Tag: Flynn

Week 131 in Trump

Posted on July 31, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Best Image of the week. Victory is sometimes slow, but it is always sweet. Way to get 'er done, Jon.

In response to SCOTUS shutting down a lawsuit over the use of Pentagon funds to build a wall, Jon Zal has the most appropriate tweet for the week:

“JUST IN: Man who won election by promising voters he’d strengthen the military and force Mexico to pay for his border wall wins court battle that allows him to deplete the military and force his voters to pay for the border wall. #MAGA”

So much winning.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 27…

Russia:

  1. Ahead of Mueller’s testimony before Congress, the DOJ tells him he must limit his testimony to the public findings in his 448-page report. He said previously he would do this anyway.
  2. Mueller testifies to Congress, coming across a little feeble and off-guard. In fairness, he wears hearing aids (which don’t work well where he was sitting), he wasn’t presented with a portfolio highlighting the sections in his report that were referenced (so he had to search through the doc for every question), and he’s naturally curt and concise. But still, not compelling TV.
    • Probably no minds were changed, but I outlined a few highlights and some conspiracy theories that were new to me.
    • If you’ve read the report, the only thing new in the hearings was the astounding number of conspiracy theories that you would only know about if you watch Fox News.
    • Republicans on the committees didn’t challenge the facts stated in Mueller’s report, but did try to establish bias in the investigation.
    • Mueller definitely sticks to his promise to only testify about what’s in the report.
    • Following Mueller’s testimony, the number of House members endorsing the start of impeachment hearings increases to 107.
    • Also following Mueller’s testimony, House committees step up their requests and subpoenas for evidence. They also plan to petition a judge to unseal the grand jury evidence from Mueller’s investigation.
    • Meanwhile, Trump says the Russia investigations are finally over.
  1. One America News, which Trump promotes in his tweets, hires an anchor who’s still working for Sputnik (Russia’s state-owned media outlet).
  2. Several thousand people protest in Moscow, demanding that opposition candidates be allowed on the ballots for city council races. Around 300 people are arrested, including Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who gets a 30-day sentence for organizing the protests.
  3. The Senate Intelligence Committee releases a (highly redacted) report concluding that Russian cyberactors hacked into election databases in all 50 states in 2016, and that they were in a position to change data in an Illinois database (and also in one other state, which isn’t named). There’s no evidence they did so, though. Here are some highlights:
    • Russia began the attacks as far back as 2014.
    • The committee couldn’t figure out what Russia’s intentions were.
    • Russian diplomats were planning to undermine the results of the election, anticipating that Clinton would win. The committee thinks it’s possible that Russia purposefully left their fingerprints on the databases in order to cast doubt on the validity of the elections.
    • There’s no evidence that any votes or voter tallies were changed.
  1. Following the release of the report and Mueller’s testimony, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans block three bills passed by the Democrat-led House to increase election security and help prevent attacks such as those described in the report. The bills would:
    • Require internet companies to disclose political ad buyers by internet companies in order to identify foreign influence.
    • Place sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.
    • Sanction Russia for its cyberattacks.
  1. Full disclosure: McConnell has received donations from lobbyists for four of the major makers of voting equipment, though their donations amount to less than $10,000.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump files a lawsuit to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.
    • Trump claims the request from the House Ways and Means Committee for his tax returns is unprecedented. But documents show that when the same committee requested Richard Nixon’s tax returns, they got them within a day.
  1. A federal judge blocks subpoenas issued by Congress to obtain Trump organization financial records in their emoluments lawsuit against Trump. The judge says the suit should make its way through the appeals court first.
  2. And then, ironically, Trump’s Doral country club is listed among the finalists to hold next year’s G7 summit.
  3. Jeffrey Epstein is served court papers in jail in relation to a child rape lawsuit. A few days later, he’s found injured in his cell, semiconscious with marks on his neck.
  4. A judge rules that a class action suit against Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka for fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition in multilevel marketing companies they promoted can move forward. The judge dismisses allegations of conspiracy and racketeering.
  5. Michael Flynn’s former business partner Bijan Kian faces up to 15 years in prison after being convicted on foreign-agent felony charges.
  6. The DOJ declines to follow up on contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Justice Department announces they’ll resume the federal death penalty, and selects five inmates for whom they’ll schedule executions. Federal executions were largely ended in 1972, when the Supreme Court ruling found that the death penalty was imposed on blacks at a far higher rate than whites. Congress expanded the federal death penalty again in 1988, but there have only been three executions since then.
  2. At the same time, a Philadelphia DA asks the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule that the death penalty goes against the state constitution. He cites the inequity and prejudice with which the death penalty is served.
    • There are 45 people on death row in Philadelphia, 41 of whom are minorities.
    • Post-conviction reviews overturned 72% of Philadelphia’s death sentences.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate finally passes a bill that funds the 9/11 victims fund in perpetuity. First responders no longer have to come back to Congress to plead their case every time funding comes up for a vote.
    • Comedian John Stewart has been fighting for this for nearly a decade.
    • A quick look back at votes and bill sponsorship indicates that this has largely been blocked by Republicans over the past 18 years. I don’t understand why this is.
  1. The Trump administration tells Utah legislators that it won’t approve their request for funding for Medicaid expansion under ACA because their plan leaves out certain income brackets covered by the ACA. The administration would fund full Medicaid expansion.

International:

  1. The Navy warship that brought down an Iranian drone last week brought down a second one in the process, according to CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie….
  2. Trump says he could easily wipe Afghanistan off the face of the earth, but he doesn’t want to kill 10 million people. Afghanistan requests clarification.
  3. Trump vetos three bills that would’ve prevented the administration from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Both the House and the Senate passed the bans largely over human rights issues.
  4. The UK selects Boris Johnson to be their next prime minister. Johnson is a populist who led the original Brexit movement and is OK with a no-deal Brexit. Oh how did we get here?
    • Johnson was a journalist who created sensationalist and inaccurate stories. He was an EU skeptic even back in the early 90s.
    • He was fired from the Times of London for making up quotes.
    • He meticulously creates his persona of a bumbling, unkempt buffoon.
    • He was fired from the Parliament before he became the mayor of London.
    • He’s long wanted to be Prime Minister, but he didn’t really want it under the current circumstances and he didn’t really think the Brexit referendum would pass. Now we’ll see what he does with it.
    • His first week in office, he ramps up the Brexit rhetoric and causes the pound to fall.
  1. The Senate confirms Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense, a position that’s been open more than half a year. Esper is a former Raytheon lobbyist. He replaces James Mattis.
  2. After France passes a law taxing big tech companies like Amazon and Google, Trump says he’ll take “substantial reciprocal action.” Ironically, Trump says if anyone’s going to tax American companies it should be America. These companies barely pay any taxes in the U.S., thanks in large part to the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts. France is only taxing the amount these companies make in France.
  3. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates resigns, and Trump nominates Representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace him. You might have noticed several GOP Members of Congress auditioning for this role during the Mueller hearing, including Ratcliffe.
  4. It’s been a month since North Korea and the U.S. agreed to start up denuclearization negotiations again, but so far Kim Jong Un hasn’t even named a negotiator.
  5. Speaking of North Korea, they just launched two unidentified objects into the Sea of Japan.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. South Dakota passes a law requiring schools to display the country’s motto, “In God we trust.” State Republicans say it’s about history, but it only became the country’s motto in 1956, when Eisenhower signed it into law.
    • That was around the same time “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance, and the same time that “In God we trust” was added to currency.
    • The author of the bill says it’s based on religion (Judeo-Christian principles).
    • Over a dozen other states have either passed a similar law or have proposed one.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Supreme Court finds that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit attempting to block Trump from using Pentagon money to build his wall don’t have a legal right to bring the case. They didn’t rule that Trump’s use of these funds is constitutional, but the ruling allows him to start using the funds.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration announces a deportation process that bypasses immigration judges and allows them to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who’ve been here less than two years. Before, this expedited process was reserved for undocumented migrants caught within 100 miles of the border and who had only been in the country two weeks.
  2. A district judge blocks Trump’s new “third-country” asylum rule that prevents refugees from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they pass through a third country and don’t seek asylum there first. The administration says they’ll fight the decision.
    • The judge says the rule could put people in imminent danger.
    • This could affect refugees who’ve been trying to do this the right way by waiting their turn at ports of entry. They’ve been waiting in Mexico for months, but if this rule goes into effect, they might be required to seek asylum in Mexico first.
    • Trump threatens Guatemala with tariffs if they don’t enter a safe country agreement for asylum seekers. He also threatens a travel ban against Guatemala.
  1. ICE releases a 16-year-old U.S. citizen after 23 days of detention in an immigration center. He says he lost 26 pounds, and described awful conditions there. There were extenuating circumstances, but in the end, a U.S. citizen was unlawfully detained by U.S. officials who refused to accept his birth certificate.
    • In March, ICE detained a nine-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother, both of whom are U.S. citizens, for 32 hours. Even though they had U.S. passports, officials accused the brother of human trafficking. Their mother had to go through the Mexican consulate to free them.
  1. Remember the high school student made famous for staring down a Native American elder after a March for Life rally in DC last year? He sued the Washington Post for defamation, and a judge just dismissed the case with prejudice (meaning the suit can’t be brought up again). The family still has lawsuits pending against CNN and NBC.
  2. FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before Congress, and he says that domestic terrorism from white hate groups is on the rise. He also says, “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”
  3. Shit rolls downhill… Trump’s racist attacks against The Squad have trickled down.
    • Two New Jersey GOP officials call to eradicate Islam and call a sitting Member of Congress a terrorist on social media. They refuse to apologize.
    • The Republican County Chairmen’s association of Illinois posts and then removes a meme on Facebook that calls the squad “The Jihad Squad.” The meme also has the slogan, “Political Jihad Is Their Game,” and it shows Rep. Ayanna Pressley aiming a gun. The president of the association doesn’t apologize for the content.
  1. Trump’s mad at Elijah Cummings. He tweets that Cummings’ Baltimore district is “far worse and more dangerous” than the border, is the worst district in the U.S., and is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess—a “dangerous and filthy” place.
    • Even members of the GOP think this one went too far, and the Baltimore Sun publishes a scathing retort.
    • And, surprise! It appears that Kushner is a slumlord in that very district. Kushner Companies owns thousands of apartments in the district, which have accrued over 200 code violations in a single year, including mice infestation.
    • If you’re not clear on why these tweets are racist and hurtful, give this a listen.
  1. Active troops are now monitoring migrants at a detention center in Texas.
  2. After ICE traps a man and his 12-year-old son in their van for hours (threatening them with arrest), people in the Tennessee neighborhood provide the two with food and water. After four hours, the neighbors form a human chain around the van to help them get back into their house and prevent ICE agents from taking them into custody.
  3. A federal judge rules against North Carolina’s notorious bathroom bill, saying that the state can’t ban people from using bathrooms that match their identity. Also, the guy who authored that bill is running for the House of Representatives in a special election. Why is there a special election? Because the campaign of the Republican who ran last time committed voter fraud.
  4. Several U.S. Marines are arrested in Southern California for transporting undocumented migrants.

Climate:

  1. A new report shows that temperature variations at the end of the last century were more extreme than any variations over the past 2,000 years. Previous variations were contained to specific areas as opposed to the global variations we see now.
  2. India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are in monsoon season, and have seen over 650 people die so far from the extreme weather and flooding.
  3. Europe is continuing its hot streak, with Paris hitting 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever recorded there. Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium also hit record highs.
  4. Four of the biggest auto manufacturers side with California in the state’s fight against Trump’s regulatory rollbacks on fuel efficiency. They strike a deal that‘s slightly looser than Obama‘s regulations, but much tougher than Trump’s. They‘ll reach 51 mpg by 2026 instead of 54.5 mpg by 2025. Trump lowered it to 37 mpg.
    • Trump is still likely to revoke California’s right to create its own emissions guidelines, but there are 13 other states who promise to uphold Obama’s tighter standards.
    • Additional automakers are interested in signing on to the deal.
  1. Tidewater glaciers are experiencing underwater melt at a rate 100 times faster than previously thought. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that end in the ocean.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The White House and Congress reach a two-year budget deal that increases the spending cap by $320 billion and that suspends the debt ceiling until after the next presidential election (because who wants that hanging over an election?).
    • The Freedom Caucus (Tea Party wing) urges Trump to reject the deal.
    • A few months ago, the White House said they would force spending cuts in the budget, but they approved this increase anyway.
    • The deal puts us on track to add another $1 trillion to the deficit this year. Candidate Trump said he’d balance the budget within 5 years. He has an perplexing strategy…
  1. And then the next day, the Trump administration announces a proposed rule that will drop over 3 million Americans off of SNAP.
    • An interesting side effect of that is that share prices for major discount grocery stores dropped.
  1. Bernie Madoff asks Trump to reduce his prison sentence. Madoff is 81, and has about 140 years out of 150 to serve for cheating hundred of people out of their money (for an estimated $64.8 billion in total).
  2. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to 2.1% last quarter.
  3. 2018’s newly revised economic growth is now 2.5%.
  4. China, which is hardly importing any U.S. soybeans at this point, approves imports of soybeans and wheat from Russia.
  5. The government announces another round of assistance to farmers hurt by the tariffs. Farmers will receive from $15 to $150 per acre, totaling $16 billion.
  6. The DOJ approves the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. States Attorneys Generals launch an antitrust lawsuit.

Elections:

  1. Three House Republicans announce they won’t be running again in 2020. They are: Pete Olson (Texas), Martha Roby (Alabama), and Paul Mitchell (Michigan). Three House Republicans and two House Democrats announced earlier this year that they won’t be running.
  2. Lawyers in Miami-Dade County, FL, say they’ve found a loophole in the state’s recently passed bill that requires ex-felons to pay any fees and fines before they can be eligible to vote. This bill overrode a measure passed overwhelmingly by the voters. The loophole is that fees and fines are not usually listed in the sentencing documents.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In a speech to conservative teens, Trump works them up by repeating his debunked story that undocumented immigrants are voting illegally. They just aren’t. There are so many procedures in place to prevent this. He also tells the kids that Article II of the Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants, among other fish tales.
  2. The governor of Puerto Rico finally resigns after weeks of protests.
  3. Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to the UN has spent 7 out of 20 months of her time as Ambassador to Canada at homes she owns in the U.S.
  4. Lawyers for Cesar Sayoc, the MAGA Bomber, claim that Sayoc was influenced by Fox News, Trump’s tweets, and Facebook. His favorites were Fox & Friends and Hannity. Sayoc mailed 16 pipe bombs to Trump’s perceived enemies.
  5. A Pennsylvania school that sent out letters to parents threatening to call child services if they don’t pay their lunch debt rejects a local businessman’s offer to pay off those debts.
  6. Illustrating why Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility, Mitch McConnell tells Trump that no politician ever lost his seat by approving higher government spending.
  7. A police officer in Louisiana posts on social media that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs a round.
  8. Trump calls for opening investigations into Obama’s book deal and reopening investigations into Hillary’s emails and the Clinton Foundation. He later complains about the air conditioning in the White House installed by the Obama’s saying that it worked fine before. Not sure how he’d know.
  9. There are eight mass shootings over the weekend. EIGHT.
    • A shooter kills three people and injures 15 more at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The shooter is also killed. He had previously posted a recommendation to read Might is Right, a white supremacist manifesto from the 1800s.
    • That same night, two shooters kill one person and injure 11 at a festival in a Brooklyn, NY, park.
    • The other mass shootings occur in DC, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Washington State,
  1. Dozens of links from major news media outlets online are now being redirected (without their knowledge) to advertising sites. I’m talking major media, like the New York Times, Forbes, BBC, and more.
  2. Brazil’s president threatens journalist Glenn Simpson of the Intercept with jail time over reporting hacked phone conversations involving the justice minister. Greenwald has generated his share of controversy, but he’s still protected by due process.

