Tag: ICE

Week 127 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Trump likes to say that Obama separated families at the border and locked kids up in cages. Obama didn’t separate families, but he did have a huge influx of migrant children in 2014 and built the makeshift detention centers we still see today. He also had a record number of family units coming across the border. At first the Obama administration released family units with notices to appear. Then they tried to hold them in detention centers together, but human rights activists protested that move and they risked violating the Flores Agreement. So they went back to releasing them. In fact, in 2016, ICE implemented a very successful pilot program, the Family Case Management Program, designed to keep families together, out of detention, and in compliance with immigration laws. The program had a high rate of compliance and helped refugees thrive. In 2017, Trump shut that program down and later that year began his own pilot program, this time mandating the separation and detention of families.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the factsheet for that program. And here’s the AP’s story on ending the program. And here’s Jeff Session’s announcement of the zero tolerance policy (though we now know they were already separating families in fall of 2017). Trump said ending Obama’s program would save money, but it costs us $750 per day per person in private detention centers. That’s a lot of money each day and private companies are making a fortune off the American taxpayers (around $4 billion per year, at the rate we’re going).

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 30…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. Jared Kushner travels to Bahrain to describe how he’ll solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offers an economic development plan, but no pathway to get to an agreement between the two sides nor any way of dealing with the underlying conflicts. No government officials from either side of the conflict show up, and Palestinian officials dismiss it as a “snow job.”
  2. Mike Pompeo says privately that the plan isn’t particularly original and it’s likely not executable.

Russia:

  1. After much discussion, Robert Mueller agrees to testify in public hearings before both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. It’s scheduled to happen July 17. Both committees issued subpoenas before coming to this agreement.
    • Members of Mueller’s team will also testify, but not in public hearings.
  1. In response, Trump accuses Mueller of committing a crime (deleting emails from FBI agents involved in the investigation, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, of which Trump has no evidence). He also calls Page and Strzok “pathetic.”
  2. The White House refuses to tell the House Oversight Committee where the translator notes are from Trump’s private meetings with Putin. Trump took the notes from the translator personally. The House Oversight Committee says these notes must be maintained under our laws for preserving federal records.
  3. When asked what Trump and Putin will talk about at their G20 meeting, Trump tells reporters that what he says to Putin in private isn’t any of their business.
  4. Trump later jokes with Putin and Russian officials about meddling in our elections, telling them not to meddle at a press conference while they all laugh.
    • Mueller’s investigation concluded that Russia ran a “sweeping and systematic” operation to influence voters in the 2016 elections.
    • The last time the two met, Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies when asked about Russian interference.
  1. Trump then jokes with Putin about “getting rid” of journalists.
  2. The Trump-appointed FBI director, Christopher Wray, maintains that he believes there was no spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump says he disagrees and also refuses to say that he has confidence in Wray.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Paul Manafort pleads not guilty to state charges on mortgage fraud brought by New York. Manafort’s lawyer intends to fight this case under double-jeopardy rules, but the Supreme Court just ruled that state and federal agencies can bring up the same charges.
  2. In keeping with the tradition of the Trump administration, the Commerce Department orders a former official not to answer any questions from House committees about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
  3. The House Oversight and Reform Committee moves to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt after they ignore subpoenas on the topic of the citizenship question.
  4. Play it again, Sam… The White House orders Kellyanne Conway to refuse to testify at the House Oversight Committee’s behest. They want to talk to her about violations of the Hatch Act as outlined in a report from the Office of Special Counsel (reminder, that’s nothing to do with Mueller).
    • The committee subpoenas Conway after she fails to appear.
  1. Nearly 200 Democrats are suing Trump, claiming that his private business dealings violate the emoluments clause. A federal judge rules against Trump this week, saying the lawsuit can proceed.
  2. The Justice Department sues Omarosa Manigualt Newman, a former advisor to Trump. They say she failed to file a financial disclosure report after Trump fired her. Newman argues that she can’t, because the White House didn’t return her personal files to her.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that gerrymandering is out of the scope of federal courts and that it should be handled by legislation.
    • This means that North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, and Michigan all get a pass on having to redraw their gerrymandered district lines as was previously ordered by lower courts
    • Voters are getting tired of gerrymandering, and voted in five states last year to limit the power of the state houses to gerrymander. That’s on top of states that already have independent redistricting commissions.
  1. The Supreme Court blocks the citizenship question on the 2020 Census for now, saying that the Commerce Department could have a right to reinstate the question but that their reasons were contrived. The case gets kicked back to a lower court.
    • So Trump says he’ll just delay the census. FWIW, he can’t.
    • The Census Bureau estimates that adding the question would cause about 6.5 million people to not be counted (that includes people here legally and not). That equates to a loss of around seven to ten House seats and an unknown number of state seats. It also means those same areas will see a loss of government programs and assistance.
  1. The court agrees to hear arguments about DACA and whether Trump acted illegally in trying to end it.
  2. The court refuses to hear Alabama’s appeal for their stringent abortion law, keeping in place a lower court’s ruling that the law places an undue burden on women.

Healthcare:

  1. The U.S. hits 1,077 measles cases so far this year, making it already the worst year since 1992. If only we had a way to prevent the measles… if only.

International:

  1. Trump signs an executive order to place new “hard-hitting” sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader and eight military commanders. The largely symbolic sanctions stem from Iran downing a U.S. drone last week.
  2. Iran’s foreign ministry says the executive orders have closed the door to diplomacy and that they won’t be intimidated. Iran also says they’ll start reducing their commitments to the JCPOA.
  3. Trump threatens to obliterate Iran if they attack. He implies that Kerry and Obama were soft on Iran, even though Iran has followed the guidelines of the JCPOA up until now.
  4. It turns out that when Trump backed down from an actual air attack last week, he also approved a cyberattack, which disabled the computer systems Iran uses to control rocket and missile launches. These attacks were in the works for months.
  5. Trump says he doesn’t need congressional approval to launch a military strike against Iran. He does need their approval, though, unless Pompeo can find evidence to support his assertion that Iran is involved with Al Qaeda.
  6. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) says Trump can launch a strike because we’re already at war with them. Is he talking metaphorically? Because AFAIK, we aren’t at war with Iran.
  7. Trump considers withdrawing from another defense treaty, this time with Japan. Fitting his constant narrative of how everyone’s against us and taking advantage of us, he says the agreement is one-sided. The agreement has been the foundation of a post-war alliance since WWII.
  8. Sean Lawler, Trump’s diplomatic protocol chief, is suspended just before the G20 Summit. Talk about bad timing. He’s under investigation over workplace accusations of intimidation, including carrying a whip around the office.
  9. Trump insults Japan upon arriving in the country for the G20 Summit. He says that if we were attacked, they’d just sit and watch it on TV. He goes on to insult Germany, Britain, and India, and repeats his previous misinformation about NATO. He has nothing bad to say about Putin or Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, though.
  10. At the G20, Trump demands that India pull their latest tariffs on U.S. products.
  11. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gives Trump a colorful diagram to illustrate Japanese investments in the U.S. Abe has him figured out.
  12. Also, what the heck was Ivanka doing a) at the summit and b) getting a front-row seat? Video shows world leaders not very interested in what she has to say, to the point of being dismissive.
  13. Trump pays a surprise visit to North Korea where he meets with Kim Jong Un and becomes the first sitting president to set foot in the country, albeit briefly and at the border with South Korea.
    • The two agree to continue talks.
  1. Trump reverses his ban on U.S. companies supplying software and hardware to Chinese company Huawei. It’s part of an agreement to restart trade negotiations. I’m not sure what this means for the lawsuits against Huawei and its executives.
    • Side note: The restrictions against Huawei were based on national security risks of spying.
  1. Protests in HongKong against an extradition law with mainland China continue, now growing violent as protestor storm the parliament chamber. The mostly peaceful protests have been ongoing for two months.
  2. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes how Jared Kushner would bypass the State Department and meet with foreign officials on his own.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Republicans block a proposal that would’ve restricted Trump’s ability to go to war with Iran without congressional approval. The proposal required congressional approval for funding.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. A district court judge permanently blocks Trump from using the billions of dollars in military funds that he had tapped to build his wall.

Family Separation:

  1. House Democrats cave in and pass the GOP-led Senate version of a bill to provide emergency humanitarian aid at the border. The House had previously passed their own version, which included provisions for improving the condition of detention centers and regulating how migrants can be held in custody. The Senate version includes additional funding for DHS with no strings attached.
  2. McConnell says that no one doubts anymore that this is a humanitarian crisis. Congratulations, GOP, for creating this crisis; not quite the one that you said was there all along, but a crisis nonetheless.
  3. Following last week’s reports from immigration lawyers about squalid conditions in child detention camps, CBP invites journalists to come take a look at those facilities. The conditions seem to rebut the lawyer’s claims of lack of hygiene, food, and supplies, but reporters aren’t allowed to talk to detainees.
  4. A federal judge orders that health experts be allowed to examine migrant children and to inspect their living quarters.
  5. The Department of Health and Human Services is running out of money to provide shelter for migrant children. They expect funds to run out in July, and say they don’t have room for any more. To which I say, then release these kids to their families and stop pretending you aren’t part of the problem.
  6. CBP rejects donations for the children held in their overcrowded detention centers. People are sending toys, soap, toothbrushes, diapers, and medicine, but the law prevents Border Patrol from accepting it. So maybe they shouldn’t be holding on to these kids.
  7. Bank of America announces it’ll end its relationships with companies that run the detention centers.
  8. Illinois bans privately run detention centers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Ravelry.com, a social site for knitters and crocheters, bans any talk of Trump and his administration. They want to keep the site free from hateful expression, and view support for Trump as support for white supremacy.
  2. The acting Commissioner of CBP, John Sanders, resigns following the release of information about the conditions of border detention centers. It’s not clear the two are related.
  3. Trump picks Mark Morgan to replace Sanders. Trump made Morgan acting director of ICE earlier this month. Morgan was the head of Border Patrol under Obama.
  4. In a move that is predicted to create chaos in the military, Trump moves to remove protections for undocumented family members of active-duty troops. A few things outside of the news here:
    • First, we must treat our military with respect.
    • Second, our troops need to concentrate on their work. I mean they really need to concentrate. It’s an enormous distraction to be scared that your family might be deported while you’re deployed. Is that what we want them thinking about?
    • Third, our troops, documented or not, are out there defending our country. THIS country. If they can’t count on us to treat them humanely, why would they continue to defend this country?
  1. James Fields Jr., the Neo-Nazi who killed protestor Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017, gets life without parole.
  2. Far right hate groups have been planning violence at Drag Queen Story Hours. Just like it sounds, drag queens read children’s books to children. One of the first story hour events had to be protected by a SWAT team, 40 officers, and a marksman. WTF people? This is not OK. There is nothing scare about a drag queen!
  3. The inspector general for the Treasury Department announces an investigation into why Steve Mnuchin really delayed the Harriet Tubman $20 bill. The Trump administration denies they delayed it.
  4. DHS says they think arrests on our southern border will fall by 25% this month for two main reasons:
    • Mexico is cracking down on Central American migrants.
    • Trump is expanding the program for keeping asylum seekers in Mexico while they await their asylum hearings. In case you didn’t know, Mexico isn’t necessarily safe for all asylum seekers because the people they are fleeing from can get to Mexico.
  1. Hours after the Democratic-led House passes the package for humanitarian aid and increased security at the border, Trump complains that Democrats in the House won’t do anything about border security.
  2. Trump wants to delay the Census so he can get his citizenship question on it, “no matter how long” it takes.
  3. The far-right Proud Boys and far-left Antifa clash at rallies over the weekend in Portland. Violence and arrests ensue. The Proud Boys are a white supremacist group. Antifa is a far-left group against far-right hate groups.

