavanaugh’s time in the White House were redacted by his former deputy, then by the Trump White House, and yet again by Grassley.
  4. Republicans say Democrats are obstructing the confirmation and also say they’ve released more records for Kavanaugh than for any other nominee. It’s reported that only 7% of Kavanaugh’s White House records have been released compared to the 99% that were released for Elena Kagan’s hearing.
  5. The hearings opened with protests and heckling from those opposed to placing Kavanaugh on the bench. Police arrest 22 protestors for being disruptive.
  6. In his opening statement, Kavanaugh calls Merrick Garland superb. He also said this about Garland while the Senate was refusing to even meet with him: Garland is “supremely qualified by the objective characteristics of experience, temperament, writing ability, scholarly ability for the Supreme Court.” This drives home the point that McConnell had no reason other than partisanship and hatred for Obama for not holding hearings for Merrick Garland.
  7. Of note, Kavanaugh has a very low approval rating from the American people for a Supreme Court nominee. It’s only at 37%, lower than Trump‘s.
  8. The Congressional Black Caucus, along with civil rights leaders, say Kavanaugh would threaten human rights if he’s confirmed. They point to the racist voter ID laws he’s voted to uphold. I point to the young immigrant for whom he voted to refuse a legal abortion.
  9. Leaked emails show that Kavanaugh:
    • Has questioned whether Roe v. Wade is settled law;
    • Has been critical of affirmative action and supportive of racial profiling;
    • Appears to have lied in a previous confirmation hearing about whether he knew about Bush’s warrantless surveillance program;
    • Lied multiple times in his confirmation hearings about whether he had received stolen documents outlining Democratic strategy at one point (documents show that not only did he receive the documents, but that he had an actual mole in Democratic circles who was providing them);
    • Lied about being involved with Charles PIckering’s nomination to an appeals court; and
    • Lied in a previous hearing about interviewing William Pryor, who was another judicial nominee.
  1. In his hearing, Kavanaugh refers to birth control pills “abortion inducing drugs.” This is from a case he presided over, and it’s not clear whether he’s quoting the plaintiffs here or if he actually thinks that’s what they are.
  2. The DOJ says that Jeff Sessions will meet with state attorneys general over whether social media platforms are suppressing conservative views. This follows a Senate hearing with Facebook and Twitter. A House committee is also holding a hearing on this alleged bias.

International:

  1. This isn’t political news, but it’s big news. The world’s largest anthropological museum burns down in Brazil, destroying millions of archeological and natural artifacts. Some of these artifacts were the only things that remained of lost cultures.
  2. Trump fills the Western Hemisphere Affairs office at the National Security Council with Cuban hard-liners. The latest addition, Mauricio Claver-Carone, is a pro-embargo activist, and is also dedicated to promoted human rights and democracy in Cuba.
  3. Later this month, Trump will preside over the UN Security Council. He’s already stirring up controversy by saying he’ll focus solely on Iran.
  4. And once again, fears of a far-right, anti-immigrant, protectionist, white nationalist take over in a European country are greatly exaggerated. Elections in Sweden maintain about the same level of support for most parties, though the far-right Sweden Democrats did make big gains. Power still rests with the Social Democrats and the Moderates.
  5. We learn that last year, the Trump administration met with Venezuelan rebels to discuss plans for a coup. One of the rebels is on our own sanctions list of corrupt officials. Nothing came of it.
  6. The Trump administration is expanding a drone program in Africa that the Obama administration had constricted due to collateral damage.

Family Separation:

  1. More than 400 immigrant children are still separated from their parents. Of these, around 300 of the parents are out of the country, either because they were deported or because the children came with other family members.
  2. 199 of the parents signed papers stating that they didn’t want to be reunited. Some might be valid, but most are suspected to have been coerced by immigration officials.
  3. 34 of the parents had red flags in their background checks or were deemed unsafe.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration proposed rules blocking immigrants who have used any kind of welfare from ever becoming citizens. Even though these rules haven’t been implemented yet, immigrants are dropping out of these programs out of fear of a crackdown.
  2. Nike announces Colin Kaepernick as the new face of the company in ad campaigns. People cut the Nike logo off their shirts and burn their shoes in protest. Also, Nike sees a 31% increase in sales.
  3. And here’s another way Trump is getting rid of immigrants in the U.S. The administration has been trying to deport Vietnamese immigrants who are here under a formal agreement with Vietnam. They’ve been here for over two decades.
  4. It turns out that the Trump administration ignored a report from the National Counterterrorism Center that showed that refugees do not pose a domestic threat. They replaced it instead with a report written by immigration hardliners in the administration that over-inflate the cost and threat of refugees here. In the end, the administration didn’t cite security as an excuse to reduce the number of refugees we accept; instead they said DHS was shorthanded and couldn’t handle any more.
  5. The Trump administration proposes a regulation to overrule the Flores rule that blocks us from detaining immigrant children indefinitely. This is how they’re trying to get around the laws about detaining or separating families seeking asylum.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Eight states’ attorneys general bring a suit against the Department of the Interior over their narrowing of migratory bird protections. I thought Trump loved birds. Isn’t that why he doesn’t like wind turbines?
  2. Eric Buermann, the former general counsel of Florida’s Republican Party and the chair of the South Florida Water Management District, puts the blame for the current toxic algae bloom on Governor Rick Scott, who is running for Senate. Buermann says that Scott only recently started to address the issue because it’s become political and not because Scott wants to address pollution or climate change. The blooms are devastating Florida communities.
  3. I’m not sure where to put this since it covers a few things, but Trump plans to roll back regulations on safety inspections for underground mines, on offshore oil rigs, and on meat processing plants, all pretty dangerous occupations. The offshore rig rules were put in place to prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster.
  4. A jury finds Plains All American Pipeline guilty of one felony and eight misdemeanors in the Santa Barbara oil spill in the waters off Refugio State Beach. The felony was for failure to maintain the pipeline. The misdemeanors were things like not reporting the spill right away, killing marine life, and lying about it.
  5. Tens of thousands of climate activists hold rallies and marches around the globe to demand action on climate change.
  6. Ryan Zinke opens 251,000 acres in 30 wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing.
  7. California Governor Jerry Brown signs a bill into law blocking Trump’s expansion of offshore drilling in the state. Brown also announces opposition to Trump’s expansion of BLM land for new oil drilling.
  8. The inspector general for the EPA releases their final report on the cost of Scott Pruitt’s protective services. The report says there is no justification for the costs.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Economists think that U.S. GDP growth might have peaked in the second quarter at 4.2%.
  2. The U.S. trade deficit is getting larger despite Trump’s trade wars and threats. It’s growing at its fastest rate since 2015, reaching new records with the EU and China.
  3. The new farm bill in the House would knock nearly 2 million low-income Americans off their SNAP benefits.
  4. The latest BLS report shows the economy added 201,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate held at 3.9%.
  5. Ahead of the elections, Republicans shelve a plan to make the limits on SALT (State And Local Taxes) deductions permanent. This rule hits people hardest in states with high property values and high taxes, and Republicans are afraid that pushing it through now would make it harder for Republicans to win elections.
  6. Trump is open to shutting down the government if a spending bill agreement can’t be reached in September.