Week 112 in Trump

Posted on March 21, 2019 in Politics, Trump

ABC News: Brendan Esposito

Poor Trump got a three-fer this week. The House and Senate voted to stop supporting the Yemen war and they also voted to overturn the national emergency over the wall. The House then voted 420-0 in support of releasing Robert Mueller’s report to the public. On top of that, he was named as the face of white nationalism in the manifesto by a mass shoot at two mosques in New Zealand. His reaction is to appear to threaten us while minimizing the rise of white hate groups. Here’s what he says: “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very bad.” Who’s they? Who will it be very bad for?


Whatevs. Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. For some reason, House Republicans leak Bruce Ohr’s and Lisa Page’s full testimony on the investigation into the investigations of Hillary’s emails and Russian interference in our 2016 election. I think they thought it would bolster Trump’s case, but from what I’ve read so far it hasn’t. (I’m working on summarizing that, but that’s a whole other post.)
  2. Paul Manafort receives his second prison sentence, this one for 73 months (we expected a maximum of about 10 years). 30 of those months are to be served concurrently with his previous sentence, so he ends up with a total of 7 1/2 years.
    • Some people feel like Manafort got off too easy, but this isn’t over. On the same day of his sentencing, New York state officials indict Manafort on 16 counts, including mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. So much for an “otherwise blameless life.”
    • In direct contradiction to Judge Ellis’s “blameless life” statement, Judge Jackson says that Manafort “spent a significant portion of his career gaming the system.”
    • Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Trump will make a decision on whether to pardon Paul Manafort. If Trump does pardon him, it won’t cover New York’s state charges.
  1. The House votes nearly unanimously (four voted ’present’) to urge the DOJ to release the final Mueller report to Congress and to the public. Mitch McConnell has blocked similar bills in the Senate, and Lindsay Graham blocks this one.
    • Graham tries to include a provision urging the DOJ to appoint a second special counsel to investigate the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails (again) and the FISA warrant obtained by the FBI to surveil Carter Page (again).
  1. Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff says that there is already enough evidence to support indicting Trump once he’s out of office.
  2. As part of a defamation suit against BuzzFeed, a court unseals documents that show how Russians hacked Democratic Party email accounts in 2016.
    • The suit was filed by Aleksej Gubarev, who sued BuzzFeed for defamation when they published the Steele Dossier.
    • The documents seem to show that the part about Gubarev owning the servers that were used to do the hacking is true.
  1. Well, there’s a twist. Oleg Deripaska sues the U.S. Treasury over the sanctions against his companies.
  2. Mueller requests a delay in Rick Gates sentencing because he’s still cooperating with several ongoing investigations. Gates already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to lying to the FBI.
  3. Michael Flynn completes his cooperation agreement with Mueller’s investigation. However, Mueller still requests a delay in sentencing because Flynn is still cooperating with the federal investigation into Bijan Rafiekian.
  4. If you’re convinced that Democrats are all about impeaching Trump, Nancy Pelosi blows a hole in that by saying it would be too divisive for the country and Trump’s not worth it. There would have to be extremely strong evidence of impeachable activity.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Steve Wynn, the former RNC finance chairman, met with Steven Mnuchin about ways to reduce his taxes after he had to sell his stake in his casino business (which he was forced to sell after of 20 years of sexual misconduct accusations came to light).
  2. The New York attorney general’s office opens investigations into loans that Deutsche Bank made to the Trump Organization.
  3. The DOJ is looking into whether a $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory committee came from a Malaysian business person accused of embezzlement (and now a fugitive).
  4. An appellate court in New York rules that Summer Zervos can proceed with her defamation suit against Trump. Zervos was a contestant on The Apprentice who accused Trump of sexual misconduct, and when Trump called her a liar, she filed the suit.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A court rules that Betsy DeVos acted illegally when she delayed an Obama rule requiring states to handle racial inequities when it comes to special education. The judge calls her actions “arbitrary and capricious.”
  2. Federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration’s policies at least 63 times over the past two years, and largely for being “arbitrary and capricious.” This means they were in such a hurry to implement their policies (mostly to overturn Obama policies) that they didn’t take the time to come up with a good reason or a solid basis for the changes.

Healthcare:

  1. Four states pass anti-abortion legislation on the same day.
    • Arkansas and Utah passed bans on abortions after 18 weeks.
    • Kentucky passes a law prohibiting abortion for reasons of “sex, race, color, national origin, or disability.” (I’m so curious why any parent-to-be would give race, color, or national origin as a reason. Especially national origin. I can’t find these reasons listed in any studies so far.)
    • Kansas passes a resolution condemning New York’s new abortion law that codifies the rights given under Roe v. Wade.
    • There are already legal challenges to Kentucky’s latest bill, and a judge just blocked the bill they passed the previous week that banned abortion after six weeks.
  1. The Trump administration reduces fines for nursing homes for endangering or injuring their residents. Previously nursing homes were fined for each day they were in violation. Now the administration issues a single fine. The average fine is now to $28,405, down from $41,260.

International:

  1. Despite Theresa May getting some concessions from the EU on a Brexit deal, the British Parliament once again defeats the proposal she brings before them. They also vote against holding a second public voter referendum to see if a majority of citizens are still in favor of exiting the EU (this sounds like a timing issue and could be brought up again later).
    • They’ve had two and a half years to work this out, and they can’t. Why? IMO, because it was such an abysmally bad idea.
    • One MP tweets that Theresa May voted against her own proposal.
    • The longer Brexit drags on, the more it drags on the economy; but a hard exit with no deal could be far worse for the UK’s economy.
  1. Israel’s Supreme Court overturned a decision by the Central Election Committee and will allow a joint Arab slate and a leftist candidate to run in the April election. The court also blocked a far-right leader of the Otzma Yehudit from running.
  2. The U.S. has always referred to Golan Heights as an area under Israeli control. Now, for the first time, a U.S. government agency refers to Golan Heights as occupied territory. Israel has been lobbying the Trump administration to recognize Israel sovereignty over Golan Heights.
  3. After two missiles are launched at Tel Aviv, Israeli military responds by striking over 100 targets in Gaza. It is believed that the two rockets were launched by Hamas and by mistake.
  4. The Senate passes a resolution to end unauthorized participation by the U.S. in the Yemen war, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. Now the resolution goes back to the House for a vote.
  5. A bipartisan group of congressional leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, invite NATO’s secretary general to speak to a joint session of Congress. They’re looking at how they can honor NATO on its 70th anniversary while letting our allies know that the U.S. remains committed.
  6. North Korea threatens to withdraw from our ongoing denuclearization talks and resume their nuclear program unless the U.S. gives in to some of their demands. This comes after we found evidence that they rebuilt a supposedly decommissioned missile site.
    • North Korea says John Bolton and Mike Pompeo created an environment of hostility and distrust.
  1. Tensions between the Trump administration and the Afghan government intensify when Afghanistan’s national security adviser says that a deal between the U.S. and the Taliban would dishonor the American soldiers who have fought there. The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan responds by accusing the Afghanis of corruption and misusing the resources we gave them. Notably, the Afghan government has been excluded from negotiations with the Taliban.
    • If you’re wondering which side to take here, remember that the Taliban want to prevent women from getting educations and to force them to wear burqas.
  1. Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro uses paramilitary gangs on motorcycles to keep protestors in line.
  2. The U.S. removes all diplomatic personnel from the Venezuelan embassy.
  3. Foreign leaders, and especially strongmen like Kim Jong Un, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Vladimir Putin, take advantage of Trump’s preference for personal diplomacy and cut out the diplomatic experts in the middle. They talk directly to Trump, leaving advisers to wonder when he speaks with them and what they talk about. Officials say they never know what he’s agreed to.
  4. Intelligence reports show that Saudi Arabia’s plans to silence dissidents went way further than just murdering Khashoggi. They started a secret campaign more than a year before Khashoggi’s murder that included forcible repatriation, detention and abuse, and obviously murder.
  5. International hackers are all over the Navy, its contractors, and its partners. The hackers exploit weaknesses in our systems and there have been numerous breaches. The hacks affect other branches of our military as well.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. One unintended consequence of the shutdown over the wall is that it delayed the software fix for the Boeing 737 Max airplane fleet.
  2. The Senate votes to overturn Trump’s national emergency declaration, but Trump says he’ll veto it. 12 Republicans and every Democrat voted for it, but that’s not enough to override Trump’s veto. This is the first time both houses of Congress has voted to cancel a sitting president’s declaration of national emergency.
    • By the end of the week, Trump vetoes the bill. It’s not likely either house can muster enough votes to override his veto.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. House Democrats introduce the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, which would give immigrants currently protected under DACA and TPS (temporary protected status) a path to citizenship.
  2. The Pentagon announces a new directive to implement Trump’s transgender ban in the military. Anyone who joins after it takes effect must serve in the gender assigned at birth.
  3. The Trump administration plans to further restrict visas for applicants who they think use too many public services. As a result of Trump’s previous restrictions, visa denials are already up 40% over the past two years.
  4. The Trump administration plans to close all the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ international offices. This will likely cause even more slowdowns in family visa applications and foreign adoptions.
  5. A federal court halts Trump‘s policy that blocked visas for young immigrants who are fleeing abuse. A government program allows these immigrants to apply for special visas until they become 21 years old. Trump’s administration has been blocking applicants once they turn 18.
  6. Mexican officials and cartels are extorting asylum seekers at the border, including those who’ve begun the asylum process but who we now force to wait in Mexico for processing.
  7. 2,200 migrant detainees are quarantined because of a mumps outbreak in detention centers across the country. There are almost 240 confirmed cases.
  8. The Trump administration considers sending a volunteer force to help stop illegal crossings at the border.
  9. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross testifies to the House Oversight Committee about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Ross has repeatedly told Congress that the DOJ requested the question, but according to email records, he was the one who made the request to the DOJ.
  10. White nationalists open fire in two New Zealand mosques during Friday prayers, and police find bombs attached to one of the shooters’ vehicles. At least 49 people are dead and another 48 injured.
    • This is New Zealand’s first mass shooting since 1997. They move quickly to tighten gun laws.
    • The shooter live-streams part of the shooting on social media and posts a white nationalist manifesto online. He wants to ensure a white future for our children.
    • The title of the manifesto is The Great Replacement, the same words used by white nationalists here in the U.S., most notably Representative Steven King. Also like King, the manifesto complains of the fertility rates of immigrants.
    • While the manifesto criticizes Trump’s leadership and policies, it also says that Trump is a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Again, I’m not saying I think Trump’s a bigot, but bigots think he’s a bigot.
    • Even though Trump is specifically named in the manifesto, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney claims it’s absurd to associate the attacks with Trump.
    • The next day, Trump talks about immigrants at our southern border as an invasion, the same description used in the manifesto and used by white nationalists/supremacists. Words matter.
    • Trump says that white nationalists make up “a small group of people.” I guess that depends on how you define small. The number and membership of white nationalist groups, the number of racist rallies, and the number of hate crimes are all rising sharply.
      • Over the last four years, hate groups increased by 30%. Last year alone, hate crimes grew by 17%.
  1. We’re all going to make up our own minds about whether Trump‘s rhetoric somehow contributed to these attacks, but just a reminder that Trump has (and often more than once):
    • Said we should ban all Muslims from the U.S.
    • Touted a debunked story about killing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
    • Proposed creating a registry of Muslims.
    • Shared violent anti-Muslim snuff films.
  1. The Center for Investigative Reporting has identified 150 cases of harassment or violence where the perpetrator mentioned Trump.
    • Some of these hardly made a blip on most of our radar—the bombers of an Islamic Center in MN, the beating of a Boston homeless man by men who thought he was undocumented, the stabbing of two people on a train in Oregon, the shooting at a Montreal mosque, the foiled bomber in Oregon who put Obama on his kill list, the foiled bombers planning to bomb a Somali apartment building, and so on and so on.
    • Some of the major recent ones to name him include the terrorist who killed 49 Muslims as they worshipped in New Zealand, the Coast Guard terrorist who stockpiled weapons and planned a massive terror attack, and the Florida man who sent bombs to people conservatives tend to target (funders, journalists, and Democratic politicians).
  1. Prosecutors bring terrorism charges against five people who were arrested in New Mexico last year on what was found to be a training compound for would-be terrorists. The group, which was Muslim, isn’t associated with any known terrorist groups.
  2. The Supreme Court unanimously overturns an Alabama court’s refusal to recognize an adoption by a same-sex couple. The adoption occurred in Georgia.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new report on the Arctic concludes that regardless of whether we take action to stop climate change, the Arctic is now in a cycle of temperature rise that will continue. The rise is locked in because of greenhouse gases already emitted and because of heat already stored in the ocean.
  2. Inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, over a million students in over 100 countries walk out of school to push leaders for urgent climate change action.
  3. A court of appeals upholds a November decision blocking construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
  4. The Trump administration finalizes plans to loosen environmental protections for the sage grouse and its habitat with the goal of making it easier to drill for oil on those lands.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump proposes his new budget, which raises military spending, funds the border wall, and decreases domestic discretionary spending. The budget forecasts trillion-dollar deficits for each of the next three years, and expects the debt to reach $31 trillion in a decade.
    • The budget cuts funding for these departments and agencies: agriculture, state, interior, education, justice, energy, labor, health and human services, transportation, NASA, the Treasury, and environmental protection.
    • The budget also cuts social security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
    • The budget increases spending on commerce, national nuclear security, homeland security, the VA, and military.
    • The budget cuts funding for the USDA by 15%, because the administration says that current subsidies to farmers are “overly generous.” This at a time when tariffs and weather are hurting farmers and when we’ve just provided a $12 billion aid package to help them stay afloat.
  1. Trump’s economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, says that federal revenues are up about 10%. In fact, revenues were down in fiscal year (FY) 2018 compared to FY 2017, and they’re down so far in FY 2019 compared to the same period in FY 2018.

Elections:

  1. Bernie Sanders wife and son suspend the Sanders Institute and will not accept donations as long as Bernie is a presidential candidate. They fell into the same old pitfalls, being accused of blurring financial lines between family, fundraising, and campaigning.
  2. Delaware follows 11 other states by signing a bill into law that would give all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. This only goes into effect if enough states sign on to total 270 electoral votes.

Miscellaneous:

  1. After the Ethiopian Airlines crash, several countries ground their fleets of Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 planes. The U.S. does the same a few days later.
    • Afterward, Trump tweets about how planes are too complex for pilots. He’s basically complaining about the company he was just bragging about signing a billion dollar deal with Vietnam (Boeing).
    • Boeing grounds its global fleet of the Max airplanes. There are a total of 371 Max planes.
  1. The Kentucky student who became the face of the students accused of mocking a Native American elder in D.C. in January sues CNN. He’s already suing the Washington Post.
  2. Connecticut‘s Supreme Court says families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting can sue Remington. The shooter at Sandy Hook used a Remington Bushmaster rifle. The families’ argument is that the rifle was intended for military use and the company allowed civilians to obtain them.
  3. California Governor Gavin Newsom places a moratorium on death penalty executions. Most states have the death penalty, but very few states actually carry it out.
  4. Audio recordings surface of Tucker Carlson making racist, white nationalist, and blatantly sexist comments in a series of interviews. Carlson doesn’t apologize and doesn’t deny what he said. Instead, he issues a challenge: “Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why.” This explains so much about his show.