Climate:

  1. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue says that climate change is just the weather changing. It’s raining today, it’s sunny tomorrow; that’s just climate change, which goes in long and short increments. Lemme help Sonny out with that:
    • Climate: the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.
    • Global: relating to the whole world.
  1. Bill Wehrum resigns as EPA air chief over allegations of ethics violations (shocking for this administration, I know). Wehrum worked to reverse Obama regulations for cutting pollution even before he joined Trump’s administration.

Budget/Economy:

  1. For 2018, farm income ended up half as high as the all-time high in 2013 and the debt held by farmers has increased to almost $427 billion. In the first calendar-year quarter of 2019, the default rate hit its highest level in seven years. Farm income is projected to go up slightly in 2019.
    • Trump blames Obama and says he’s turned it around, but the slight increase in 2019 barely makes a dent in the 2018 decrease.
  1. With no changes to policy, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the national debt will rise from 78% of GDP now to 92% in 2029 and then to 144% in 2049. Spending is outpacing tax collections (surprise, surprise).
  2. Mnuchin says we’re close to a trade deal with China, about 90% of the way. Trump, meanwhile, threatens to raise tariffs on the remaining Chinese imports if things don’t work out at the G20 summit.
  3. The White House is working on a plan to bypass Congress and cut taxes on capital gains by indexing capital gains to inflation. The top 1% of earners would receive 86% of the benefit of this plan. Just a reminder that capital gains are money we earn by doing absolutely nothing but watching our money grow. We don’t work for capital gains—we can earn them in our sleep.

Elections:

  1. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill forcing felons who’ve served their sentences to pay any fines before they can register to vote. An overwhelming majority of voters voted to give ex-felons the right to vote, and the GOP state legislature and governor are overriding the will of the people. Lawsuits to block the law are already filed.
  2. The Democratic Presidential candidates participate in their first round of debates. I won’t say much about them, since it’s pretty subjective. But here are a few fact-checks:

Miscellaneous:

  1. Fake news? An advisor for the New York Post orders a story about Trump raping writer E. Jean Carroll to be scrubbed from the website. He apparently forgot that you can’t really delete anything from the web. The advisor, Col Allan, was once an editor at the paper and was brought back earlier this year to make the paper more Trump-friendly.
  2. Two women step forward to corroborate E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her (interestingly, Carroll refuses to call it a rape, even though she says Trump forced himself on her and there was penetration). Both women advised Carroll on what to do when it happened.
  3. Trump names Melania’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, to be the next communications director and press secretary. Grisham replaces outgoing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former communications director Bill Shine, who left in March.

Polls:

  1. 65% of voters approve Trump’s decision to rescind the orders to attack Iran.

Week 115 in Trump

Posted on April 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The economy has added jobs for a record 102 months, since October of 2010.

Here’s a stealth release of last week’s recap (ending April 7) because I’m so darn late with it. My typing fingers are still recovering from rock climbing earlier this week.

This week reminds me that while soundbites are easy to remember and fun to say, we should beware of politicians who talk in soundbites and don’t actually talk about specific policies. I know policies are boring as hell, but I’d rather elect someone who can tell me about their policies than someone who’s still trying to figure out how policies work.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. I know this isn’t news, but it was quite a thing to watch. Trump tells reporters to look into the oranges of the Russia investigation. Yes, oranges. He says this three times.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee votes to authorize the use of subpoenas, if necessary, to force the release of the full and unredacted Mueller report to Congress.
  3. House Committees have so far been ignored by over half of the entities from whom they’ve requested documents in obstruction and corruption investigations. The deadline was March 18.
  4. Trump goes from saying that the Mueller report should be released in its entirety to putting out hostile tweets about Democrats who want it released.
  5. Members of Robert Mueller’s team say that Attorney General William Barr’s initial assessment of the final report undermines the seriousness of their findings, as well as how damaging those findings are to Trump. Note that these are all just leaks right now.
    • They also say they created completely unclassified summaries of each section, which Barr could easily release now.
    • The House Judiciary Committee requests that Barr release these summaries.
  1. The DOJ defends Barr, saying every single page of the report must be combed through because they all contain protected grand jury information.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A former Trump campaign staffer files a lawsuit alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her during the 2016 campaign. She says he grabbed her and kissed her.
  2. The House Ways and Means Committee formally requests six years worth of Trump’s personal and business tax returns from the IRS, as is their right per the IRS tax code. Steve Mnuchin has said he wouldn’t do that.
  3. Trump’s lawyers say handing over the tax returns would be a dangerous precedent… even though every presidential nominee in recent history has released their tax records.
  4. Michael Cohen says he just found a trove of files that could be valuable to investigators. He requests a delay or shortening of his sentence so he can review them.

Courts/Justice:

  1. We learn that DOJ officials invited William Barr to meet with them last year on the same day he published his memo criticizing Mueller’s investigation and claiming a president can’t commit obstruction of justice.

Healthcare:

  1. The number of measles cases is at its second highest in nearly 20 years. The disease was considered to be eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but a lower rate of vaccination has brought it back.
    • In an effort to control the outbreaks, some municipalities ban unvaccinated people under 18 from being in public places.
  1. After Mitch McConnell warns him the Senate won’t take it up, Trump says he’ll put off a Congressional vote for an ACA replacement until after the 2020 elections. Probably because they don’t have a replacement and they aren’t close to having one.
  2. Last week, the DOJ announced they wouldn’t defend the ACA in any lawsuits, so I’m not clear what Trump’s change of direction means for this. The ACA could be struck down at any moment, and there is no plan to replace it.
  3. Despite there being no backup plan, Mick Mulvaney says no one will lose their healthcare coverage if the ACA is struck down.
  4. The House passes a non-binding resolution condemning Trump’s support for the lawsuit to strike down the ACA.
  5. The Trump administration proposes a new inspection system for the meat industry, which would put companies more in charge of checking for things like salmonella and E. coli. Currently, testing for those two is required; under the new plan, they wouldn’t be.
  6. A group of states sue the Trump administration over its reversal of Obama’s nutritional standards for school lunches.
  7. China bans fentanyl, cutting off its supply to the U.S.

International:

  1. The Saudi Arabian government has given Jamal Khashoggi’s (grown) children million-dollar homes as well as large monthly payments to compensate them for their father’s murder. Officials want to be sure that the family exercises restraint in criticizing the government over their father’s death.
  2. The British Parliament fails to pass any of the four new options for Brexit. The votes result in even more defections from the parties.
  3. Even though Brexit hasn’t happened yet, England’s already taking a financial hit. Investment has slowed down and major corporations have moved jobs and assets (over $1 trillion) out of England to other European cities in preparation.
  4. The House passes a resolution demanding an end to U.S. participation in the Yemeni war. The Senate has already passed such a resolution, and Trump will likely veto it.
  5. Trump says there are still key issues to work out in order to get a trade deal with China, and he won’t meet with Xi Jinping until those issues are settled.
  6. Turkey’s strongman president Erdogan might be seeing his support fade. His party loses municipal elections in the capital, Ankara, and the biggest city, Istanbul.
  7. Reminiscent of our own elections, a network of fake Twitter accounts smear Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents in the run-up to Israel’s election.
  8. India’s elections get hit with fake news and fake social media accounts as well.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House passes a stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
    • A sticking point in the Senate will likely be a provision that prevents stalkers from purchasing guns. Because what could go wrong with a stalker with a gun?
    • Republicans are also concerned about provisions that give Native Americans more jurisdiction to deal with domestic violence that occurs on their lands.
  1. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduces a constitutional amendment to ditch the Electoral College and let the popular vote pick the president and vice-president.
  2. Mitch McConnell triggers the “nuclear option” to reduce debate time on lower-level nominees.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Regarding a border wall, Pope Francis says, “Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up.”
  2. Trump visits the border wall at Calexico, CA, where Kirstjen Nielsen attached a plaque with Trump’s name on it to the fencing. Trump says this is where he’s built part of his wall, though it was actually a program begun under Obama to update existing fencing.
    • Fun fact: To date in Trump’s term, no new fencing has been completed; only repairs to existing fencing.
  1. California, in coordination with 19 other states, launches a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Trump’s declaration of national emergency to fund his border wall. At the same time, California’s governor Gavin Newsom goes to El Salvador to learn why so many people are fleeing.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump is considering appointing an immigration czar. Not a bad idea, until you look at his potential candidates. Kris Kobach has pushed for and implemented many anti-immigration policies and works for WeBuildtheWall Inc. Ken Cuccinelli has pushed to get rid of birth-right citizenship.
  2. Trump says his father was born in Germany. Except for that he was born in New York City. This isn’t the first time he’s said that. He also says Obama was born in Kenya, so maybe he’s just bad with geography.
  3. The Mormon church announces that they no longer consider same-sex couples to be apostates (people who renounced their faith). Their children can now be baptized in the church. Likely the change came because after they put their previous policy in place, over 1,500 people left the church.
  4. Trump backs down on his promise to shut down the border with Mexico.
    • Even so, staffing shortages cause huge slowdowns in border transit. The previous week, the Trump administration pulled border agents from their positions at ports of entry to help process asylum seekers.
    • At key economic crossings, the wait to drive into the U.S. can be more than 10 hours.
    • The delays are hurting business production schedules and deliveries, and costing companies in both countries millions. But Mexico is being hurt the worst, facing contract cancellations and massive layoffs if this continues. None of those laid off workers will try to come here to work, right?
  1. In a huge raid, ICE arrests over 280 people at a phone repair company near Dallas. This is part of ICE’s new focus on businesses that hire people without the proper documentation.
  2. Trump tells reporters we need to get rid of family-based migration, the visa lottery, the whole asylum system, and the practice of releasing asylum seekers while they await their hearings. He also says we should get rid of judges and not everyone should get a court case (not everyone does).
    • I didn’t quote his dehumanizing language directly. He used the loaded terms “chain migration” and “catch-and-release” (what are they, fish?).
  1. Trump pulls his nomination to head ICE, Ronald Vitiello, saying he wants to go in a tougher direction.
    • It’s a huge surprise to DHS officials. Vitiello has worked at U.S. Border Patrol for 30 years, and he’s currently the top official.
    • White House advisor Stephen Miller has always opposed Vitiello, and despite his failed policies, Miller has Trump’s ear on immigration.
  1. Trump decides not to close the southern border as he’d previously threatened to do.
  2. Kirstjen Nielsen abruptly resigns as Secretary of Homeland Security following a meeting where she angers Trump by telling him it would violate the law to force asylum seekers to choose between keeping their children and being deported back to their country (another Stephen Miller idea).
    • Fun fact: For a few months now, Trump has been pushing to reinstate blanket separation of migrant families at the border. He‘s convinced that this has been the most effect deterrent to asylum seekers. Interviews with asylum seekers show most don’t know about this policy until they reach the border.
  1. Trump puts CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan temporarily in charge of Homeland Security. A good choice if Trump is looking for bipartisan support.
  2. The U.S. revokes the travel visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor over allegations that she’s investigating war crimes in Afghanistan.
  3. Officers arrest a New York man who threatened to kill Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) because she’s a Muslim. He says she’s a terrorist.
  4. Trump defends adding a citizenship question to the census because otherwise the census is “meaningless.” I don’t think he understand the purpose of the census.
    • The next day, a third judge rules against the plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The judge says that Wilbur Ross made up a fake reason to justify adding the question.
    • Fun fact: The Census Bureau itself has consistently recommended against adding the question.
  1. At a gathering of donors and Jewish Republicans, Trump says the U.S. is full, so refugees should just turn around and go back. That anyone in the room laughed at this is remarkable given the criticism of the U.S. for turning away an ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees in WWII.
    • I heard this while driving through empty swaths of land in southern California. The irony was not lost on me. We are not full.
  1. Even though far-right extremism, white nationalist and supremacist groups, and domestic terrorism are all on the rise, last year the Department of Homeland security disbanded a group focused on analyzing those very threats.
  2. Motel 6 agrees to a $12 million settlement for giving ICE personal information on 80,000 of their guests with Latino sounding last names. Big brother is watching… that’s why they leave a light on for you.