Elections:

  1. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appoints former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl to fill John McCain’s old Senate seat.
  2. ICE subpoenas voter information from the North Carolina Elections Board in an apparent hunt for undocumented voters. The Elections Board fights those subpoenas for both the state and county elections boards. The information ICE is looking for even includes what the ballots look like. So they want to know how people voted. What’s up with that?
  3. Due to the influx of Puerto Ricans into Florida, a judge rules that election ballots must be printed in both Spanish and English.
  4. Former president Obama hits the campaign trail to stump for Democratic congressional candidates. Republicans dig up their old vitriol against him.
  5. Even though a court ruled that North Carolina’s congressional maps are unconstitutionally gerrymandered and that they must redraw the lines for the midterm elections, the same court now acknowledges they don’t have time. So the elections will continue to be racially and politically gerrymandered for this election.

Miscellaneous:

  1. On Labor Day, Trump criticizes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka in a tweet, saying he didn’t represent his labor union well over the weekend. Trumka had said that the things Trump has done to hurt workers are greater than the things he’s done to help them.
  2. Bob Woodward releases his new book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” in which accounts from White House insiders give a anxiety-provoking glance into the inner workings of Trump’s White House.
    • I don’t typically like tell-all books, but Bob Woodward is a well-sourced journalist who’s written about many presidents (most of whom complain about his books, Republican or Democrat).
    • Woodward’s account portrays a White House staff that feels they must protect Trump (and us, I guess) from his worst impulses and that frankly seems to be performing a subversive coup by not allowing the president to fulfill his agenda.
  1. Here are a few highlights from the book (or so I’ve heard):
    • John Mattis had to stop Trump from ordering an assassination of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad.
    • Trump thinks that denouncing white supremacists and Neo-Nazis after the Charlottesville rally was one of the worst things he’s ever done. Apparently he was being sincere the first time when he said there were good Nazis and white supremacists.
    • Trump called Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and a “dumb southerner.” He denies this, saying it isn’t how he talks; but he’s on record saying both of these things at different times in the past.
    • To quote John Kelly (from the book): “We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
  1. Trump calls Woodward to discuss the book, and Woodward (after telling Trump he’s recording it) releases the recording of their discussion.
  2. A top official fans the flames by publishing an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times basically confirming the allegations in Woodward’s book. This official seems to think this little group of resistors on the inside are saving the world from Trump, but I think they’re only doing it to be self-serving. They‘re using Trump to get their own agenda through.
  3. Trump wonders if this might amount to treason and calls on the NYT to release the name of the author.
  4. Journalists and bloggers furiously speculate about who the author could be, while top officials furiously deny it was them. All distracting from the real news of the week, the Kavanaugh hearings.
  5. The op-ed leads a few Democratic officials to urge White House staff to invoke the 25th amendment if they think Trump really isn’t fit for office.
  6. After merely suspending Alex Jones for a week, Twitter bans Infowars and Alex Jones permanently for abusive behavior.
  7. Trump is on the campaign trail, stumping across the midwest. At one rally, he says that someday his speeches will be viewed as being as good as the Gettysburg Address. He also says the “fake news” bashed the Gettysburg Address. Huh?
  8. Trump suggests that protests should be illegal. This isn’t the first time.
  9. Omarosa Manigault-Newman says she recorded nearly every single conversation she had while working in the White House. She’s no fool. But where are the recordings?
  10. The latest rumor is that Trump is looking to replace Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. I only report this because those rumors do actually seem to pan out. We’ll see.
  11. I’d like to catalogue this one under “What a fucking waste of money and time.” The Interior Department inspector general actually looked into inauguration crowd size drama, and found that a photographer had digitally edited the photos to make the crowd size look like it was larger than it actually was.
  12. Trump agrees not to enforce Stormy Daniels’ non-disclosure agreement, likely to get out of testifying in the case.

Week 84 in Trump

Posted on September 10, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week was all about saying goodbye to Senator John McCain. I don’t remember politics without him being in the thick of it. In planning his services, he gave Trump some parting shots, excluding him from the memorials and final funeral and enlisting politicians from all sides in a final show of working both sides of the aisle.

Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. 16 states filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t cover rights for the LGBTQ community and therefore you can fire someone based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity. Or deny them housing. Or refuse to serve them. Or…

Russia:

  1. The judge grants a brief delay in Paul Manafort’s second trial because his lawyers haven’t had time to recover from his first trial. Remember, they could have done this all in one trial, but Manafort chose to have two trials instead.
  2. Manafort’s legal team was in negotiations with Mueller to avoid a second trial, but those negotiations fell apart.
  3. Earlier this month, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes travelled to the UK to dig up dirt on Christopher Steele. Nunes tried to meet with leaders of British intelligence agencies, but they were wary of Nunes’ intentions; so he ended up meeting with the deputy national security advisor, Madeline Alessandri.
  4. Trump tweets that China hacked Clinton’s emails and that they got classified info. That was just little false info he picked up from the Daily Caller.
  5. Trump accuses NBC of editing interviews with him. He’s specifically pointing at his interview with Lester Holt when he admitted that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he fired Comey. If there were any merit to the accusation, you’d think he would’ve brought it up when the interview aired.
  6. Now we know why Trump is working so hard to discredit DOJ lawyer Bruce Ohr. Ohr told lawmakers that two years ago, he met with Christopher Steele who told him that he thought Russia had leverage over Trump (or in his words, Russia had him over a barrel).
  7. Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, is backing down from his claim that Cohen knows that Trump Sr. knew ahead of time about Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyers in 2016.
  8. George Papadopoulos accepts his plea deal and pleads guilty to lying to the FBI. He had previously been considering backing out of the deal.
  9. Sam Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, agrees to a plea deal and to cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. He pleads guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent and lying to a Senate committee.
  10. Trump says that the Supreme Court Chief Justice should tell the FISA court to investigate the DOJ and FBI over their FISA requests during the 2016 campaign.
  11. Trump says he should get personally involved if the FBI and DOJ don’t do their job, accusing them of being biased against Republicans. Even though many of them are themselves Republicans.
  12. We’re coming up to 60 days before the election, so Rudy Giuliani says Mueller has to stop investigating. Which isn’t true since this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Even if it were a hard rule, Mueller could continue his investigation behind closed doors right up through the election as long as he doesn’t publicize information.
  13. Mueller says he’ll accept some answers from Trump in writing. Giuliani says they won’t be providing any answers to questions about obstruction of justice.

Legal Fallout:

  1. GOP Members of Congress circulate a spreadsheet itemizing the things they think Democrats might investigate if they win the House in November. Those things include:
    • Trump’s tax returns
    • Trump Organization, specifically around the emoluments clause.
    • Trump’s dealings with Russia and his preparation for the meeting with Putin
    • The Stormy Daniels payment
    • Trump’s firings of James Comey and of U.S. attorneys
    • The transgender ban in the military
    • Steven Mnuchin’s business dealings
    • The use of personal email by White House staff
    • Abused perks, mostly by cabinet members like Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, and Ryan Zinke
    • That time he discussed classified information at a public dinner at Mar-a-Lago
    • Whether Jared Kushner is in compliance with ethics laws
    • Firing the EPA board of scientific counselors
    • The Muslim ban
    • The family separation policy and the failure to reunite separated families
    • The response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
    • Election security and hacking attempts
    • Security clearances
  1. New York City fines Jared Kushner’s family business once again. This time, the fine is $210,000 for falsifying building permits. This brings the total the company’s been fined over the past few years to over $500,000.
  2. The above leads to the DCCC issuing warnings to other Democratic candidates about being doxxed.
  3. Lawyers for GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter accuse federal prosecutors of rushing to indict his client. Interesting tact, since they’ve been accusing prosecutors of dragging out this investigation over two years.
  4. Trump blames the DOJ for allowing the indictment of both Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, two “very popular Republican Congressman” (according to Trump). He complained that these would’ve been two easy GOP wins. I guess it doesn’t matter if they might be criminals.
  5. An inspector general reports that Trump participated in a decision to cancel a 10-year effort to develop a new FBI headquarters in the suburbs of Maryland or Virginia. The plan now is to develop the headquarters right across the street from Trump’s hotel in DC, which turns out to be more expensive. Government employees were told not to talk about anything Trump said about this.
  6. According to a recorded conversation, Michael Cohen and Trump tried to buy up all the damaging information the National Enquirer had on him and was storing in their vaults.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Chuck Schumer makes a deal with Mitch McConnell to fast-track 15 of Trump’s lower court judicial nominees. We don’t know yet what he got in return, if anything. Unless he did it just so his Senators could have some time to campaign.
  2. A judge in Texas allows a defamation lawsuit against Infowars’ Alex Jones to move forward. The suit was brought by parents of Sandy Hook victims who’ve been harassed and further victimized by Jones’ supporters.
  3. Trump refuses to release over 100,000 pages of Brett Kavanaugh’s records during the time he worked in the White House under George W. Bush. Trump cites executive privilege as a reason.
  4. Marches and protests against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court continue this week. 7 in 10 Americans are pro-choice, and don’t want him confirmed.
  5. Trump reconsiders firing Jeff Sessions. Again.

