Tag: hiv

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 99 in Trump

Posted on December 18, 2018 in Politics, Trump

So much happened last week, but my favorite part of the week was when Trump surprised Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with a meeting with the press when they thought they were having a closed-door meeting. As far as transparency goes, that was awesome. But things went downhill fast, with a lot of shouting, a lot of misinformation, a bit of man-splaining, and some name-calling; only Nancy Pelosi was trying to talk policy. Pelosi came out of it not only looking like the adult in the room but also firmly pinning any potential government shutdown on Trump. It’s easy to see how she got the votes for Speaker.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. NASA spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrived in the orbit of an asteroid named Bennu. OSIRIS-REx launched two years ago and will spend the next year surveying and mapping the asteroid and hopefully bring us back some rock samples. Seriously. We sent a spacecraft to an ASTEROID!
  2. The week had some hate:
    • Jehovah’s Witnesses have been targeted with hate crimes 5 times this year in Washington state. The latest attack destroyed a church in a fire.
    • Again in Washington, eight self-professed neo-Nazis assault a black man, yelling racist slurs as they attack him.
    • Someone spreads anti-Semitic pamphlets throughout Pittsburgh, and a student plasters State University of New York’s Purchase College with Nazi-themed posters.

Russia:

  1. Maria Butina pleads guilty to acting as an illegal foreign agent and agrees to cooperate with federal investigators. She’s the first Russian charged to admit trying to influence the 2016 elections.
  2. Here are some highlights:
    • In 2015, Butina began working with Alexander Torshin to establish “unofficial” lines of communication with political leaders for the benefit of the Russian Federation (because official lines weren’t working).
    • Butina targeted Republicans because she thought a Republican would win the presidency in 2016.
    • She worked with her boyfriend, South Dakotan Paul Erickson, on her plan and also to make the contacts she needed.
    • Butina planned to use the NRA to lay the groundwork because of their influence over the Republican party.
    • She received funding from a Russian billionaire.
    • In the middle of all this, Butina obtained a student visa so she could stay in the U.S.
    • She worked to meet with Trump’s advisors once he was elected. Butina and Erickson also tried to set up meetings between Trump advisors and Russian officials.
  1. As of this week, we know through court filings and guilty pleas that at least 16 Trump business and campaign associates had contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign. And every one of them lied about it.
  2. Newspapers and businesses across the country receive bomb threats, suspected to come from Russian hackers. The hackers ask for bitcoin in order to not detonate the (non-existent) bombs.
  3. Everything was going so well for Michael Flynn, who was probably on track to serve no jail time. And then, his lawyers file a court document claiming that the FBI didn’t let him know he maybe needed a lawyer during the interviews where he lied to investigators (which led to the charges against him). They say that the FBI tricked Flynn into lying but still don’t say why Flynn lied.
  4. Mueller says Flynn is an experienced military man in a high-level government position. He should know better than to lie to U.S. intelligence in any situation, and there was no coercion for him to lie.
  5. Two of Flynn’s associates say he was meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 elections to talk about cooperation between Russia and the U.S. Russia would help end the Syrian conflict and the U.S. would ease sanctions.
    • The talks continued even after U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump’s campaign that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and subsequent leaks.
  1. On judge‘s orders, Mueller turns over their documentation of the interviews with Flynn where he is said to have lied.
  2. Texts and emails show that Paul Manafort was advising the Trump administration on ways to discredit Mueller’s investigations. Manafort recommended attacking the FBI, the DOJ, the Steele Dossier (and the Clinton campaign’s involvement) and any Obama officials involved in getting the FISA warrant. He recommended accusing the DNC of colluding with Ukraine.
  3. Studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee find that clearly all of the messaging coming from Russian entities was designed to benefit the Republican party and later Trump specifically.
    • One report finds that Russians used every major social media platform to influence the elections in 2016.
    • The other report analyzed how the Russian company Internet Research Agency targeted specific demographics for political messaging. IRA targeted blacks and other minorities to either discourage them from voting and turn them against Democrats.
    • Russian trolls and bots put a lot of time into dividing us on gun rights and immigration issues. They’d embed themselves in specific circles using authentic content, and then start posting provocative misinformation.
    • Posts on Instagram generated more than twice the user engagement than other major platforms.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump says he never told Cohen to break the law, but didn’t dispute that he told Cohen to pay off his mistresses to keep them quiet about their affairs. Trump says Cohen should’ve known what was legal; Cohen says he was under Trump’s sway.
  2. Sources says that Trump was involved in meetings where Cohen and David Pecker (of American Media Inc. (AMI)) talked about the payments.
  3. In his sentencing hearing, Cohen implies that he has more to talk about than just hush money payments. He gets a three-year sentence plus fines.
    • As a reminder, he pled guilty to: tax evasion, campaign finance violations, lying to banks, and lying to Congress. These are not all his known crimes.
    • Sean Hannity deletes all his tweets linking him to Cohen just before Cohen is sentenced.
  1. AMI is also in a cooperation agreement and has agreed to tell prosecutors everything they know about Trump. If you remember, AMI also has a vault of the negative stories about Trump that they killed in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
  2. David Pecker also admits to the hush money payments. AMI says the payments were to influence the elections, giving even more credence to the allegation that these were illegal campaign donations.
  3. Investigators are looking into donations to Trump’s inaugural committee and to a pro-Trump super PAC. They say foreign agents from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE might have disguised donations to buy influence over U.S. policy. Not surprisingly, Manafort it involved in this.
  4. When Trump and his siblings inflated invoices for their shell company decades ago, they also used those invoices as justification to inflate rent increases in their apartment buildings. This has caused the rent in those buildings to be artificially inflated for decades, even though the Trumps no longer own them.
  5. In a defamation lawsuit, Roger Stone admits to telling lies on InfoWars. Stone says he didn’t do his research and took the word of Sam Nunberg about alleged foreign donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Didn’t do his research” is how all this BS gets spread around in the first place so do your research!