Climate/EPA:

  1. California strengthens protections for their wetlands and streams that will lose federal protections when the Trump administration rolls back the Clean Water Act.
  2. A new study from the Canadian Environment and Climate Change Department finds that Canada is warming at about double the rate of the rest of the globe.
  3. After Trump disbanded a climate panel put together under Obama, the formed a new independent group, the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment. This week, they release a new report aimed at helping communities mitigate the negative effects of climate change.
  4. At an NRCC fundraiser, Trump says that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. Studies dispute this (yes, it’s actually been studied), as do the two Republican Senators in the state where Trump said it (Iowa).

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Trump administration proposes tightening work requirements for SNAP participants, which would likely cut more than 750,000 people from the program.
  2. The first quarter of 2019 saw the U.S.’s highest level of layoffs since 2015 (and the highest in the first quarter since 2009, during the Great Recession).
  3. After February’s dismal job numbers (with only 33,000 jobs added), March rebounds with 196,000 jobs added.
    • Fun fact: This is the 102nd month in a row of job gains, the longest period of job growth on record. That’s 8 1/2 years, or since October of 2010.
  1. Trump plans to nominate Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve board. Moore is dicey because he owes so much in back taxes. Cain is dicey because of all the sexual harassment accusations against him (among other qualifying issues).
  2. The Fed says they don’t plan any rate hikes this year, indicating that while the economy is strong, it’s also losing some of its tax-reform momentum. Trade uncertainty with China is also a drag on the economy.
  3. As of January, 19 states had raised their minimum wage. This could help with wage growth, which has been stagnant.
  4. We’re in the middle of a labor shortage. That’s a good sign for the economy, but we don’t have enough workers to fill blue-collar jobs. And with the administration’s restrictions on legal immigration, those jobs will stay empty.
  5. Directors at the World Bank select Trump’s nominee, David Malpass, to run the bank. A weird choice for them, because Malpass has been critical of the bank. But then no one else stepped up to run for the position.
  6. The Senate and House are deadlocked over disaster funding, with the House wanting more funding for Puerto Rico than the Senate will agree to.

Elections:

  1. New Mexico becomes the 14th state to enact the National Popular Vote. Once enough states sign on, these states will give all their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.
  2. Federal prosecutors indict Robin Hayes, the chairman of North Carolina’s Republican Party for bribery, wire fraud, and making false statements.
    • Fun fact: Hayes was also one of the original architects of the GOP’s REDMAP plan, which led to unlawfully gerrymandered legislative districts. Many of the involved states have faced legal challenges to their district lines for the past 8 years (and most have lost).

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Secret Service arrests a Chinese woman who entered Mar-a-Lago with two passports, four cell phones, a laptop, a thumb drive containing malware, and a hard drive.
  2. Trump says Puerto Rico isn’t part of the United States. It is.
  3. Earlier this year, Trump asked Mitch McConnell to prioritize the confirmation of his nominee for chief counsel for the IRS over that of his nominee for attorney general.
  4. Even though David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior, legally ended his lobbyist status is 2016, he was still working as a lobbyist at least into April of 2017.

Polls:

  1. About the same number of voters don’t trust Trump (59%) or the GOP (58%) to improve healthcare.
  2. 53% of voters trust Democrats to improve it, a surprisingly low number, IMO.

Week 97 in Trump

Posted on December 4, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Former President George H.W. Bush lying in state in the Rotunda. (Morry Gash/Pool/Getty Images)

George H.W. Bush passed away at 94 years old; just 7 months after his wife, Barbara, passed away. He’ll lie in state, and December 5 will be a national day of mourning for him. And even over this, we were so fast to divide ourselves. One group is wistful for a president with his grace and character; the other group thinks he was just plain awful. Can’t we just, for a short period, let people eulogize and remember a man who’s long and full life just came to an end? Give the family some time to grieve, and then go ahead and point out his policy flaws. We don’t have to hate at every turn. It makes me tired…

And you know what else makes me tired? Everything else that happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In his first year, Trump ordered a complete and independent audit of the Pentagon. Now the auditors say the job is impossible to complete. The Pentagon fudges their numbers and documents in order to justify increases to the Pentagon budget (whether or not the money gets used–a common business practice). Their records have irregularities and errors, and lack the needed information. The Pentagon’s defense? “We didn’t expect to pass it.”
  2. A federal judges rules that a lawsuit against the Trump Foundation can proceed. The suit accuses Trump of misusing funds from the charity for political and personal gain. Trump’s legal team says he can’t be sued because he’s president; the judge says he can.

Russia:

  1. Robert Mueller drops Paul Manafort’s plea deal, saying Manafort breached their agreement by continually lying to investigators. On top of that, Manafort’s lawyers were keeping Trump’s legal team abreast of their discussions with Mueller’s team.
    • Mueller considers filing additional charges against Manafort, and will file a report on what Manafort lied about.
    • Since Manafort already pleaded guilty, he’s now on the hook for those crimes… and also probably for conspiring to defraud the U.S. and obstruct justice.
    • According to The Guardian, Manafort met with WikiLeak’s Julian Assange around the same time he joined Trump’s campaign, and the two had met a few times before that. Both deny they ever met and no other media outlet has confirmed this story, so I’m taking this report with a grain of salt.
    • After Mueller pulls Manafort’s plea deal, Trump says Mueller’s gone rogue and is forcing witnesses to lie.
    • Rudy Giuliani brags about the arrangement with Manafort’s lawyers. He says it was a valuable source of information about the investigation of which his client is a subject.
    • Trump doesn’t rule out a pardon for Manafort.
  1. Michael Cohen enters a new plea agreement with Mueller, pleading guilty to lying about when talks with Russia about a Trump property ended. Cohen told Congress that the talks ended in January 2016, but they were still going on until June 2016. We have the texts to prove it. 
Cohen is the 33rd person charged by Mueller in the Russia probe.
  2. Cohen says he spoke with Trump and his family about the Trump Tower negotiations during that time; previously Cohen said they didn’t talk about it.
  3. The new court filings show that:
    • Cohen, Trump, Felix Sater, and Russian officials were in negotiations from January through June of 2016 for Trump to travel to Russia to meet with Putin.
    • They discussed Cohen going to Russia to negotiate the details of the visit before the Republican National Convention, and Trump going to Russia after.
    • In early to mid-June of 2016, Cohen told Sater that the trips were cancelled and that the Trump property deal was also cancelled.
    • Cohen says he lied to Congress to limit the Russia investigation and to support Trump.
    • Trump Organization offered to give Putin a $50 million penthouse in the tower.
    • Trump lied to us all when he said he didn’t have any interests in Russia.
    • Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicts Michael Cohen’s testimony.
    • Trump was kept abreast of his campaign members who were contacting both Russia and Wikileaks, and they subsequently tried to hide those activities.
  1. Rudy Giuliani first says Cohen is a liar, and then says that Trump’s written answers match Cohen’s version. So either Trump is a liar, or Cohen is telling the truth.
  2. Trump says Cohen is a liar and a weak person who’s just trying to save himself from receiving a prison sentence for unrelated charges.
  3. The revelations about Trump Tower Moscow aren’t necessarily criminal or impeachable. Trump says there was nothing wrong with him continuing to do business as a candidate. Which is technically true. However, the American public have a right to know where a presidential candidate’s financial interests stand.
  4. We now know that the final House committee reports submitted by the majority Republicans include the lies from Cohen’s and Trump Jr.’s original testimony. Committee reports submitted by minority Democrats include snippets of emails that contradict those lies. Democrats want to call Cohen back in to correct the record.
  5. As a results of this plea deal, Senate committees begin reviewing the testimony given to them.
  6. The Trump Tower Moscow deal was dissolved right around the time the Washington Post published the first article detailing the Russian hacking of the DNC servers.
  7. Republican Senator Jeff Flake demands a vote on a bill to protect Mueller, or he’ll stop voting to advance Trump’s judicial nominations to a full Senate vote. Republican Senator Mike Lee blocked a bipartisan effort to force a vote on the bill.
  8. An email trail between Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi, who pulled back on his plea deal with Mueller, shows that two months before WikiLeaks dumped Clinton campaign emails, they were discussing details about an October dump that would be damaging to Clinton.
  9. Mueller investigates call logs from the 2016 campaign where Trump made several late-night calls from a blocked number to Roger Stone.
  10. Trump cancels his meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit over Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and then says he’ll meet with Putin one-on-one. They ended up having an informal meeting.
  11. James Comey asks a federal judge to block a request from Republicans in the House that he testify in private. In the end, Comey agrees to testify behind closed doors, but a transcript of his testimony will be made public.
  12. British intelligence say that Putin was likely behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on UK soil.
  13. Democrats in the House start making a list of targets to investigate when they take back over the House next year. They’ll likely revisit the 64 subpoenas that Republicans blocked over the past year and a half.

Legal Fallout:

  1. German police raid Deutsche Bank headquarters as part of a money laundering investigation spawned by the Panama Papers. The bank was previously fined for helping to launder Russian money.
  2. The raid has no apparent ties to Trump, but after an internal investigation earlier this year, Deutsche Bank found questionable transactions by Jared Kushner, which they shared with Mueller. They were also one of the few banks willing to loan money to Trump after his financial collapses.
  3. Federal agents raid the Chicago offices of Ed Burke, who previously did tax work for Trump. We don’t know if the raid is related to Trump at all.
  4. It was a mystery to me why Facebook would launch a smear campaign against George Soros when defending themselves over personal data breaches. It turns out that Soros criticized the company at the World Economic Forum, so Sheryl Sandberg asked for information on whether Soros had something to gain from that. This led her staff to hire a GOP opposition research firm.
  5. House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) says that Ivanka’s use of personal email is OK because it’s just really hard to comply when you’re dealing with so many emails and so many rules. He says it’s nothing like Hillary’s use of a personal email server.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Mike Pence casts the tie-breaking vote when Jeff Flake refuses to advance Trump’s judicial nominee, Thomas Farr, out of committee for a floor vote. Flake didn’t refuse to advance Farr because of Farr’s long and sordid history of working to suppress the Black vote in North Carolina; Flake refused to advance him because he wants McConnell to bring the Mueller bill to the floor for a vote.
  2. Farr might have made it out of committee, but he wasn’t confirmed in the Senate. It turns out that the Black Republican in the Senate isn’t fond of judges who work to disenfranchise Black voters, so he joined Jeff Flake in voting against him.
  3. Christine Blasey Ford announces she’ll donate the remaining money raised from a GoFundMe campaign to organizations that support survivors of sexual assault. Up till now, the money went to securing and relocating her family multiple times due to threats of death and violence.
  4. New reports allege that Acting Attorney General Matt Whittaker continued his support of a patent company that was engaged in fraud while at the same time hindering an FTC investigation into that company.
  5. Whittaker is also under investigation by the Office of the Special Counsel (not to be confused with Robert Mueller) for possible Hatch Act violations for accepting political contributions while employed by the government.
  6. Bill Shine, the White House deputy communications chief, will receive about $15 million from Fox News over the next two years as severance pay and bonus. At the same time, he gets a U.S. government salary and he’s in a position to show favoritism to Fox News.