Healthcare:

  1. An appeals court rules that Alabama can’t ban “dilation & evacuation” abortions after 15 weeks. Note that over 90% of abortions do occur before 15 weeks so don’t use that method.
  2. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduces legislation with 13 other Democrats aimed at reducing the racial disparities in maternity care and deaths in the U.S. Currently there are about 40 deaths out of 100,000 live births for black women versus 12 for white women.

International:

  1. The Trump administration announces plans to cut all U.S. funding for the UN program that provides aid to Palestinian refugees. It’s pretty amazing that there have been Palestinian refugees for over 50 years now.
  2. We learn that Trump’s last meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned sour when Trump said he remembers Pearl Harbor and then criticized Japan’s economy and our trade deficit with them. Up to now, the two seemed to have a good working relationship.
  3. Trump blames China for the lack of progress in the negotiations with North Korea. He says China is applying pressure on North Korea.
  4. Trump announces that joint U.S. – South Korea military exercises will be temporarily suspended as a gesture of goodwill toward North Korea.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California’s legislature passes a bill raising the age for buying assault weapons from 18 to 21. The bill also limits gun purchases to one per month per person.
  2. California passes net neutrality laws. The bill brings back the FCC guidelines put in place under Obama, but only for California.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Will the ways in which we can push Hispanics out of the country never end? Now the U.S. is denying passports to people with U.S. birth certificates, or even revoking them for people who already have them. The problem arises from cases in the 1990’s where some midwives admitted to falsifying birth documents, and now anyone born to a midwife is suspect. Some have been detained and some are in deportation proceedings. Even though there is no proof that they were NOT born here.
  2. Some passports were denied under Bush and Obama for the same reason, but a lawsuit ended the practice in Obama’s first year as president.
  3. California signs a bill into law overhauling its money bail system. The bill mostly gets rid of money bail and instead would use a system of probation departments to analyze flight risk and risks to the community. Opponents of money bail say this still won’t fix the problem.
  4. We’re on day 14 of the 19-day prison strike. Prisoners have stopped eating and working to protest unsafe and unjust conditions. Some immigrant detainees have joined in on the strike.
  5. The mother of a toddler who died after being separated and then reunited files a lawsuit against the city where her daughter was detained. Allegedly, the child became ill at the detention center, wasn’t given adequate medial care, and was released with a clean bill of health by a nurse who didn’t have the authority. Once reunited, the mother tried to see a doctor but was turned away several times.
  6. And finally some justice. A jury convicts a police officer in Texas of killing Jordan Edwards, an unarmed, 15-year-old black teen. The officer gets a 15-year sentence.
  7. A judge rules against Texas and other states trying to end DACA, saying they waited too long to file suit. The ruling doesn’t protect DACA long term, though, and the judge leaves an opening for the states to file again, saying that DACA is likely illegal.
  8. The backlog is growing for immigrants who have applied for citizenship and are still being processed. Part of the slowdown is a longer questionnaire created under Obama, and part is longer delays for getting interview appointments. Part of it could also be an increase in the number people trying to get their citizenship.
  9. The family of Mollie Tibbetts, who was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, asks people to stop politicizing her death. Specifically, they say Mollie would be against using this as an excuse to hate undocumented immigrants.
  10. Ron DeSantis, who is the Republican nominee for governor of Florida, was an administrator of a Facebook page that features conspiracy theories as well as racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The page also attacks Parkland shooting survivors. Remember, this is the guy who said “we don’t want to monkey this up” by electing a black governor.
  11. 16 states have introduced legislation to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases.

Climate/EPA

  1. The California legislature passes a bill that would require the state to get its energy from 100% carbon-free sources by 2045. Several other states are considering the same, and Hawaii has already passed it into law. Orlando, FL, has the same goal for 2050.
  2. The BLM publishes a notice of intent to open 1.6 million acres of publicly held land in California to fracking and oil drilling. There’s been a moratorium on leasing federal land in California to oil companies.
  3. Despite the governor of Puerto Rico recently raising the official Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975 (up from the previous 64), Trump says the administration’s response to the disaster was fantastic.
  4. The EPA considers reversing Obama-era limits on mercury emissions from coal power plants. The health effects of mercury exposure can include tremors, neurological damage, emotional changes, headaches, impaired mental performance, and muscle weakness, among others.
  5. According to a new study, hotter temperatures caused by climate change will make insects hungrier, causing diseases to spread faster and ruining crops.
  6. Over 100 schools in Detroit don’t have drinking water after tests find elevated levels of lead.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The U.S. and Mexico reach a preliminary agreement to update NAFTA, possibly without Canada. Trump wants to drop the name NAFTA because he calls it the worst trade deal in history and says it has a bad connotation.
  2. The TPP, the Obama trade pact that Trump disbanded, was basically a renegotiation of NAFTA but with nine additional countries. TPP and Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA are very similar with the exception of the North American auto industry. The updated NAFTA has tighter restrictions and better worker protections than TPP.
  3. Trump says the deal will be good for farmers and for manufacturers. (Note: I haven’t found a good analysis to verify this yet.)
  4. Stocks jump on Trump’s announcement that we’ve reached a trade deal with Mexico, calming down some of the uncertainty over trade. The NASDAQ hits an all-time high on the news.
  5. Mexico is a little more subdued about the agreement, saying that we’re continuing to make progress.
  6. Canada misses Trump’s Friday deadline to agree to the new terms of NAFTA. Both sides say negotiations are ongoing, though. Trump says he won’t give in to any of Canada’s requests and that this will all be on our terms.
  7. Seth Frotman, the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, resigns in protest. He says that the bureau has lost sight of its mission to protect consumers, and specifically that they no longer protect students’ financial futures and are openly hostile to protecting student borrowers.
  8. The USDA announces it’s ready to accept applications from farmers who’ve been hurt by the tariffs. They play to make payments totaling $4.7 billion, their first installment of the $12 billion bailout.
  9. Trump cancels a planned cost-of-living pay raise for federal employees citing budget constraints. This is not something you do during a booming economy. Unless, of course, you already created a $1 trillion deficit by giving out big tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy.
  10. Trump also wants to get rid of locality adjustments for federal worker wages. These are cost-of-living adjustments based on the standard of living in the city in which a worker resides. Most large companies adjust wages this way.
  11. The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) blocks the Trump administration’s tariff on newsprint. They say there’s no sign of any unfair competition from Canadian imports.
  12. Trump wants to impose the additional $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods next week.
  13. Trump also threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organization, saying they’ve treated the U.S. very badly and that it’s all very unfair. How did the biggest economy in the world get such a persecution complex?
  14. Did you know that many restaurant chains have policies where they don’t allow employees to try for higher-paying jobs at other locations of the same chain? Now 15 chains have ended that policy. But that businesses continue to do things like this is why we still need unions.