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses to hear cases about blocking funding for Planned Parenthood. This leaves in place the lower court rulings that say states can’t cancel Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood offices.
  2. The Senate confirms Jonathan Kobes to a federal appeals court despite the ABA questioning his knowledge of the law and ability to understand complex legal analysis. This is Trump’s second unqualified but confirmed judicial nominee.
  3. The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court changes her party affiliation from Republican to No Party Preference. She says it’s been coming for a while, but Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the nail in the coffin.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration shuts down an HIV research project in Montana because they use fetal tissue to research a cure for HIV/AIDS. Restrictions on the use of fetal tissue have been shutting down research projects across the country.
  2. The Senate votes against a bill that would extend VA benefits for thousands of vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. The House passed this bill unanimously.
  3. A federal judge in Texas rules that without the mandate, certain parts of the ACA are unconstitutional. Trump says that’s great news, but even legislators who tried to kill the ACA aren’t thrilled with this ruling. Many are even confused by it. The White House assures us that the ACA will remain in place through the appeals process. Oh, and the ruling comes the day before open enrollment ends.

International:

  1. Trump rejects the information given by U.S. intelligence agencies in his daily briefings on world events. Specifically, he’s denied that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, he says North Korea will halt their nuclear weapons program, and he disagrees with them about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, climate change, and the role of the Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi’s murder.
  2. Theresa May delays a vote to approve her Brexit deal, and then survives a vote of no confidence. She then returns to Brussels to negotiate once more, but returns empty-handed.
  3. On top of weeks of protests across France, a shooter kills three people and injures 13 at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, putting all Christmas Markets in France on high alert and launching a manhunt. Police later find and shoot the gunman.
  4. A cyber attack on the Marriott earlier this year accessed the personal information of around 500 million guests. Investigators blame the cyber attack on Chinese intelligence.
  5. Trump continues to stand by Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite GOP Senators standing against him on this. Interesting side note: Some members of the Saudi royal family would like to stop MbS from being crowned king, but support from the U.S. and Trump could sway them.
  6. The Senate passes a resolution that declares MbS is not only involved in Khashoggi’s murder but is responsible for it.
  7. The Senate passes a recommendation to end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
  8. Party members in Hungary that are normally in opposition to one other unite in protest against Prime Minister Viktor Ordan’s authoritarian rule. Rallies and protests have spread across the country, taking the Prime Minister and his Fidesz party by surprise. Ordan has been steadily increasing his power while weakening democratic institutions and processes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate reverses a Trump policy that helped hide information about donors to political non-profits. With the Senate bill, donors must be disclosed to the IRS.
  2. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signs a series of lame duck bills into law, curtailing the power of the office he is leaving because the person taking his place is a Democrat. From what I can see, the GOP plan seems to be: 1) Gerrymander districts so the other party can’t ever get a majority (even with a majority of votes statewide); and 2) When the populace finally votes your party out, change all the rules of government to make sure they can’t get anything done. Such a bad precedent.
    • Lawsuits against these bills are already in the works. Several of North Carolina’s attempt at passing bills to weaken incoming Democratic officials two years ago are still stuck in the courts.
    • Republicans in Wisconsin’s state legislature started working on these bills months ago just in case there was a shift in parties.
  1. Florida’s governor-elect Ron DeSantis wants to delay implementation of the voter approved ballot initiative that restored voting rights to felons who’ve served their time (excepting certain violent crimes).
  2. The House passes a bill to prevent states from holding children in adult jails and to ban the practice of shackling pregnant girls. The bill also funds tutoring, mental health assistance, and drug and alcohol programs for juvenile offenders.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The number of migrant minors held in U.S. custody is now nearly 15,000. A big reason for the backlog is that sponsors for these children are afraid to come forward for fear of being deported themselves.
  2. Church leaders form an interfaith protest at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of those seeking asylum. Officials arrest 32 faith leaders and activists at the protest.
  3. Officials in Ohio arrest a man who was plotting to kill people in a Jewish synagogue. Hate crimes against Jews have increased more than any other type of hate crime.
  4. Immigration judges for the most part want to make the right choices and not send people back to their home countries to get killed. The Global Migration Project at Columbia University recently found over 60 people who were killed or harmed after being sent home.