Healthcare:

  1. New enrollments for health insurance through the ACA is down 13% from last year at this time. The administration isn’t providing marketing or education for help with signing up (again).
  2. Drug overdoses reached a record high of 70,237 in 2017, largely due to fentanyl.
  3. Bloomberg’s foundation plans to donate $50 million to fight the opioid epidemic. They’ll start with a limited number of states and find out which programs are the most effective. Then they’ll put more money towards those programs in other states.
  4. The number of uninsured children increased in 2017 for the first time in a decade. Texas has the largest number of uninsured children, partly because they’re one of the states that refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA.

International:

  1. Just before Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, the Saudi Crown Prince exchanged several messages with the senior aide accused of overseeing the murder. These messages are part of what led our intelligence agencies to conclude that the Crown Prince likely ordered the killing.
  2. Even Mitch McConnell is pushing for a congressional response against Saudi Arabia in the Khashoggi case.
  3. The White House prevents CIA director Gina Haspel from briefing the Senate on Saudi Arabia. Instead, Mike Pompeo and James Mattis handle the briefing.
  4. Not only is the arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia non-binding (meaning either party can back out), but the dollar amount of the deal was inflated at Jared Kushner’s direction from $14.5 billion to $110 billion.
  5. Paris has its worst riots in 50 years. The riots started two weeks ago over a gas tax coupled with anti-Macron sentiment.
  6. Activists call Obama the ‘Drone President,‘ but Trump relaxed requirements for targets of drone strikes and has launched 30% more than Obama did in his first two years (238 drone strikes to Obama’s 186).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Democrats nominate Nancy Pelosi to be House Speaker.
  2. The Senate advances a resolution to stop providing military help to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen. Fourteen Republicans vote for the resolution, and 19 switch their votes from their previous vote because of an inadequate briefing by Mattis and Pompeo and because of Khashoggi’s murder.
  3. Congress reaches a deal on a farm bill that does not include work requirements for SNAP recipients. Trump and House Republicans were pushing for those requirements.

Family Separation:

  1. There are still around 60 children in custody who were separated from their (now-deported) parents. Almost all of these children have sponsors they could be released to in the U.S. In total, 140 children who were separated from their parents or guardian are still in custody.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump tweets that Mexico should just send back everyone in the migrant caravan to whatever country they came from and by any means possible. He says again (and without evidence) that many of them are stone cold criminals.
  2. A review of global terrorism shows that violent acts motivated by far right-wing ideologies far outnumber acts of domestic terrorism acts in any other category over the past decade.
  3. A memo from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the Trump administration said it’s OK to not thoroughly vet staff at detention camps for migrant minors.
  4. Instead of releasing government documents on actual costs/benefits of undocumented immigrants, Trump retweets a false rumor that they receive $3,874 per month in assistance.
  5. The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2016 hit the lowest number in over a decade, with an estimated 10.7 million.
  6. The head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media apologizes to George Soros after they aired a program smearing Soros and using anti-Semitic tropes. The program called Soros a “non-practicing Jew of flexible morals” and said he was involved in “clandestine operations that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union.” It also said he architected the 2008 financial collapse. The program got most of it’s information from Judicial Watch, which has long sought to pin some kind of wrongdoing on Soros.
  7. Deteriorating conditions at migrant camps near the border are leading more immigrants to attempt illegal crossings so they can seek asylum. This is what the Trump administration was trying to avoid, but by trapping them at the border, the administration created the conditions that are now worsening the problem.
  8. The ACLU files a lawsuit against a Florida Sheriff’s Office that detained a U.S. citizen on ICE’s request. The man was arrested in the Keys and detained for weeks despite having a U.S. birth certificate. He was finally transported to ICE, who released him once they looked up his birth certificate. In Miami. With no money or transportation to get back to the Keys. Interesting side note: ICE has an agreement with this Sheriff’s Office to pay them $50 per detainee.
  9. The police officer who shot her black neighbor when she mistakenly walked into his apartment thinking it was her own is charged with murder.
  10. One more reason we need #MeToo. Seven hospitals agree to a settlement after they illegally billed sexual assault victims for their own forensic rape exams.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Fox News disciplines employees who were involved in crafting topics and questions with the EPA for an interview with Scott Pruitt. Fox & Friends coordinated the entire interview with Pruitt (or his aides) and Pruitt lied about the number of Superfund sites cleaned up under Obama versus under Trump.
  2. Who knew all you had to do to get out of fraud charges is to quit? The inspector general of the EPA closes two investigations into Scott Pruitt’s conduct during his time as head of the EPA because he doesn’t work there anymore.
  3. At the G20 summit in Brazil, 19 world leaders reaffirm the Paris agreement with one leader abstaining. Trump reiterates our decision to withdraw. Yay us. We affirm our strong commitment to not deal with climate change.
  4. Exxon plans to use renewable energy—wind and solar—to help power up their gas and oil drilling in Texas’s Permian Basin, an area with extensive fracking operations.
  5. Washington, D.C.’s city council votes unanimously to adopt 100% clean electricity by 2032.
  6. Patagonia announces they’ll give $10 million of what they received in corporate tax cuts this year to grassroots organizations supporting the environment.
  7. Andrew Wheeler, the acting head of the EPA, gives Trump the credit for a 2.5% reduction in carbon emissions in 2016… before Trump took office. He also says carbon emissions are down 14% since 2005. This is in no small part due to the Obama regulations this administration has worked to reverse.
  8. Wheeler can’t name three Trump rules that contributed to the decrease in emissions, (unless you include the proposed reversals of Obama emissions-reducing rules that he named).
  9. Trump approves company requests to run seismic tests in the Atlantic Ocean, which could kill tens of thousands of marine animals. Underwater seismic tests are used to locate gas and oil.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The VA has been behind on GI Bill payments to vets because of a computer glitch, and now they’re saying they won’t reimburse vets who weren’t paid the full amount owed them.
  2. Auto companies warned us last summer that the tariffs would have negative economic effects on the industry. This week, GM announces they’ll stop production at five plants and layoff over 14,000 people. They offered buyout packages to 18,000 employees in October.
    • The reasons for the cutbacks include changing their lineup to align with Americans’ changing tastes, the decimation of unions (unions used to train employees on the new skills they need to adapt), and costs related to the trade war and tariffs.
  1. Trump threatens to eliminate GM’s subsidies if they go ahead with the closures. Trump also blames the declining stock market and the Fed for the closures and layoffs.
  2. Over 40% of companies say they’ll raise prices due to the higher costs they’re incurring as a result of the trade war. 10% say the tariffs are pushing them to move jobs offshore.
  3. Even though Paul Ryan oversaw legislation that will add trillions to our debt, he says his biggest regret is that he didn’t address our federal debt.
  4. Just before the start of the G20 summit, Trump, Trudeau, and Peña Nieto sign the updated NAFTA deal. Trump says it’s the biggest trade deal ever. But of course it is.
  5. Also at the G20, Trump and Chinese President Xi come to a verbal agreement on tariffs. They basically agreed that Trump won’t add any new tariffs, China will start buying our stuff again, and the two countries will begin talks.
  6. Qatar announces it’s leaving OPEC next year so they can develop their liquified natural gas.

Elections:

  1. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith wins the Mississippi Senate race, showing once and for all why Mississippi is so far behind the rest of the country in race relations. But since it was the closest race there in 30 years, maybe that means they’re a little less racist than before. I can hope.
    • With her election, Republicans have picked up a total of three Senate seats in the midterms.
  1. Paul Ryan calls the ballot process in California bizarre and loosey-goosey after seven GOP House seats shifted to Democrats as mail-in and provisional ballots were counted. Ryan says he doesn’t question the validity of the results, though, so I guess he just wanted to be sure he planted that question mark in everyone’ heads.
  2. The Office of Special Counsel (again, not to be confused with Mueller’s office) says six Trump administration officials tweeted support for Republicans or for Trump on their government Twitter accounts. This is a violation of the Hatch Act, but not enough for disciplinary action.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Representative Raul Grijalva wrote an op-ed criticizing Ryan Zinke over his ethical scandals and saying Zinke should resign. Zinke’s response from his official Interior Department Twitter account? “It’s hard for him to think straight from the bottom of the bottle.” This country is being run by children.
  2. Trump threatens House Democrats, saying that if they play tough with him when they become the majority, he’ll declassify documents that will be “devastating” to them. He says he could’ve used those documents against them already, but he’s saving them for when he really needs to use them. A) I think that’s called extortion, and B) he doesn’t have a great track record so far of declassifying information to further his cause.
  3. Making good on a promise he made after the Las Vegas shooting, Trump says he’ll approve a federal rule banning bump stocks. Current owners will either have to destroy their bump stocks or turn them in.
  4. Eric Bauman, the chair of the California Democratic Party, resigns after accusations of sexual misconduct are publicized. An investigation is ongoing.
  5. NASA and JPL land another successful spacecraft on Mars. InSight will investigate the planet’s interior and measure Mars-quakes.
  6. And speaking of quakes, Anchorage experiences a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale (with 1,000 aftershocks). We still don’t know the extent of the damage; there are collapsed roads, buckled bridges, cracked buildings, power outages, and people are still boiling water.

Week 78 in Trump

Posted on July 23, 2018 in Politics, Trump

At least one of these guys looks happy.

Confused about all the Russia kerfuffle and whether Trump believes our intelligence agencies over Putin? John Hartzell’s tweet pretty much sums up the cleanup process after the joint press conference:

“Today, Trump lied, lied about lying, changed his mind, lied about changing his mind, changed his mind about lying, blamed someone else for something he did, lied about blaming someone else, took a breath, and lied.”

Even though intelligence agencies presented Trump with proof of Russian interference from the start, he has always muddied the waters to make sure that people continue to question the findings of our own intelligence agencies. It’s the reason he can never come up with a clear and cogent response to questions about it.

Russia:

There’s so much Russia news this week that I have to break it out into sub-sections. So here goes.