Polls:

A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds (among other things):

  1. 60% of respondents think that journalists sometimes or often get paid by their sources.
  2. 41% of respondents are less likely to trust a story with anonymous sources.
  3. People with a college degree have more faith in the press than those without one.
  4. People who live in urban areas have more faith in the press than people in rural areas.
  5. People who are employed full-time have more faith in the press than retired, self-employed, or unemployed people (that’s a weird split there).
  6. Here’s their rankings of which sources are most trusted of the mainstream media (click the image to view a larger version).

    Columbia Journalism Review

Week 100 in Trump

Posted on December 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Happy government shutdown! What better way to mark the 100th week under Trump? Just a reminder, he told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer he’d take ownership of a shutdown, then he said he wouldn’t cause a shutdown, then he caused a shutdown, and then he blamed it on Democrats. Here’s what Trump had to say in 2013 about the shutdown under Obama:

“You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He has to get (the Speaker of the House) and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal… And, unfortunately, he has never been a dealmaker. That wasn’t his expertise before he went into politics and it’s obviously not his expertise now. But you have to get the people in a room and you have to get a deal.”

Here’s what else happened in week 100…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Democratic legislators in New Jersey rethink their plans to essentially make gerrymandering permanent in the state after receiving pushback from Republicans, Democrats, progressives, their Democratic governor, Eric Holder, and others. It’s no secret I’m for independent commissions drawing these lines; lawmakers should never be able to draw their own districts.
  2. The reasoning behind Betsy DeVos’s decision to end the policy of making sure minorities are not disciplined more harshly than white students is that it will help end school shootings. Huh? I don’t think any of the shootings have been perpetrated by a minority student.

Russia:

  1. We’re at the end of Trump’s second year in office, and there are 17 known investigations into Trump and Russia from seven different prosecutors (and not including congressional investigations). Here’s a list with the current status of each (all are still ongoing):
    • Russian government meddling in our elections: 25 indicted, 1 guilty plea, and 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Wikileaks: 2 Trump campaign associates implicated, with 1 of them breaking their plea agreement.
    • MidEast countries seeking to influence the Trump campaign: 2 cooperation agreements, but no public court activity.
    • Paul Manafort: 4 guilty pleas, 1 broken plea agreement, 1 indicted, and 1 convicted.
    • Trump Tower Moscow: 1 guilty plea
    • Trump campaign/transition team contacts with Russian officials: 2 guilty pleas, 16 people are known to have made contact.
    • Obstruction of justice: no public court activity.
    • Campaign involvement with Trump Organization finances: 1 guilty plea, 2 cooperation agreements.
    • Foreign donations to the inaugural committee and to Trump’s super PAC: 1 cooperation agreement, no public court activity.
    • Americans lobbying for foreign governments without registering as foreign agents: 2 charged, 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Russian spy embedded in the NRA: 1 guilty plea (Maria Butina).
    • Internet Research Agency’s election activities: 2 investigations and 2 indictments.
    • Michael Flynn’s activities in regard to Turkey: 1 guilty plea.
    • Tax fraud by Trump and Trump Organization: no indictments yet.
    • Campaign finance fraud and self-dealing by the Trump Foundation: Foundation closed.
    • Violations of the emoluments clause: making its way through court.
  1. Republicans in the House Judiciary and Oversight committees question James Comey again behind closed doors about the investigation into Hillary’s emails, the Steele Dossier, and Russian meddling in our elections. The transcript is made public the next day. There’s not really anything new to learn.
  2. Comey blasts the congressional hearings, saying they’re just wasting time and attacking U.S. intelligence agencies. He says Republican legislators need to stand up for American values and stop fearing their base.
  3. Comey explains his press conference in 2016 about the email investigation, saying he was worried about the leaks coming from the New York FBI office (to Rudy Giuliani) and felt he needed to get out ahead of those leaks.
  4. Comey accuses Trump of lying about the FBI to discredit investigations.
  5. New documents show that Trump had signed a letter of intent for the Trump Tower Moscow project on October 28, 2015. Giuliani previously said no one ever signed a letter of intent.
  6. Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicted Cohen’s current testimony. Jr. also contradicted the letter of intent when he said all activity on the Trump Tower Moscow project ended in 2014.
  7. The judge for Michael Flynn’s sentencing rips into Flynn for selling out his country and asks the prosecutors if there’s anything else they can charge Flynn with. He asks Flynn if he wants a delay in sentencing in order to cooperate more fully, which Flynn accepts. A few things here:
    • The judge has access to the redacted information in the court documents that we can’t see.
    • Conservative pundits praise the judge in the days leading up to Flynn’s hearing. Not so much in the days after.
    • Flynn supporters demonstrate outside the courthouse for leniency.
    • Flynn seemed to be on the road to getting the lightest possible sentence (if any), but the judge is irked by Flynn’s lawyers’ attempt to blame the FBI for entrapping Flynn when they questioned him. The judge gets Flynn’s lawyers to retract those accusations.
    • The judge says that Flynn worked as a foreign agent while in the White House, which he later corrects. Flynn’s foreign activities had ended by the time he got to the White House.
    • Trump wishes Flynn luck before the hearing.
  1. Two of Michael Flynn’s associates are arrested over their activities on Turkey’s behalf. Prosecutors in Northern Virginia charge Bijan Rafiekian and Ekim Alptekin with conspiracy to “covertly and unlawfully” influence U.S. politicians.
  2. Mueller releases a redacted memo describing the lies Flynn told in his interviews with FBI agents. The two major lies are:
    • He said he didn’t try to sway the UN Security Council’s vote on Israeli settlements during the transition period.
    • He said he didn’t tell Russian Ambassador Kislyak not to retaliate over Obama’s sanctions against Russia during the transition period.
  1. For the third time, Mitch McConnell blocks Jeff Flake’s bill to protect Mueller’s investigation.
  2. It turns out that Russian trolls were behind a campaign to smear Mueller by claiming that he was corrupt, that he had worked with radical Islamic groups, and that Russian interference in our elections is all just conspiracy theories.
  3. The Trump administration plans to lift sanctions against three Russian companies with ties to Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has had close financial ties to Paul Manafort.
  4. After consulting with ethics officials who tell him to recuse himself from any Russia investigations, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker refuses to do so.
  5. Putin accuses the U.S. of risking a collapse in the control of nuclear arms because Trump is threatening to pull out of a Cold War treaty limiting missile development. Putin also says the world is underestimating the threat of nuclear war.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit. The Foundation will also give away its remaining assets. The New York attorney general accuses the foundation of providing money to Trump’s businesses and for his personal use, and of illegally providing campaign funds.
  2. Under the lawsuit, the foundation might have to pay restitution, and Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric could be barred from serving on other charity boards.
  3. Despite emails showing funds from the foundation being used for campaign purposes, Trump signed filings each year saying that the foundation never engaged in political activities.
  4. During the 2016 election cycle, the Trump campaign funded ad buys through groups accused of illegally coordinating between the campaign and the NRA. The groups used a shell company to hide their activities. The Trump campaign stopped funding the groups after the 2016 election, but now Trump’s 2020 campaign is using the same groups and the same shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The federal judges assessing the 83 ethics complaints against Brett Kavanaugh dismiss all complaints, not because they don’t think the complaints are justified but because lower court judges have no authority to discipline Supreme Court justices.
  2. A judge rules that four people who brought a lawsuit against Trump and his organization over sham businesses can stay anonymous. They made the request to use pseudonyms over fear of retaliation, which the judge agreed with; she says “The manner in which the president has used his position and platform to affect the course of pending court cases is really without precedent.”
  3. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn a lower court ruling that Trump can’t immediately deport people who cross the border illegally to seek asylum. The administration argues that they can use the illegal action of crossing to deny asylum. Our law is pretty explicit that the administration is wrong—anyone who comes to the U.S. can apply for asylum no matter how they got here.
    • Not surprisingly, Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Gorsuch support the administration’s argument. Ruth Bader Ginsberg voted in opposition from her hospital bed as she was recovering from lung surgery.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Democrat send a letter to the head of the Health and Human Services Department accusing them of violating a federal court order by directing funds toward abstinence-only pregnancy prevention programs. The court order was put in place when a court found that the administration had illegally cancelled a pregnancy prevention program in favor of abstinence-only education.
  2. Ohio Governor Kasich signs a strict abortion bill into law, effectively banning abortions after 12 weeks of gestation. He vetoes a similar, more restrictive heartbeat bill (which would ban abortions after 10 weeks).
    • Ohio legislators say they’ll try to override his heartbeat bill veto.
    • Both bills would face uphill battles in courts.
  1. The VA hasn’t spend millions of dollars that were supposed to be used for suicide prevention for veterans.

International:

  1. Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Syria within 30 days. How’d that all go down? Oy…here’s a breakdown:
    • Trump speaks to Turkey’s President Erdogan on the phone. Erdogan can’t understand why the U.S. still arms Syrian Kurdish fighters (Turkey views the Kurds as a threat).
    • Trump says the Islamic State has been defeated in Syria (they haven’t; there are an estimated 14,500 IS fighters in Syria). Erdogan says their fighters can take care of what’s left.
    • Trump says, “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.” And boom. The deed is done.
  1. Kurdish fighters consider releasing over 3,000 Islamic State prisoners.
  2. General Jim Mattis resigns as Secretary of Defense as of the end of February. Could this be related to Trump totally taking Mattis by surprise with his announcement on Syria? Oh yeah. Turns out it’s related, all right.
    • In his resignation letter, Mattis says he and Trump have different views on how to respect and work with our allies and how to deal with authoritarian leaders. He says Trump deserves a Secretary of State who sees things more closely to the way Trump does. His letter reads as a mild rebuke of Trump’s foreign policies.
    • After tweeting about Mattis’s distinguished service, Trump decides to remove him two months early and says Mattis will be out by the New Year. Trump was apparently unhappy over the news coverage of the implications of the resignation letter.
    • Mattis wanted to stay on long enough to ensure a smooth and informed transition.
    • Trump installs Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan as Acting Defense Secretary. Shanahan has no military, international, or counterterrorism experience.
  1. On the heels of Mattis’s resignation, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition to fight ISIS, resigns in protest of Trump’s abrupt decision to pull troops out of Syria.
  2. Trump says he’s withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan—around half of all our troops there. The Taliban then declares victory in Afghanistan.
  3. Trump creates a new “Space Command,” a precursor to the Space Force (a new 6th branch of the military).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Voter rights groups file lawsuits against the lame duck bills passed by Republicans in the Wisconsin state legislature to cut the power of the incoming Democratic officials, specifically the bill cutting early voting periods.
  2. Congress passes a long-overdue prison reform bill. Here’s what’s in it:
    • Makes the conditions of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive.
    • Eases mandatory minimum prison sentences.
    • Provides more incentives for good behavior by prisoners.
    • Provides more incentives for prisoners to participate in rehabilitation programs.
  1. Outgoing Representative Bob Goodlatte blocks the Savannah Act from getting out of committee. Outgoing Senator Heidi Heitkamp brought up the bill to address the number of missing and murdered Native American women.
  2. The Senate passes a bill making lynching a federal crime. There have been attempts to pass this legislation for over a century.
  3. Trump urges Mitch McConnell to change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster so they can get funding for the wall. McConnell refuses, which could imply there aren’t enough Republican votes to support the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The World Economic Forum estimates that if the gap in economic opportunities between men and women keeps narrowing at its current rate, they will be equal in 202 years. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have the most economic equality; the U.S. ranks 51st.
  2. The judge who blocks Jeff Sessions‘ policy removing asylum protection from victims of domestic and gang violence also orders that anyone who was deported based on this policy be returned to the U.S. for a fair hearing. The judge (who is the same one overseeing Michael Flynn’s sentencing) says the policy violates the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
  3. U.S.-based anti-LGBTQ hate groups start working to meet, train, and support anti-LGBTQ groups in Italy. Good job, America—let’s spread the hate.
  4. A GoFundMe campaign raises about $14 million to help build the wall. So they’re about 1/100 of the way to raising enough to build about 1/8 of the wall.
    • The originator of the fundraiser is a triple-amputee Iraq vet.
    • The originator also lost his Facebook page, which trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories.
    • Republican legislators question whether that money can be used for a wall.
    • What happens to that money if none of the wall gets built?
  1. The Air Force fires two HIV-positive service members despite them both passing the fitness assessments. They were found unfit for duty because of Trump’s policy for “deploy or get out.” The policy removes service members who can’t be deployed abroad for more than 12 months, and HIV-positive members fall into that category.
  2. Video evidence shows that the Proud Boys initiated the violence with protestors when one of their members spoke at a Republican Club in New York City earlier this year.
  3. The Trump administration prevents a Yemeni mother whose child is on life support in Oakland, CA, from coming to the U.S. to say goodbye because she’s from a country included in the Muslim ban. The child has a rare brain disease, and his father (who is a U.S. citizen) brought him here for treatment. After public pressure, the Trump administration relents and allows her to come visit.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Interior Department takes a step forward in opening the Arctic Refuge for oil exploration and drilling by releasing its draft environmental impact report.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Senate passes a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until February 8. It still needs to be passed by the House and signed by Trump, but then…
  2. Trump is too chicken to tell us himself right before Christmas that he won’t sign the temporary spending bill to keep the government open until February because it doesn’t fund the wall. So he makes Paul Ryan tell us. We’re looking at a shutdown the weekend before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
  3. A shutdown means that more than 420,000 federal workers will work without pay and 380,000 will be furloughed. This also affects federal programs that help people obtain home and business loans, among other services.
  4. Trump blames Democrats for the shutdown even though when he met with Schumer and Pelosi, we all heard Trump say that he’d take full credit for a shutdown. He said he’d own it; he’d take the mantle.
  5. Because of the shutdown, Trump cancels his holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago and Senators who flew home turn right back around and get on a flight back to D.C.
  6. The Fed raises interest rates for the fourth time this year, but they’re also lowering expectations for the 2019 economy.
  7. The stock market has the worst week in a decade and the worst month since before the Great Depression. The market is on track to close down for the year.
  8. The Dow is up 18% so far under Trump; it was up 45% at this point under Obama. In fairness, Obama was starting from a Dow that was less than half what it was when Trump took over, so 45% was only around a 3,600 point gain under Obama. 18% under Trump is closer to a 3,000 point gain.
  9. Trump says it isn’t his fault that the stock market is down (even though he blamed Obama every time the market dropped under his administration).
  10. There’s a 23% chance of a recession in the next year.
  11. Steven Mnuchin tries to calm the market by making phone calls to certain financial CEOs, which only serves to confuse them. He wanted to reassure them that Trump isn’t planning to fire the Fed chairman as is rumored.
  12. Those CEOs say political noise is making the markets uncertain, including James Mattis’ departure, tariff threats, and the government shutdown.
  13. Trump authorizes the second rounds of bailout payments to farmers to help them get through the fallout from the tariffs, about $4.9 billion. China purchased no soy from the U.S. in November.
    • The USDA says some of the payments will be delayed due to the government shutdown.
  1. The House passes a new tax bill that provides disaster tax relief, delays and repeals some ACA taxes, fixes parts of last year’s tax cuts, improves the IRS, and repeals the Johnson Amendment (which bars nonprofits from endorsing political candidates).
  2. Sonny Perdue, head of the USDA, proposes changes to SNAP that would require “able-bodied” people between 18 and 49 with no dependents to either work or register for a training or education program if they’re on food stamps for three months or more. It’s estimated that this will drop 755,000 people from SNAP benefits.