  5. The Trump administration starts working once again to deport refugees from the Vietnam war who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades.
  6. Trump says the updated NAFTA deal means that Mexico will pay for his wall. In case you were wondering, it doesn’t.
  7. A seven-year-old migrant girl dies after getting sick eight hours after being taken into custody. Homeland Security says that she didn’t have anything to eat or drink for days before being detained, but her family says that’s not true. The fastest way to get her medical assistance was a 90-minute bus ride, during which she worsened until she was no longer breathing when they arrived. An investigation is underway.
  8. Trump uses the shooting in Strasbourg as a reason we need to shore up our borders, but it turns out the shooter was born in Strasbourg.
  9. Trump claims that the migrants coming in to this country are spreading contagious diseases. There’s no evidence of this.
  10. Trump says a lot of his wall is already built and that it has decreased illegal migration significantly. He seems to be referring to fencing built or fixed between 1992 and 2016.
  11. Trump says says migrants crossing the border illegally are pouring drugs into the country, but according to the DEA most drugs come in through legal ports of entry.
  12. In referring to illegal immigration over the southern border, Trump says: “We caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time. Ten.” I’m not sure what he means by ‘the last very short period of time,’ but most terrorists are blocked from entry into the U.S. at airports. And a State Department study found “no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States.”
  13. Betsy DeVos moves to rescind Obama-era guidance over school discipline that prevented minority students from receiving harsher punishments than their white classmates.
  14. Miss USA, Miss Columbia and Miss Australia are caught on tape mocking other Miss Universe contestants’ English-speaking skills.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new study that compares past and future climates suggests that over the past 200 years, human activity has reversed millions of years of cooling. So yes, our climate changes, but generally not as rapidly as now.
  2. At the UN climate talks, Trump’s top climate and energy advisor is greeted with laughter when he gives a talk that includes pitching coal, the fossil fuel largely responsible for climate change. Turns out that most of the audience is there merely to protest; the U.S. couldn’t get enough people who are serious about climate change to attend.
  3. At the same talks, nations discuss the latest IPCC report which calls for dramatic cuts in emissions. Oil producing nations want to keep the report out of the final agreement, and the U.S. backs them. They end up welcoming the “timeliness” of the report as opposed to the content of the report.
  4. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that U.S. officials were working behind the scenes to continue making contributions to the Paris agreement.
  5. The Trump administration wants to reclassify nuclear waste so we don’t have to be so cautious in disposing of it, making disposal cheaper. Though this is the same administration that says a little radiation every day is good for you!
  6. The Trump administration proposes weakening the clean water rules that were created by George H.W. Bush and expanded on under Obama. The changes loosen protections against pollutants, pesticides, and toxic waste in certain waterways.
  7. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke resigns in the middle of more than a dozen ethics investigations into his political activity, travel expenses, and possible conflicts of interest. Zinke used his position roll back environmental protections and to exploit federal lands with the goal of global energy dominance.
  8. Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt will take over for Zinke temporarily. Bernhardt was a fossil fuels and water industry lobbyist before coming to the department (whose mission, by the way, is to be a good steward of our public lands).
  9. The Trump administration auctions off leases that will allow fracking on public lands near Utah’s national parks.
  10. A new study shows that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef might be adapting to the warmer waters caused by climate change. The harm done to the reef this year was less than expected despite warmer waters.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China agrees to cut tariffs on U.S. automobiles to 15%.
  2. Trump says he’ll shut down the government if the spending bill doesn’t fund his border wall. He even says he’ll be proud to shut it down.
  3. Trump signs an executive order to help fund underserved communities known as “opportunity zones.”
  4. Trump wants to get rid of subsidies for electric vehicles, which would give foreign automakers an advantage in EV development.
  5. The budget deficit for the first two months of fiscal year 2019 is double what it was in the first two months of fiscal year 2018. The administration predicts the deficit will be over $1 trillion for three straight years.
  6. In 2010, Wells Fargo incorrectly foreclosed on around 545 homeowners due to a computer glitch. Most of these people lost their homes, their current and future equity, and in some cases their pets because they had to move. To make up for it, Wells Fargo sends the borrowers checks that grossly under-compensated them for their losses.
  7. A few months ago, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau put out a report showing that Wells Fargo was price-gouging student borrowers. The Trump administration has been sitting on that information.
  8. Betsy DeVos loses a court battle and now has to cancel $150 million in federal student loan debt. The loan forgiveness affects 15,000 borrowers who were cheated by for-profit colleges.