Trump/Putin Summit:

  1. Trump and Putin hold a two-hour summit, followed by a controversial press conference that sets off a worldwide firestorm. I’ll just start by saying that Russian officials call the summit and press conference major success for Putin, while Trump receives massive criticism back at home.
  2. What did they discuss at the summit? Trump says war and peace, Syria, Ukraine, and Israel (Putin loves Bibi, apparently). But no one really knows for sure.
  3. There was no one in attendance in the Trump/Putin summit except translators, so we have no official record of what happened. There was no joint statement so we don’t know what they agreed on.
  4. Here are some press conference highlights of what Trump says (remember this is just days after the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking the DNC and after Dan Coates told us that there are warning signs of more hacking):
    • When asked about Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Trump refuses to support our own intelligence agencies, and instead says Putin’s denials were forceful and credible.
    • He denies collusion and calls the Russia investigation a disaster for the U.S. Even though the Russia investigation has spawned state investigations and resulted in 32 indictments, 5 guilty pleas, and over 100 charges.
    • Trump suggests that our intelligence agencies (specifically Dan Coates) are not credible and are conspiring against him. Even though Coates told him that Russia was behind the hacking of the DNC servers, Trump doesn’t see any reason why Russia would do that and it could be anybody else.
    • Trump blames the U.S. for our current relationship with Russia, calling the U.S. foolish (and ignoring Russia’s attacks on Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine; their actions in Syria; the poisonings in England; and the downing of the Malaysian passenger jet). Trump sees the U.S. and Russia as morally equivalent.
    • Trump brings up his electoral win, claiming incorrectly that it’s harder for a Republican to win the electoral college than a Democrat. In reality, Democrats need an extra margin of about 11% of the popular vote.
    • He brings up Hillary’s emails again, along with a debunked conspiracy theory about a Pakistani DNC staffer who was arrested. He adds that Russia would never let this happen in their country.
    • Trump calls Putin a good competitor, not an adversary… just after he called the EU one of our biggest foes.
    • He is impressed by Putin’s offer to have Mueller share his evidence on the 12 indicted Russian officials if we allow Russia to interrogate U.S. officials. This would give Russia a view into how our intelligence agencies work and what their capabilities are.
    • Trump also considers handing over Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, and Bill Browder for questioning. Putin has long wanted Bill Browder, who exposed the corruption in the Russian government that led to the Magnitsky Act. Side note: Browder is no longer a U.S. citizen, so we can’t really hand him over anyway.
  1. Here‘s some of what Putin says:
    • Russia has never interfered in a U.S. election and they never will.
    • Putin supports Trump in his assertion that there was no collusion.
    • Putin says he knows nothing about any kompromat, claiming he didn’t even know Trump was in town during the Miss Universe pageant. Uh-huh. Even though he cancelled a meeting with Trump during that time.
  1. Later, in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Putin says that our efforts to isolate Russia have failed.
  2. Putin also says he misspoke when he said that Clinton received $400 million from associates of Bill Browder and that it was $400,000 (the actual number is closer to $18,000).
  3. A member of Russia’s parliament says that Russian intelligence stole the 2016 presidential election right out from under the noses of U.S. intelligence.
  4. In a follow-up interview with Sean Hannity, Trump reiterates that Putin says there’s no collusion and that Putin is very, very strong on that. Trump also says Mueller’s Russia investigation is a “phony, witch hunt deal” and that Putin thinks it’s a shame.

Press Conference Fallout:

  1. Reaction is swift, harsh, and bipartisan. Politicians from both sides reiterate that Russia isn’t our friend, there‘s no doubt that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections, and the interference campaign was organized by the Russian government.
  2. Even Fox News is highly critical, with the exception of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
  3. GOP critics use these words to describe the conference: tragic, disgraceful, bizarre, flat-out wrong, shameful, a propaganda win for Putin, and a missed opportunity to hold Russia accountable. Critics on the left call Trump’s response dangerous and weak.
  4. So Trump and the White House attempt some backpedaling… and then forward pedaling… and then backpedaling again:
    • Trump says he misspoke when he said he couldn’t see why Russia WOULD interfere, and says he meant to say WOULDN’T.
    • He accepts intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections, but then adds that it could also be other people.
    • The next day Trump responds “no” to questions of whether Russia is still interfering, contradicting all of our intelligence agencies and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee.
    • The White House tries to clarify by saying that Trump was saying “no” to answering any more questions, not “no” to whether Russia is still meddling. This could actually be true; it’s hard to tell.
    • Trump says he was very strong when admonishing Putin that he can’t interfere in our elections.
    • On Monday, Trump thinks Putin made an incredible offer to collaborate on investigations. On Wednesday, Trump says he’ll meet with his advisors to discuss handing over Browder, McFaul, and other government agents to Russia for questioning. And then on Thursday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump disagrees with the offer.
    • Trump says he believes Putin when he says he didn’t interfere, but then he says Putin must have known about the interference because he’s in charge of the country.
  1. Even Paul Ryan, who just the week before said we shouldn’t criticize Trump while he’s overseas (in reference to his NATO meetings), criticizes Trump’s words. Mitch McConnell reiterates that Russia is not our friend.
  2. European officials call Trump weak and say he can’t be counted on, though some NATO members do try to smooth things over.
  3. Democrats demand that Republican leaders (like they’re in a position to demand anything):
    • Strengthen sanctions against Russia
    • Force the security team that went to Helsinki with Trump to testify before Congress so we can learn about what was agreed
    • End their attacks on our intelligence agencies and Mueller
    • Extradite the 12 indicted Russian hackers.
  1. McConnell and Ryan consider additional Russia sanctions.
  2. The Russian Ambassador to the U.S. says the summit produced important verbal agreements. Russian officials and the Russian press start talking about all the agreements that were made, yet the American people have no idea what those are.
  3. The Russian Ministry of Defense says that they’re ready to implement all the summit agreements around global security.
  4. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the summit was fabulous, “better than super.”
  5. In contrast, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refuses to talk to the press about it.
  6. House Intelligence Committee Democrats request a subpoena for the American interpreter, who was the only other American in the room at the meeting between Trump and Putin. The GOP leadership rejects that request.
  7. The whole thing incites protests in Washington, DC, including at the White House. These have been ongoing for a week now.
  8. Weeks before Trump’s inauguration, intelligence agencies presented him with proof that Putin personally directed the 2016 election interference. This proof included emails and texts from Russian military officers. Sources say Trump was “grudgingly” convinced.
  9. While Dan Coates is being interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, he finds out by tweet that Trump is inviting Putin to the White House in the fall. He appears to laugh at Trump at this point.
  10. At the same forum, Kirstjen Nielsen refuses to say she agrees with our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia, specifically Putin, was behind the election interference. She’s the Secretary of HOMELAND SECURITY. Come on!
  11. Trump tries to blame Obama for Russian interference. Obama probably could’ve done more but in reality he was blocked by Mitch McConnell.
    • McConnell received the same intelligence briefing, so he knew what was going on leading up to the 2016 elections.
    • When Obama asked him to sign on to a bipartisan public statement about it, McConnell refused.
    • McConnell told Obama not to release the information and that he [McConnell] would consider any efforts to publicly challenge Russia “an act of partisan politics.”
    • Well played, Mitch; well played.

Other Russia News:

  1. The head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command says he’s directed both agencies to coordinate to fight any future interference in our elections by foreign powers. But they’re on their own; he hasn’t received any White House guidance on this.
  2. Federal agents arrest Maria Butina, a gun rights advocate who is charged with being an unregistered foreign agent (aka “spy”). She allegedly infiltrated the NRA and cozied up to GOP politicians to influence U.S. politics in the interest of Russia.
    • According to prosecutors, Butina tried to exchange sex for influence. She’s been living with Paul Erickson, a conservative political operative from South Dakota who is under investigation for fraud.
    • Her alleged co-conspirator in Russia is Alexander Torshin, who is currently under U.S. sanctions. They were trying to develop back-channel lines of communication between Russian and American officials.
    • Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) calls the indictment against Butina bogus. Does he protest too much? The affidavit implies that Butina was setting up a meeting between Rohrabacher and Torshin when Rohrabacher visited Russia in 2015.
    • The FBI has a proposal authored by Butina talking about how they can take power away from the Democrats in 2016 and give it to a (not named) party that will be more friendly to Russian interests. The influence campaign started with the NRA and CPAC.
    • It was Butina who secured invitations for Russian officials to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.
    • The affidavit also suggests that Russia had some influence on Trump’s selection for Secretary of State.
    • Butina was arrested when it appeared she was preparing to leave the country. She’s deemed a flight risk, so is being held without bail.
    • Russia’s foreign minister demands Butina’s immediate release.
  1. Twitter suspends the accounts of Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks after last week’s indictment of the Russian hackers.
  2. Trey Gowdy says there’s no good reason to impeach Rod Rosenstein.
  3. Mueller requests immunity for five witnesses in the Paul Manafort trial. He also releases over 500 pieces of evidence being used in the trial.
  4. Remember those Macedonian trolls who pushed pro-Trump, anti-Hillary, and conservative fake stories and conspiracy theories before the 2016 elections? It turns out the effort was started by a Macedonian attorney with the assistance of two American conservatives, Ben Goldman and Paris Wade (you might remember a profile done on them in 2016 describing them writing fake news stories out of their Long Beach apartment). Paris Wade is running for Nevada State Assembly.
  5. The data that Cambridge Analytica mined off Facebook was accessed by a server in Russia.
  6. Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, says Russia is very aggressive in election interference and that they’re actively creating discord and divisiveness in the U.S. right now.
  7. The DOJ releases highly redacted documents that were used to support the Carter Page FISA warrant application. This type of information is typically not made public.
  8. Trump claims that the redacted documents show that his campaign really was being illegally spied on, even though there’s nothing in the released documents that imply that.

Courts/Justice:

  1. I guess we’re cool with the FBI again? Jeff Sessions delivers an address to students at Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC). These are members of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Sessions says, “You and your brothers and sisters are in every corner of America, working 24 hours a day to courageously and faithfully protect this nation and our people. We are proud of you.”
  2. Republicans in the Senate pull Trump’s nomination for the 9th circuit court of appeals, Ryan Bounds, not because of Bounds’ racist writings, but because they don’t have enough votes to confirm him.
  3. Mitch McConnell says that if Democrats keep pushing for documentation around Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, he’ll delay the confirmation hearings until right before the midterms to hurt vulnerable Democrats in their re-election efforts.

Healthcare:

  1. A district court judge rules in Trump’s favor on changes to Title X regarding family planning grants. The changes move the emphasis from contraception and safe sex to abstinence and natural family planning (whatever that is). Because we all know that when you tell youngsters to abstain from sex, that’s what they do, right?

International:

  1. Trumps says that NATO members agreed to pony up way more money because he was so assertive. NATO members say, not. They’re just meeting the conditions of their 2014 agreement with the Obama administration.
  2. During the NATO summit, Trump reportedly praised authoritarian Turkish president Erdogan while criticizing our allies in Europe for needing to consult with their respective legislative branches before making policy decisions.
  3. Trump questions why we would come to the defense of a small country like NATO member Montenegro.
  4. While Trump meets with Putin, leaders from the EU and China meet and agree on a joint resolution as well as a commitment to keep the global system strong.
  5. Trump tells diplomats to initiate negotiations directly with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Previously, we’ve worked to include the Afghanistan government in these talks, but the Taliban only wants to talk to the U.S. government.
  6. Israel’s parliament passes a bill that defines Israel as the Jewish nation-state, where Hebrew is the official language and Jerusalem is the capital.
  7. And speaking of Israel, moving our embassy to Jerusalem will cost us $21.2 million instead of the $250,000 Trump said it would.
  8. So far Brexit is costing the UK Treasury 440 million pounds a week; more than the EU ever cost them. Brexit was sold as an economic boon for the country.
  9. North Korean officials have been cancelling meetings and demanded more money. They don’t seem to be slowing down their nuclear program any either. Trump is frustrated by the slow pace and obstacles.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Democrats put forth a resolution to prevent the president from turning over American citizens to hostile foreign powers. It passes unanimously.
  2. The House passes the BUILD Act, which will encourage private investment in countries with lower income economies to help fight extreme poverty.
  3. The GOP blocks Democratic legislation to question the translator at the Trump/Putin summit, to investigate NRA ties to Russian money, and to back our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.
  4. Democrats continue to request a vote on an amendment that would provide funding to states for election security, but the GOP leadership continues to refuse the vote.

