Tag: hearings

Week 111 in Trump

Posted on March 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Legal Fallout:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

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

Family Separation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

Here are some polling numbers from Quinnipiac:

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

Week 20 in Trump

Posted on June 12, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Attribution: Getty Images

Sorry for the long post but a lot happened again this week—though the news was all about Comey, all the time.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” The White House won’t confirm the existence of the tapes Trump tweeted about, but if they do exist we could get through this a lot faster.

Comey:

  1. The Great America Alliance PAC takes out an attack ad against Comey the day before he testifies. The White House tries to undermine Comey and the RNC mobilizes its base by issuing an email: “Talking Points and Digital Packet for Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing.” Tip: This is not a court of public opinion.
  2. Trump’s lawyers urge him not to tweet during Comey’s testimony, and Trump’s staff keeps him busy throughout most of the hearing.
  3. Comey testifies in front of a Senate committee (as if you didn’t know). Half of the committee asks about the Russia probe and alleged interference by Trump while the other half asks about Clinton’s email investigation. Main takeaways:
    • Trump wasn’t personally under investigation at the time of Comey’s firing, though the issue of collusion is being taken up by Special Prosecutor Mueller.
    • Trump asked Comey to take it easy on Flynn in a conversation where he asked everyone but Comey to leave the room. Mueller is looking into this.
    • The day after the above, Comey asked Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump, saying private interactions were inappropriate.
    • After Trump tweeted that he had tapes of their conversations, Comey leaked his own memo about the Flynn conversation in order to force the appointment of a special prosecutor. He has since provided copies of all his memoranda to Mueller. Note that this is not illegal but is also not consistent with FBI employment agreements.
    • Sessions never questioned why Trump kicked everyone but Comey out of the Oval Office for a private meeting.
    • Comey was so worried about misunderstandings and lies in his conversations with Trump, he made copious notes of all of them.
    • Comey suspected beforehand that Sessions would have to recuse himself and also didn’t seem to trust Sessions to keep sensitive information from the White House. The only way Comey would have known this beforehand is if Sessions’ name had come up in the investigation.
    • Comey believes Trump when he says he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. Comey also accused the administration of defaming both him and the FBI as part of that firing.
    • Neither Sessions nor Rosenstein expressed dissatisfaction with Comey’s job performance prior to the letters they sent to Trump (at Trump’s request).
    • Russia interfered in our elections and will continue to do so.
    • There is still a lot of information Comey can’t talk about.
    • Comey said an article published last February in the NY Times was largely inaccurate, though the NY Times stands by their reporting and much of the substance of the story has already been shown to be true.
  4. Paul Ryan defends Trump’s actions with Comey, saying “he’s new to this.”
  5. Trump basically says Comey lied under oath and that he’d go under oath to dispute Comey’s testimony. But he also says that Comey vindicated him… so either Comey lied under oath or he cleared Trump.
  6. Trump calls Comey’s testimony “an excuse by the Democrats, who lost an election they shouldn’t have lost,” though Comey’s a lifelong Republican. And also Republicans control congress and the committees investigating Russia ties.
  7. In his rebuttal to Comey’s version of events, Trump’s lawyer gets the timeline wrong for what the NY Times reported and when they reported it in relation to the release of Comey’s memo.
  8. Both sides are claiming victory here, or as was heard over the weekend “Comey Poisons Trump: Trump Claims Victory.”
  9. Representative Al Green (D-Texas) begins writing articles of impeachment against Trump for his firing of Comey. #premature

Russia:

  1. A classified document shows that Russian military intelligence ran cyberattacks against voting system software vendors. They used the hacked data to send spear-phishing emails to over 100 local election officials before last year’s elections. They targeted multiple states and got into at least one voter database.
  2. The above information was leaked to The Intercept. The Feds arrest the suspected leaker, Reality Winner, confirming the existence of the document.
  3. It turns out that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, which recently issued subpoenas to learn more about the unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, had also themselves asked to unmask the names of organizations and individuals last year. Devin Nunes signed off on all subpoenas.
  4. Putin denies that he has compromising information on Trump.
  5. This was under International last week, but all things come around to Russia. After four nations—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Bahrain—cut ties with Qatar, the FBI joins the Qatar government in investigating the involvement of Russian hackers. They suspect the hackers planted a false story with Qatar’s state news agency, launching a Mideast crisis.
  6. Trump is smart to get private counsel from outside the White House. When Ken Starr was investigating Clinton, he got attorney/client privilege thrown out when it came to conversations with White House counsel, setting a precedent that could still be used.
  7. Intelligence Director Dan Coats corroborates Comey’s story that Trump requested that he lay off Flynn in the Russia probe. Officials corroborated that story in March. In testimony, though, both Coats and Rogers say they’ve never felt pressured to do something immoral, illegal, or inappropriate. They both refuse to discuss specifics of conversations between them and Trump, and refuse to answer questions directly.
  8. The Kremlin turns its attention to our military members and veterans by ratcheting up hacks, trolling, fake news, and propaganda directed at them. Russians set up fake Facebook accounts posing as attractive young women to friend service members and target the DoD on Twitter for phishing attacks.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Once again, the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling that threw out North Carolina state legislative district lines that discriminate against voters based on race. This is the latest in a string of rulings against NC’s highly gerrymandered districts. Literally, NC is the poster child for how not to run a democratic republic.
  2. Trump is frustrated with AG Sessions because Session’s recused himself from the Russia investigations and because Trump thinks that the DOJ should’ve stuck with the first travel ban, not the “watered down, politically correct” [though still unconstitutional] version. Sessions had apparently offered to step down at one point.
  3. The Justice Department considers major changes to the H-1B visa program, including forcing companies to advertise jobs online first and hire U.S. workers first, as well as reducing cap and duration of visas.
  4. Trump nominates Christopher Wray to FBI chief. The law firm where Wray works represents Rosneft, the Russian oil company at the center of the Russia probe.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants a Senate vote on the ACA replacement bill by the July 4 recess. He’s bypassing procedure and trying to schedule a vote without going through committee hearings. Props to Claire McCaskill for calling him out on this. For the ACA, there were committee hearings, amendments, and a public comment period.
  2. Senators don’t sound positive, and word is McConnell just wants this done. It’s possible he’ll bring up the vote whether it can pass or not, just so they can move on to tax reform.
  3. The healthcare committee starts sending the bill piecemeal to the CBO.
  4. McConnell seems optimistic he has the votes needed to pass a replacement, but the bill is still being modified to accommodate various factions, including moves to accommodate moderates that will likely alienate more conservative Republicans.
  5. Meanwhile, five states—California,New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts—all have single payer legislation floating around.
  6. The Department of Health and Human Services signals a reversal of an Obama-era rule that prevented nursing homes from forcing tenants to sign an arbitration agreement as a requirement of being admitted.

International:

  1. As we learn of potential Russian hacking in the Qatar/Saudi issue, Trump takes credit for causing the situation, calling it “hard but necessary” (and apparently forgetting they’re a strong ally). He says the nations spoke to him about it before they cut ties, and that he and Tillerson agreed it was time to end funding to Qatar. Just before Trump said that, though, Tillerson asked the four nations involved to ease their blockade because it’s causing humanitarian problems for Qatar and logistics issues on our military base there. Trump later offers to help mediate the conflict.
  2. Trump doubles down on his criticism of London’s mayor after being called out for taking the mayor’s words out of context, tweeting: “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement.” Londoners love Khan. This would be like Tony Blair calling Rudy Giuliani pathetic after 9/11.
  3. Mayor Khan suggests that the U.K. should cancel Trump’s state visit.
  4. Trump puts his visit to England on hold amid worries of protests.
  5. A man attacks a police officer with a hammer at Notre Dame. It’s being looked at as a terror attack.
  6. The death toll in the Kabul bombing from the previous week rises to over 150.
  7. Terrorist attacks in the parliament building and Ayatollah’s mausoleum in Iran kill at least 12 and wound dozens. ISIS claims responsibility, though Iran points the finger at Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The White House sends a message of support, but then closes out by blaming Iran for sponsoring terrorism.
  8. It turns out no real deal-making happened on Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia. According to the Brookings Institution, there are no deals or contracts, just letters of interest or intent. The Senate hasn’t received anything to review, and so far all the deals began during the Obama administration.
  9. Theresa May’s Tory party suffered a setback in a snap election, losing their parliamentary majority while the Labour party gained several seats. She called a snap election three years early to bolster her negotiating power with the EU over Brexit, but now it looks like her position is weakened and she’ll have to form a coalition.
  10. Unlike May’s party, French President Macron’s party is about to win a very large majority of parliamentary seats. Round one of votes was this week; candidates who didn’t win outright go on to round two next week.
  11. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces break into Raqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria.
  12. The U.S. provides military air assistance to Philippine troops fighting off a Muslim militant siege in Malawi.
  13. The U.S. launches an airstrike in Somalia, killing 8 in an action that was only possible because Trump changed the designation of that part of Somalia to a war zone.
  14. The Senate confirms former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown as Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, who credits former opponent Elizabeth Warren with moving his nomination through Senate.
  15. Romanian President Ioannis contradicts Trump in a joint press conference. When asked about including Romania in our Visa Waiver Program (VWP), Trump says they didn’t talk about it, but Ioannis says they did and that it’s very important to Romanians.

Legislation:

  1. After nearly half a year, the only notable legislative achievements of the administration are rollbacks to existing legislation and regulations.
  2. Congress looks at Trump’s push to privatize air traffic control through a non-profit company, which has bipartisan support and has already been done in several European countries with success. However, this has been around before and not passed Congress.
  3. It’s looking possible that Congress might raise the debt ceiling and continue funding Planned Parenthood without repealing the ACA, reforming taxes, or passing an infrastructure bill.
  4. Senators from both parties push for a vote on harsher sanctions against Russia, making it harder to rollback any current sanctions.
  5. The House votes along partisan lines to roll back parts of Dodd Frank, passing a bill named the Financial Choice Act. They’re calling it a jobs bill, but it really gives banks more freedom to pull the same risky crap that led to the financial crisis. The Senate has a bipartisan effort going to rewrite the regulations as well.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Kellyanne Conway’s husband sends out a series of tweets critical of Trump’s tweets about the travel ban, saying it only hurts his chances of winning the lawsuit.
  2. This isn’t really new news, but it’s in the news this week. School kids often quote Trump to bully classmates, with many reported incidents of white students bullying Latino, Middle Eastern, Asian, black, or Jewish classmates using the same rhetoric as Trump. How do you convince kids that even though the president of the United States does it, it’s not OK?
  3. Anti-Sharia marches around the country are met with counter-protestors of similar sizes. We need better education on what Sharia is and isn’t.
  4. It’s Pride month, but annual parades around the country morph into a mixture of pride and resistance, as hundreds of thousands of marchers show up not to just support LGBTQ rights, but also to resist Trump’s agenda.

Climate/EPA:

  1. While discussing our withdrawal from the Paris agreement, Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, says, ”I think the rest of the world applauded what we did in Paris.” First, this is the EPA. And also, no, much of the world chastised us out loud.
  2. The second highest ranking U.S. diplomat at the Beijing embassy resigns in the wake of the Paris agreement withdrawal, refusing to officially notify the Chinese of our withdrawal. He was a 27-year diplomat and was acting ambassador until the new ambassador arrives. The acting ambassador to England and the ambassador to Qatar have also publicly broken with Trump.
  3. California Governor Jerry Brown takes a leadership role by meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping to discuss climate change, highlighting how Trump’s ‘America first’ policy is sidelining him on the world stage.
  4. The United States Climate Alliance expands to include 13 states representing about 35% of our economy. Ten additional governors and the mayor of D.C. express support for the Paris agreement, but have not yet joined the coalition.
  5. I don’t know whether this falls under climate or travel ban, but Trump floats the idea of putting solar panels on the wall to pay for it, since Mexico for some reason still says they won’t.
  6. Hawaii becomes the first state to enact legislation supporting the Paris agreement. Under the new law, Hawaii will measure the sea level rise and set a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases.
  7. Democratic Senators question Betsy DeVos on whether the DOE was behind the recent mailings sent out by the Heartland Institute to 300,000 science teachers about how to teach that climate change is not manmade. Interesting Fact: Heartland Institute tried to convince us smoking doesn’t have adverse health effects.
  8. A federal court gives the EPA until June 15 to justify why they should be able to pause regulations limiting methane emissions while they do a review.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s infrastructure briefing includes no written plan, not even bullet points.
  2. Scott Pruitt implies that almost 50,000 jobs have been created in coal since Trump took office. The actual number is 1,000; the rest are in mining in general.
  3. Kansas legislators override Governor Brownback’s veto of their tax reform bill. Kansas has been undergoing a failed experiment since 2012, working under the theory that low taxes would result in a thriving economy. But it’s done the opposite and Kansas is in a world of hurt. Even still, the state congress barely pulled enough votes together to override his veto.
  4. In the aftermath of the vote, Kris Kobach launches his run for governor on an anti-immigration platform. Kobach’s the author of the strident and much-litigated voting laws in Kansas, leading many to accuse him of voter suppression. Kobach also serves on Trump’s voter fraud committee.
  5. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin takes his first foreign trip, meeting with Canadian officials on trade, economy, and national security issues.
  6. Trump withdraws Obama-era guidance on how employees are classified; a win for business, a loss for workers being misclassified as independent contractors (which are cheaper for business than actual employees). He also withdraws guidance that made parent companies liable for labor violations by their franchises.
  7. The U.S. and Mexico avert a trade crisis by coming to an agreement over Mexican sugar exports.
  8. The DOJ ends the practice of forcing companies to make payouts to affected groups when settling law suits. For example, when cases against banks for predatory lending practices were settled, the banks had to pay reparations to affected homeowners. No more.
  9. Trump proposes charging retailers a fee for accepting food stamps, a move that will largely affect small grocers but will also generate over $2 billion over the next decade.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Frustrated by Trump’s order to only comply with information requests from Republican congressional leaders, Democratic congressional leaders consider posting all questions publicly. DHS Secretary Kelly says his department will respond to all congressional requests, regardless of who they come from.
  2. Trump blames Democrats for holding up his ambassadorship nominations, even though there aren’t enough Democrats in the Senate to block them. It turns out that while he’s tapped several nominees, he hasn’t officially submitted them to the Senate even though he selected some as far back as April.
  3. Four law firms have turned down requests to represent Trump in the Russia probe amid concerns he wouldn’t listen or wouldn’t pay.
  4. Sean Spicer says we should consider Trump’s tweets to be official statements.
  5. It appears that, while Eric Trump’s foundation started out doing good work, at some point Donald Trump decided the foundation should be billed for everything for events held at a Trump golf course. So Eric ended up funneling charity dollars back into the Trump business. This is under investigation.
  6. Newly elected Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte published an apology to the Guardian reporter he assaulted, saying his actions were unacceptable. He also donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. He still faces legal charges, but there won’t be a civil suit.
  7. Trump headlines the luncheon kick-off event of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s 2017 Road to Majority gathering in D.C.
  8. For all you Trey Gowdy fans, he’s the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee where he’ll lead oversight of the Trump administration.
  9. Melania and Barron Trump move into the White House.
  10. The Michigan Democratic Party agrees to pay a $500,000 fine for misreporting contributions raised by bingo fundraisers prior to 2014. It’s the largest fine paid for breaking campaign finance laws.
  11. Trump’s approval rating drops to near lows of 36% in the Gallup Poll and to 34% in the Quinnipiac poll.