Elections:

  1. A federal court in Virginia hands down documents in a case that concluded that 11 of Virginia’s districts are illegally gerrymandered. The case is pending before the Supreme Court, but the legislature must redraw the district lines anyway. One of the documents includes a variety of plans, but none of them redraw less than 21 districts.
  2. Things aren’t looking good for Mark Harris, Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina’s 9th District. It turns out that he sought to hire Leslie Dowless to help win the 2018 race after losing a race in 2016, knowing Dowless’ reputation for using sketchy means to win elections. Dowless illegally harvested ballots according to witnesses.
  3. George Papadopoulos feels like he’s ready to run for Congress. Now that he’s done his jail time for lying about Russian contacts, that is.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Time Magazine names a group of journalist as their Person of the Year. The group, which Time calls The Guardians, include the slain journalists at the Capital Gazette and Jamal Khashoggi, among others. One of the reasons for this choice is that “manipulation and abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories.”
  2. The House Judiciary Committee questions a Google executive for over three hours because Republicans think Google searches bring up results that aren’t fair to conservatives. Both parties are concerned about privacy issues.
  3. Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees because her defamation suit against him was dismissed.
  4. A Kansas state senator switches party affiliations from Republican to Democrat after being ostracized for supporting the Democratic candidate for governor over Kris Kobach.
  5. The Trumps cancel the White House tradition of a holiday press party. Last year, they held the event but declined the tradition of taking pictures with anyone who wanted one.
  6. After Nick Ayers turns down the chief of staff position, Chris Christie takes himself out of the running as well. Jared Kushner’s in the running, but then Trump picks Mick Mulvaney to be acting chief of staff. Mulvaney is already wearing a couple different hats.
  7. The Trumps plan to take a 16-day trip to Mar-a-Lago over the holidays.
  8. Voyager 2 becomes the second human-made object to leave our solar system (Voyager 1 was the first). Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and its equipment still functions.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating in rural areas is 61% compared to 31% in urban areas and 41% in suburban areas.