Separating Families:

  1. A judge blocks the government from deporting newly reunited families to make sure none are improperly deported.
  2. A court orders counseling for children who are victims of family separation at the border. They court calls it a constitutional injury, and in some cases may require treatment for PTSD.
  3. So far, only 364 of the more than 2,500 children taken at the border have been reunited with their parents. Of 1,600 parents waiting to be reunited, almost half are slated for deportation.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. More than 100 elected officials from 20 states sign on to an open letter arguing that we should abolish ICE, the agency created after 9/11 to keep our borders secure. They say ICE is too broken to be reformed and should be abolished. They don’t have an alternative yet.
  2. A district judge in Pennsylvania rules that religious adoption agencies do not have the right to discriminate against prospective parents based on religious beliefs while at the same time accepting taxpayer money.
  3. The NFL puts its new kneeling-during-the-anthem policy on hold while they negotiate the terms with the teams. So Trump tweets a call for extreme punishments for players who kneel.
  4. A federal appeals court rejects the Trump administration’s efforts to reinstate the ban on transgender troops while the his original ban makes its way through the courts.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Department of the Interior issues a proposal to overhaul the endangered species act to make it more friendly to economic development (or as it’s better known, drilling and mining projects). This is the act that saved the Yellowstone grizzly and the BALD FREAKING EAGLE from extinction, among others.
  2. California just reached their goal of reducing their carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—two years ahead of time.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The EU and Japan sign a major trade agreement that gets rid of most of the tariffs on goods imported between the two.
  2. Trump criticizes the Feds‘ decision to raise interest rates again, saying it’ll slow down our booming economy. Which is kind of the point of interest rate hikes.
  3. A group of major U.S. companies signs on to a new jobs training initiative by the Trump administration.
  4. China files a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Trump’s proposed tariffs, saying they fall under protectionism.
  5. The Congressional Budget Office updates its estimates, and now says our deficit will hit $1 trillion next year.
  6. Trump threatens even higher tariffs against China, saying he’ll go up to $500 billion if he has to.
  7. Republicans in Congress back off from making sure the sanctions against Chinese company ZTE stick, and instead allow Trump to make this a personal favor to China president Xi Jinping.

Elections:

  1. A lawyer for one of Roy Moore’s accusers has recorded conversations of two of Moore’s supporters offering him $10,000 to drop the case and discredit the victim before the Senate election that Democrat Doug Jones won.
  2. No dark money in politics, you say? The Trump administration ends IRS disclosure requirements for certain nonprofits, allowing donors to give money without any scrutiny. How many ways can we make Citizens United worse?
  3. Some states’ voter registration systems operate on systems owned by Russian-backed companies.
  4. A top voting machine manufacturer admits they issued a few of those servers with the remote sharing application pcAnywhere installed.
  5. The reason the FBI took so long to announce the reopening of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation (which is why it happened just nine days before the election) is that the bureau was so overwhelmed with the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.

Miscellaneous:

  1. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai pushes back on Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s merger with Tribune Media. There’s concern that even with the changes Sinclair is willing to make, they would still control too many stations.
  2. Also on the Sinclair front, the company recently announced that they’ll release a streaming app later this year to compete with other agencies, such as Fox News.
  3. A recent court filing indicates that the secret service has been blocking attempts to serve a subpoena to Jared Kushner.
  4. The inspector general for the Interior Department opens an investigation into a real estate deal between Ryan Zinke’s foundation and certain developers (including Halliburton).
  5. In the material seized from Michael Cohen, there’s a recorded conversation between him and Trump discussing payments to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who says she had an affair with Trump. The conversation took place a few months before the election.
  6. Oddly enough, Trump’s lawyers waived attorney-client privilege around this recording.
  7. In the middle of a signing ceremony for work training and apprenticeships, Trump realizes that his reality show, The Apprentice, was about apprenticeships.
  8. Obama gives the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in South Africa, where he alludes to Trump without calling him out by name. He says these are strange and uncertain times, with the rise of strongman politics around the globe.
  9. Starting August 1, people can download plans for 3-D printable guns. None of which will be traceable because they don’t have a serial number. Yay us.

Polls:

The only thing I’ll say about polls is that Trump’s approval numbers should’ve changed this week, but they didn’t. ‘Nuff said.

Week 77 in Trump

Posted on July 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

It was a busy week, with Trump going after NATO on his way to making nice with Putin, protests greeting him wherever he goes, and Mueller dropping a 29-page indictment days before Trump’s meeting with Putin. Back home, things aren’t getting much better for new asylum seekers and for families separated at the border (though some have been reunited). Tariffs are still a hot issue, as is Peter Strzok’s testimony (I swear the right saw one version of the hearing and the left saw a completely different one – crazy).

Here’s what happened last week…

Russia:

  1. Michael Flynn will likely be sentenced in the fall, right around midterm elections.
  2. We learn that during their trip to Moscow last week, Republican members of Congress met with two Russians who are currently under U.S. sanctions. While several lawmakers came back with a softened stance on Russia, Senator John Kennedy told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Congress will double down on sanctions if Russia interferes again.
  3. While working to get a meeting with Putin, Trump insulted members of his administration who didn’t think the meeting was a good idea, calling them “stupid people.” He berated his own people in deference to Putin.
  4. Twitter has deleted 70 million suspicious accounts, most of which are bots or fake accounts.
  5. Paul Manafort’s request for a delay of trial backfires when a judge denies it and moves him to a closer facility. Manafort says it’s too hard to prepared for trial while incarcerated 100 miles away, but objected strongly to the move—a big surprise to the judge. But then we learn that in his current prison, Manafort:
    • Has access to computers.
    • Has his own phone and no limit to how many calls he can make.
    • Has access to all his files.
    • Has private living quarters with his own bathroom and shower.
    • Doesn’t have to wear a uniform.
  1. Manafort asks the judge not to move him, but the judge thinks it’s the easiest fix to the problem of being 100 miles away.
  2. Mueller requests 100 new blank subpoenas for the Manafort trial on top of the 150 he requested last month.
  3. Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence FBI agent who was involved in the Russia investigation, testifies publicly before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committee.
  4. Strzok’s hearing devolves into a shouting match, with GOP Reps resorting to profanity and Strzok staunchly defending the FBI. Nothing new was learned, there was much posturing, and Strzok heartily defended the FBI and himself (leading to people who don’t like him to start calling him “smug”). He often had to explain how the FBI hierarchy works and how they check their politics at the door. Strzok was limited on what he could say about much of the ongoing investigation.
  5. A day after Strzok’s testimony, the woman he exchanged texts with, Lisa Page, testifies behind close doors. Despite Republicans previously trying to smear her by saying she wasn’t cooperating, Mark Meadows (R-NC) came out saying she was more forthcoming than Strzok. Like Strzok, she defended her texts, saying that their political feelings did not influence their work.
  6. GOP lawmakers don’t want Page to testify publicly (they were resistant to Strzok testifying publicly as well).
  7. After the farce of a hearing with Strzok, Trey Gowdy has this to say. You just don’t know which Gowdy you’re going to get from one day to the next…

“As I have repeatedly said, it is clear, based on the evidence, Russia had disdain for Secretary Clinton and was motivated in whole or in part by a desire to harm her candidacy or undermine her presidency had she prevailed.”

  1. Mueller comes down with 12 new indictments again Russian intelligence (GRU) officers in a filing that gives us much more detail about what happened with the hacking, who was involved, and what Mueller actually knows (which is a lot more than I thought). Here are some highlights:
    • The indictments are for stealing and leaking emails from Democrats and Democratic organizations to help Trump get elected in 2016.
    • Hackers used spearphishing and malware.
    • They used screen shots and keystroke loggers to monitor what DNC and DCCC employees were typing.
    • They extracted gigabytes of opposition research on Republican candidates.
    • The Russian government was behind the interference campaign.
    • The Russians being indicted created the Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks online personas.
    • An associate of senior members of Trump’s campaign was in touch with Guccifer 2.0. That person is believed to be Roger Stone, but that’s not spelled out in the indictment.
    • A congressional candidate asked Guccifer 2.0 for stolen documents on their opponent, which that candidate did receive.
    • The Russian hackers made their first attempt to hack Hillary’s personal emails on the same day that Trump (on TV) asked Russia to find the 30,000 missing emails.
    • Two of the hackers conspired to access servers of people and organizations that handle elections, like secretaries of state, state boards of elections, and supporting software companies.
    • The hackers breached a state board of elections website and accessed information for 500,000 voters along with DNC analytics.
    • The scope of the indictment shows that the misinformation campaign involved more than just propaganda and division.
  1. Democratic leaders on congressional intelligence committees urge Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin following the announcement of the indictments and to demand proof that Russia is no longer interfering in our elections.
  2. Trump says he might consider canceling joint NATO exercises in the Baltic States if Putin requests it.
  3. The White House orders the FBI to expand access to classified information to all intelligence committee members. Remember, these documents are about an ongoing investigation.
  4. After the indictment is published, Trump blames the DNC for the hack, saying Republicans had stronger internet security. And then he went on to blame Obama, since it happened under his administration.
    Side note: In his testimony, James Comey said that Republicans were also hacked, but the hacked information was never released. From what I can find, old RNC servers and Republican state campaigns were successfully hacked, but the Trump campaign and current RNC servers were not. I can’t verify this though.
  5. Trump also says it never occurred to him to demand the extradition of the Russians who’ve been indicted so far in the probe so they can face charges.
  6. Mitch McConnell rejects bipartisan requests for a select committee investigation into the Russian meddling and hacking in the 2016 elections. They aren’t requesting an investigation into Trump; just a non-partisan effort to understand what happened and to make sure Russia can’t do it again.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump nominates DC district court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to fill Kennedy’s seat. Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy and been a part of the DC scene for much of his career.
  2. Rod Rosenstein has requested help from U.S district attorneys to review government documents related to Kavanaugh due to the scope of the documents requested.
  3. Even though Brian Benczkowski, Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, has never prosecuted a criminal case and previously represented Alfa Bank, every GOP senator votes to confirm him to the position.
  4. Trump issues an executive order giving agency heads more leeway in hiring administrative judges, who implement much of the regulatory agenda in an administration.
  5. The DOJ files a notice that it will try to overturn a ruling that allows AT&T to buy Time Warner, claiming that the acquisition violates anti-trust laws.
  6. Trump wants to be able to hold prisoners for 100 years in Guantanamo without ever bringing charges.