Elections:

  1. In the 2017 Alabama senate elections where Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore, a group of social media experts used tactics perfected by Russian trolls to try to sway support for Jones. Even though it was a small-scale operation, Jones calls for an FEC investigation to make sure no laws were violated.
    • The efforts were funded by a LinkedIn cofounder.
    • It was such a small effort that it likely did not effect the outcome of the election.
    • Alabama’s secretary of state says they were aware that groups from both sides were doing this but that they couldn’t get any help from Facebook or Twitter to stop it.
  1. Trump’s re-election committee and the Republican National Committee announce they’ll merge, which will strengthen his hold over the party and form a formidable fundraising machine. This is a first for a presidential campaign.
  2. The Mercers, who were implicated in the Russian social media influence campaigns in our 2016 elections, pull back on financial support to Republicans in opposition to Trump’s policies.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration issues a regulation banning bump stocks. Anyone who already owns one has 90 days to turn them in or destroy them.
  2. Trump is already beginning to sour on Mick Mulvaney, who he just appointed as acting chief of staff. Trump’s not happy recently surfaced videos from before the election where we can hear Mulvaney calling Trump a terrible human being and describing Trump’s take on the border wall simplistic, absurd, and childish.

Week 98 in Trump

Posted on December 11, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Manafort, Cohen, and Flynn! Oh my!

Here’s some democracy in action. Dane Best, a 9-year-old in Colorado, wanted to be able to have snowball fights (more specifically, he wanted to bean his little brother). So he started a letter-writing campaign, spoke at a town council meeting, and convinced his community leaders to overturn a ban on snowball fights that had been in place for decades. Yes, decades. How is it that it took this long for an enterprising youngster to realize he can create the change that he wants to see? Why is it that we grownups don’t always realize we can create the change that we want to see?

Here’s what else happened in politics last week. It was a big week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. An Indiana judge orders the governor to turn over emails between then-governor Mike Pence and Trump about jobs at Carrier Corp.

Russia:

  1. Roger Stone refuses to testify or to turn over requested documents, invoking the Fifth. It’s possible (likely?) that Stone’s lawyer is mistaken in thinking the Fifth applies here.  
  2. Trump praises Stone for his lack of cooperation with the investigations.
  3. Sean Hannity tells listeners of his radio show not to talk to the FBI, even if they’re aware of crimes, because the FBI is too focused on the Russia investigation.
  4. Mueller’s team says they’re beginning to tie up loose ends in their investigation.
  5. Because of the false testimony exposed by the recent plea deals in the Russia investigation, House Democrats plan to send Mueller transcripts of the testimony given to them by Trump associates. They want Mueller to review the transcripts for any misinformation.
  6. Rudy Giuliani says they haven’t had time to draft a response or rebuttal to Mueller’s report, but Trump says they’re almost done with it—87 pages worth. Trump adds that they can’t finish it until Mueller issues his report.
  7. George Papadopoulos finishes his 12-day sentence and now has a year of probation and 200 hours of community service.
  8. Maria Butina’s boyfriend, Paul Erickson, is under suspicion of acting as a foreign agent and enabling Butina’s illegal activities by helping her develop contacts with political leaders, including in the NRA. Butina is in prison for her alleged activities and is likely to take a plea. (Note: I originally named Paul Erickson’s incorrectly as Erick Erickson.)

Michael Flynn

  1. Robert Mueller issues his recommendation on Michael Flynn’s sentencing for his plea deal, recommending that Flynn serve no prison time due to the extent of his cooperation and his “substantial assistance.”
  2. Mueller’s sentencing memo is highly redacted, but implicates high-ranking transition officials in the Trump transition team, likely including Jared Kushner.
  3. Flynn says a very senior transition team member told him to contact foreign officials (including in Russia) about a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. At the time this was going on, Obama was getting ready to allow a Security Council vote on the resolution.
  4. Flynn also called a senior transition official at Mar-a-Lago to talk about what to say to the Russian ambassador about the impending sanctions. Transition members wanted Flynn to let Russia know not to escalate the situation. At the time this was going on, Obama was preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over their election meddling.
  5. Flynn learned that transition members did not want Russia to escalate the situation, according to court papers.

Paul Manafort

  1. Robert Mueller files his report about why he thinks Paul Manafort breached his plea deal:
    • Manafort lied about contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, who is implicated in both the Russian hacking scheme and attempts to tamper with witnesses in Manafort’s cases.
    • Manafort lied about a wire transfer related to his charges.
    • Manafort lied about information relevant to an unrelated DOJ case.
    • Manafort lied about having recent contact with Trump administration officials.
    • Mueller has documented proof of the above lies.

Michael Cohen

  1. Even though Michael Cohen has been very cooperative with the investigation and complied with his plea agreements, federal prosecutors recommend substantial prison time for his crimes (four years). Mueller recommends concurrent time for lying to government officials.
  2. As a result of the court filings around Michael Cohen, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York determine that Trump participated in federal crimes with Cohen. Some of these crimes are around hush money to his mistresses. The coverup is always worse than the crime. Always.
  3. Mueller’s sentencing filing shows that the Trump campaign was approached by Russia in 2015 to develop government-level political synergy.
  4. It turns out that Cohen did expect a pardon if he just stayed on the president’s message.
  5. Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee make several referrals for prosecution to Mueller. It seems several referrals stem from what we’ve learned from Cohen recently.
  6. If Cohen’s account is accurate, then Russia did have leverage over Trump because they knew he was lying about contacts with Russians and business dealings with Russia.

James Comey

  1. James Comey testifies for House committees behind closed doors for six hours about the integrity of FBI investigations. Apparently six hours weren’t enough, because he’s testifying again on the 17th.
  2. This seems to be part of yet another congressional investigation into the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails. The inspector general has investigated this as have multiple congressional committees.
  3. Here are some highlights from the released transcript:
    • Contrary to Trump’s accusations, he and Mueller are not best friends; not even social friends.
    • Barack Obama did not order the FBI to spy on Trump’s campaign, but if he would’ve, the FBI would’ve refused.
    • A lot of this is just rehashed information we already know from previous testimony and from the IG report.
    • Republicans say they’re unhappy that Comey’s lawyer advised against answering several questions, but the transcript contradicts this. Most of the questions he didn’t answer were about Mueller’s ongoing investigation. He was also unable to comment on hypotheticals.
    • Republicans also say they’re unhappy with the number of times he said he didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Many of these questions were about details of FBI investigations that were below his pay grade.
    • Comey acknowledged that the Steele Dossier was a result of opposition research, first by Republicans and then by Democrats.
    • The Russia investigation began because of Papadopoulos.
    • The FBI’s New York field office was leaking information to damage Clinton, which is why Comey decided to make the public statement on the email investigation in 2016.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The fallout from the Panama Papers begins in the U.S. when the DOJ charges four people with tax evasion based on information found in those papers.
  2. Maryland and DC subpoena financial records related to Trump’s hotel in Washington. It seems the lease is being violated; no elected official can hold the lease because it’s the Old Post Office building and leased from the federal government.
  3. The FBI raids the home of Dennis Cain, who was granted whistle-blower status for providing documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee around the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One.
  4. Jeff Sessions directed U.S. Attorney John Huber to open an investigation into the Clinton Foundation at congressional Republicans’ urging.
  5. A private investigation firm is also looking into the foundation. The firm, MDA Analytics LLC,reportedly used ex-U.S. intelligence to do the research, but I can’t find any information about the company.
  6. A federal judge orders more fact-finding about Clinton’s private email server in a case alleging that the she used the server to protect herself from the Freedom of Information Act.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Hundreds of former DOJ employees call on Trump to replace Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker (who is a walking, talking conflict of interest). They also call on Trump to quickly nominate someone, and in the meantime to replace Whitaker with someone who the Senate has actually confirmed.
  2. Whitaker has yet to tell us how he’ll handle conflicts of interest as Acting Attorney General, and we know there are a few.
  3. Trump nominates William Barr to take over as Attorney General. Barr served in that position under George H.W. Bush.
  4. Reminiscent of Bill Clinton running into Loretta Lynch when she was overseeing the investigation into Hillary’s emails, Jared Kushner invites Matt Whitaker on a flight with him aboard Marine One while Whitaker is overseeing an investigation of which Kushner is a subject.

International:

  1. CIA Directory Gina Haspel briefs senators on Saudi Arabia and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. GOP Senators contradict Trump and say they are more convinced than ever that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in this murder.
  2. Trump has held that evidence of the Crown Prince’s involvement is inconclusive, as did Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis in an earlier briefing. GOP senators pretty much say Trump is trying to help Saudi Arabia cover this up, and that Pompeo and Mattis mislead the Senate.
  3. Here’s an interesting thing Lindsey Graham says about this: “If they [Pompeo and Mattis] were in a Democratic administration, I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.” So just to make sure I have this straight, since they’re in a Republican administration, they are not in the pocket of Saudi Arabia? Party over country…
  4. Turkey issues an arrest warrant for the top aide to MbS and to his deputy head of foreign intelligence.
  5. We learn that Jared Kushner, one of MbS’s fiercest defenders in the White House, advised MbS on how to manage the Khashoggi scandal.
  6. Trump nominates Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as the UN ambassador. Nauert is the current spokesperson for the State Department, and before that was an anchor on Fox News. Trump will also downgrade the UN ambassador position from a cabinet-level position.
  7. Trump says that he’ll suspend our participation in the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate-range Nuclear Force in two months unless Russia starts to comply with the conditions. That would let us develop and test new missiles.
  8. Satellite images now show that North Korea is expanding one of their long-range missile bases.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After losing all the statewide seats in the midterms (governor, lt. governor, and secretary of state), Republican state legislators in Wisconsin begin a power grab to change the rules of their government and limit the power of the incoming Democrats. They pass a plan to:
    • Limit early voting.
    • Restrict the new governor’s ability to make appointments.
    • Shift some of the legal responsibilities of the governor and secretary of state to the legislature.
    • Lock in a work requirement for Medicaid.
  1. Protestors take to the State Capitol to voice their disapproval, even shouting over the Christmas tree lighting ceremony and choirs of high school students singing carols. Conservatives are quick to denounce the Christmas protest because of those poor students, but it turns out the students were in on it as well.
  2. And then Michigan follows suit by passing bills to:
    • Restrict the voter-approved legalization of marijuana.
    • Override voter-approved minimum wage requirements.
    • Prevent political non-profits from having to disclose their donors.
    • Add restrictions to the “promote the vote” initiative passed by voters, making it harder instead of easier to vote.
    • Restrict the voter-approved redistricting plan that takes redistricting out of party hands and puts it into the hands of a non-partisan commission.
    • Shift some of the legal responsibilities of the governor and secretary of state to the legislature.
  1. Just a reminder that in 2016, North Carolina’s legislature tried to place limits on the incoming Democratic governor, who in turned filed a series of lawsuits. So far, the courts have found largely for the governor.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Last month, a court blocked Trump’s policy of overly stringent vetting of green-card holders in the military. So now, the Pentagon sends thousands of recruits to basic training who’ve been in a backlog waiting to get in.
  2. We’ve been expecting a new trial in Florida for Jeffrey Epstein, who’s been accused of multiple incidents of child and sexual abuse, but the case settles just before it was to start. After his first trial, Epstein’s charges were highly reduced, and he served a light sentence with freedom to leave jail to work for 12 hours a day, six days a week.
  3. A jury finds James Alex Fields guilty of first degree murder for killing Heather Heyer when he plowed his car into a group of people protesting a white nationalist rally. He was convicted of multiple other counts of wounding other protesters. He has yet to be tried for multiple federal hate crimes.
  4. Ammon Bundy leaves the patriot movement he helped lead. He faced harsh criticism over his views on immigration after he issued a compassionate statement about immigrants and asylum seekers who are in need and should get a fair hearing. He says the patriot movement blindly supports Trump.
  5. Trump’s New Jersey golf course hires undocumented workers, including Trump’s own personal housekeeper there. When Trump was elected, a supervisor told his housekeeper that she needed documentation showing permanent residency, which the supervisor helped her obtain (though not through legal channels from what I’ve read).
  6. The replacement for NAFTA removes protections for LGBTQ workers.
  7. Emantic Bradford, who was shot by police when they suspected he was an active shooter, turned out to have been helping people escape the gunfire. Bradford had a weapon, but also had a license to carry. The officer who shot him (three times in the back) is still on duty and was also the only person to kill someone that night.
  8. Not surprisingly, protests erupt over the shooting and several protesters are arrested.
  9. Trump has more confidence in Kirstjen Nielsen after her tough stance on the migrant caravan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A judge refuses to hear a challenge to Trump’s border wall from an environmental non-profit. The non-profit says the wall will destroy a protected butterfly habitat and could harm endangered species like the monarch butterfly and ocelots.
  2. French President Emmanuel Macron suspends planned carbon taxes that sparked weeks-long protests.
  3. Climate scientists and policy experts say countries aren’t implementing strong enough rules to help fight climate change. Several major countries are failing in their targets set in the Paris agreement.
  4. Global carbon emissions reach their highest levels ever recorded. They grew 1.6% in 2017 and are expected to grow 2.7% in 2018. The U.S. is the second largest emitter; China is first.
  5. A 15-year-old activist calls out global leaders for their lack of climate action. Greta Thunberg, who’s been sitting in front of the Swedish parliament every Friday since September, says:

“For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions, and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise… So we have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again. We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not.”
You can listen to the full speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cve4bLDrlM

  1. The Trump administration plans to end tax credits and incentives for electric cars and renewable energy. Maybe he’ll end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry as well (LOL I crack myself up).
  2. Trump proposes increasing carbon emissions limits for new coal plants. Under Obama-era rules, they were required to burn some natural gas to keep their emissions lower.
  3. The Trump administration moves to loosen protections for the sage grouse to enable to more oil and gas drilling.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The market has a really rocky week, with the Dow Jones dropping 1,600 in two days, rising back up 700 the next day, and then dropping almost 1,100 points the next.
  2. The drop came as investors lose confidence that our trade war with China is actually de-escalating. The markets aren’t helped at all when Trump tweets, “I am a Tariff Man.”
  3. In truth, when Trump tweeted after the G-18 that China would reduce and remove tariffs on our cars, aides said they didn’t know of any such commitment from China. And the press statements issued from the White House and from China are contradictory, indicating that nothing solid was agreed upon.
  4. On the same day that Trump announces a trade truce with China, Canada arrests Wanzhou Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei, at the request of the U.S. Huawei is a major telecom company in China, and Meng is the founder’s daughter. This throws yet another wrench in efforts to stabilize tariffs. Her charges are based in trying to get around the sanctions against Iran to do business with sanctioned companies.
  5. And now I feel more secure… Trump says it doesn’t matter if he deals with our increasing debt because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it all blows up.
  6. Congress passes a two-week extension on the funding bill deadline, which means if that all blows up, it’ll happen four days before Christmas. The impasse is over funding the border wall. Trump says he’s fine with a government shutdown.
  7. The U.S. becomes a net oil exporter. Barely.