Elections:

  1. The DNC voted to limit the powers of their superdelegates for the 2020 primaries.
  2. For a second time, a North Carolina court rules that the state’s congressional districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered. The first time, the lines were deemed to be racially motivated; this time they were seen as politically motivated to benefit Republicans. They might have to redraw the lines, just 9 weeks before the midterm elections.
  3. The lawmaker responsible for the congressional districts lines said they were designed to maintain Republican dominance because “electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.”
  4. The USPS accidentally releases security clearance paperwork for an ex-CIA operative who is now running as a Democratic candidate for Congress (Abigail Spanberger). The Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP PAC closely linked to Paul Ryan, then uses some of the sensitive information in those papers against Spanberger’s campaign.
  5. I’m not sure whether this should go under elections or discrimination, but Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump last year, lost bigly in the Republican primary for Senate in Arizona. Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court for refusing to stop racially profiling Arizona residents.
  6. Trump meets with evangelical leaders and urges them to campaign for Republicans from the pulpit. He also says that if Democrats take over, there will be violence. Though he seems to be saying the Democrats will be violent. I’m not sure why the winner would be violent.
    • Just for the record, Trump did not overturn the Johnson Amendment as he’s claimed, and religious organizations still can’t endorse a political candidate.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Last week, Trump refused to sign off on the full White House statement commemorating John McCain. This week, he raises the flags back up to full mast. After blowback from that, Trump places the flag back at half mast and issues a full statement on McCain.
  2. Even the American Legion felt they had to write a letter to Trump urging him to follow protocol and to honor McCain.
  3. As the Senate reconvenes, Senators each take some time to honor McCain on the Senate floor. McCain will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his interment.
  4. There are a number of memorials for McCain, including one in Arizona, one in the Capitol Rotunda, and the final one at the Washington National Cathedral.
    • Joe Biden is among the speakers at the service in Arizona.
    • Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Mike Pence speak in the Capitol Rotunda.
    • McCain had requested former presidents Bush (Jr.) and Obama to deliver eulogies, as well as Joe Lieberman. A Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent. A quaint throwback to bipartisanship.
    • McCain’s daughter Meghan gives an emotional eulogy, crediting her father for making her tough and criticizing the divisive politics of today.
    • Many of the speakers at the events take the opportunity to support reaching across the aisle and to take jabs at the current administration.
  1. McCain is buried at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
  2. Republicans bury Chuck Schumer’s proposal to rename the Russell Senate Building after John McCain.
  3. Senator James Inhofe says McCain is partly to blame for Trump bungling how McCain was honored because McCain was too outspoken and criticized Trump. That’s not how this works.
  4. Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral, but Ivanka and Jared Kushner did attend at Lindsey Graham’s invitation.
  5. Trump claims that Google’s search results are rigged against him to only show bad news about him. Looks like he got this from a PJ Media article that was covered by Lou Dobbs on Fox.
  6. Larry Kudlow says the administration is looking at whether the government should regulate Google search results (can you say ‘state run media’?). This largely came about because of social media’s efforts to stop the spread of fake stories and lies, which often come from sources Trump relies on.
  7. Don’t mess with Google. After Trump’s accusations, Google adds his picture next to the definition of imbecile.
  8. Trump announces that White House Counsel Don McGahn will leave in the fall. It’s not clear if it’s by choice or if he was fired.
  9. Robert Chain calls the Boston Globe to tell them they are the enemy of the people and says “we’re going to kill every fucking one of you.” The FBI arrests Chain, who owns several guns and a recently purchased rifle.
  10. A judge sentences two Reuters journalists in Myanmar to seven years each for possessing confidential documents. The two were investigating the killings of Rohingya Muslims in the country.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating dips back down below 40%.

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.”

Week 75 in Trump

Posted on July 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Families Belong Together Rallies.

Jeff Sessions says that the outrage over family separation at the border is “radicalized” and calls the people who are outraged a “lunatic fringe.” He goes on to claim that immigration rights activists enjoy an “opulence” that is inaccessible to everyday people. Well let me tell you, the people I marched with, myself included, do not enjoy an opulence that is out of reach. If he was out there listening to us, he would see the diversity represented. 750 marches. Look at the map. It isn’t radical to expect that children, especially those under five, should not be separated from their parents whose only crime is trying to seek asylum in America. Caring for children is not a radical idea.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. According to a federal indictment, three people bombed a mosque and a women’s health clinic in 2017, tried to set up a local militia, sold phony local currency, and then held a stretch of railroad track for ransom.

Russia:

  1. Blackwater founder (and Betsy DeVos’s brother) Erik Prince gives Mueller’s team complete access to his phone and computer.
  2. Mueller is working to have George Papadopoulos sentenced in September. He plans to produce conclusions and more indictments this fall.
  3. Tensions are still high between House GOP members and the DOJ, as the FBI turns over thousands of documents to Congress about the Russia investigation.
  4. And after that, Devin Nunes gives Rod Rosenstein a deadline to inform Congress whether the FBI used informants against the Trump campaign, even though they’ve already answered that. The answer is “no” in case you were wondering.
  5. And after that, the DOJ wrote back to Nunes saying, essentially, you already have all you’re going to get.
  6. Michael Cohen wants to prevent prosecutors from seeing 12,000 of the 4 million files seized in the raid on his home and office.
  7. A federal judge rejects Paul Manafort’s challenge to Mueller’s authority. Manafort’s team was trying to convince the judge that Mueller was only prosecuting him to get to Trump.
  8. According to a newly unsealed warrant, Manafort and his wife owed Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, $10 million. Deripaska gave Manafort a $26 million loan, bringing their business dealings to around $60 million over ten years.
  9. Mueller indicts Russian Konstantin Kilimnik, an intermediary between Manafort and Deripaska.
  10. FBI agent Peter Strzok testifies to Congress behind closed doors about his investigation into Clinton’s emails. He wants his testimony to be public. House Democrats want it to be public. House Republicans refuse to make it public.
  11. The House passes a resolution demanding documents from the DOJ around the Russia investigation, potentially setting Rod Rosenstein up for impeachment if he fails to deliver.
  12. Rosenstein and Chris Wray testify before the House Judiciary Committee in a very testy exchange. Republican Jim Jordan and Trey Gowdy were literally spitting mad, with Gowdy telling them to “finish the hell up.” Rosenstein, on the other hand, maintained his composure and schooled them a bit in the law.
  13. Trump again says that Russia didn’t interfere in our 2016 elections because Putin says so. And then Putin and Trump announce they’ll meet in July.
  14. And then Mike Pompeo says he’s certain Trump will warn Putin against interfering in our election because it’s clearly unacceptable.
  15. Even Justice Kennedy circles back to the Russia story, and I have no idea where this one will end up.
    • The day after Kennedy announces his retirement, stories break that his son Justin worked at Deutsche Bank as head of global real estate capital markets.
    • Deutsche Bank helped Trump obtain real estate loans at a time when no other banks would touch him because of his bankruptcies. They kept loaning him money even after he defaulted on a loan from them, with loans totaling over $1 billion.
    • Deutsche Bank has been under investigation and fined over the years for laundering money for Russians.
    • Trump dismissed some of those fines after Mueller began investigating and subpoenaing Deutsche Bank.
    • Deutsche Bank is very large, and it’s possible Kennedy had nothing to do with Trump’s loans. Also, it appears that much of the money laundering was done after Kennedy left the bank.
    • The White House has been courting Kennedy, and let him know that they’d uphold his legacy. They wanted him to be comfortable leaving the bench before the 2018 elections.
    • Remember The Big Short? Justin Kennedy also predicted the market crash in 2008 and capitalized on it for Deutsche Bank, shorting mortgages as early as 2006. He left the bank when regulations made it too hard to work these complex kinds of transactions. In 2009, he moved on to co-found a company that took advantage of commercial properties that had fallen victim to the real estate crash.
  1. Tech companies meet with the DHS to work on ways to stop Russia from interfering in our elections again. However, neither the FBI nor DHS provide the companies with any specific threat information, leaving them feeling unprepared.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme courts makes a series of rulings against progressive issues.
    • The court upholds Trump’s Muslim ban, with the majority ruling saying that they have to look at Trump’s proclamation in isolation and apart from his anti-Muslim rhetoric. Even though their last ruling was pretty much the opposite.
    • Non-medical pregnancy centers can mislead about their medical capabilities and don’t have to provide abortion options.
    • Unions can no longer collect fees from non-members, even though they bargain with companies for all employees’ benefits and wages.
    • In a blow to antitrust laws, the court upholds American Express’s rules that merchants can’t talk to customers about other credit cards, which allows Amex to continue charging exorbitant fees to merchants (which are then passed on to the customer).
  1. In its Muslim ban decision, the court overturns Korematsu v. United States, the decision that endorsed Japanese internment camps in the U.S.
  2. Justice Sotomayor excoriates the majority decision on the Muslim ban, comparing it to Korematsu v. United States. She also called out many of Trump’s anti-Muslim statements, entering them into the court record.
  3. Justice Kennedy announces his retirement at the end of July, giving Republicans the ability to turn the court hard right. This is a gut punch for civil rights and reproductive rights activists.
  4. And then Mitch McConnell promptly forgets the McConnell rule and promises a swift vote on his replacement. The McConnell rule came to be in 2016 when he said it wouldn’t be right to confirm a judge in an election year. Let the people have their voice heard first, he said in 2016.
  5. Trump says he’ll have a nominee to replace Kennedy within a few weeks.
  6. Susan Collins comes forward saying she won’t support any nominee who threatens to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Healthcare:

  1. The Iowa Supreme Court rules that a law requiring a 72-hour waiting period to have an abortion is unconstitutional.
  2. A healthcare fraud sweep results in the arrest of more than 600 people in an opioid scheme. 76 doctors and 86 other healthcare workers are charged for prescribing and distributing opioids.
  3. A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s approval of Kentucky’s work requirements for Medicaid. The judge says the administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously. This is a blow to Kentucky’s governor, who wants to take away people’s healthcare by rolling back protections under the ACA.
  4. Trump proposes cutting the number of health professionals who are deployed during national disasters and disease outbreaks by 40%. This team also provides health care in our most rural and poor areas.

International:

  1. Even after the historic meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un, U.S. intelligence says North Korea is moving forward with its nuclear program. Satellite Images show that North Korea continues to make upgrades to its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center.
  2. There’s another NATO summit coming up in July, at a time when tensions between Europe and the U.S. are higher than ever. At the G7, Trump said that NATO is as bad as NAFTA.
  3. Apparently Trump once tried to bribe France to leave the EU by promising Emmanuel Macron a favorable free trade agreement. He made the same attempt with Germany.
  4. While tensions grow between Trump and German Chancellor Merkel, Trump expresses interest in pulling troops out of Germany and orders the Pentagon to analyze the costs.
  5. Far left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins Mexico’s presidential elections.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House shoots down its most recent major immigration reform bill despite Trump’s last ditch efforts to save it. Trump’s criticism basically killed it in the first place last week, along with a more bipartisan version. This bill would increase border security, help Dreamers become citizens, and allow families showing up at the border to be detained indefinitely.
  2. Congress puts forth a bipartisan bill to give Puerto Rico full statehood.

Separating Families:

  1. The immigrant group RAICES has now raised over $20 million. A National Guard member posted on their fundraiser that they’re lucky we aren’t executing undocumented immigrants. He’ll face punishment from the guard. Online calls for violence against immigrants have increased in recent weeks.
  2. The story about children is darker than it first appeared.
    • The Trump administration launched a pilot program last year to start quietly separating families at the border.
    • An additional 1,700 children were separated between October 2016 and February 2018, but DHS won’t break it down by month so we don’t know how many, if any, were separated before Trump took office.
    • The number of children separated is estimated to be around 4,100, but like I said, DHS isn’t being forthcoming with the numbers.
    • Immigrants as young as three-years-old are ordered to appear in court for their own deportation hearings. Children have been put through this process alone before but usually not this young and never in these numbers. Typically families appear together in court.
  1. Seventeen states sue to force the administration to reunite the families it separated.
  2. A federal judge rules that the administration can no longer separate families and must reunite all those that have been separated within 30 days. Kids under 5 must be reunited within two weeks. Yes, I said FIVE.
  3. Clergy members protesting Jeff Sessions’ appearance in Los Angeles are arrested.
  4. As outrage grows over ICE treatment of immigrants, calls arise from the left to abolish ICE. The right mocks this as extremism.
  5. And then ICE officials call to abandon ICE, or at least restructure it.
    • These special ICE agents investigate hard crimes like cartels, drug smuggling, money laundering, and human trafficking.
    • They want to start their own agency because ICE’s everyday actions hamper their ability to investigate and no one wants to cooperate with them.
    • They say the priority has moved from a focus on national security and public safety to more low-level immigration violations. It’s more about discrimination than crime.
  1. The Pentagon says that DHS asked for their help in housing and caring for up to 12,000 undocumented immigrants.
  2. The GAO and the HHS inspector general launch reviews of Trump’s handling of families at the border.
  3. Mexico asks the UN to intervene in this matter, calling the separation cruel and a human rights violation.
  4. Nearly 600 demonstrators, mostly women and including elected officials, are arrested during a non-violent protest in Washington D.C.
  5. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators show up to over 750 marches and rallies around the world to protest the treatment of families at the border. A handful of counter-protestors show up to support Trump’s policies.
  6. The marches are largely peaceful, except one instance in Alabama where a counter-protestor pulls a gun. A far-right Prayer Patriot rally in Portland, on the other hand, turns into a riot when an equal number of Antifa shows up to counter-protest.
  7. The DOJ’s response to this outcry of support for immigrants and criticism of DOJ policies? To try to detain migrant families indefinitely.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A district judge rejects a motion to dismiss a case against the administration brought by immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Trump’s decision to rescind TPS for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and Honduras could deprive hundreds of thousands of immigrants of legal status.
  2. Legal issues aside, rescinding TPS could also send 250,000 people back to the very countries where most of our border crossers come from, causing an even greater border surge in the future.
  3. The Muslim ban goes into effect, blocking certain travelers from Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea. The ban includes Syrian refugees, those traveling on business or tourist visas, and just government officials in the case of Venezuela. Certain waivers might still be granted for close family members.
  4. The man who drove his car into protestors in Charlottesville, killing one of them, is charged with several hate crimes.
  5. A Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of 550 women’s issues experts ranked the U.S. as the 10th most dangerous country for women in areas of sexual violence, harassment, and being coerced into sex.
  6. A Harvard Business Review study finds that women ask for raises as often as men, but get rejected more often.
  7. In another hardliner approach, the DOJ drafts a rule that says if you’re criminally prosecuted for crossing the border, you can’t be granted asylum. The rule would also increase scrutiny of asylum seekers from Central America. Note that border crossers are only criminally prosecuted because of Sessions’ zero-tolerance policy.
  8. A chief counsel at ICE in Seattle gets four years in prison for identify theft. He stole immigrants identities, opening credit cards and taking out loans in their names.
  9. Former ICE spokesman James Schwab corrects statements he made about Oakland’s mayor when she warned constituents of an upcoming ICE raid. At the time, he gave the party line that she put officers lives in danger and that they lost a lot of the people they were after. In truth, they arrested 16% more than their highest expectations. Schwab resigned when asked to uphold a statement by Jeff Sessions that 800 people got away, which Schwab says is a flat-out lie.
  10. For the first time in almost 70 years, an American won’t be leading the UN International Organization for Migration. Trump’s nominee was voted down, with the agency looking outside of the U.S. because of our current attitudes and actions around migration and refugees.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The EPA is in charge of coal ash disposal because the residue from coal power plants can contaminate drinking water. This week, the EPA gives Oklahoma the right to dispose of its own coal ash, making it the first state to be able to do so.
  2. A train hauling oil derails in Iowa, spilling around 230,000 gallons of crude oil into the surrounding floodwaters.
  3. Ireland bans fracking.
  4. A hand-written thank you note shows that EPA administrator Scott Pruitt attended the American Petroleum Institute’s private board dinner.
  5. Emails show that conservatives lobbied Scott Pruitt to fire a career staffer in order to derail the National Climate Assessment compiled by 13 agencies. Their assessment found that human activity is extremely likely to cause climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Harley-Davidson announces they’ll move some production abroad in order to avoid retaliatory EU tariffs in the ongoing trade wars.
  2. Aaaand then Trump threatens Harley-Davidson, saying that if they move offshore they’ll be taxed like never before.
  3. The DOW drops 405 points on news that Trump plans to stop Chinese companies from investing in U.S. tech firms and in technologies that can be sold to China. This could create two competing global tech markets, one in the U.S. and one in China, with both pushing their own standards. Differing standards just makes it harder on everyday people.
  4. The White House later reverses this decisions and says there won’t be any new restrictions on investments (aside from what Congress already has planned).
  5. The bond market’s yield curve, which has been predictive of all nine recessions since 1955, is predicting another recession. However, the economy under Trump hasn’t necessarily followed traditional patterns.
  6. The UN releases a report that says 40 million Americans live in poverty and 18.5 million live in extreme poverty. The administration says no, there are only 250,000 Americans in extreme poverty. I guess it depends on your definition.
  7. Manufacturing dipped in June, but manufacturers are still hiring and raising prices. Some factories begin layoffs, though, as the effects of the tariffs start to be felt.
  8. China and the EU together promise to avoid trade protectionism. They’re worried that U.S. trade policies could trigger another global recession.
  9. Financial experts say the debt is likely to reach 78% of GDP by the end of 2018. This is the highest level since the 1950s. It’s expected to surpass the historical high of 106% within 10 years.
  10. Despite these stats, Trump’s chief financial advisor, Larry Kudlow, says that the federal budget deficit is “coming down rapidly.”
  11. Major auto trade groups warn that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, increase the price of new vehicles, and cut back progress on self-driving cars.
  12. Trump apparently ordered an investigation into whether importing foreign cars poses a national security threat.
  13. Canada announces billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs
  14. Axios reports that Trump wants to take the U.S. out of the World Trade Organization (WTO), but Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says that’s not true. Instead, they just don’t like the WTO.

Elections:

  1. The Supreme Court fails to uphold lower court decisions that would’ve forced Texas and North Carolina to draw fair district lines before the 2018 midterms. They sidestep making a real decision by sending the cases back to the lower courts.
  2. A court orders that Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission must hand over documents to Democrats by July 18.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Red Hen restaurant, which refused service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders (SHS) and her family, doesn’t open on Tuesday due to protests and even having chicken shit dumped on their doorstep. Where’s the civility, right? Trump’s supporters even send death threats to a Red Hen restaurant that isn’t even affiliated with the one in Lexington. Calm down folks. People get 86ed all the damn time.
  2. And then SHS gets temporary Secret Service protection because of the hoopla.
  3. After the restaurant denied service to SHS, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said we should call out the bigotry of members of this administration where we see them — in restaurants, at the gas station, at the drug store. This week she cancels two appearances because of death threats.
  4. A man fires a shotgun through a newspaper agency’s glass doors, killing five journalists and injuring two. He had a long-running vendetta against the paper, though people on the far-left blame MAGA and people on the far-right celebrate because “fake news.”
  5. Bill Shine, former executive at Fox News, is slated to become the next White House Communications Director.
  6. After several years of calling the media “fake news” and egging his supporters into violent acts against journalists, Trump says the shooting “shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief.” He also says “journalists like all Americans should be free from the fear of being violently attacked” while doing their job.
  7. A few days before the shooting, Milo Yiannopoulos called for “vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” But that’s not what motivated the shooter, as far as we know.
  8. Spicer’s back. Sean Spicer will launch a new talk show in July as a platform for “civil, respectful, and information discussions.” Notice that he left out “honest.”

Polls:

  1. 72% of Americans think it’s important to not charge sick people more for healthcare coverage (an ACA rule).
  2. 76% think it’s important to not be able to deny someone healthcare coverage because of a pre-existing condition (another ACA rule).
  3. Why is this important? Because the administration is trying to get around those two rules.
  4. 92% of Republicans think that the news intentionally publishes false or misleading stories, compared to 52% of Democrats (which is still strangely high).

Week 74 in Trump

Posted on June 25, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Border policy is the big story this week. 538 gives a good wrap up about how family separation is just part of a bigger plan to control and limit immigration. The administration has tried to end DACA; reviewed applications (going back decades) of immigrants who’ve been granted citizenship; deported non-criminal immigrants who’ve made lives here for decades; and tried to curtail refugee admissions, work visas, travel from Muslim countries, and immigration by international entrepreneurs. Now they’re separating children from their parents at the border. Put together, these policies will force some immigrants here to return to their home countries, they’ll make it harder to help relatives come to the country, and they’ll reduce the number of immigrants and refugees coming here in the first place. So the overall goal seems to be to reduce the foreign-born population in the U.S.

And just a reminder of how these policies are based on misleading information: The Trump administration tried to stifle a report they commissioned that shows refugees added $63 billion to US economy over the past decade. The released version was manipulated to only show the costs of refugees and none of the profits. Trump also holds up Germany as example of how bad immigration is, saying crime in Germany is way up. In real life, the crime rate in Germany is at it’s lowest point in 26 years and was down 10% in 2017 from 2016.