Healthcare:

  1. Russian asbestos company Uralasbest creates asbestos pallets with Trump’s likeness on them. The company cites former EPA head Scott Pruitt’s and Trump’s voiced support for the carcinogenic product.
  2. A new congressional report says that from 2012 to 2017, three companies sent around 1.6 billion opioids to Missouri pharmacies (that averages to about 260 pills for every person in the state).
  3. The administration plans to shut down the National Guideline Clearinghouse, which keeps records of medical guidelines and research. This is an invaluable source of information for medical practitioners and gets about 200,000 visitors per month. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) says they won’t even keep an archived version.

International:

  1. Brexit leader Boris Johnson resigns as Foreign Secretary less than a day after Brexit Secretary David Davis resigns. Their resignations are over the regulatory and trade terms of Brexit.
  2. Israeli, Saudi Arabian, and UAE officials have been trying to get Trump to strike a bargain with Putin where Russia would help get Iran out of Syria and the U.S. would drop sanctions against Russia (for invading Ukraine and Crimea).
  3. Before his upcoming meetings with Putin and NATO, Trump says that he thinks his meetings with Putin will be easier than meetings with our allies in NATO.
  4. Irony alert. At the NATO summit, Trump says Germany is “a captive of Russia.”
  5. Though NATO nations have been increasing their military spending as a percent of GDP (per a 2014 agreement), Trump criticizes them for not yet meeting their 2% promise. And then says they should spend 4% of GDP on the military, a level above even U.S. spending.
  6. Trump claims we spend 4.2% of our GDP on defense instead of the reported 3.5%.
  7. Trump declares victory at the NATO summit, saying European nations quickly agreed to his spending demands and were grateful to him. But other nations say they just reaffirmed the 2014 agreement to reach 2% spending by 2024.
  8. The Sun publishes an interview with Trump where he’s highly critical of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit while praising former secretary Boris Yeltsin. In the interview, Trump says he told May how to do Brexit, but she “wrecked” it. And then he says the trade deal is off.
  9. The next day, Trump says May is doing a great job. May discounts the interview, saying it’s just the press, and Trump calls it fake news. Of note, The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox (not fake) News.
  10. Sarah Huckabee Sanders then tries to clean it up by saying that he said he never said anything bad about May.
  11. And then May and Trump agree to pursue a free trade deal after Brexit is complete. Brexit is currently complicated by the departure of two key figures in the deal. Actually, it’s complicated by so many things.
  12. Taking a line from white nationalists, Trump says that immigration is changing Europe’s culture, and that it’s a bad thing.
  13. There are nationwide protests in the U.K. while Trump is there, including in Scotland where he goes to golf at one of his properties. In London, demonstrators fly a “Trump Baby” blimp as part of their protests. The protestors also play mariachi music and tapes of detained children crying for their parents.
  14. Trump and Melanie get called out for not bowing and curtsying to the queen, though that is not a required protocol, just a respectful one. But then Trump walks in front of the queen, leaving her to catch up and try to figure out what side to walk on while they inspect a guard of honour.
  15. Theresa May says Trump told her to sue the EU instead of negotiating with them.
  16. Trump says that our allies in the EU are our foes.
  17. All this time that Trump has been highly critical of Qatar for sponsoring terrorists, his administration has been working out a deal to sell Qatar $21 billion in weapons, authorized by none other than Trump.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Both the House and the Senate pass bipartisan resolutions reaffirming our support for NATO.
  2. Even though a bipartisan spending agreement earlier this year allowed for funding of CDC research into gun violence, GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee blocked a proposal to provide $10 million in such funding.
  3. The House Appropriations Committee passes an amendment that would let adoption agencies nationwide discriminate against prospective parents based on closely held religious beliefs. States that don’t comply could lose 15% of their funding for adoption agencies. Just another step to increase LGBTQ discrimination.
  4. The House passes with no objections an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act that will create a Foreign Malign Influence Response Center. The center will defend against foreign efforts to interfere in our elections (I think they’re looking at you, Russia). Dan Coates, Director of National Intelligence, will work to establish this collaboration across all relevant agencies.
  5. The Senate, in preparation for Trump’s meeting with NATO, passes a non-binding motion in support for NATO. The vote was 97-2.

Family Separation:

  1. A federal judge rules that Trump can’t detain immigrant families long-term.
  2. Some women who were pregnant when detained by ICE complain of having miscarriages with no medical assistance.
  3. The Trump administration returns to ankle bracelet monitoring, or what he called “catch and release” under Obama. This method has historically resulted in an extremely high percentage of people showing up for their immigration hearings.
  4. In a court filing, ICE says it can’t reunite a separated family because they can’t locate the parents, who might be American citizens.
  5. A judge orders ICE to post notices in detention facilities letting detainees know that they don’t have to agree to be deported in order to be reunited with their families. It’s not like every deported parent has been reunited with their children anyway. Apparently ICE officials have been exploiting this to get people to be voluntarily deported.
  6. A judge orders the Trump administration to pay for reunification costs themselves. Before, if a parent didn’t have the money to travel to wherever their child has been moved to, they couldn’t be reunited. Some parents were told they have to pay for a DNA test to be reunited. There’s obviously a misunderstanding here over what it means to be an asylum seeker.
  7. The Trump administration puts an end to the Central American Minors program. This was an Obama-era program that reunited Central American children with their parents in the U.S. This is just one of several humanitarian relief programs the Trump administration has ended. There’s a class action lawsuit against the termination of this program.
  8. The Trump administration fails to reunite the youngest separated children by the court-ordered deadline.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Hate crimes across the country have been increasing since 2015, and experts say it’s partly because of political rhetoric, specifically Trump’s vitriolic brand of it. Hate crimes spiked right after the 2016 election.
  2. The DOJ issues new guidance to reject asylum claims based on gang or domestic violence. This means ICE can turn people away before they even get a chance to plead for asylum.
  3. John Schnatter resigns as chairman of Papa Johns after using a racial slur in a role-playing game on a company call. Schnatter has been a controversial figure, saying the ACA would increase the cost of each pizza by 14 cents and some franchises would have to cut employee’s hours. More recently, he’s complained that the NFL protest was costing his company.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A Pence family business, Kiel Bros. Oil Co., went bankrupt in 2004 leaving behind several abandoned gas stations. Kentucky, Illinois, and Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana have spent $10s of millions to clean up those gas stations.
  2. The EPA sends a proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. The new plan would loosen limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, while the Clean Power Plan tightened them up. The changes are at the behest of industry lobbyists.

Budget/Economy:

  1. This week, federal agencies start implementing the guidelines in Trump’s executive orders on public employee unions.
  2. Randomly, Russia is the beneficiary of Trump’s trade war with China, as China triples its soybean imports from Russia and cancels 1.1 million tons worth of soybean orders from the U.S.
  3. The price of soybeans drops to a 10-year low in the U.S., as the prices in Brazil reach new highs, because of Trump’s trade wars.
  4. Other countries, including China, are unsure of what Trump wants from them in his trade war. Most think he doesn’t have a strategy.
  5. The Trump administration says they’re in the process of putting tariffs in place on $200 billion worth of goods from China, effectively halting trade talks between the U.S. and China.
  6. And according to Steven Mnuchin, trade talks with China have broken down. China says the U.S. is acting erratically and encouraging trade wars.
  7. Oh, and in case you were wondering, none of those tariffs affect the Ivanka lines manufactured in China.
  8. Despite the Senate having taken steps to make sure that Trump couldn’t help out sanctioned Chinese company ZTE, the Commerce Department loosens restrictions on the company, allowing it to continue doing business with US companies.
  9. Trump claims that our GDP has doubled and even tripled since he took office. First, it can only be one or the other and not both. Second, while the GDP is growing, it’s not even up 10% since he took office. The GDP has doubled since 2000, and tripled since 1992.
  10. A recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the top 20% of U.S. earners received 65% of the benefit of tax reforms enacted since 2000. Here are a few findings:
    • Since 2000, tax cuts have cut federal revenue by $5.1 trillion, expected to double by 2025.
    • in 2012, when the Bush cuts and some Obama cuts were in place, the highest earners saw the most benefit.
    • in 2015, when some of the Bush cuts were reversed and ACA taxes were in place, the benefit was spread across all earners.
    • In 2018, now that the GOP tax reform is in place, the benefits go back to the high earners.
  1. Worker wages dropped 1% in the second quarter from the previous quarter. Real wages dropped 1.4% due to inflation levels hitting a 6-year high. Experts don’t know why wages aren’t seeing the increase that is typical in a tight labor market like this.
  2. Trump declares an end to the war on poverty, claiming (incorrectly) that only 3% of Americans are truly poor. While Republicans have long criticized safety net programs as ineffective, Trump is now saying that they’ve worked and the war is over. So now it’s time to reform social welfare and entitlement programs.

Elections:

  1. In a recorded conversation, a GOP candidate in the Georgia gubernatorial primary basically told one of his opponents that they cared about the same issues but that they couldn’t let the public in on that because of politics. He also explains how he shifted policies to stop donors from donating to a PAC that didn’t support him.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump pardons Dwight and Steven Hammond, two Oregon ranchers who set fire to federal land. Their arrests led to the armed standoff at a wildlife refuge by supporters of the Hammonds.
  2. Trump’s person driver of over two decades has received only two raises over the last 15 years. In order to get his last raise, he had to give up his employer-based health insurance. He’s suing for unpaid overtime to the tune of $200,000.

Week 76 in Trump

Posted on July 9, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Was your Member of Congress in Russia?

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

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

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Separating Families:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

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

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

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

Week 75 in Trump

Posted on July 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Families Belong Together Rallies.

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

Here’s what else happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Separating Families:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

This is Joe Arpaio

Posted on January 9, 2018 in Bad Politicians

After Trump said he’d pardon Joe Arpaio last year, I wrote Trump a note every day for a month, each time describing just one of Arpaio’s misdeeds. In honor of today’s announcement that Arpaio is running for Senate, here’s a compilation of all the notes I wrote. These are only the ones that were easy to verify; I have a list nearly this long that I haven’t had time to research yet. This man does not belong in Congress.