Elections:

  1. In a runoff election, Republican Brad Raffensperger defeats Democrat John Barrow to become Georgia’s secretary of state. This was a closely watched election because the previous GOP secretary of state oversaw an election in which he won the governorship and in which several registrations and ballots were rejected, allegedly for spurious reasons. The office faces accusations of ongoing voter suppression.
  2. During the 2018 midterm campaigns, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was hacked and email accounts were monitored by the hackers for months.
    • They are working with the FBI, but they still don’t know who was behind it. There are some similarities to the DNC hacking in 2016.
    • The NRCC found out in April, but didn’t reveal it to the victims or GOP leaders until the press found out about it this week.
  1. The North Carolina Board of Elections and Ethics has refused to certify Republican Mark Harris’ apparent win due to voting irregularities. According to witnesses, an operative working for Harris paid people to “harvest” ballots. In other words, they illegally collected people’s mail-in ballots, and in some cases filled them out. (Note that collecting ballots in itself isn’t illegal, but getting paid for it, not turning ballots in, or filling in a ballot without the voter’s consent are all illegal.)
  2. Trump and the NRA used the same media consultants to launch complimentary ad campaigns during the 2016 elections. This gives the appearance of campaign finance law violations, but it’s not clear whether the two actually coordinated.
  3. Trump made extensive use of Air Force One to campaign during the midterms. It cost taxpayers around $17 million. Rules say he’s supposed to pay for some of that from party or campaign money, but so far he’s only reimbursed $112,000 (or less than 1%).
  4. Massachusetts’ former governor Deval Patrick, who thought about running for president, says:
“… knowing that the cruelty of our elections process would ultimately splash back on people whom Diane and I love, but who hadn’t signed up for the journey, was more than I could ask.” That says something about how we campaign now.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Wednesday is a national day of mourning for George H.W. Bush. Flags fly at half-staff and federal offices close for the day. His state funeral is held at Washington National Cathedral.
  2. And in what becomes one of the most awkward presidential moments in my lifetime, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, and Barack and Michelle Obama are joined in the front row of the cathedral by Donald and Melania Trump.
  3. In an interview, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Trump is “pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read” and that he tries to do illegal things.
  4. Trump responds by calling Tillerson dumb and lazy.
  5. Trump announces that White House chief of staff John Kelly will leave by year’s end. Also, no one wants the job of replacing him.
  6. Trump nominates Army General Mark Miller to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Joseph Dunford, the current chairman, has nearly 10 months left to serve.
  7. Michael Avenatti says he won’t run for president in 2020 after all. Did anyone really think he would?
  8. Shortly after Trump tweets about the media being the enemy of the people, CNN evacuates their New York studio because of a bomb threat.

Polls:

  1. 58% of Americans agree that climate change is influenced by humans.

Week 62 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

Here’s what else happened this week.

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Quote of the Week

David Shulkin, outgoing head of the VA

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

Week 61 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

March For Our Lives, DC - Time Magazine

#DeleteFacebook is trending! I get the concerns, but let’s all slow down a bit. Every time you sign in to an app or site using your Facebook login and every time you take a Facebook quiz, they tell you right there what information they’re going to scrape. So here are a few things you can do instead of deleting your account:

Cambridge Analytica:

The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook thing is big enough to earn its own heading this week. I’ll try to break it down, but it’s unclear how much, if any, effect the company had on the 2016 elections.

  1. Cambridge Analytica is an offshoot of the SCL Group, a behavioral research and strategic communications company.
  2. Robert Mercer is part-owner of Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon headed it at the time the activity in question occurred.
  3. They hired Aleksandr Kogan, a professor at Cambridge, to write an app to scrape user data from Facebook for “academic purposes.” The app scraped not only participants’ data but also their friends’ data. Kogan also used Amazon Turk to collect data, ending up with data from an estimated 50 million users without their permission.
  4. A sting video shows the CEO of Cambridge Analytica (Alexander Nix) and other officials saying that:
    • The company has used honey pots, fake news, disinformation campaigns, blackmail, sting operations, and ex-spies to affect elections around the globe.
    • Cambridge Analytica ran the digital and TV campaigns for Trump and the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica‘s data to direct their strategy.
    • They were the brains behind the “defeat crooked Hillary” ad campaign.
    • Cambridge Analytica helped bring Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon on board the Trump campaign.
    • Cambridge Analytica worked to influence the UK campaign for Brexit.
    • They stay under cover by using a shifting network of operatives and front groups.
    • PACs and outside groups can work around federal election laws, implying possible illegal coordination.
    • They use fake academic projects as cover, as they did with Facebook, in possible violation of federal law. This supports what their staff has claimed previously.
  1. Cambridge Analytica suspends Nix after the video surfaces.
  2. The data they scraped includes personally identifying information, a rating on how important each issue is, and which party a user leans toward. They combined all that with our voting history.
  3. And then randomly, we learn that John Bolton’s PAC was one of Cambridge Analytica‘s first customers. They used the company for polling and micro-targeting voters on national security issues.
  4. Despite Cambridge Analytica‘s denials that they ever worked with Russians, it turns out they met with Russian oil company Lukoil multiple times over how to target American voters.
  5. The FTC is investigating whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree around sharing personal information.
  6. The previous week, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica from the social network for its improper use of data. Cambridge Analytica officials, including Nix, dispute that they had ever received Facebook data.
  7. In 2015, Facebook already knew their privacy had issues and announced tightened security. Too late, because Cambridge Analytica had already scraped the data they needed.
  8. In late 2015, Facebook learned of the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Kogan. Facebook says Kogan and Cambridge Analytica violated Facebook’s terms of service.
  9. Mark Zuckerberg says he welcomes federal regulation over Facebook’s data privacy procedures, but then we learn that Facebook lobbyists have actively lobbied against the disclosure rules for online ads.
  10. Facebook stock drops.
  11. Mueller is looking into coordination between Russian influence, Cambridge Analytica, and the Trump campaign.
  12. The British government has opened its own investigation into Cambridge Analytica, and they’ve already missed one deadline to comply with the investigation.
  13. At the end of the week, UK law enforcement officers raid Cambridge Analytica headquarters.
  14. Note that there is no proof of legal wrongdoing by Cambridge Analytica yet. They were aware of election and campaign rules and it’s possible they walked the very fine (albeit sleazy) line to keep things just on the right side of legal.

Russia:

  1. Trump’s lawyers turn documents over to Mueller that include information about key moments, like when Trump fired Flynn and Comey. They hope this will limit Trump’s exposure to the special counsel.
  2. At the start of the week, Trump hires lawyer and Fox contributor Joe diGenova. He’s out by the end of the week (along with his wife, Victoria Toensing) due to unspecified conflicts.
  3. Currently, only Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, represents Trump full-time in the Russia investigation. He’s assisted by White House attorney Ty Cobb.
  4. Both Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan say that legislation isn’t needed to protect Mueller, and Ryan says he’s received assurances that Mueller won’t be fired.
  5. Even though Trump’s security briefing said in capital letters not to congratulate Putin on his election, he congratulates Putin anyway, and then tells the press about four times that he’ll be meeting with Putin soon. Note: Obama also congratulated Putin on winning the last election, so I’m not clear the difference here unless it’s the timing. (Russia poisoning ex-pats on UK soil, meddling in our elections, and how quickly Trump congratulated him.)
  6. It’s a BFD that someone leaked any contents of the president’s security briefing, no matter how innocuous it seems.
  7. Trump blasts past presidents for not having the smarts, energy, or chemistry to work with Russia.
  8. Though Trump hasn’t directed our intelligence communities to protect our elections from foreign interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee:
    • Recommends an auditable paper trail for all U.S. voting machines.
    • Requests funds for securing databases, cyber security, auditing vote, and updating voting systems.
    • States that we need to declare that Russia’s meddling in our 2016 election was a hostile act.
  1. Senators from both parties criticize Trump for not doing anything to protect the 2018 midterms and they question Obama for not doing more to protect the 2016 elections.
  2. Both Democrat and Republican politicians call for hearings into Andrew McCabe’s firing.
  3. Mueller wants more information from Trump about four main issues:
    • Trump’s role, if any, in coming up with the public statement about Don Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Russians.
    • The circumstances around that meeting.
    • The firing of James Comey and of Michael Flynn.
    • Any connections between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica.
  1. John Dowd resigns as the lead lawyer for Trump in the Mueller investigation, seemingly over disagreements on whether Trump should be interviewed by Mueller.
  2. Guccifer 2.0, the hacker responsible for the DNC document and email dump, appears to be a Russian intelligence officer of the GRU (Russian military intelligence). At one point, he failed to disguise his IP address and left a real, Moscow-based IP address in a social media company’s logs. Mueller‘s looking into this.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions tells law enforcement officers he wants to see fuller jails.
  2. Sessions also calls for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in drug cases whenever appropriate (Trump called for the same thing last week).

Healthcare:

  1. Mississippi passes the most strict anti-abortion law in the nation, forbidding abortions after 15 weeks even in the case of rape or incest. The governor says he wants Mississippi to be the safest place in the world for an unborn child. Maybe Mississippi should focus on fixing things for the already-born children instead, which might help prevent unwanted pregnancies. Mississippi ranks:
    • 50th in infant mortality rate and in healthcare
    • 46th in education
    • 48th in economy and 49th in opportunity
    • 4th in gun shootings per capita
    • 42nd in gender wage gap, meaning that those women who are forced to carry unintended pregnancies are less able to afford them
  1. A federal judge temporarily blocks Mississippi’s bill.
  2. A group of Republican legislators in Ohio introduce a bill to ban all abortions in the state. Period. All of them. This despite the fact that federal courts have blocked their previous, and less extreme, attempts at abortion regulation.
  3. Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, defends people’s right to refuse health services based on religious beliefs. Meanwhile, members of the LGBTQ community (especially transgender people) are denied treatment or have to struggle to get the appropriate care every day.
  4. Internal notes and emails show that Trump abruptly canceled a program to prevent teen pregnancy over the objection of experts in the department. He based his decision on the opinions of three of his appointees who think that abstinence teaching works best. Many medical professionals credit this program with bringing the teen pregnancy rate down to an all-time low.

International:

  1. Forty-four countries still don’t have an ambassador from the U.S.
  2. Trump freaks out Twitter users by tweeting about an arms race none of us knew existed.
  3. After a week of speculation (and after Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuted it), National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster announces his resignation. Trump announces former UN ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton to replace him.
  4. It surfaces that Bolton was appointed to the NRA’s international affairs subcommittee, and did a short video promoting gun ownership in Russia as part of an effort to get Russia to loosen their gun regulations.
  5. Bolton’s hawkish stances have some people concerned about potential wars with North Korea and Iran.
  6. A gunman kills two people in a French grocery store and holds another hostage, claiming allegiance to ISIS. A police officer convinces the shooter to take him as a hostage instead, and the gunman shoots and kills him. #RealHeros
  7. The UK and the EU come to an agreement to the terms of the Brexit transition.
  8. Boko Haram releases 104 girls they kidnapped last month in Nigeria, but with a warning. Don’t let your girls go to school.
  9. Officials drop charges against 11 of the 15 Turkish guards who attacked protestors last year and sent several people to the hospital.
  10. A contingent of House Democrats travels to the Mid East with a focus on security and cooperation in the region.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Representative Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) considers stepping down early to avoid an Ethics Committee investigation.
  2. Alibaba joins the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a coalition of businesses that writes boilerplate legislation for U.S. states and for the federal government. ALEC has a very large influence in our laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Negotiations between the White House and Democrats to come to a DACA and border wall agreement fall apart before the vote on the spending bill.
  2. Trump bans transgender people who have surgical or other medical needs from serving in the military, despite previous protestations from the military. One in five transgender people serve in our military.
  3. Protests shut down a freeway in Sacramento following the police shooting of a black man in his grandparents‘ backyard who was armed with a cell phone. Police shot at Stephon Clark—who was 22 and had two young children—20 times.
  4. The Department of Health and Human Services removes the pages from its website that provided resources for lesbian and bisexual women.
  5. The Department of the Interior joins other government agencies in removing diversity from its mission.
  6. Trump blames the opioid epidemic on immigrants and sanctuary cities.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The spending bill passed by the House includes this about Trump’s border wall.

“None of the funds provided in this or any other Act shall be obligated for construction of a border barrier in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.”

  1. The Interior Department auctions off all its available parcels of public land in Utah for oil and gas development, but doesn’t include any of the land recently removed from Bears Ears. Still, environmentalists are worried.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Fed raises interest rates again to mitigate inflationary pressures.
  2. Trump announces $60 billion in tariffs against China on top of the steel and aluminum tariffs that went into effect last week. The new tariffs include some on intellectual property, partly as a way to punish China for its blatant trademark and patent infringements. China owns most of our debt, so we need to play our cards carefully.
  3. Threats of trade wars + rising interest rates + Facebook woes = major stock market volatility this week.
  4. Betsy DeVos testifies to the House Appropriations Committee to justify her budget, which includes a $1 billion voucher program. Members of her staff say she tried to withhold information about overhauling the department in her budget request.
  5. Three months after passing a GOP tax reform bill that cuts taxes by $1.5 trillion, Congress signs a bipartisan spending bill that increases spending by $1.3 trillion.
  6. Trump threatens to veto the spending bill hours before the government would shut down. Trump tries to blame the Democrats for not fixing DACA. (Can we just put the onus of this issue where it belongs? Trump broke DACA last fall, and the only reason it’s still alive right now is because it’s stuck in the court system.)
  7. Trump finally signs the spending bill, calling it ridiculous. Here are a few highlights. It:
    • Increases defense funding by $61 billion.
    • Increases funding to fight the opioid epidemic from $3 billion to $5 billion.
    • Includes $1.6 billion of the $25 billion requested for the border wall, which can actually only be used to repair existing fencing, for secondary barriers, and for 33 miles of non-concrete barrier.
    • Denies Betsy Devos’ budget requests, and denies defunding EPA projects.
    • Provides extra money to shore up infrastructure, but far short of the $250 billion Trump has talked about.
    • Includes legislation to improve the background check system for gun buyers.
    • Includes wording to allow the CDC to use public funds to study gun violence (previously prohibited).
    • Includes fixes to the recent tax plan, along with tax credits for low-income housing.
    • Bars employers from taking employees’ tips.
    • Includes funding to fight Russian interference in the 2018 elections and for the FBI to fight future Russian cyber attacks.
    • Denies funding for additional immigration detention beds and ICE.
    • Doesn’t include fixes to help DACA qualifiers.
    • Doesn’t include fixes to the healthcare system.
  1. China’s new economic czar says Trump violated international trade rules with his tariffs, and issues a vague threat of a trade war. China plans to raise tariffs on $3 billion in American goods.
  2. America’s oldest gun manufacturer, Remington, files for bankruptcy. They’ve long been having business problems, and last year, sales plummeted (likely because people stopped fearing gun control legislation and didn’t stockpile as much).

Elections:

  1. Eight months after the elections, no election official had yet received their security clearance. Currently, only 20 out of 150 elections officials have obtained clearance.
  2. Though the Illinois Republican Party campaigned against him, Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier accused of being a Nazi, wins the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. The party failed to run a candidate against him, and even with his known prejudices, Jones got over 20,000 votes.
  3. This is not what I expected Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to get investigated for. The FEC opens an investigation into Nunes for alleged violations of campaign finance laws. The allegations seem pretty trivial, but could spell trouble for Nunes.
  4. A Wisconsin judge orders Governor Scott Walker (R) to call specials elections for two districts that have been vacant for months.
  5. And then GOP legislators in Wisconsin indicate that they’ll hold a special session to change the election law instead of running two special elections. It’s a brazen move, but they’ve postponed the special elections so long that they’d run into the regular elections.
  6. Pennsylvania State Rep. Cris Dush (R) introduces a resolution to impeach the state Supreme Court justices with whom he disagrees about the gerrymandered district lines. This happens just days after the Supreme Court refuses to hear the Republican-led house’s appeal.
  7. Washington becomes the 11th state since 2015 to adopt automatic voter registration. This year, legislators have introduced at least 206 laws in 30 states to expand voter access.

Miscellaneous:

  1. There’s yet another high school shooting, this time in Maryland. One student is injured, and another dies of her injuries. The shooter shoots himself and is simultaneously shot by a school security guard.
  2. Over a million people protest gun violence in our schools in Saturday’s March For Our Lives. There are over 700 marches in the U.S. and around the world.
  3. Hundreds of thousands march on Washington, but Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago, with the motorcade taking the long way there to avoid marchers. At least the White House issues the following statement of support:

“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.”