But here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, along with the FBI’s Christopher Wray, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his newly released report on the investigation into Hillary’s emails.
  2. Republicans aren’t satisfied with the 580-page report, so they threaten to investigate the investigation into the investigation of Clinton’s emails.
  3. Wray supports Mueller’s investigation and says this is not a witch hunt.
  4. The FBI turns over thousands of documents to congressional committees about its processes and sources for finding information on Russian contacts with Trump campaign members. Wait for the leaks…
  5. In the run-up to the 2016 elections, the National Enquirer got Michael Cohen’s approval before running stories about Trump. This allowed Cohen to limit negative press and is being looked into as a violation of campaign finance laws.
  6. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan subpoena the publisher of the National Enquirer over their payment to Karen McDougal to keep her story of her alleged affair with Trump out of the news.
  7. Even Mueller’s team worries that the Russia investigation is being overexposed in the press and has already biased potential jurors.
  8. A judge denies Paul Manafort’s request to suppress evidence against him and that the money laundering charges won‘t be dismissed.
  9. Mueller tries to thwart further moves for dismissal by filing a request preventing the defense from saying Manafort was targeted because of his proximity to Trump.
  10. Michael Cohen resigns as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee. This makes him the third person to step down from the RNC finance committee over scandals.
  11. Joshua Schulte, a former CIA engineer, is indicted for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
  12. House Democrats release thousands of RussiaToday Twitter ads that were used before the 2016 election.
  13. In a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, two former Obama officials say we didn’t do enough to deter Russian meddling in our elections.
  14. We find out from the Kremlin that John Bolton if going to Russia in the coming week. Four Senators are heading there too.
  15. The House Judiciary Committee issues a subpoena to Peter Strzok even though Strzok has already offered to appear voluntarily.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court throws out a 1992 ruling that blocked states from collecting taxes from online entities.
  2. The Supreme Court rules that the government can’t track or obtain cellphone location data without a warrant.
  3. A federal judge strikes down Kris Kobach’s voter registration law in Kansas that requires proof of citizenship, saying that it violates constitutional rights, that Kobach failed to prove cases of fraud, and that the burden of proof had disenfranchised thousands of voters. This makes an earlier injunction of the law permanent.
  4. The same judge forces Kobach to attend legal classes because he is too unfamiliar with the law.

Healthcare:

  1. The House passes a bipartisan group of bills aimed at fixing the opioid epidemic. The bills address expanding treatment, looking at alternative treatments, stopping the transfer of illegal opioids, and preventing the use of fentanyl.
  2. Trump issues a rule that allows small businesses to circumvent some of the ACA consumer protections in order to provide cheaper, and possibly substandard, health insurance policies.
  3. Trump creates a commission to look into closing down some VA facilities to save money. He also wants to transfer funding from VA facilities to private facilities.

International:

  1. A UN report on chemical weapons attacks and potential war crimes in Syria omits allegations that chemical weapons attacks were more common than has been reported. The authors say they need more corroboration.
  2. Trump accuses Canadians of coming across the border to buy shoes and smuggle them back into Canada. He says they scuff them up to make them look and sound old. Sneaky Canadians.
  3. Canada becomes the second country to legalize pot (Uruguay is the other one).
  4. Trump calls North Korea destabilizing, repressive, and a continued threat to the U.S. Last week, Kim Jong Un was a great leader who Trump was honored to meet. Last year, Kim was “little rocket man.”
  5. Tens of thousands of people turn out in London to protest Brexit and demand a final vote on the terms of the deal. Hundreds of pro-Brexit protestors turn out as well.
  6. Turkey re-elects Erdogan president and abolishes the position of prime minister. This move increases Erdogan’s authority greatly.
  7. European Union leaders hold a small summit to modify immigration rules, with countries that have been taking on the brunt of refugees asking other countries to do their part.
  8. Saudi Arabia ends their ban on women driving.
  9. Protests break out in Tehran, Iran. It’s not clear who’s leading the protests but the impetus seems related to the economy.
  10. Secretary of Defense James Mattis says he’s not aware of any moves North Korea has made yet to denuclearize.
  11. However, Trump has been ignoring Mattis’s advice on foreign-policy, or just leaving him out of the loop completely.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Paul Ryan delays the House vote on an immigration compromise bill that funds the wall, gives Dreamers a pathway to citizenship, and keeps families together (though detained indefinitely).
  2. And then Trump says GOP lawmakers should wait until after the midterms to deal with immigration, likely scuttling the deal through the end of the year.
  3. Paul Ryan continues his practice of only bringing bills to a vote if he thinks Trump is already for it.
  4. The Senate votes against Trump’s $15 billion cuts to the previously approved spending plan.
  5. Trump threatens to shut down the government in the fall if he doesn’t get his wall. Senators are willing to fund border security at $1.6 billion, though Trump just scuttled the above House bill that would’ve given him $25 billion.

Separating Families:

  1. Every living first lady— from Rosalynn Carter to Melania Trump—speak out against the separation of families.
  2. 55% of Republicans approve of this policy. 66% of Americans in general do not. Republicans are the only listed demographic in the poll to support family separation; they’re also the only other group to support building a wall.
  3. A bipartisan group of over 70 former US attorneys urge Jeff Sessions to reverse the zero-tolerance policy. They say it’s dangerous, expensive, and doesn’t live up to the our values.
  4. Trump continues to blame Democrats, which is provably false since no administration has done this before and Jeff Sessions announced the change in policy on April 6th and then went on to speak about it on May 7.
  5. Cities and states refuse to provide assistance to the DOJ or CBP in the detention of separated families.
  6. Four governors refuse to send National Guard troops to the border, and eleven governors pull their National Guard troops out. Colorado bans the use of state resources for child separations.
  7. Detained parents of separated children get no legal counsel prior to appearing before a judge and are processed in large groups in a single hearing. Prosecutors’ goals are to get through as many as possible and to have them all plead guilty, which many do because they think that’s the only way to find their kids.
  8. The Flores decision of 1997 specifies that immigrant children can only be detained for up to 20 days and after that, they can only be held in licensed facilities. The DOJ asks a judge to waive that limit so they can house immigrant families indefinitely.
  9. After a week of saying only Democrats can fix this, Trump signs an executive order drafted by Kirstjen Nielsen to attempt to fix this crisis of his own making.
    • The EO says Homeland Security will still prosecute border crossers as criminals, but that they’ll detain families together. This requires them to file a brief against the Flores decision.What they’re aiming for is to detain families indefinitely, which is far more costly than releasing them with mandatory check-ins.
      Side note: Releasing families under an Obama-era program costs about $36 per day, and families show up for meetings and hearings around 99% of the time. Detaining families together costs nearly $300 per day, and separating families has cost nearly $800 per day.
    • The EO has no provision to reunite families that Trump has already separated.
    • After the EO, border workers are left to figure out how to implement it on their own with little guidance. We hear mixed eports over whether they’re still enforcing zero tolerance and whether they’re supposed to.
  1. Melania visits a holding center for immigration children and one for immigrant families. In an unfortunate choice, she wears a coat that says “I don’t care. Do u?” Her publicist says it didn’t mean anything, but then Trump negates that in a tweet saying it was about the fake news.
  2. A dozen states plan to sue the administration over the policy of family separation. They say the EO doesn’t fix it.
  3. Health and Human Services asks the Pentagon to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors.
  4. There was a huge drop in illegal border crossings last year over fear of Trump’s hardline policies. But they’re up nearly triple from this time last year now that people see that Trump is having a hard time getting his policies implemented.
  5. On the Christian Broadcasting Network, Sessions says they never intended to separate families. I can’t even with this. Maybe he’s just saying this because his church has condemned his actions.
  6. Both Stephen Miller and Kirstjen Nielsen, staunch defenders of family separation policies, get heckled eating out at Mexican restaurants.
  7. And then a restaurant owner tells Sarah Huckabee Sanders that she and her family can’t eat there. She tweets about it on her official account, which turns out to be a violation of the ethics code.
  8. Corey Lewandowski’s speakers bureau drops him after he makes fun of a child with Downs Syndrome being separated from her mother on national TV.
  9. Protestors play the recording of separated children crying for the parents outside a Trump fundraiser and outside Kirstjen Nielsen’s house. Representative Ted Lieu (R-CA) goes against House rules and plays the recording on the floor to get it entered into the congressional record.
  10. Detained children are shipped to centers and foster care across the country.
  11. An army of volunteer attorneys is working to reunite separated families. They’re finding that officials are unable locate all the children. Of 300 parents represented, only 2 children have been located.
  12. The U.S. Attorney’s Office announces they’ll dismiss cases where parents were charged with illegal entry and separated from their kids.
  13. On Friday, a government source said all families would be reunited that day. But by Saturday night, only about 21% has been reunited. The administration says that 500 children have been reunited with their parents so far.
  14. The DNA company 23andMe offers to donate DNA kits to help locate children and reunite families that were separated.
  15. The American Academy of Pediatrics calls the separation of families child abuse.
  16. Protestors hold marches and toy/supply drives children in holding in over 60 cities nationwide. Members of Congress head to detention facilities to protest.
  17. The Methodist Church files a complaint against family separation and 600 members file a complaint against Sessions. He could ousted from the church, but the members say they want a reconciliation process that would bring Sessions back to Christian values.
  18. An online fundraiser goes viral, raising nearly $20 million for RAICES, which helps provide legal aid to immigrant families, children, and refugees.
  19. By the end of the week, the administration says they’ll reunite families when the parents agree to give up their quest for asylum, meaning that the whole family must be deported in order for parents and children to be reunited. Until that agreement is made, parents will only have phone visitation with their children, and that is not guaranteed due to logistics.
  20. Lawsuits are filed, alleging abuse and administering drugs without consent in the detention centers for children.
  21. Notes and interviews show that the administration has been planning this since last spring.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump continues to use exaggerations of criminal behavior and of MS-13 to get people behind his harsh immigration policies.
  2. The zero-tolerance policy was supposed to deter undocumented immigrants, but instead there was a spike in border crossings after the policy was announced.
  3. Steven Miller says it was a simple decision to separate children from their parents at the border. In comparison, when the Obama administration was working on ways to strengthen border security, they talked about this for about five minutes before throwing it away as an incredibly bad idea.
  4. The National Park Service gives their initial approval to “Unite the Right” to hold a “white civil rights” rally at the National Mall. This is the same group that held the infamous Charlottesville rally.
  5. After Trump shoots down the immigration bills currently in the House, he tells Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that he backs the compromise bill. But it’s too little, too late. Representatives who were already lukewarm on the bill already moved to the other side.
  6. The Senate Appropriations Committee approves a spending bill for Homeland Security that doesn’t include full funding for the border wall, nor increased funding for CBP, nor increased funding for detainment beds. It also requires the administration to report monthly on family separations.
  7. Trump calls for deporting undocumented immigrants with no judge or court hearing, saying they should be removed immediately. And without due process apparently.
  8. Trump again quotes bad data, this time numbers he got from the mother of a victim killed by an undocumented immigrant. She said undocumented immigrants have killed 63,000 Americans since 9/11. GAO numbers actually show that immigrants, including undocumented ones, commit crimes at a far lower rate that native-born Americans (about half the rate). The false number seems to come from Steve King (R-Iowa).
  9. At the beginning of the week, Trump derides Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) idea to hire thousands of immigration judges as crazy. By the end of the week, Trump tweets that it’s what we need to do.
  10. The World Health Organization removes transgender from their list of mental disorders. About time.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Trump Tower in Chicago is the only user of Chicago River water that fails to comply with Chicago’s fish-protecting regulations. They use river water for their cooling systems.
  2. Trump rescinds Obama’s executive order aimed at protecting the Great Lakes and oceans. Trump’s order encourages offshore drilling and more industrial use of these waters. Obama’s order came about because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
  3. A Canadian mining firm prepares to start mining in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
  4. The EPA’s Scott Pruitt shutters three more advisory boards to the agency, further isolating the EPA from expertise in the areas the agency is supposed to protect.
  5. Emails released as part of a lawsuit show that Pruitt considered hiring a friend of the Harts, the family that rented him their condo for $50 a night. The emails also indicate that Pruitt has a closer relationship with the Harts than previously disclosed, and that Mr. Hart lobbied the EPA last year even though both parties had previously denied this.
  6. The special counsel opens a new probe into Pruitt for retaliating against employees who pushed back against his policies. There are around dozen other probes into his activities.
  7. The official EPA paper trail shows that Pruitt only sent one single email to anyone outside the EPA from his government account. Seems sketchy.
  8. Pruitt’s most recent financial disclosure shows he spent over $4.6 million on security. And that included things like “tactical pants” and “tactical polos.”
  9. The Trump administration finally releases a report on unsafe drinking water after working to suppress it for months. The danger in the water comes from nonstick chemicals leaked into drinking water, and affects 126 military bases.
  10. Ryan Zinke and his wife run a foundation that’s working on a real estate deal with the chairman of Halliburton. Halliburton will benefit from Ryan Zinke opening up national monuments to mining and drilling, and the Zinkes will benefit from the real estate deal, which involves building a resort on land that borders a property owned by the Zinkes. The House calls for an investigation.

Budget/Economy:

  1. House Republicans reveal their 2019 budget, which includes $4 billion in cuts to Social Security, around $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. We all knew that’s how they planned to balance their tax cuts from last year.
  2. The House Republicans pass a farm bill, and in the process cut SNAP benefits. This could affect around 23,000 active duty military families and 1.5 million veterans.
  3. Mick Mulvaney wants to shut down the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau database of consumer complaints against the banking industry.
  4. Trump threatens China with additional tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods, which would bring the total of tariffed goods to $450 billion… and the Dow dropped nearly 300 points on its way to a six-day losing streak.
  5. Via tweet, Trump threatens tariffs on auto imports from Europe in response to Europe placing tariffs on $3.2 billion in U.S. goods.
  6. Ambassador Nikki Haley says that it’s ridiculous for the UN to study poverty in the U.S. The UN’s report says of the developed nations, the U.S. ranks highest in rates of infant mortality, incarceration, youth poverty, income inequality, and obesity. The report also says that our current policies are making these things worse and deepening the wealth divide.
  7. 11,000 AT&T workers strike against unfair labor practices. The issue started to heat up after AT&T announces $1,000 bonuses to many in their workforce, and then laid off a bunch of workers who had received that bonus.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump directs the DoD and the Pentagon to create a sixth Armed Forces Branch: the Space Force. Yes. For outer space. For real, and over James Mattis’s objections. Mattis says this isn’t the time to be creating a new branch of the military.
  2. Trump also wants to open space for more commercial development.
  3. Trump releases his proposal for reorganizing the government. Key points:

    • Merge the Department of Labor and the Department of Education.
    • Move the USDA’s food and nutrition programs to the Department of Health and Human Services (which will be renamed to the Department of Health and Public Welfare).
    • Combine the USDA’s Safety and Inspection Service with the Food and Drug Administration (currently under HHS) into a single agency under the USDA. Wait… so the USDA would essentially be its own watchdog.
    • Move the USDA’s programs to assist with rural housing and rent to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
    • Move the Army Corps of Engineers from the Department of Defense to Transportation and the Interior.
    • Create a new Office of Energy Innovation under the Department of Energy that would combine all of the current applied energy programs.
  1. Wikileaks publishes a searchable database of ICE agents and their personal information scraped from multiple public sites. DHS blame this on liberals, even though Wikileaks doesn’t have a record of supporting Democrats.
  2. Wilbur Ross shorted a shipping firm stock after learning that reporters were planning a negative story about the firm. Shorting is something you do to profit from a drop in stock price, and doing it based on nonpublic information is called securities fraud.

Polls:

  1. 75% of Americans think immigration is good for the U.S. Approval goes up to 84% when the question specifies “legal immigration.”