  1. Did you know that a botched SWAT raid under Arpaio resulted in a family home burning down and that the SWAT team intentionally forced the family’s puppy back into the house (which it was trying to flee) where it burned to death? The house and all its contents were destroyed, and the SWAT team laughed at the family’s anguish over the puppy. The team thought they were going after a major gun smuggler, but all they found in the house was an antique rifle and a handgun.
  2. Did you know that Joe Arpaio failed to investigate incest and rape charges throughout his tenure, and that he improperly cleared such charges throughout his time as sheriff, allowing teenage girls to continue getting raped? One of these cases resulted in a $3.5 million settlement when they botched an investigation into the rape of a 13-year-old girl. They failed to arrest the suspect, who then continued to sexually assault the girl again and again. His office either inadequately investigated or completely ignored over 400 sex-crime cases between 2004 and 2007 because he was too busy trying to do ICE’s job.
  3. Did you know that during Joe Arpaio’s tenure, his bad behavior cost Maricopa County $100s of millions?
    • The county paid $140 million in legal fees and settlements for wrongful death, civil rights, and abuse of power cases against him.
    • The racial profiling case, which resulted in his contempt conviction, cost the county $70 million.
    • He mishandled $100 million in county funds. I’ll do the math for you. That comes to $310 million dollars. For one guy. This is not a good guy.
  1. Did you know that in Joe Arpaio’s tent city, he forced prisoners to live in extreme conditions where the temperatures inside the tents got up to 145 °F and the outside temps got as low as 41 °F. He only gave them underwear and jail jumpsuits to wear, and forced them to sleep on the cold, hard ground. In the blazing heat, prisoners had limited relief from the heat and limited access to (warm) water. You wouldn’t treat an animal this way, and the only way you can do it to people is to dehumanize them. The dude is a sadist. It’s no wonder that they’re finally breaking the tent city down, but it’s a travesty that it was ever erected in the first place and that it ran for 24 years.
  2. Did you know that Joe Arpaio set up webcams in his jails so people all around the world could go online and watch other people while they were getting booked and in holding waiting for trial? Did you know that one of the web cams had a view of the women’s toilet until they filed a lawsuit over it? And that a court made him take those webcams down? Not all of these people were guilty, and that’s why multiple courts found he was violating the constitutional rights of these arrestees. Arpaio says the webcams were a deterrent to crime, though the crime rates have fluctuated pretty consistently throughout his tenure.
  3. Did you know that in one 3-year period during George W. Bush’s time in office, there were 2,150 federal lawsuits against Joe Arpaio and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts? That’s FIFTY times more than the number of suits during the same period for NY, Chicago, Houston, and LA prisons COMBINED. This wasn’t about Obama persecuting Arpaio. Arpaio was sued under 3 presidents, and the investigation that nailed Arpaio started under Bush and was adjudicated by Bush and Clinton judges.
  4. Did you know that Joe Arpaio had a costly vendetta against Maricopa County officials just because they were critical of him? Did you know he arrested a County Supervisor on nearly 200 charges that were all thrown out? That supervisor was just one of 10 county officials harassed by Arpaio. The county ended up settling all 10 cases and paying out millions in settlements. The county’s insurance company was threatening to drop them by then from having to pay for all of Arpaio’s cases.
  5. Did you know that a former BYU football player died in a struggle with guards under Joe Arpaio (even though the guard was warned he was cutting off the victim’s air supply)? And that Arpaio was complicit in destroying evidence in that case? Maricopa County had to pay $8.25 million to the victim’s family.
  6. Did you know that in 2008 (under Bush, not Obama just to be clear), a federal judge found the conditions in Arpaio’s jails to be unconstitutional and inhumane, calling them grossly inadequate? They had to force Arpaio to make sure inmates had access to their prescribed medications and to medical care. They had to force him to give inmates access to toilets, soap, toilet paper, and edible food. This came just after all jails in Arpaio’s jurisdiction lost their accreditation. Remember we’re talking about inmates who haven’t even had a trial yet.
  7. Did you know that under Joe Arpaio, a paraplegic arrested for possession of marijuana was restrained so hard that the guards broke his neck and he lost much of the use of his arms? He got an $800,000 settlement from Joe’s office.
  8. Did you know that Joe’s guards refused to take an inmate with Crohn’s to a doctor when we was vomiting and shitting blood? By the time they got help, he had lost 4 pints of blood. This would’ve been avoided if they would’ve just given him his prescribed maintenance meds, which can hold Crohn’s at bay. Instead, this inmate has to live with a much worsened condition for the rest of his life. It would’ve cost the county less to give him his pills than it did to perform the 4 surgeries that were required because he didn’t get his pills.
  9. Did you know that in 2007 Joe Arpaio arrested two journalists who have a history of reporting on Arpaio’s lawsuits and prison conditions? The charges were dropped, the journalists sued, and Maricopa County was once more responsible for a multi-million dollar payout ($3.75 million). Just another abuse of power case for Arpaio.
  10. Did you know that Joe Arpaio came up with a publicity stunt that involved creating a murder plot against himself and framing at 18-year-old for plotting his murder? Except that 18-year-old was later exonerated and Maricopa County ended up having to pay him $1.6 million AFTER holding him in jail for 4 years. Interesting note: Entrapment is very hard to prove in AZ and is rarely used as a defense. They had so much evidence for entrapment, the jury barely had to deliberate.
  11. In an earlier note about Arpaio, I described an $8.25 million settlement because two of Arpaio’s deputies cut off an inmate’s air supply, killing him despite warnings that they were killing him. Did you know that, according to sworn testimony, the two deputies responded to the nurse’s warnings with “Who gives a f*ck?” and “Who gives a sh*t?” Arpaio later promoted those two deputies, giving a clear signal that killing inmates is acceptable behavior in his jails.
  12. Did you know that Felix Torres was picked up for riding his bike to work on the wrong side of the street, arrested for an outstanding warrant for driving without a license, and after being denied his medicine, he died from a bleeding ulcer while jailers ignored his calls for help? The jail staff knew he had ulcers, yet denied him his medicine, and the prison medical staff even gave him drugs that make ulcers worse. Maricopa County paid out $1 million in that lawsuit.
  13. Did you know that guards at one of Arpaio’s jails denied diabetic Deborah Braillard her insulin for three days? And that when she had seizures, vomiting, and diarrhea (on herself and others), they refused medical treatment because they just thought she was a junkie coming down from her high? Inmate after inmate implored guards to help her. She suffered for 60 hours before she fell into a diabetic coma and later died, still chained to her hospital bed even though she had been officially released. Did you also know that her daughter had to make the decision of whether to take Deborah off of life support? And that guards told her daughter that Deborah got what she deserved? For a minor drug offense, the death penalty. Deborah’s autopsy showed she had no illicit drugs in her system, and Arpaio’s office tried to cover it up. This cost Maricopa County over $5 million in legal fees. By the time this case was settled, Arpaio’s office had paid out so much in legal settlements so many times that their insurance agency raised their deductible from $1 million to $5 million.
  14. In a 2009 interview with Steven Colbert, Arpaio said, “The Republic did a poll last week, ‘Who’s your hero?,’ and I beat out Tillman. I beat out all these guys. I’m not bragging. I’m just saying.” He was referring to Pat Tillman! Yes, that Pat Tillman. The Arizona Cardinals star who gave up his football career to join the Army Rangers and who was later killed in Afghanistan. That guy was a true American hero. Obviously, Pat Tillman was the winner of the poll, but Arpaio was a runner-up. It’s kind of crazy that those two would be put in the same league.
  15. Did you know that one of Joe Arpaio’s inmates lost her baby because she was denied immediate medical attention? Ambrett Spencer experienced pain so severe that she passed out, but still it took 4 hours to get her to the hospital where she delivered her dead baby girl. Her pain was from placental abruption, which babies often survive if their mothers go immediately to a hospital. Hospital employees ignored the jail guard’s orders and brought Spencer her baby so she could at least see her daughter before the funeral. She’s not the only one to lose a baby under Arpaio’s watch.
  16. Did you know that the water well in the Maricopa County facility where pregnant women are jailed was infested with mice and mice feces from at least 2005 to at least 2009? Did you know that Joe Arpaio also cut his inmates’ nutrient and calorie intake to unhealthy levels, even though he also had them working on chain gangs? And that he frequently fed them moldy bread and bologna? I get that jail shouldn’t be Club Med, but they’re paying the price for their crimes; we don’t need to poison them on top of it.
  17. OK. This one cracks me up. Did you know that Joe Arpaio used taxpayer money to pay for a detective to accompany his “birther brigade” on a trip to Hawaii to track down Obama’s birth certificate? Oh wait. You investigated the birth certificate as well. It was a waste of money, right? We all know he was born here.
  18. Did you know that a federal investigation found that Joe Arpaio’s campaign to round up undocumented immigrants violated the 1st, 4th, and 14th amendment constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents? And that he was so focused on undocumented immigrants that he neglected violent crimes in Maricopa County at a time when violent crime rates increased significantly compared to similar counties? He compromised the safety and security of Maricopa County residents in his zeal to get rid of non-violent undocumented immigrants.
  19. Did you know that Joe Arpaio retaliated against his critics by having them arrested, investigated, or, in some cases, falsely charged? We know about the journalists and county officials he arrested, but he also did this to regular citizens—mostly brown-skinned ones, of course. According to a federal investigation, Arpaio “arrested individuals without cause, filed meritless complaints against the political adversaries of Sheriff Arpaio, and initiated unfounded civil lawsuits and investigations against individuals critical of MCSO policies and practices” In other words, he had no qualms about trying to ruin people’s lives in trying to keep them quiet.
  20. Did you know that one of Joe Arpaio’s deputies purposefully struck a Latino U.S. citizen with his patrol car, pinning him under the car and dragging him more than ten feet? The deputy was stopping the guy allegedly for a broken brake light, and refused to help him. The local fire department finally extracted the Latino man, who ended up with broken bones and burns, among other injuries. This is the type of behavior Joe instilled in his deputies on his mission to cleanse Maricopa County of undocumented immigrants. Also an interesting side note: According to an officer in Maricopa County, Joe recruited low-level officers to his anti-immigrant task force. Why? I’m glad you asked. Because senior-level officers knew that it was not only illegal but also unethical and immoral. These are the qualities Joe strove to instill in up and coming members of the police force.
  21. Did you know that one of Joe Arpaio’s deputies pulled over a guy for speeding, and when they guy asked why he was pulled over, the deputy forcibly removed him from his car, threw him to the ground, and then cuffed him? Of course, the guy who got pulled over was Latino, was arrested, and charged with speeding. All charges were dropped, probably because the poor guy was lacerated and bleeding, and had to go to a clinic for treatment. That’s never happened to me when I’ve been pulled over for speeding. Has it happened to you?
  22. Did you know that military veteran Marty Atencio was left to die in Joe Arpaio’s jail after he was tased by eight guards? Marty returned from the war with severe mental illness, which was noted in his arrest documents. He was mostly compliant during his arrest. In the security video showing the officers swarming Atencio, he doesn’t appear to be physically out of control; his family says he refused to remove his left shoe. So they tased him, and then they stripped him naked and left him motionless on the floor in solitary. He never woke up and his family had to make the decision to take him off of life support. The county ended up paying the family only $550,000, even though the coroner included “law-enforcement subdual” under cause of death.
  23. Did you know that Joe Arpaio’s guards cut off the air circulation to an inmate’s cell? And when that inmate later died in his bed (partly from overheating), his corpse was 109 degrees? This inmate was by no means a good guy, but he didn’t deserve to bake to death. No one does.
  24. Did you know that Joe Arpaio’s deputies roughed up pregnant women? In one case, a deputy stopped a 5-month pregnant (and US citizen) Latina as she pulled into her driveway. When she refused to sit on her hood, he pinned her arms behind her and slammed her stomach first into her car three times. He then sat her in his patrol car with no AC for a half an hour. He didn’t have a reason to pull her over aside from her race, so he made up an insurance citation, a charge that was dropped when she procured proof. Luckily the baby was OK, but other women weren’t so lucky.
  25. Did you know that because of Joe Arpaio’s focus on undocumented immigrants, the arrest rate in Maricopa County plunged even though the actual number of criminal investigations went up? Did you also know that deputies failed to meet the standard response time for life-threatening emergencies 67% of the time because they were too busy looking for undocumented immigrants? Like you, Arpaio did his constituents a disservice by focusing on the wrong problems and by stoking fear of “the other.” He actually got soft on real crime over time. Don’t be like Joe.