  1. Instead of labelling the man who terrorized Austin with a series of package bombs as a terrorist, police called him a challenged young man. The bomber killed himself in a car explosion, and though he left a taped confession, we don’t know the motive yet.
  2. In one week, TSA found 71 guns in carry-on bags around the U.S. Of those, 66 were loaded and 29 had a round in the chamber. TSA threatens penalties of over $13,000 per violation.
  3. We learn that Jared Kushner’s old real estate venture falsified information on their permit applications so they could push out rent-controlled tenants.
  4. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal sues to be released from an agreement not to talk about her affair with Trump. She goes on to give a salacious interview about their affair. She’s suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, which bought her story and then quashed it. The owner of the company is a friend of Trump’s.
  5. In 2011, Stormy Daniels took a polygraph which showed she was telling the truth when she said she and Trump had unprotected sex. Also, polygraphs are not 100% accurate.
  6. Stormy also gives an interview to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. I’m not going to go into any detail, because affairs are none of my business, IMO. I’m more concerned about the payoffs.
  7. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sends Stormy a cease and desist letter following the interview.
  8. A New York judge rules that the defamation suit against Trump brought by an Apprentice contestant can go forward.
  9. Trump receives a summons in the emoluments case brought by Maryland and DC. The case was brought because of Trump’s refusal to fully divest himself of the family business.
  10. Trump praises Adapt Pharma for a program that provides public institutions with life-saving drugs to combat opioid overdoses. The program was created in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.
  11. Despite the fact that White House employees work for the public, Trump makes them all sign non-disclosure agreements.

Polls:

  1. For the first time since 2000, the NRA’s disapproval rating is higher than its approval rating.
  2. 69% of voters are in favor of stronger gun laws.
  3. 70% of millennial women identify as Democrats.
  4. 67% of voters don’t think Trump is a good role model for children, and 55% say he doesn’t have a good sense of decency.
  5. 57% of voters say Trump has damaged our global reputation instead of improved it.
  6. 59% of voters say Trump doesn’t share their values.

Quotes of the Week:

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.”

~ Rick Santorum, who has apparently never seen the damage to a human body from an AR-15 shooting.

Week 60 in Trump

Posted on March 20, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week, students at over 3,000 schools across the country protest gun violence and honor the Parkland victims in staged walkouts. Each walkout starts at 10 AM local time, and students stay out for 17 minutes in tribute to the 17 lost lives in Parkland. Students also march on Washington and the walkouts extend across the globe. Here’s what they want. It’s pretty simple, so accusing them of not knowing what they’re doing is pretty disingenuous:

  • Ban assault weapons
  • Universal background checks for all gun sales
  • Pass a gun violence restraining order law (so courts can disarm people who display warning signs)

Some schools punish students by giving them unexcused absences or suspensions—some even suspend students for five days (I’m looking at you Cobb County, Georgia). Others put their schools on lockdown so students can’t go out; students take a knee instead. Social media is awash with “grownups” saying students don’t know what they’re protesting, that students are forced into this, and that they couldn’t organize this movement on their own. It’s the 60s all over again.

And also, 7,000 pairs of shoes are laid out on the grounds in front of the U.S. Capitol, representing every child killed by a gun since Sandy Hook in 2012.


Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee effectively close their Russia case, just as Robert Mueller is expanding his investigation into Trump associates, Trump Organization, and a secret meeting between Erik Prince, George Nader, and a UAE official. They release a report saying they’ve seen no evidence that there was collusion or that Russia was trying to tip the scales toward Trump. Investigations continue in other congressional committees.
  2. And who’s been feeding this guy truth serum? Republican Trey Goody, who actually read the underlying legal documents, disputes some of the report’s findings. Our intelligence community disputes even more of them.
  3. Representative Mike Conaway (R-Texas) says that it wasn’t part of the House Intelligence Committee’s mission to investigate collusion between Russia and Trump associates. So basically they said they didn’t find the collusion that they weren’t even looking for.
  4. Another Representative on the House Intelligence Committee, Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), also contradicts the report, saying that there is evidence Russia was trying to help Trump in the elections.
  5. Democrats release a rebuttal to the report, outlining the areas where they think the investigation is incomplete, including key witnesses that were never called, subpoenas that were never issued, organizations that were never questioned (like social media giants), and broad issues that were never investigated. For example, the committee hasn’t interviewed key players like Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, and Flynn.
  6. A former Russian spy and his daughter are found poisoned in a park and are currently in critical condition. Investigators confirm that the poison is definitely of Russian origin.
  7. And then Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov is found dead in London. Police are treating it as a murder.
  8. Prime Minister Therese May pretty much accuses Russia of an act of war and gives them 48 hours to answer for the poisonings.
  9. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calls the act egregious and says there will be consequences. But Russia probably isn’t too worried about Tillerson anymore for obvious reasons.
  10. Theresa May’s first act of reprisal is to expel 23 Russian diplomats thought to be spies. She also cancels meetings with Russian officials.
  11. The U.S., France, and Germany join the United Kingdom in saying Russia is responsible for the poisonings.
  12. Two witnesses come forward to say Roger Stone spoke with Julian Assange in early 2016, and that he knew about the hacked emails before they were publicized.
  13. We learn that Qatari officials didn’t share information about the UAE having illicit influence over Kushner with Robert Mueller’s team because they were afraid it would hurt their relationship with the Trump administration.
  14. Trump finally imposes sanctions against Russia for meddling in our elections, one month after the deadline set by Congress. He doesn’t include all the recommended sanctions.
  15. Mueller subpoenas Trump Organization records, a sign that he’s expanding his investigation and that he’s not close to the end despite rumors to the contrary.
  16. Federal regulators say that a 2017 Russian hack into our energy grid didn’t compromise any of our power plants, including nuclear power plants. The hacks did, however, trigger a scramble to secure our networks, particularly those managing our infrastructure.
  17. Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for using an academic research cover to scrape data about hundreds of thousands of users. Cambridge Analytica also met with Russian businessmen to talk about how Cambridge Analytica used their data to target U.S. voters.
  18. The Massachusetts attorney general launches an investigation over claims that Cambridge Analytica scraped data from over 50 million Facebook users to develop social media techniques to help Trump’s campaign.
  19. Sessions fires Andy McCabe just over 24 hours before he was to retire, meaning be could lose his pension. McCabe will likely appeal this, other members of government extend offers to hire him short-term, and it is also possible that his pension won’t be that deeply affected.
  20. McCabe learned of his firing from a press release, though he likely saw it coming.
  21. Following Andrew McCabe’s firing, Trump’s lawyers says Mueller’s investigation should be halted and implied to Rod Rosenstein that he should end it.
  22. Andrew McCabe has contemporaneous memos of his interactions with Trump and of Comey’s descriptions of his interactions with Trump. He’s already met with Mueller and turned over copies.
  23. Trump says the Mueller investigation is partisan, even though there are charges and guilty pleas. And even though Mueller and many he works with are Republican.
  24. Senator Marco Rubio criticizes the McCabe firing. Representative Trey Gowdy criticizes the handling of the firing, saying Trump’s acting like he’s guilty. Senator Lindsey Graham says that if Trump tries to fire Mueller, it will be the end of his presidency. All Republicans.
  25. The FEC opens an investigation into whether the NRA received illegal contributions from Russian groups to support Trump’s campaign.
  26. A federal judge warns that Paul Manafort could spend the rest of his life in prison. Manafort is on 24-hour lockdown in his home.
  27. Seth Rich’s family files a lawsuit against Fox News over them promoting a rumor that Rich was the leaker of the DNC emails during the 2016 campaign and that he was killed because of that. If you remember, Seth Rich was a DNC staffer who was killed in an apparent random attack.
  28. Three sources say Jeff Sessions didn’t actually push back when George Papadopoulos suggested the Trump campaign meet with Russians, leading some to wonder whether he committed perjury in his congressional testimony.
  29. Russians elect Putin for another six years in a landslide victory.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump’s administration wants to permanently take away federal judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which stop policies from taking effect until the court can make a final ruling.

International:

  1. Trump fires Rex Tillerson, reportedly via Twitter but with a warning from John Kelly. Trump picks Mike Pompeo, currently CIA director, to replace him as Secretary of State.
  2. Pompeo has a background of voting against women’s and LGBTQ rights, as well as making anti-Muslim comments. He has also supports torture. So there’s that.
  3. Trump then fires Tillerson’s top aide, Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein, for giving an account of the firing that differed from the official White House story.
  4. Trump picks Gina Haspel to replace Mike Pompeo. She’d be the first woman to hold the top position at the CIA, and seems widely respected at the CIA. Her confirmation could be tough though, because of issues around her role the torture of al-Qaeda prisoners.
  5. Prosecutors in Germany are reviewing a request from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) to issue an arrest warrant on Haspel for her involvement in extreme torture measures after 9/11. NOTE: A report on her role in waterboarding suspected terrorists was later retracted. She was not involved in the waterboarding of a suspect who was later found to be innocent.
  6. Steve Bannon addresses France’s far right party, spreading his own brand of white nationalism and telling them to wear labels like racist, xenophobic, and nativist proudly.
  7. Trump brags that he just made up trade deficit “facts” in a meeting with Justin Trudeau, saying the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada. According to Trump, Trudeau disputed that, saying there is no deficit. And Trudeau’s right. You can read the actual facts at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
  8. And then, to make it even weirder, Justin Trudeau says they had no such conversation. So it seems Trump lied about making up facts at a meeting he made up.
  9. And then Trump doubles down, tweeting that we do have a trade deficit with Canada. Again, we do not.
  10. In a fundraising speech, Trump:
    • Accuses the European Union, China, Japan, and South Korea of ripping us off and pillaging our work force.
    • Calls NAFTA a disaster and then criticizes the World Trade Organization.
    • Threatens Seoul if they give us a better trade deal.
  1. The White House plans to have Ivanka Trump meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha when she visits the U.S. Normally the minister would meet with the Secretary of State, but Tillerson was fired. Among other things, Tillerson and Kang planned to discuss talks with North Korea.
  2. Philippine President Duterte says he’ll pull the Philippines out of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is investigating Duterte for crimes against humanity for his handling of the drug problem.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Kentucky takes a page from Florida and bans child marriages.
  2. The House passes a school safety bill. It provides training for both school employees and law enforcement to manage mental health issues and provides money to put systems in place for reporting threats.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Homeland Security spokesman James Schwab resigns, saying that he can’t continue to “perpetuate misleading facts” for the administration. In other words, he’s tired of lying for Trump.
  2. Trump says it’s Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s fault that ICE didn’t pick up more undocumented immigrants in a sweep last week after she issued a warning before the raid took place. ICE typically picks up about a third of their targets in these sweeps, and here they picked up 232 out of 1,000. Trump said they were all violent criminals, but just under half of those picked up had criminal records of any kind.
  3. Trump blames Obama-era rules for mass shootings. The rules in question were an effort to rein in the harsher disciplines brought down on minority students, like suspensions and expulsions. IKYDK, no black student has been the perpetrator of a mass school shooting and minority schools aren’t the targets of these shootings.
  4. Attorney General Jeff Sessions re-opens a court decision that protects domestic violence victims seeking asylum in the U.S. This indicates he’s contemplating removing or weakening these protections.
  5. Trump visits the wall prototypes south of San Diego, only to find protests on both sides of the border.
  6. The ACLU sues ICE for detaining hundreds of asylum seekers with no due process.
  7. A court clears DeAndre Harris of assault charges stemming from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last year where he was severely beaten. Yes, they charged the man who himself was severely beaten. The men who beat him haven’t been tried yet.
  8. Trump wants to trade a short-term DACA deal for funding for his border wall.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Why are we suddenly hearing so much about bomb cyclones? Because abnormally warm temperatures in the Arctic can bring them on, according to a recent study. And since four of the past five years have had an Arctic thaw, we’re seeing rougher weather on the upper east coast.
  2. 2017 was the costliest year yet for weather and climate disasters in the U.S., and yet FEMA just removed any reference to climate change from its strategic planning document. Because if we don’t talk about global warming, it doesn’t exist, right? It’ll just go away?

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump blocks the $117 billion bid from Broadcom to buy Qualcomm citing security concerns. Broadcom drop its bid.
  2. Trump names TV personality Larry Kudlow to Gary Cohn’s old position as top economic advisor. Kudlow has gotten some things very, very wrong, including predicting these things wouldn’t occur: the positive effects of Bill Clinton’s tax plan, the negative effects of Bush Jr.’s tax plan, the housing bubble in 2007, and the great recession.
  3. The Senate passes a bill to weaken the financial protections in Dodd-Frank, increasing the size of banks that do not need to follow the regulations. They say that this will help small community banks get out from under regulatory red tape, but most community banks have less than $10 billion in assets and this bill only helps banks that have $50 billion to $250 billion in assets. So I guess if you consider that a small bank… What the bill changes is that these banks no longer need to have an emergency plan for in case they fail.
  4. The House passes a bill requiring federal financial regulatory agencies to limit burdens on institutions. In other words, the bill favors institutions over consumer rights and once again would allow them to engage in the risky behavior that led to the great recession. And just to make sure they erase Obama’s and Elizabeth Warren’s fingerprints on any regulations, they make it retroactive to any regulations passed in the last seven years.
  5. A federal court tosses out the fiduciary rule, an Obama-era rule that required your financial advisor to act in your best interest instead of pushing you into investments that would put money in your advisor’s pockets.
  6. According to Puerto Rico’s governor, the Treasury reduced their $4.7 billion disaster relief loan to just $2 billion.

Elections:

  1. A court blocks Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, from enforcing his law requiring a voter ID to register to vote. The 10th circuit court calls it a denial of a fundamental constitutional right. If you’ll remember, Kobach believes there are thousands of undocumented immigrants who are registered to vote, even though decades of commissions and studies (both conservative and liberal) conclude that this isn’t the case.
  2. Democrat Conor Lamb defeats Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania’s district 18 special election for House of Representatives. The race was to replace Republican Representative Tim Murphy, who was staunchly anti-abortion, except, it turns out, when it’s his mistress who is pregnant.
  3. This is the 42nd seat to flip from Republican to Democrat since Trump’s election. Four have flipped the other way.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Three packages left outside homes explode in Austin, killing two people and injuring another.
  2. Betsy DeVos can barely answer basic questions about our education system in an interview on 60 Minutes. She also says that she doesn’t intentionally visit troubled schools.
  3. Trump considers firing David Shelkin from the VA and moving Rick Perry from the Department of Energy to the VA. Though by the end of the week, he’s looking at different replacements
  4. The White House fires Trump’s personal assistant, John McEntee, because of financial crimes being investigated by DHS. The crimes must’ve been bad, because they didn’t even give him a chance to get his coat before walking him out. But then Trump gives him a job as senior advisor for his campaign operations.
  5. Data scientists at MIT publish a study concluding that fake news is shared much, much more than real news on social media and in one test, fake news reached 1,500 people 6 times faster than real news. Even when controlling for verified accounts, fake news is 70% more likely to be shared.
  6. Well, that was brief. At the beginning of the week, Trump reverses his stance on the NRA and drops his promises on gun control efforts, like raising the purchase age and expanding background checks. Here’s what he offers instead:
    • Rigorous firearm training to school employees who want it
    • Modest fixes to the background check process
    • A new Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by Betsy DeVos.
  1. A bill in the Senate to improve the background check database has 62 co-sponsors (so by definition, it’s bipartisan). But it’s being held up by the remaining Republicans.
  2. Another teacher accidentally discharges a weapon in class, injuring three students.
  3. Leaked emails imply that the purging of career officials at the State Department was politically motivated and targeted people who weren’t loyal to Trump.
  4. Donald Trump Jr.’s wife of twelve years files for divorce.
  5. A UPenn study concludes that when a Trump rally comes to a town, there’s a rise in violence on that day. There was an average of 2.3 more assaults on the days of the rallies in the data and cities they studied.
  6. Trump’s lawyers say Stormy Daniels violated her non-disclosure 20 times and wants $20 million in damages ($1 million per violation).
  7. Trump lays down an epic tweetstorm following McCabe’s firing. Here’s some of what he said:
    • Mueller’s team has 13 Democrats and no Republicans, so it must be partisan. (Except Mueller himself is a Republican, so already we know that’s false.)
    • Andy McCabe and James Comey are both liars, and Comey even lied under oath. (His source was Fox & Friends.)
    • The following all came from one tweet: No collusion, no crime, fake dossier, crooked Hillary, FISA court, WITCH HUNT!
    • He brings up the donations made from the DNC to McCabe’s wife’s campaign. (This isn’t even being investigated.)
    • The House Intelligence Committee found no collusion. (In fairness, that wasn’t part of their investigation and Republicans on the committee disagree.)
    • And my favorite:

Quote of the Week:

Or maybe this is just the understatement of the week…

“I anticipated that this would be a lower-profile job.”

~Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein:

Week 55 in Trump

Posted on February 12, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

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

Russia:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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


Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

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

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

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

Week 53 in Trump

Posted on January 29, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week, Trump takes credit for an all-time low in African-American unemployment. And African-American unemployment is down under him; but it’s also a continuation of the trend started under Obama. And the far right will never give Obama the credit he deserves for helping our economy recover so much faster than the rest of the world. Look at the graph above, and you can see Trump inherited an economy already trending in his favor. I remember hearing all through Obama’s presidency that economic indicators were faked, and that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics uses misleading data. I give credit to Trump for keeping the economy going; but conservatives need to give Obama some credit for jump-starting it. Take a look at these graphs to see the trends.

Russia:

  1. According to Joe Biden, Obama didn’t speak out about the Russian interference in our elections because Mitch McConnell refused to sign on to a bipartisan statement of condemnation.
  2. Paul Manafort’s attorneys accidentally file a memo in their court filings that indicates that federal investigators had a mole in Manafort’s company. The mole is the source of the information about his financial transactions.
  3. Mueller wants to talk with Trump about the firing of both James Comey and Michael Flynn.
  4. Flynn spoke with the Mueller investigation a year ago this week, and never told the White House about it.
  5. After seesawing over whether he was willing to speak with Mueller, Trump says he will. Then his lawyer says Trump spoke too fast. Then Trump again says he will. Then his lawyer walks it back again. He wants his testimony to be part oral and part written statements.
  6. Mueller gives Trump a list of topics he wants to talk about.
  7. Mueller questions CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, and NSA Director Mike Rogers.
  8. The Justice Department confirms that Mueller questioned Jeff Sessions last week. He’s the first member of Trump’s cabinet to be questioned.
  9. We learn that Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, threatened to quit after being pressured by Trump and Sessions to fire Deputy Director Andy McCabe. White House counsel Don McGahee told Sessions it wasn’t worth losing the director over this.
  10. The New York Time reports that in June, Trump tried to fire Mueller, but his White House Counsel threatened to quit if he did. Trump and his team denied this at least eight times since June of last year.
  11. Wray is replacing two senior positions that were appointed by James Comey.
  12. Mueller questions at least one Facebook employee who was embedded in the Trump campaign.
  13. Rick Gates hires a new attorney, indicating he’s in the middle of negotiations with Mueller.
  14. The Senate Judiciary Committee says they’ll release the transcripts of Donald Trump Jr.’s closed-door testimony.
  15. Congressional Republicans spread a conspiracy theory about a secret society within the FBI to take down Trump. Their proof is a text between two FBI staffers who were having an affair where they talked about a “secret society.” Because if the FBI had a secret society, that’s exactly what they’d call it, right?
  16. Sessions orders an investigation into months of missing text messages between the two above FBI staffers. Because of a Samsung 5 update problem, the texts weren’t properly archived. The texts are located by the end of the week.
  17. With all the hype about the memo commissioned by Devin Nunes on the FBI and DOJ, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. Axios has a pretty decent time line of the whole thing.
  18. Trump makes it clear that he wants the memo released, and says if the House Intelligence Committee wants to release the memo, he’ll approve it.
  19. The DOJ says it would be irresponsible and reckless to release the memo.
  20. It’s easy to see what side Russians are on. After Russian bots on social media make #releasethememo the top trending hashtag, they surpass it with #SchumerShutdown.
  21. White House sources say that last June, Trump pressed staff to carry out a campaign to discredit three members of the FBI who would likely be witnesses in the Russia probe: FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe, Comey’s chief of staff Jim Rybicki, and former general counsel James Baker.
  22. It turns out that Dutch intelligence was also monitoring Cozy Bear, the Russia group behind the DNC email hacks. They’ve been providing U.S. intelligence with information.
  23. People across Russia rally in protest of the upcoming presidential election. They say the election is rigged for Putin after Putin’s opponent, Alexei Navalny, is once again arrested.

Courts/Justice:

Nothing major this week.

Healthcare:

  1. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, once a strong opponent of Obamacare, proposes funding the state ACA market with an additional $200.
  2. The first legal challenges are filed against Trump’s changes to Medicaid waivers for states.
  3. Over 1,000 community health centers, which help over 27 million Americans, remain without funding four months after Congress fails to renew funds. While Congress renewed CHIP funding, they failed to renew it for community health centers.
  4. The Senate will likely have a procedural vote on a 20-week abortion ban. Proponents of the bill say fetuses can feel pain at 20-weeks. Scientists say fetuses can feel pain at 27-30 weeks.
  5. In one of the worst flu seasons in years, hospitals run short on the saline drip bags used to treat severe flu cases because most of the bags come from Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from hurricane.

International:

  1. Members of the Taliban drive an ambulance loaded with explosives into a crowd in Kabul, killing at least 95 and injuring at least 158.
  2. State Department employees accuse the administration of punishing them for their work under the Obama administration by reassigning them to positions for which they are either over-qualified or don’t have any experience with. Not only do many retain lawyers, fearing retaliation for their past work, but congressional Democrats call for an investigation by the State Department’s inspector general.
  3. The doomsday clock takes a 30-second jump closer to midnight due to the state of geopolitical affairs, specifically our inability to deal with nuclear threats.
  4. Here’s a note of interest with the deadline for implementing Russian sanctions coming up. The drain of expertise from the State Department extends to experts on sanctions, and the number of people who know how to implement them is dwindling.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. For the eighth time, Vice President Mike Pence casts a vote to break a tie in the Senate. This time was to confirm Kansas Governor Sam Brownback as ambassador at large for international religious freedom.
  2. It turns out that Patrick Meehan, who was investigating sexual harassment claims against four congressmen, used taxpayer dollars to pay off a sexual harassment claim against him.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Because of Trump’s actions during the funding negotiations, Schumer withdraws a deal to include funding for the wall in their DACA negotiations. Schumer also shoots down Trump’s immigration reform proposal, which would create a pathway to citizenship for up to 1.8 million immigrants brought here as children, fund $25 billion for the wall, restrict family-based immigration, and get rid of the visa lottery system.
  2. The DOJ threatens 23 “sanctuary cities” with subpoenas to prove they’re cooperating with federal ICE authorities. As a result, mayors from across the country boycott a planned meeting with Trump.
  3. Trump says the mayors put the needs of “criminal illegal immigrants over law-abiding Americans.”
  4. After Trump rejects a bipartisan plan that includes a path to citizenship for Dreamers, Trump says he supports such a path. He continues to go back and forth on this. I don’t think he really knows what he wants here, except for funding for the wall.
  5. Trump says he’d be willing to apologize for retweeting anti-Muslim videos from a known British hate group whose leader is in jail for hate crimes. He then goes on to NOT apologize.
  6. A judge blocks ICE from deporting a group of Somalis held in custody. In a separate case, a judge rules that ICE can’t simply deport 92 Cambodians, many of whom came here to escape the Khmer Rouge.
  7. ICE targets activists who stand up for immigration rights.
  8. ICE arrests a Polish doctor who came to the U.S. when he was 5. He’s now a doctor at Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo.

Climate/EPA:

  1. NOAA says the Arctic’s permafrost is melting and shows no signs of going back to it’s previously frozen condition. Scientists fear that melting of the permafrost could unleash massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
  2. Scientists sue the EPA over the removal of many scientists from EPA advisory boards and committees. They were removed because of new EPA guidelines about receiving federal grants, but the lawsuit claims the removals violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
  3. The Department of the Interior prepares to roll back protections for migratory birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The act previously applied to both intentional and unintentional killings, but now will apply only to intentional killings, letting certain industries off the hook.
  4. Solar company Sun Power suspends its plans to invest $20 million into a U.S. factory expansion after Trump announces tariffs on imported solar panels. They’re asking for an exception from the tariff so they can continue to grow in California and Texas. 
  5. The EPA withdraws a policy of the Clean Air Act that categorized high-polluting facilities as major sources of pollutants even if they lower their emissions. The policy focuses on toxic pollutants like mercury and lead.
  6. California develops its own rules to protect waterways to mitigate the effects of the Trump administration’s repeals of federal water protections, specifically the Clean Water Act.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Enough Senate Democrats vote with Republicans to pass another short-term funding bill to reopen the government. The bill also reauthorizes CHIP for six years and rolls back some healthcare taxes. In exchange, Chuck Schumer got promises from Mitch McConnell that there would be a vote on DACA. Sure there will…
  2. The U.S. loses it’s standing as the second-most popular travel destination by foreigners, costing the tourism industry $4.6 billion and 40,000 jobs.
  3. Trump imposes 30% tariffs on imported solar panel technology. We currently get around 80% of our solar panel equipment from China, and they have undercut companies across the globe with their low prices. Still, this will hurt domestic solar companies at least in the short term, resulting 23,000 fewer jobs in the industry.
  4. However, Al Gore defends the idea of tariffs, but not the way Trump implemented them. He says solar technology needs to be more competitive globally. Analysts don’t think tariffs are enough to bring back our solar manufacturing industry.
  5. On the anniversary of Trump withdrawing from TPP, Justin Trudeau announces the signing of the TPP between the remaining countries. Trump pulled us out of the TPP last year, and assumed the deal would be dead without us.
  6. The next day, Trump says he’d be open to rejoining the TPP if he could negotiate a better deal. Interest from the TPP partners is… nonexistent.
  7. Trump’s threats to withdraw from NAFTA make some sectors in the U.S. nervous. Farmers stand to lose trading partners, and a new economic analysis says 1.8 million U.S. jobs would likely be lost in the first year.
  8. The world moves on without us when it comes to trade. There are 35 new bilateral and regional trade agreements currently being negotiated, with the U.S. being part of just one of them (with the European Union and negotiations are stalled). A spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says pulling out of the TPP marks “a missed opportunity for the United States to gain greater access to some of the world’s most vibrant and growing markets.”
  9. Trump pushes his America first message to mixed review at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
  10. At the same forum, Trudeau tells CEOs Canada won’t be cutting taxes like the U.S. He also tells them they need to change the way they do business by putting workers before profits and supporting women’s rights. In his words, “Too many corporations have put the pursuit of profit before the well-being of their workers … but that approach won’t cut it any more.”
  11. At Davos, Trump markets America to business leaders, saying the new tax plan makes us a better place to do business. He doesn’t mention the contentious geopolitical atmosphere.
  12. GDP growth slowed down slightly in the last quarter of 2017, ending economists hopes of having three straight months of 3% or better growth.
  13. The U.S. International Trade Commission rules in favor of Canada’s Bombardier in a trade dispute brought by Boeing against Bombardier over planes sold to Delta Airlines.

Elections:

  1. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court rules that the GOP-drawn congressional district lines violate the state constitution and that they must redraw all district lines by February 9.
  2. Released documents from Trump’s disbanded voter fraud commission show that when they requested voter information from Texas, they specifically asked for information about voters with Hispanic surnames. Even so, Kris Kobach says that “at no time did the commission request any state to flag surnames by ethnicity or race.”

Miscellaneous:

  1. An explosion on a gas rig in Oklahoma kills five workers.
  2. A shooter in a Kentucky school kills two and injures 18.
  3. Jared Kushner still doesn’t have his security clearance, yet he still gets the president’s daily briefing.
  4. The Senate confirms Alex Azar to replace Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services. While the administration praises Azar for being a proponent of better healthcare and lower drug prices, Azar has been criticized for raising drug prices while CEO of Eli Lilly USA. The company was fined for colluding on drug prices under Azar.
  5. About the World Economic Forum, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao says, “Davos should feel very flattered that he [Trump] has chosen this as a forum. Those who don’t want to listen to him can leave.”
  6. The NSA removes honesty and transparency from their stated mission, and adds commitment to service, respect for people, and accountability.
  7. A draft of Trump’s 2019 budget proposal calls for an end to funding of the International Space Station by 2025. Support for the station currently costs NASA between $3 and $4 billion each year.
  8. All in one show, Sean Hannity says that there’s no confirmation of the story about Trump wanting to fire Mueller (and that the New York Times always gets stories wrong) and then says the story is confirmed.
  9. Steve Wynn resigns as finance chairman for the Republican National Committee after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. What we don’t hear are cries for Republican officials to return his donations like there were for Democrats to return Harvey Weinstein’s.
  10. The entire USA Gymnastics board resigns amid the sexual harassment scandal with Dr. Nassar.
  11. The FBI arrests a Michigan man who threatened to shoot and kill CNN employees because of their fake news.
  12. Montana becomes the first state to pass laws protecting net neutrality.
  13. Trump complains to aides that he doesn’t understand why he can’t just give orders to his guys at the DOJ.

Polls:

  1. 74% of Americans favor granting legal status to children brought here illegally.
  2. 60% of Americans oppose the wall.
  3. Trump’s approval rating among Evangelicals is down to 61%.
  4. 60% of Americans don’t trust Trump with the power to launch a nuclear war.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

“I found out for the first time last night that the person who technically shuts the government down is me, which is kind of cool”.

~ Mick Mulvaney WH Budget Director

No, that’s not cool, Mick. Not cool at all.

Week 51 in Trump

Posted on January 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Shithole, shithole, shithole. There, I said it. But that’s not what we should be focused on here. We all know that Trump uses colorful language. What we should be focused on is the intent behind those words in a meeting on immigration. Whatever else guides our immigration process, respect for all parties involved is imperative. IMO, immigration makes America great, and we lose out when people stop coming here. And that’s what’s happening right now, especially apparent in college applications and in the tourism industry. By disrespecting any country, Trump discourages people of all nationalities from coming here. So whether or not you think what Trump said is racist, enough people (even Norwegians!) do think it’s racist. And that makes them not want to come here.

Here’s what happened this week…

Russia:

  1. Mueller has said he wants to interview Trump, and at first Trump’s legal team says sure. But Trump goes from saying it’s likely he’ll sit down with Mueller to saying it’s unlikely. The legal team wants to submit written responses instead of having a face-to-face sit-down.
  2. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s National Security Adviser, says there’s evidence of Russia meddling in Mexico’s upcoming election in July.
  3. Bannon clarifies his words quoted in the book “Fire & Fury” by explaining it wasn’t treasonous of Don Jr. to organize the meeting with Russians last year because he’s too inexperienced. However it was treasonous of Manafort to attend because he should’ve known better.
  4. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, releases Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s court testimony after Chairman Chuck Grassley drags his feet on it for months. Feinstein has long been known as a senator who can bridge both sides of the aisle; she’s a deal maker. But this is an indication that she’s fed up with D.C. partisanship and doesn’t care about burning bridges. I won’t go into detail, but here are a few bits:
    • Fusion GPS didn’t know what they’d find about Trump’s dealings with Russia. They were doing opposition research in other countries as well.
    • They say the FBI had a source in the Trump campaign, and that source had concerns about Russia ties.
    • Much of the information in the dossier has been corroborated by U.S. intelligence; none of it has been disproven.
    • Steel reached out to the FBI of his own accord because he was alarmed by what he found. Steel cut off ties with the FBI when he started to think they weren’t following up on the investigation.
    • It was a lot of info. You can read the whole thing here.
  1. Chuck Grassley says that Feinstein’s action will make it harder to secure testimony from other witnesses, even though Simpson himself requested the testimony be publicized and even though Grassley has been refusing to approve requests for witnesses.
  2. Trump criticizes Feinstein’s release of the document and calls it underhanded and possibly criminal. He gave her a new nickname—“Sneaky Dianne Feinstein.” LOL.
  3. The Senate’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in our election lacks staff and resources compared to other investigations. There are only 7 Senate staffers assigned, compared to 46 staffers assigned in the Benghazi investigation in 2014.
  4. Russia Ambassador Jon Huntsman says the relationship between U.S. and Russia will be over if they interfere in the 2018 midterms. He also warns that he doesn’t think they’re going to quit.
  5. Trump attorney Michael Cohen files defamation suits against Buzzfeed and Fusion GPS. He says the dossier incorrectly names him in association with Russian contacts.
  6. We find out that Mueller added a prosecutor with extensive cyber crime experience to his team last fall. It looks like they’re adding computer crimes to the focus of their investigation.
  7. Senator Ben Cardin releases a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that describes two decades of Russian attacks against democracy, concluding that we are not prepared to defend ourselves against Russian meddling in our elections—including the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. Why? Because the controlling party in Congress is too busy trying to prove it never happened in 2016.
  8. Trend Micro reveals that the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear is using the same hacking methods against the U.S. Senate that it used in the French elections last year against now President Macron. They set up a chain of websites mimicking U.S. Senate sites in order to harvest emails.
  9. The FBI has a foreign influence task force that will notify us about any Russian efforts to interfere in our elections and to manipulate social media.
  10. Facebook announces changes that will focus your news feed on family and friends instead of paid content as a way to fight fake news. Test runs of this haven’t been that successful, though.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A few of Trump’s judicial nominations expire, and Trump renominates two that the ABA rated not qualified to serve. He’s renominated 21 judicial nominees.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump signs an executive order giving the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs 60 days to come up with a plan for veterans to have seamless access to coverage for mental health and suicide prevention resources for a year.
  2. A Florida court strikes down a law that mandated a 24-hour waiting period after meeting with a doctor before having an abortion. The court says the law is a violation of a woman’s right to privacy.
  3. Trump announces that states will be able to have more control over their Medicaid guidelines including requiring work for able-bodied recipients.
  4. The Trump administration ends the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, which provides information to the public about evidence-based programs for mental health and substance abuse. The registry helps individuals and organizations see what programs are out there and the results of those programs in order to determine best practices for their own communities. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says they’ll just handle it themselves from now on.
  5. The Trump administration agrees to pay legal fees in the lawsuits against the Obama administration over the birth control mandate of the ACA. Originally the law firm wanted the government to pay $29 million.
  6. A CBO analysis shows that reauthorizing CHIP for 10 years would actually save $6 billion. The program expired last year when Congress failed to reauthorize it, and some states are running on life support.
  7. Nearly a year into his term, Trump’s pledge to pull together people and resources to address the opioid epidemic isn’t showing much promise. The drug policy office (the ONDCP) doesn’t have a director and at least seven appointees have left. The deputy chief of staff is a recent graduate whose only experience is working on Trump’s campaign.

International:

  1. The UN pushes Israel to NOT deport tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Africa. Israel gave them until March to leave or face jail, and will even pay for their airfare home and pay them $3,500.
  2. Trump considers a small military attack against North Korea to let them know we’re serious, while at the same time hoping it doesn’t start a nuclear war. His administration is trying to convince him not to, saying nuclear war is not worth it.
  3. The Trump administration proposes a plan to ease restrictions on using nuclear weapons and also to develop new low-yield nuclear warheads for Trident missiles. The plan also increases the situations where we might use nuclear weapons.
  4. Trump cancels his planned trip to the UK, saying he doesn’t like Theresa May and then blaming Barrack Obama for George Bush’s plan to move the embassy in London. He criticizes Obama for selling the original embassy for too little, a price that was negotiated under Bush.
  5. Our ambassador to Panama, John Feeley, resigns because he can no longer serve under Trump. Feeley is a career diplomat and a former Marine. Here’s what he said:

“As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies. My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign. That time has come.”

  1. Trump OKs the Iran deal again, but adds sanctions to 14 individuals and entities for issues not related to Iran’s nukes.
  2. One of the individuals Trump sanctions is the head of Iran’s judiciary. Iran slams the decision and says it warrants a severe response.
  3. Trump sets a ticking clock in the Iran deal (he has a thing for setting random deadlines). He says he’ll approve the deal for now, but he gives Congress and our EU allies 120 days to alter the agreement according to his requirements. He wants to permanently block the path for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Representative Ed Royce (R-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announces his retirement from Congress. He’s the eighth committee chair to announce he won’t be returning.
  2. He’s followed by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), who announces he won’t run again either, though there are rumors he’ll run for a neighboring district.
  3. One weird thing that comes up this week is that a member of Congress proposes putting earmarks back into legislation. Earmarks (pork barrel spending) have been restricted for 8 years because they were out of control. My opinion? I don’t think lawmakers should have to bribe each other just to get them to do what’s right.
  4. Trump also suggests Congress should go back to using earmarks to entice legislators to vote for bills, because the current system isn’t working.
  5. Following Trump’s tweet that he’s a “stable genius,” Representative Brendan Boyle (R-Penn.) proposes legislation that would require presidential candidates to undergo a mental health examination. He’s calling it the “Stable Genius Act.”

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration announces an end to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 200,000 El Salvadorians who’ve lived here more than 17 years. They have 18 months to leave the U.S. or possibly be deported. There’s no clear path to citizenship for them as they aren’t necessarily eligible to apply for permanent status.
  2. The Supreme Court refuses to hear Mississippi’s new law that allows government workers and private businesses to deny service to people based on religious beliefs. This opens up the LGBTQ community and non-Christians to discrimination. The law states that marriage is between one man and one woman only, that sex can only happen in such a marriage, and that a birth gender can’t be changed. This could affect marriage licenses, adoptions, foster families, medical care, and so on. Also, you better not be having sex out of wedlock in Mississippi! The court says the law can only be challenged by people who’ve already been harmed by the law.
  3. Jeff Sessions rescinds more that two dozen documents that provide guidance for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). People with disabilities are particularly worried about the removal of the guidelines around employing people with disabilities.
  4. Trump opens to the press a bipartisan immigration meeting that was supposed to be closed to the press. In it, he agrees with Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s proposal for a clean DREAM Act until Republican Kevin McCarthy reminds him that’s not what he really wants. Even still, he keeps going back to it.
  5. Here’s how the meeting went:
    • He wants the Democrats to participate.
    • He says we can handle DACA and them move on to full immigration reform.
    • But then he says the DACA bill must include funding for the wall.
    • Oh, and then it also has to end the visa lottery and family based migration.
    • Result: There still is no clean DREAM Act.
  1. And then on the same day, a federal judge blocks Trump’s executive order to stop DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The administration begins accepting renewal actions again, a relief to the thousands whose status is about to expire. The court says that Jeff Sessions’ claim that DACA is illegal is “based on a flawed legal premise.” So DACA will stay in effect as the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.
  2. The day after the immigration meeting, Trump clarifies that he wants any DACA bill to fund the wall, because without the wall it doesn’t work. Whatever that means. A wall won’t improve much along the border, and Customs and Border Patrol want the money spent elsewhere. Most illegal entries are at actual ports of entry.
  3. Trump proposes cutting proven security measures to fund the border wall. He’d cut funding for surveillance, radar, and patrol boats, all of which experts and officials say are more effective than a wall would be.
  4. Also, Trump backs away from the idea of a big beautiful wall across the entire length of the southern border, because who knew that it would have to cross rivers and ravines and mountainous terrain? He says there’ll be some fence, some wall, and some high-tech deterrents.
  5. Border crossings from Mexico are at a low, with apprehensions at their lowest since the early 70s. However, deportations and detentions of people who have been living in the U.S. are up, and ICE is targeting people with clean records.
  6. After raiding nearly 100 7-11 stores, ICE detains 21 people.
  7. Despite Trump’s expressed willingness to work on immigration in a bipartisan way, Republicans have come out with a hardline policy that clashes with both Trump’s and Democrats’ visions.
  8. At an immigration meeting, Trump wonders why we let in people from “shithole” countries like Africa, El Salvador, and Haiti. Which leads to us hearing “shithole” on the news for the first time ever. And reading it in the papers. He thinks we should let in more Norwegians, who, by the way, are single-payer socialists. Not surprisingly, this leads to a shitstorm in the media and on social media.
  9. It also leads to the Haitian government and several African governments calling in U.S. diplomats for a meeting.
  10. The UN denounces Trump’s statement as racist. The African Union Mission condemns the comments, and demands both a retraction and an apology.
  11. Trump then denies ever saying it, despite people in attendance confirming it. The one African-American Republican in the Senate, who was in attendance, called it disappointing. Trump suggests these meetings should be recorded. That would be terrific. At the end of the weekend, it’s still a he-said/she-said with some saying he did say it (including Lindsay Graham) and some saying they don’t recall it.
  12. After the blowout from his statement, Trump gets mad and says democrats don’t want a DACA deal. Jeff Flakes calls BS, saying he’s worked with democrats on this for 17 years and of course they want it. There’s actually a bipartisan plan with good compromises that Trump shot down.
  13. Trump also tweets that he has a wonderful relationship with Haitians… even though the administration just decided to deport 20,000 of them who are here under TPS.
  14. Jeff Bezos donates $33 million to a scholarship fund for Dreamers.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejects Rick Perry’s proposal for nuclear and coal power. The proposal would prop up coal power plants by requiring renewable energy power plants to keep a minimum amount of coal power on hand. Instead of forcing competition between fossil fuels and cleaner, cheaper sources, the plan would’ve forced customers to pay for unnecessary coal plants.
  2. After colliding with another ship, the Iranian oil tanker Sanchi is on fire and leaking oil into the China Sea. It finally sinks after several days, and 29 sailors are missing and presumed dead.
  3. Florida Governor Scott Brown pushes back against Trump’s plan to open 90% of U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas exploration, which leads to Florida getting an exemption to the rule less than a week after it was announced. Apparently it would hit their tourism business, but California’s tourism industry is twice as large. Also, nearly every governor in the other affected states opposes this, and it opens the Department of the Interior to legal challenges..
  4. The CEO of BP, Bob Dudley, says they already have a full plate in the U.S. and expresses caution about exploring new areas. The price of oil is still low (though rising), and the focus right now is on shale oil (on-land fracking).
  5. A newly released memo from Robert E. Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., to Trump shows that Trump has granted him (or at least tried to grant him) his 3-page wishlist of getting rid of environmental protections around fossil fuels. Among his requests—getting rid of the Clean Power Plan, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, cutting the EPA staff by 50%, and getting rid of a tax credit for wind and solar energy. And before you say we shouldn’t subsidize wind and solar, remember they are not nearly as heavily subsidized as gas, oil, and coal.
  6. Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, and South Carolina had their warmest year on record last year, and last month was Alaska’s warmest December on record, especially concerning because of the Arctic ice melt.
  7. Ryan Zinke announces a major overhaul of the Department of the Interior and changes to the way federal land is managed.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump speaks to farmers in Nashville to bolster his tax plan. He tells them they are “so lucky” he gave them the privilege of voting for him.
  2. Trump announces he’ll travel to Devos, Switzerland, to the world economic forum, where he’ll push his America first agenda to global business and political leaders. Presidents typically don’t attend this meeting due to its association with the wealthy elite.
  3. The Trump administration exempted 5 banks from being punished after they were convicted for manipulating global interest rates. One of those was Deutsche Bank.
  4. Canadian leaders are increasingly convinced that Trump will pull the U.S. out of NAFTA.
  5. Some good news from Walmart: They announce that they’ll raise their starting wage to $11/hour due to the new tax plan. In fairness, they‘ve been steadily increasing the wage in recent years, and several states where they operate already had an $11 minimum in place.
  6. Or maybe it’s not good news. They’ll give bonuses only to people who’ve been there 20 years or more, and they’re laying off thousands and closing dozens of Sam’s Club stores.

Elections:

  1. The Supreme Court hears arguments over Ohio’s method of striking voters from their roles. In the state, failure to vote triggers the removal process, which could drop legit voters. The suit argues that this is illegal.
  2. Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio says he’ll run for Senate. Trump pardoned Arpaio after his conviction for criminal contempt for continuing to racially profile Latinos after a court ordered him to stop.
  3. Arizona’s consent decree preventing bullying or intimidating at poll sites expires.
  4. A federal court threw out North Carolina’s district maps because they were drawn to favor one party (Republicans). This could change everything, because previous thought was that gerrymandering couldn’t be based on racial or other discriminatory divides. This is the first time maps were thrown out because they disenfranchise a party. The judge said that the Republican drawn districts “were “motivated by invidious partisan intent” that would divide the state into 13 districts, 10 of which are Republican.”
  5. Trump’s voter fraud commission plans to destroy the data they collected instead of handing it over to DHS, which is taking over the issue.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A Senate bill that uses the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality gets enough cosponsors to require a vote on the Senate floor.
  2. Steve Bannon steps down as executive chairman of Breitbart after his inflammatory statements about Trump and his family are published. Rebekah Mercer, once Bannon’s wealthy supporter, is behind it.
  3. Trump is still trying to fit Andrew Puzder into his administration somehow. Puzder used to run Carl’s Jr. and pulled out of his previous nomination to labor secretary after domestic abuse allegations came up.
  4. The Committee to Protect Journalists name Trump as the world’s most oppressive leader for all he’s done to undermine global press freedom. He beat Erdogan and Putin.
  5. Fact checkers find errors in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury”. Some are factual, and some are just sloppy writing with typos and wrong words.
  6. After the book is published, Trump says he’ll look at loosening libel laws so it’ll be easier to sue people who spread lies about you. This seems to me like a dangerous road for him to walk.
  7. Vermont’s Senate approves legalized marijuana, just as Jeff Sessions announces the DOJ will not continue their hands-off policy for states that have legalized pot.
  8. White House aides have until the end of the month to decide if they’ll stay through November (and the midterm elections).
  9. The Trump administration enthusiastically pushes for the reauthorization of FISA. But just as the House is about to vote on it and just after watching a Fox News segment criticizing FISA, Trump tweets against the act, saying that’s what Obama used to spy on him. Then it seems someone caught him up on the administration’s actual stance on FISA and he tweets support for it, saying that he fixed the whole unmasking thing.
  10. The White House sends out a report certifying Trump’s health after his physical. The report is supposed to be from the White House physician, but they misspell his name.
  11. The D.C. Trump Hotel gets reassessed for 2018 and gets a $1 million tax break.
  12. The Hawaiian Emergency Management Agency sends out a false ballistic missile alarm, sending email and text alerts to people across the islands. It turns out that someone pushed the wrong button on a shift change. It takes over a half hour to issue a correction, and instead of reassuring his people, Trump golfs through it.
  13. The Department of Education (under Betsy Devos) awards a contract for collecting student debts to a company Devos invested in.
  14. We learn that Trump’s lawyer paid a porn star $130,000 one month before the election so she wouldn’t talk about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Polls:

  1. This is surprising. 49% of Americans give credit to Obama for the current state of the economy. 40% give credit to Trump.